Root of Evil

Money is not the root of all evil. Not stupidity. Not discrimination. Not poverty. Not corruption.

I used to stare upon scattered shanties where homes were built like deck of cards. I used to listen upon pleading voices of starving children and hopeless wives. But looking forward into the picture, it’s not poverty that almost killed their dreams; it was a barangay councilor.

He portrayed a worse verity of a venal official, crafted from a news that frightened San Agustin, Hagonoy, Bulacan. According to an article from Manila Bulletin, Flores was caught on video telling SAP financial aid recipients that they would only get P3,000 of the cash aid and that the remaining P3,500 would be given to the town mayor for distribution to non-SAP beneficiaries.

That’s why all that I found when I stared into his eyes was nothing but terror. For I began to be afraid of surreal images he drew flak just as corruption joined the quarantine, leaving families behind who now only rely for their decent assistance. Not knowing that Flores’ callous hands began scraping their shivering limbs, making them feel the most cold-hearted heart of greed and hell that started to rejoice.

Until this mourning melody began fading, switching to a tragic story of a Former army corporal Winston Ragos who got shot and killed by a police officer in Quezon City based on a report released by GMA News. A nightmare for a fallen veteran who had received a disability discharge with full benefits from the army after fighting in 2017’s siege of Marawi.

In that very moment, it wasn’t terrorism that kill his dream to live and love, but a fellow conqueror who even yelled, shouting, “I don’t care if he’s mentally disturbed, I will kill him.”

In just a blazing ripple of ruffling bullets, one great nightmare for a man who’s in need of sympathy ended up blooded, turning as the second man killed by police last April amid the Philippines’ antivirus lockdown stated to an article released in a website of This Week In Asia.

How cruel that the scent of injustice is the smell that ruins the credibility of the law. How cruel that the wicked faces of the suffering families waded helplessly into the perpetual world of scraping hunger while corruption and poverty merged for their torment.

That’s why I can’t help but contemplate with fear consuming me as I found Filipinos breaking.

Poor young victims of greed, once engaged in watching the wonders of the universe now engaged to live inside a disgusting prison of grief. Poor Filipinos, once hearing the lulling sound of symphonies accompanied by series of daydreams, now listening to the trembling whispers of their hopes.

How I wished to bring back the time where we only fell in love, clasping through a picture a flawless nation flaunted with playful scenery. But it seemed it only just flicker like a star twinkling and dying, leaving radiant dreams into shattered pieces, leaving cries unheard and tears unseen, leaving tomorrow undiscovered as future sank into the deep ocean of death.

That’s why I marvel Clarence Thomas, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in United States who said, “Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.” For it’s only now that I discovered how ironic our society is. A story owned by a councilor, a policeman, and a senator who were linked in common; they were educated yet did something notorious no one could ever forgive, not opening the doors of healing that this country pleaded but the door of nightmares no one could ever survive.

I’ve always thought that education is as strong as how soldiers defeated their hideous enemies, but not anymore.

For it is poor education, the one that those violators once entered, the one that molded them before wading into their professions, the one that taught them, educated them, and prepared them before starting to ruin our dreams.

Indeed. Money, poverty, or corruption are probably the roots of all evil, but the monstrous hell where demons start growing their horns, we can’t deny happens because of poor quality of education.