Bonifacio National Monument | Photo via Wikimedia Commons
“The Philippines as we know it might not be around a century from now,” says an article that came out on Philnews.com. What a preposterous statement! Besides, who can really predict the future of a country? Look at the Middle East countries. Many of them were desert wastelands before Ford invented the car and the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Who would have imagined a century ago that the rulers and elite of those countries would ever get out of their tents and live in high-rises? Who predicted that one day their oil-rich land would have such geopolitical significance that industrialized nations would be willing to go to war to protect the flow of oil from their wells?
Back to the article. Well, what does the next century look like? Most prognostications of what our future civilization will look like are based on the extrapolation of facts: what our society looks like today, how it got here, and trends that indicate future trajectories. What would the world look like, and, of course, the Philippines, if it were still called that name? (Even the name might be the first to change. Someone in the not distant past suggested the name Maharlika, which was the old name of the Philippines.
If you ask a political scientist or economist, they’ll make their predictions based on things like government system or social infrastructure, gross domestic product, government debts, etc. A meteorologist or an earth scientist will probably tell you that the melting of the Earth’s ice caps, if it continued at a rapid rate, will cause sea levels to rise a few feet. In less than a century, most cities, or even countries, as we know them now, will be underwater. If you ask a spiritualist, he’ll probably tell you to repent for your sins because Armageddon is just around the corner.
Based on “common-sense” knowledge or basic facts, what can we predict? First, we know that the Earth is finite. Some things in it are not renewable or cannot renew faster than our demands.
Second, natural wealth is not evenly distributed among nations. We have more of certain things but fewer of other things. What we have in abundance, we should use wisely, and the excess we can trade for what we have less of. What we have less of, we should treasure and find ways to maximize.
“We have short memories and forget those who oppressed us and fail to honor those who died for our land. Be grateful to those before us, our ancestors, upon whose shoulders our nation stands. Love our country. If we do, maybe our country might still be around centuries from now, come hell or high water.”
Third, we cannot have a civil society when more than half of our people spend most of their waking lives trying to meet basic survival needs or on the Internet.
Fourth, we cannot have a viable nation amid an explosion of information, knowledge, and technology while continuing to lose our best minds to other countries.
Fifth, we cannot have a healthy nation when a large portion of our working people leave their families behind to work in other countries, keeping themselves and our economy afloat.
Sixth, the kind of politics and politicians we have is not sustainable. Our “leaders” lead the country the only way they know, degradation.
Finally, we cannot extricate ourselves from the hole we dug and found ourselves in due to decades of self-defeating behaviors, such as repeatedly electing greedy and soulless politicians. We don’t learn from our past and mistakes if we let history repeat itself.
We have short memories and forget those who oppressed us and fail to honor those who died for our land. Be grateful to those before us, our ancestors, upon whose shoulders our nation stands. Love our country. If we do, maybe our country might still be around centuries from now, come hell or high water.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Fernando B. Perfas is an addiction specialist who has written several books and articles on the subject. He currently provides training and consulting services to various government and non-government drug treatment agencies regarding drug treatment and prevention approaches. He can be reached at fbperfas@gmail.com.
