Cups of Hope Essay Example for Free

Cups of Hope Essay Political culture as we’ve defined it in class is a pattern of orientation expressed in symbols, beliefs, and attitudes toward other people. The definition itself enables us to understand that every individual is involved and political culture plays an important role in a society. As for Filipino political culture, it is hard to come up with a general concept knowing that our country is an archipelago bounded by a lot culture, tradition and attitudes toward other people that may be an essential element for a nation’s progress or destruction. What are those culture and national character that can be a threat or an edge for our countries success? For us to be able to answer what are these cultures or national characters, we will relate it to former Senator Leticia Ramos Shahani’s Moral recovery program wherein she stated that our country is now a sick nation gravely afflicted by interlocking diseases of poverty, passivity, graft and corruption, exploitative patronage, factionalism, political instability, love for intrigue, lack of discipline, lack of patriotism and desire for self gratification. She further said that this cancerous growth is affecting the vital organs of our society to the extent that we seem to be in a state of paralysis wherein the patient is not responding to the problems confronting it. She said further that our country’s sickness is moral in nature that’s why she suggests that we should undergo an economic recovery program and we also urgently need a moral, intellectual and spiritual recovery program for us to be able to survive the interlocking diseases. That’s why she, together with senators Romulo and Maceda proposed a resolution directing the committee on education, arts and culture, social justice, welfare and development to immediately conduct a joint inquiry into the strengths and weaknesses of the character of the Filipino with a view to solving the social ills and strengthening the nation’s moral fiber (Resolution No.10,MRP). Where they came up with a list of the character of the Filipinos classified as to be our strengths and weaknesses, and these are the following for the strengths which includes pakikipagkapwa-tao, which includes bayanihan, utang na loob and pagdadamayan; Family orientation wherein Filipino families are attached with their family members; joy and humor which would still seen after a tragic event;flexibility, adaptability and creativity, hardwork and industry, faith and religiosity and the ability to survive, these strengths are really noticeable compared to the characters of the foreigners. On the other hand, the weaknesses are also here, and these would include extreme personalism, where an individual always relate things personally; extreme family centeredness where there’s an excessive concern for the family; lack of discipline, that includes lack of precision and compulsiveness, poor time management and in procrastination; passivity and lack of initiative that includes being too patient and long suffering for our diseases to the extent that we do not respond into it; colonial mentality, building preferences based on the foreign stuffs; kanya-kanya syndrome, lack of self analysis and self reflection. In this program, they focused in strengthening our weaknesses, which is really essential to further analyze the disease of our sick nation. In former senator’s program, she also proposed strategies that targets the roots or factors of these Filipino characters and these are the home environment, social environment, culture and language, history, educational system, religion, economic environment, political environment, mass media, leadership and role models. For former Senator Shahani, for us to be able to implement the strategies we should have a clean hands and pure hearts , she also believe that a strong national character based on patriotism, unity, honesty and self reliance is our ultimate and surest defense and our greatest hope lies within us. Based on former Senator Shahani’s moral recovery program, we can analyze that we have a lot of national character that serve as a threat that may lead to our country’s destruction or lead to â€Å"sui-policide†. So what should we do to prevent that â€Å"sui-policide† and the interlocking diseases? Does Senator Shahani’s proposal would really help? We, in our group believe that Shahani’s proposal will really be a great help in preventing that sui-policide. We believe that If we caused that interlocking diseases we must also be accountable to cure these diseases. We must start change within ourselves. We must be open to admit our weaknesses and furthe r strengthen it. From being passive, we must change and be aggressive in terms of responding to our nation’s diseases and in checking our government’s performance. We must also develop patriotism, unity, honesty, and self reliance because it is the ultimate and surest defense for that interlocking disease. We must learn to value our state, for us to be able to have an urge to save it from its destruction. We should abolish selfishness, extreme personalism, extreme family centeredness, colonial mentality, lack of self analysis and self reflection. And lastly, we must learn to be responsible in our actions, develop self discipline, for laws, even how strict it is implemented if we, citizens are not following that laws these laws will be useless. For us to have a progressive Philippines, we must build our people, our nation, how? Through what is former Senator Shahani suggest and we quote †Building a nation is through eliminating its weaknesses and developing our strengths. We must look at ourselves objectively, with scientific detachment and also emotionally,lovingly and when appropriately with disgust. We must view ourselves as might a lover viewing a loved one but also as a judge capable of giving a harsh verdict .† All of our desire to cure our sick nation is possible as long as we will build our people, our nation and all of these start within ourselves.