Hope for the Philippines

When I was seven I spent quite some time with my grand-aunt who had breast cancer. We used to just sit together and watch tv after lunch, just before I walked back to school for the afternoon. She was a kind woman... She died before the school year ended then.

Some findings in psychology say that cancer is linked to having a passive-aggressive personality or when a person bottles up their negative emotions toward others most of the time. Some people say that wearing underwire brassieres, smoking, drinking, using cellphones can cause cancer. And biology says that it's more likely to happen to a person whose parents or grandparents had cancer, that it is genetic. Hence there are cancer patients as young as 3-month old
babies, such as leukemia cases.

In a Health Psychology class trip, some two years ago, we visited a nearby hospital. There we were shown both their radiation and nuclear therapy equipments used to treat cancer patients. They also showed us their counselling/play and conference rooms where the cancer patients and their family members undergo counselling. (I was moved by the counselor's account of a dying child and his mother. Her 8-year old son was dying of cancer. Naturally she was distraught and she cried. Her son told her "Why are you crying mom..? When I die I will be with God, I'll be in heaven and I will see you from there because I will become angel!"

This might sound off the topic, but being the frustrated citizen that I am I cannot help but think that the Philippines is somehow inflicted with a cancer of its own. Something that is destroying it from within. Is it Corruption? Greed? Terrorism? Communism? Globalization? Imperialism? Will it mean then that our society would need radiation or... nuclear therapy? IF so, when can it be considered cured? And when can it be considered terminal and already too late? Amidst the political and economic crises that is currently plaguing the Philippines, how can we determine whether we are part of the sickness or part of the cure? Sometimes we don't really know - we know only what we are made to believe.