Lotus Flower in Murky Waters

By Maurice Malanes

Once in a while we get to read something spiritually uplifting from the papers. One such article was headlined, “Poor Mom with Rich Heart Adopts Unwanted Baby.” The article by Christian Esguerra of the Philippine Daily Inquirer is like a blooming lotus flower amid murky waters or a rainbow in summer.

Such story, which looks like those the Reader’s Digest publishes, is a break from the usual stories of conflict, scandal, crime, corruption, and violence of your favorite newspaper.

Accompanied by a photo of a smiling mother raising her grinning bubbly adopted child, the story indeed was about love and hope. The photo caption says it all: “THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR LOVE: Though she lives in a 15-sq.m. corner in Vitas, Tondo and survives on P50 a day, Salvacion Ruiz, who has two other children, adopted Sandin Lee when he was abandoned by his mother.” Poor in things material, the mother has the rich heart of a Mother Teresa. The unwanted child needs all the love he needs. And this gives us hope that the child will grow up to be a responsible citizen because Salavacion is there to raise and guide him.

Studies have shown that unloved children and those with unhappy childhood often turn out to be maladjusted persons when they grow up. Worse, they can become part of society’s dregs. Showered with his adoptive mother’s love, over a year-old Sandin Lee will be part of society’s asset someday.

The stories of conflict, scandal, crime, violence, and corruption that the media churn out daily reflect social realities. And there’s no question that the media should report about these. Many people, however, feel fed up by too much of the same menu of news day in and day out 365 days a year. Some don’t even read the papers anymore or listen to news on radio or television. They prefer something more entertaining like FM music or fashion shows on Cable TV. No wonder many cable TV stations have come out with what is now called “infotainment,” or information that entertains rather than informs.

But life is not 100 percent entertainment. We still need to be informed and enlightened. We need basic information to keep us abreast of what’s happening around us. Otherwise, we will wake up one day as surprised as Rip Van Winkle over how the world has changed and we are not aware of it.

The media cannot gloss over conflict and crime. But there’s a growing call for media to also report or write about crimes and conflict from the perspective of a peace correspondent. A peace correspondent doesn’t only write about conflicts; he also probes and reports about how people are embarking on certain initiatives to help resolve conflicts. The same holds true with crimes. The peace correspondent also looks into how various sectors are seeking to institute measures to prevent or stop crimes.

The peace correspondent always looks into possibilities of hope and love. So he can do a story about a hardened criminal who turned his back on his wicked ways and became a pastor or a psychological and spiritual counselor or teacer, for example. This is certainly a story that is as inspiring as the poor mom with a rich heart who adopted an unwanted child.

The same holds true about other themes such as corruption and thievery and all their other faces and forms. There are corrupt people and thieves of all kinds and they should be exposed and laid bare by media. But another way of looking at these is finding other stories of people who made integrity and honesty part of their way of life. Through this, other people can at least see that there’s still a way out of the rut we are all in and that there’s hope after all for this country of our sorrows.

In recent years, the editors of the Inquirer advised their correspondents to also write about “positive” stories. The Inquirer now highlights on the front page of its Sunday issue what it calls “positive Sunday” features such as the story of that man who seeks to plant at least a million trees in the next few years. Once in a while the paper also features a positive story on weekdays but it makes sure it has one or two positive stories on Sundays.

Yes, we also need something positive in our front pages, if only to remind us that the spirit of goodness has not yet been defeated by the spirit of darkness.