by Donald Sevilla
THE NAVARA CHRONICLES LAST PART OF A SERIES: EMPATHY VS INSENSITIVITY
There’s a thin line between official use and abuse. The lines are blurred when one doesn’t possess the highest degree of propriety and decency. It takes a lot of courage and determination to rise above and beyond one’s self.
In public service it is easy to succumb to entitlement. Many start with good intentions but end up tangled in a web of power, privilege and greed. Yet the public whom they are supposed to serve and whose welfare they swore to uphold remain the same, poor and underprivileged.
At a time of difficult economic crisis, where prices of food are expensive and basic necessities and services are hard to meet, it requires a lot of sacrifice and understanding by everyone.
People expect more from their leaders and they look for compassion and understanding. Yet despite this, our supposed guardians of the people’s welfare have turned a blind eye to our predicament.
Playing deaf and blind they remain apathetic to the people’s plight. For how else can one justify the purchase of vehicles at a time of great need when most everyone has difficulty putting food on the table and eating three square meals a day? In the absence of empathy insensitivity takes its place.
It may sound melodramatic but it is a sad reality that our politicians have learned to desensitize themselves from. In ordinary and prosperous times, a car may not be a luxury, but at a time when our people’s basic needs are not even addressed, our politicians’ actuations are a “moral crime”.
How can one feel good riding in airconditioned comfort traveling the back roads of our province seeing the devastated houses left by past calamities? How can one feel good eating sumptuous meals prepared by ordinary folks who themselves barely get by? How does one feel seeing all the misery and suffering etched in the faces of people you seek out for a handshake and offer a generous pat on the back?
Our public servants profess to be “makimasa” and want to be perceived as such, but are they really pro-people at heart? After traveling all day in their airconditioned rides they return to their comfortable homes and sleep in their fluffy beds. But can we say the same of the people they went to visit and regale with their grandiose talk?
It does not need a visit to the barangays to know that our people are wanting. It does not need attendance at fiestas and gracing sports events to craft laws to aid our people’ s well-being. While these could help, any dedicated public servant knows what to do without even the perks of his office.
Empathy, not insensitivity, is something we badly need.