IN the province I live in, Cagayan (of the Cagayan Valley), it costs almost twice as much now to gas up than before the price hike. Soon after, as a matter of course, commodities will cost more, perhaps considerably more. Already, there are measures to cushion the impact of this price surge: a four-day workweek, the cancellation of non-essential travel, modest graduation ceremonies, to name some of the first measures set in place. All this, in the great season of Lent.
It was the war between the United States and Israel on the one hand and Iran — and its proxies — on the other that triggered this new global crisis.
And with what has been announced as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, things can only get worse. This is how damaging enmity can be. This is where implacable hatred takes us. The indictment cannot be directed at only one side. In fact, we should all seek out the monsters that lie within the dark recesses of our souls, for they are there, awaiting the chance to emerge and to unleash their venom on those who incur our ire. I very well realize how complicated global politics can be and how labyrinthine the ways of power. But the fact is that at the center of the conflict are persons of flesh and bone, identifiable personages: Donald Trump, his cabal and Benjamin Netanyahu on the one hand, and Ali Khamenei and the commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps on the other. Only one who is hopelessly obtuse will fail to see that had other persons — with other personalities and with less of the baggage borne by the key personages in this conflict — been at the forefront, the world would probably have been spared the present scourge. One of the songs the choir I direct sings for Lent has the lyrics: “Change our hearts this time, your Word says it can be...” And that is what Lent is about — a change of heart. The most formidable obstacle to this is cynicism about a change of heart.
And then, there is the law of charity. Maundy Thursday is the Thursday of the “novum mandatum”... a new commandment. And it is a phrase that comes from the Gospel: “A new commandment I give you: Love one another as I have loved you.” Enough homilies and sermons have been preached about this great — to many, impossible — demand but it is the fundamental charter of the new covenant that has been sealed by the blood of Him who loved so completely that a shameful cross has become its enduring symbol. Even before the hike in pump prices legally took effect — or has it? — most gasoline stations re-calibrated their machines, and announced the frightening increase per liter. This was clearly not the price at which they purchased their present stock. They were profiting from the crisis — and when I asked why even the “small players” who were supposed to balance the equation against the impositions of the “major players” — I was given the shockingly remorseless answer that it was a matter of “pakikisama.” Had they kept their prices at the levels at which they purchased their existing supply, motorists would have formed a beeline toward them, to the chagrin of the major players. They preferred the good graces of the “major players” to sympathy for the motorists, among whom were tricycle and cab drivers eking out a living each day.
Lent is the season of intense prayer, self-abnegation and alms-giving. Charity, teaches the wisdom of the Scriptures, wipes away a multitude of sins. And charity is not throwing some loose change into the hat of a beggar. In our times, it demands of each, in the measure that he or she can, the alleviation of the suffering of those who bear the brunt of these price hikes and lack the wherewithal to carry the burden more easily. It means making less exactions where heavier impositions would make life even more miserable for those who already suffer. And it means denying ourselves what we do not truly need — the very reason for the law of Friday abstinence — so that we may be kinder and more solicitous of those in genuine need. Of this, we are all capable, each in the measure that he has received.
“Attende, Domine, et miserere quia peccavimus tibi... Hear, O Lord, and be merciful for we have sinned against you.” This is one of Lent’s antiphons.
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
