Success is TO HAVE JUST ONE TO FOCUS!

I believe many of our problems can be solved if we could just have someone to focus it.

I remember a saying that success is doing one or only a few things which are right. It does not mean the rest are wrong. What is meant is that success comes from focusing on one or two things.

Frank Sinatra did not become successful by doing a lot of jobs. He did so by focusing on just one single thing: singing.

I may sound too elementary but that is really what I mean: The Filipinos, with a very few exceptions, do not have a focus in life – be it career-wise or spiritual. Perhaps this is the very reason why the average Filipino is half-cooked, that is, his skills are dull, his abilities underdeveloped.

The average Filipino does not know why he is here on earth or what he really likes to do in this life.

I’d like to take that same lack of vision or purpose to our being a people. Our government has no solid and everlasting purpose. Its purpose, if there is, keeps on changing, its projects keep on changing, and since, its officials come and go, and so many of the started projects become suspended – unfinished.

I find it a great misfortune that we have no real priority projects or goals that can be continued or pushed through despite the ever-changing officials who run our country. The vision, the mission, the goals should more or less stay longer than our officials.

In America, they have had a clear vision (purpose) that outlasted and continue to outlast their presidents and other officials.

They aim for LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

Those are aims which are valid through generations. These are goals which are long-range. These are aims which win die-hard recruits and adherents.

One of America’s greatest legacies is ALTRUISM or love for fellowmen, which although blurred by the selfishness of the time, yet is still a noble
Intention beautifully stipulated in the famous poem of Emma Lazurus to wit:


The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"


Consider the immortal verse:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Such is the spirit that lifted and propelled America since its foundation. She offered herself as the haven for all those who were seeking freedom – the wretched refuse of other nations, the persecuted, the oppressed seeking to be free, the tempest-tost. Behold, “I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
What a beautiful love! I lack the words to describe what my heart feels as it savors those golden verses.

It is an understatement tp say that everybody agrees to it – that they were and are one in their decision and commitment to pursue that goal – that dream – as individuals and as a nation.

America was obsessed! America was impassioned!

Likewise, we need to become obsessed with something that is noble — something that is sublime — something that is eternal — something that lasts! Something has to set us on fire! Otherwise, we will continue to be the same lazy people, lost and confused who do not know its direction nor its importance.

Our first focus therefore is the clarity and constancy of vision or purpose. What is that sublime calling that we are called to do? Are we called to be a haven for the oppressed? To say to them “Behold, I lift up my lamp beside the golden door”?

Or are we called to be the way-shower to our fellow Asians? If we are, then, we need to be sure that we live Christ’s teachings in order not to be shamed by our neighbors. For at the moment, they are mocking at us, saying, “Where is that which you preach to be the magnificent ways of Christ?”

For shame on us! They are better than us in many things! And about the way of Christ, we do not have the proofs or fruits to prove to them the attractiveness of Christ’s way! And who is it but us who are classified as second most corrupt country in Asia? Is that the description of a Christian country to model Christ’s way?

Once we have borne the fruits of the Holy Spirit (such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control), then, that will be the time we can declare, “Send to me your blind, your feet-worn seeker. Behold, I stand beside the golden gate of the Kingdom, to be your humble way shower!".

Once that sublime purpose which is already laid deep in our heart but is still dormant, is awakened, then, the earth will see a vision-driven people once desperate but now impassioned, once adrift but now fixed on its purpose, once without reason to live, now powerfully fired up.

That is the first focus.

After that, we will cite a few more things to focus in. That is all what it takes for this country to be happy and successful: to focus on a few things which are right.

To get my point clearer, may I go down to specific solutions or strategies to solve our present problems. I will narrate to you two short cases – real stories. These are examples.

First, let us take the problem of expensive education that is becoming unaffordable to most of our families the majority of which are poor.

A second problem would be the expensive power or electricity.

First, is about a Samar high school that sent Pres Ramos a letter stating that they would stop accepting subsidy from the national government for their school because their school mangoes (more than 1,000 trees if I remember it right) had started to sufficiently support the needs of the school such as the salaries of the teachers, books, maintenance of the school, etc.

