Peace Be With you (June 5,2007)

Peace be with you
By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia

Peace, how do you define it? Many say it is the absence of war. Some believe it is the silence of chaos. A lot of people think it is the end of violence. I wish to agree with their idealistic views, but juvenile as my thoughts I happen to define peace in a whole new dimension. Peace, for me, is not an absence or an escape from all that is evil and immoral. Peace is finding that serene state, amidst all that is wicked and negative. It is about having hope, that somehow and someday the war will end. Believing that one day, you’ll wake up hearing not gunshots but sweet music of laughter; you’ll wake up seeing not flying grenades or unfriendly tanks of war, but happy children playing on the streets. Peace is simply having hope and trust even though hostility is evident.

The Philippines just have had her national elections, and most critiqued it to be blood-risking, deceiving, and all the adjectives in the dictionary leading to not very peaceful. I may know little on Politics but their views were quite one-sided. Sure, political killings were rampant, manipulating of vote tallies were apparent, bribery and vote buying were but a common scene, but these aren’t just the bases to tell whether the elections were peaceful or not. Look on the other side of the street, check the backside of your shirt; there were little actions and realities that weren’t seen and noticed.

2007 Voters have been more oriented on their bets for office, 2007 Voters were smarter voters. Why? The previous elections had manifested some unworthy winning candidates; many show business personalities acted their way to government seats. Now, the voters did not let particular shallow people to box and jab their way to authoritative positions. The voters realized that the senate, congress, municipal, city and provincial capitols are not the same with boxing arenas and locations for shooting movies. The voters found peace within their selves, they found a clearer meaning amidst the trend of past elections, they found the serenity and stepped out of the noisy tradition of voting candidates that are not worthy of the position. I have no right to judge these candidates, for they are not useless, in fact they have been contributing members to our nation by providing quality entertainment and pride. But the people had spoken, and more deserving ones were placed in positions.

There was a great turn out of voters these elections. A few weeks ago, I had an amazing time in Boracay, but what made it extra special is the experience as we were going back to Iloilo. You see we went back exactly on May 14, we bid goodbye to Boracay on an early morning as my parents were really determined to take a stand and vote that day. We passed by a lot of elementary schools and day care centers of rural barrios. I saw the urge of Filipinos, to take time to scribble the deserving names on their ballots. Lines of people flock the elementary schools and day care centers, and it happens to be on an early morning. Voters paid no excuse to exercise their right of suffrage. Indeed they found peace within the significant day of May 14, to wake up extra early, or to sacrifice a few hours of daily routine just to be present in their relative precincts and vote. Indeed, there was peace and the blazing hope of believing that their simple ballot could help their nation; a peace that pushed them to vote for the future of their families and Philippines as a whole.


Those were simple realities that made me negate the views of critics who considered out elections to be generally not peaceful. I guess I’m much too inexperienced than they, but seeing we have different definitions of peace really made a difference in our views of the elections. I’ll never let go of my belief of peace. Peace is always there, it always exists. I lay half of my agreement to the definition that there is really peace in the absence of war, but I reserve the other half to the belief that there was still peace during the presence of war. People were just blinded by the fright of wickedness and malevolence that they fail to see peace within it. Look at the night sky, though it’s so dark and black, you’ll see its beauty, you’ll see hope, when you spot the glistening stars emitting their light amidst the engulfing darkness. Peace is like the stars. When one realizes it is already night time and darkness would blanket the sky, he is not completely scared and never lost track of hope, because the stars continue to shine and emit light, carrying the promise of a brighter sun for tomorrow.

Along the road of our negatively stricken elections, let us not forget that once upon the voting and canvassing times, there was peace, even just a pinch of it. For every reported political murder and bombings, let us not fail to remember one Filipino who woke up early morning to sincerely and honestly vote for his deserving bet. Though this thought is far simpler and insignificant, remember that this simple and insignificant thought carries a weight of peace. We become too preoccupied with mourning over how despicable our election was, that we tend to overlook the simpler yet peace-bearing realities just around the corners of our lives.

Forgive my childish thoughts, but every time I would turn on the radio to listen, switch on the television, and turn a page of a newspaper all I can hear, see and read about are the negative sides of our elections. Of how incompetent and irresponsible the canvassers were, of how slow and lousy the presentation of results, and of how they were cheated and betrayed says the losing candidates. Here I go again with my simple understandings. Wasn’t it good enough that there were canvassers who coincidently were paid less for an extreme task (or just a few some who volunteered)? Weren’t their unrecognized sleepless nights of sheer counting and tallying good enough? Yes, they may have committed mistakes, but the mere fact of them being there isn’t but a reason? Because of too much prevalence of deception, peace didn’t kindle a light. Still, peace was there but wasn’t just seen. As I’ve said Peace is always there, it always exists. What makes us say it’s not there is because we didn’t see it.

Let us see peace in small things. Let us see peace in troubles and chaos. Let us find peace in the negative of the negatives.

Peace be with You!

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