Anak ng Pasig

The song by Geneva Cruz resounds in my head, a sad refrain to the ugliness I sense from the headlines recently.

Anak ng Pasig naman kayo

Kalat doon, kalat dito

Natakpan na ang langit kong ito

Nilason din ang ilog ko…

While the song talks about pollution, the bad air and the once-flowing waters of the Pasig River as vestiges of the past, it hit the mark in that I felt a poignant sadness for a world that never quite cleaned up its act.

How else might you regard it when history as old as Moses explodes right in our faces, killing music at a festival and the melodies of hope we may have harbored for lasting peace in the world?

“Imagine,” the late John Lennon, for his part, said. What if there was “no heaven,” or “no world below us,” and “above us, only sky?”

Scoff for all you want at these utopian imaginings, but I still cling to the goodness of man, hard as it may be with the violence and greed being strewn around like all the garbage that we see in our rivers and oceans.

Is it something humankind will never quite understand, as we act with deliberate intent to eviscerate each other? This is precisely what flashed in our minds when the recent altercation between Chinese coast guard personnel and our navy officers happened on 17 June.

The unprovoked boarding of a Philippine vessel that was resupplying a military outpost in the disputed waters off Palawan caused ripples of tension that initially led our government to call it a “misunderstanding,” and then change its tune by saying that it was “deliberate.”

We were stunned by the news of such an act of aggression, which caused a Filipino sailor to lose a thumb, while we refrained from flicking one of our own against the obvious arrogance.

We are a peace-loving folk — “not one to instigate wars,” as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said. But we are as tough as any, resilient, stubborn and quite deeply against the idea of a time when we would once again be forced into submission by powers greater than our might.

I suppose it is high time we reflected on ourselves against the unclear waters of the Pasig River. We were responsible for its desecration, and through various presidents now, we have tried to restore its former glory.

On this, we have made progress, with the recent completion of the latest phase of the Pasig River’s restoration. At the 24 June event held at the 500-meter showcase area of the Pasig River Urban Development Project in Manila, President Marcos Jr. said, “In a sense, how well we do here will reflect our efforts in other areas across the country.”

In a sense, in other words, it will show just how determined we are to see our country through all the nasty headlines on drugs and power plays and corruption still muddying the rivers of our minds.