This is an achievement of a certain man who initiated the establishment of the school, asked land donations from parents, led the children to plant and take care of the mangoes seedlings, and later became the principal.

This was reported in the Philippine Daily Inquirer a few years ago, In fact, I had news clipped (cut out) it, but somehow misplaced the small paper.

It did not win the front page of the newspaper, but I think PDI and the nation owe this man. He must be awarded with the Magsaysay award!

Why? He has solved the problem of expensive education! His solution is very local but the result is amazing! Never-heard of such a school refusing national subsidy due to its initiative to earn its own income in the most practical manner! Imagine he does not only stop asking support from the government; he is also able to operate the school independently — profitably! — without tuition from parents or grants from NGOs or whatever Foundations!

The implication is very amazing if we only know how to copy what needs to be copied. We copy what does not benefit us. That is where we have been wrong.

Imagine each high school operating or managing an orchard. This is very feasible because to acquire land for this kind of purpose is easier for the government or local initiators to do.

The maintenance of the trees is also very feasible. We have more than enough number of pupils or students to help us secure or make organic fertilizers and do other things to take care of the trees.

We can also do this for college schools, not just high schools.

You see, if I were the President of this country, I would see to it that all schools from the elementary up to college shall own a large tract of land to be an orchard yielding enough produce for the financial needs and maintenance of the school. In short, FREE EDUCATION for the students and sufficient salaries for quality teachers.

There is also a bonus benefit that we can derive from this experience in addition to the fact that our young people will all be able to get sufficient education. This bonus benefit is the fact that since each child is assigned to take care of a fruit tree from his pupil-hood up to student-hood until his “graduate-hood”, each Filipino shall have learned how to tend an orchard!

And so the national vision of EACH FILIPINO WITH THREE WELL-CULTIVATED FARMS: THE HEART, THE MIND AND THE LAND can be attained!

We envision of a country where every person has attained his talent potential, e.g., as a great musician, writer, computer programmer, artist-painter, engineer, etc., while he lives amidst a wonderfully beautiful fruit garden (orchard). His wife adding the beauty with her flower gardens. Then this country shall blossom like a rose!


If you see what I mean, then, you will feel that life here on earth is beautiful – can be beautiful.

I am talking about sub-urban scene. The scenario between the crowded unplanned urban and the abandoned thistle-grown rural countryside. Just a beautiful place planned by both heart and mind.

Nay, I have diverted from my main point! It’s really nice to dream.

Anyway, I have finished with my first story.

The second story that I want to narrate is one which was also featured in the Philippine Daily Inquirer: the story about a far-plunged barangay which is located many kilometers away from the national highway. As reported, that barangay in Luzon requested the government for electricity. This request was not granted. Reason: the distance is very far and there are no houses along the way.

Then a son of that barangay managed to get out and work abroad. It did not take long for him to possess the capacity to buy - guess what. Solar panels!

The price was P30,000.00, more or less. My memory is not that accurate. But I do remember very well that after that, many more of his neighbors followed his example. And so that barangay is now being lighted by the sun during night thanks to the solar power technology.

Question: Do you think this barangay is affected by the oil crisis? In transportation – that’s true. But they are spared from the burden of paying for the ever-increasing electric bills which their sister barangays all throughout the country have been groaning about!

There is also the feasibility of solar-powered vehicles. Why don’t we push it through?

If I were the President, I would look for that dedicated person, and spend a portion of the nation’s tax (I’m sure that won’t consume 1% of the total tax) to support that person. I would scrap out many of the useless expensive positions, e.g., lawmakers who do not make laws but make money by stealing money from the people (taxes) or who make laws to make themselves or their friends and relatives richer!

As I have said, just one dedicated person is needed to make a big difference and make some great dream a reality. We are in need of such dedicated man!

We just need a few of that dedicated person to make technology finally work for us – to make use of God’s abundant gifts to us: the sun, the deuterium, the waters, the air, the mind, the heart, yes, many still untapped power-bases that we already have in great abundance but only failed to see and utilize.

If we can do this, then, we can reverse the present tide. Questions: When shall we do this? After so much sufferings? After devouring one another? After biting one another like dogs? After having destroyed one another?

BLESSED BE ARE WE IF DO THAT TODAY!