Bonifacio's Revolution

It is good that despite our times, we still honor Andres Bonifacio as our hero father of the Philippine Revolution.

However, his revolution was stolen from him and he even lost his life in the process. Our hero, killed not by a foreign enemy, but by our own countrymen.

Nobody can tell anymore what and how our country now would have been had Bonifacio continued with his revolution. But the ones who stole it from him represented not the Filipino interest but only the elitist interest of the privileged few, keeping intact the master-servant vertical relations in our society. And that was no revolution.

Today, our people still labor under an unjust and inequitable social order where the wealth, resources and opportunities in our country are concentrated in the hands of only a few. And we have to end this situation.

But we do not need to wage a new revolution. What we have to do if we truly want to honor Andres Bonifacio is to continue and finish his revolution.

The difference between a leader and a politician

A politician is a person who competes with others for the right to control and  spend public resources and funds.

A leader on the other hand is a person who tries to make people productive and make sure that they benefit from the fruit of their labor.

Business is serving people

When people think of going into business, they think of a product or service that they think people will buy or gladly pay for.

But a way of looking at business is to think of it as a service they render to people for which getting paid is the outcome.

If potential entrepreneurs will think this way, their mindset will be to look for ways that they can help people or make their life better instead of just focusing on the money they might make.

Business has always been about serving others. The idea of making something and selling them borders on charity or vanity.

What nationalism should be

For many people, nationalism is equated with national pride which they then equate to patriotism. But I beg to differ.

For me, nationalism should not be about pride but rather about a sense of responsibility for each other who live in our country. It should not be about individual achievements that we hijack and  vicariously take pride in. Rather it is holding on to a vision of what we can be as a people and willingly striving that opportunities are shared as equally as possible with everyone for our full potential to blossom.

So thanks but no thanks to those who profess to dedicate their achievements for the country but then throw their lot with those who are on the wrong side of history and whose actions have hurt our people.