By Dr. Jess Estanislao
For national transformation to happen, individual Filipinos must be involved. As responsible citizens, each of us can make a positive difference by living our faith and core values in our everyday life and work. We must not separate what we believe from how we live. Faith and values should guide how we work, how we decide, and how we treat others—at home, at work, and in the community.
When we live this way, our character is formed. And when many Filipinos do this together, the character of the nation slowly changes. As noted, this is the first essential step we must take to get us out of our current corruption crisis.
Each individual may seem small, like a stone thrown into a pond. The ripple it creates may be small. But when many stones are thrown, the ripples combine and create a strong wave. This is how we can help build Dream Philippines, the country we aspire to become by 2046, the centennial of our independence.
Still, individuals cannot do this alone.
This is where institutions come in. Institutions are where people work and earn their living. They include businesses and corporations, government agencies and local governments, cooperatives, schools, and civil society organizations. These institutions have real influence. They can support individuals who are trying to live upright, responsible lives. This would represent the second essential step to get us out of crisis.
Institutions can do this by giving reminders, setting examples, and recognizing good behavior—what we used to call good manners and right conduct. In doing so, they help spread civic mindednessacross society. But institutions must first transform themselves.
Every institution should have a clear vision of what it wants to become in the next 3, 5, or 10 years. It must stay faithful to its mission and to its own core values. At the same time, because institutions are also citizens of the nation, their values should be consistent with our national values: maka-Diyos, maka-Tao, maka-Kalikasan, and maka-Bansa.
Values must not remain on paper. Institutions must bring them down to daily operations. This means choosing clear priorities, launching concrete initiatives, and setting performance targets for teams and units. When values guide actual decisions and outcomes, institutions become living examples for individuals to follow.
Strong institutions also reach beyond their walls. They support the families of their employees, helping homes become real “schools of virtue.” They work with schools, helping form young people in discipline, service, and civic responsibility.
They support community centers, which provide lifelong learning and guidance for personal development.
Institutions should also work together locally. By forming solidarity networks with other organizations and local governments, they can help clean and improve communities—making them safer, more orderly, more functional, and more dignified places to live. Through transparency and cooperation, corruption can be reduced and eventually eliminated at the local level.
Beyond communities, institutions must also work together at the national level, especially to address widespread poverty.
We cannot be content with economic growth of only 5–6% per year. To lift millions of Filipinos out of poverty, we must aim higher—ideally 10–12% sustained growth over many years. Such higher rate of economic growth, sustained over two decades, effectively brings down the level of poverty, for good. This is ambitious, but possible if institutions act together.
This means tapping our natural resources more wisely and sustainably,
investing more seriously in our human resources, and unlocking the potential of our financial and capital markets, especially to support MSMEs and cooperatives. None of this will happen by accident.
We need clear transformation roadmaps, clear priorities, concrete initiatives, assigned responsibilities, and measurable targets. Progress must be reviewed regularly, and strategies adjusted when needed.
In sum, institutions have a decisive role to play in national transformation. By observing the discipline of good governance and working together in solidarity, they can help deliver higher growth, reduce poverty, clean out corrupt practices, strengthen civic values, and deepen civic mindedness, thereby moving our country steadily toward Dream Philippines 2046.
Art by Erwin Mallari, 2019.
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