Dear Perry

Dear Perry, 

The Obama speech in the Democratic Convention this July gave me an answer to your question, 'what is the missing link?' (on my seven-part Stories of Quirino).  I think now that it is not 'predisposition'. It is our country's inability to see that a democracy truly works only when all difficulties are faced and overcome not by the politics of one, but of many, together. 'Together' is the simple word we all have seem to have forgotten. The last days, I have insisted in DAR Ilocos Sur that we aporoach our regular review and planning session with the sharing of the presumed knowledge of basic facts: definitions, processes, tasks, even the concepts of what we do and have been doing for the longest time. At first it seemed awkward and funny to all of us, listening to each division's throughputs, and at one point at the beginning I wanted to roll my eyes up and slap myself for initiating the activity. Then I looked around and saw the faces of my colleagues intently listening to discussions on finance. These colleagues are from the technical and operations 'side' of the fence. I knew then, that for the first time? They understood how their actions on this department's objectives and targets bear much on administration and finance. The other way, the finance people also, for the first time, got what the other 'side' of the fence is doing, and has been doing such that the numbers they see now will tell the stories. 

In this small organization we all belong to, I emphasized to them that no one works independently of other; that all will be done the best way if we all know, we all listen, and when we are 'together'. There must be no 'fences' nor 'territories'. There is no monopoly of hard work and sacrifice. There is no monopoly of misery and difficulty. I hope that our farmers, even in their simple ways of looking at things, realize these. Because for as long as they see themselves as the aggrieved, the desperate, the struggling, and only as that,  with no effort to do something to help government better their lives, there will be plenty more of 'Quirino's' to evolve in this nation we all dearly love. That thought saddens me, not for me, but for my children. Because they will both grow old, look back at the times I was not in their lives when I should have been, and I am afraid they would ask, 'Was Mom's absence in our lives worth it?'. 

Christianne