do you know your enemy?

As we start our day by pouring coffee from coffee makers and watching or listening to news, what do we think about? Or even as we sleep after watching the late-night news? Or even if we do not actively seek the news but hear of it from people? What do we think and feel?

This is of course with the presumption that we care about the news—about the events that happen around us.

Bananaman, PJVP, and I discuss current events every day over lunch; though at times, we talk more about the latest on bands, actors, movies, and directors, or PJVP and Bananaman talk about the latest NBA game and their online league (and I stare at my food or listen haha). But at least we know what is happening around us; we laugh about the stupidest comments of Malacañang and express indignation to everything unreasonable and unjust.

As my classmates and I were discussing about the Maguindanao Massacre, while I was and still is outraged by that abomination, one said, “yan na naman, sawa na ko diyan.” I felt a tingle of irritation, and I just told him, “the problem with society today is apathy.” If he understood what I meant, I wouldn’t know; he just kept quiet.

How can we be “without interest” on what has happened to our fellow Filipinos? How can we be concerned with Mafia Wars and daily soap operas than about the plight of our nation? There is no way we can survive as a nation if we choose to live only for ourselves. We cannot act unless we know and we care. Ninoy Aquino’s best contribution was that we were awakened from our indifference and apathy. With that, we deposed a tyrant. We are best as a nation when we care, when there is sympathy instead of apathy.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings. - Hellen Keller