A Forum on Peace and Security in the Community “A Shared Responsibility”
(Feb. 2, 2018)
On the 2nd day of the World Interfaith Harmony Week celebration the University of Santo Tomas specifically the Religions for Peace Philippines headed by Dr. Lilian J. Sison together with Prof. Bong Baybado organized an activity “A Forum on Peace and Security in the Community: “A Shared Responsibility.” This forum is intended to educate our young people of today’s generation and some professionals for them to know on how to response to the increasing threat of extremism in our society today. Johayna Macodi a SilPeace Club member led the Harmony Prayer as the opening prayer.
The participants of this forum are students from the University of Sto. Tomas, Manuel L. Quezon University, Nazarene Catholic School, members of Latter Day Saint of Jesus Christ headed by Ms. Haidi Fajardo and some members of the IHOS from the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene with the supervision of Mrs. Minerva Seculles of the Disaster Preparedness and Response Ministry.
The keynote speaker is the Ambassador of Islamic Republic of Iran Hon. Mohammad Jafarimalek also Cultural Counsellor, in his message he expressed the increasing threat of extremism not only in the Philippines but other parts of the world. He said that all of us must have a sense of responsibility to care for every individual’s safety in our community to work as one in spite of differences in faith. The 1st resource speaker is Rev. Fr. Lucio Rosaroso, Jr. the Deputy Chief, Chaplaincy Services, PNP. He shared his experienced before becoming a priest at the same a Police officer, in an anecdote that he shared two friends where on a plane in the right wing is on fire, the other one said “look the wing of the plane is on fire!” the other one answered “Don’t worry mate it is not ours!” in our present society we do not care anymore what is happening around us, we choose to remain silent amidst the chaos that is being happen in front of us why? Is it because we are afraid or it is because we simply don’t care as long as we are safe? This is a challenge for every one of us not to be afraid and to have empathy to our common tao, not only to think of our own selves but to learn to extend our arms to help others especially those in need. As Fr. Lucio also expressed in the Theology of the body that yes we are different and yet we can work together as one.
The 2nd resource speaker is Mr. Christopher “Bong” Grajo the President of Emergency Response Integration Center (ERIC). In his introduction Sir Bong Grajo said “what will you do if the person beside you collapse?” common sense will tell us to help the person who collapse, to attend to his/her need. He also shared his personal experience when he was living in Muslim family in Mindanao, he said the people living in Manila has the mentality that Islam is equal to terrorist which he dais that is very wrong mentality because according to him terrorism has no religion and extremist has no respect to whatever religion because their concern is to create chaos in our society. That was what happened in Marawi City, those people whom we address as ISIS, Maute were extremists/terrorists and it does not do anything with Islam. The challenge for us today is to struggle for our own selfishness, greediness and mostly our pride, a person can only be considered as extremist when we thinks that we are better than the others, that is where extremisms mentality begins. Before he ended his talk Sir Bong Grajo said you might forget all that I have shared with you, but I just want to ask a favor to you to always remember this two things, first is the tyranny of “or” (you or me) this is the wrong notion that we must eradicate in our minds and hearts the second is the redemption of “and” (you and I) this is what we must developed to each and every one of us that we need each other we should always work hand in hand for our common humanity.
After the talk of the speakers the open forum begins for the students to have a chance to ask their questions and clarifications to the speakers. Before the forum ended Assoc. Prof. Ma. Socorro S. Guan Hing, RN, DNM the Director of UST Office for Student Affairs gave her closing remarks and after that Dr. Lilian J. Sison distributed the certificates of appreciations to the speakers who shared their knowledge and experiences to the students for them to widen their horizon on what is happening in our world that we live in.