The joy of service

MUMBAKI
by: ATTY. JOEL CADIOGAN OBAR

As we begin the grueling political campaign many of my close friends ask me why I decided to enter the dirty world of politics; a world filled with deception, betrayals and hypocrisy. Yes indeed, at the present state of political affairs it is sad that political victory is attained through money and patronage, and seldom BY A FREE and WELL-INFORMED CHOICE. I have just to say that I find great challenge in areas where evil abounds as it gives me a great opportunity to serve my COUNTRY for the GLORY OF GOD. I therefore pray for more faith, more courage, and more guidance from the Gospels of Christ even as I am sinful, unrighteous and undeserving of the Love of God. I rest in the thought that everyone, without exception, has fallen short of the Glory of God and having Him always at my side in my desire to serve in a public and political capacity brings me utmost joy. Having said so, I am more than confident that in the end goodness will triumph over evil. With this opportunity to serve the Lord through politics, the difficulty that I encounter in the course of the political campaign is too little a cost to pay for the JOY OF SERVING HUMANITY FOR THE GLORY OF GOD.

One morning at the “coffee shops” situated at the public market of Dumaguete City, I was blessed and continue to be blessed because I had the chance to share ideas with a governatorial candidate of the Province of Negros Oriental.

I am so blessed that he speaks well of the WORD OF GOD and is so passionate of his desire to serve the Lord by serving people in a political capacity. It was then that it dawned upon me the relevance of the HOLY SCRIPTURES to FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.

God created Man naturally gifting him with a FREE WILL and an EXCELLENT INTELLECT. Poverty is not one of the ideas of God when He created man. God intended man to prosper and excel. It is sad however that the evils of politics have, although temporarily I hope, succeeded in reversing the gift of prosperity and bring so much poverty amongst our people. Government and governmental personalities have wrongly evolved to be Godlike hoping that they could provide for all the basic needs of man – food to his stomach, cloth over his back, shelter over his head and dignity to his soul. This way, government has stymied the development of the human potentials which supposedly have the natural capacity to prosper and excel. In effect and without the people knowing and realizing, the country has psychologically drifted or is moving towards the “communist methodology” of the State being the owner of all things and the provider of all needs. We have virtually moved to making government and governmental personalities a substitute of God who is the true provider; the alpha and the omega of human life. This phenomenon, to me, explains why poverty is pervasive in our midst. Our people remained bondage to the evils of a material world, rather than being emancipated to seek their natural potentials under an atmosphere of genuine FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY.

I am therefore filled with joy because my political team was blessed with a gift of a program of government which we call the POLITICS OF OPPORTUNITY and INDUSTRY. It is a program that swerves away from the “old traditional politics of giving material things” and drift towards the “DEVELOPMENT OF THE GODLY GIVEN WILL and INTELLECT in pursuit of happiness and human fulfillment”.

Empower low-income families to succeed and bring opportunities to areas of concentrated poverty. Informal but excellent training and learning are to be undertaken at the home-level. It is about time to get rid of the culture of poverty and convert it to a feeling of abundant opportunities.

Feeling of despair and helplessness only breeds more dissatisfaction and despair. On the other hand, gratitude attracts more gratitude thereby breeding abundance in wealth, industry and opportunities.

These, among others, are to be done immediately as soon as my political team is to be gifted with the chance to serve God by politically serving the City of Dumaguete.

God bless us all.