Just when I thought I didn’t need it, a story popped into my feed tonight as I sat to write this piece.

It’s about a mailman who was suffering from the hazards of his job. He was getting barked at, bitten and, one time, bitten six times in one week.

Can you imagine someone simply doing his job, doggedly covering his routes as he is expected to do, yet encountering “hazardous conditions” where physical injury could result from not successfully avoiding territorial dogs who saw him as a threat or an intruder?

That’s what happened to Ken, a mailman in Fremont, California, in the 1960s.

According to the story posted on Facebook, “Ken had tried everything: different walking patterns, carrying treats, moving quickly, moving slowly, staying alert. Nothing worked.”

So he got a “two-month-old German Shepherd puppy he named Schann.”

The pup seemed useless at first, unable to protect him against the bigger dogs. Over time, however, Schann grew, weighing 102 pounds when he was just a year old. The attackers eventually retreated every time the mailman came around, not wanting to face his loyal protector.

Sometimes in our lives, we encounter situations where doing one’s job becomes a source of tension and pain, or when we put our trust and hopes in our leaders and they bite us in the arse.

When you can’t change a situation, you must always think of finding another way. Should the mailman have quit and found another job? Maybe, but some things in life we cannot simply let go. We must keep the faith, keep ourselves moving forward.

When stopping is not an option, like not paying taxes or leaving your country because the government has disappointed you too many times, what do you, as a citizen, do?

And on the part of such a government, if it wants change and real progress, what should it do? Or if it’s the case of the Philippines protecting its sovereignty, what actions should it take?

The year is about to end, and at this point, the Marcos administration is standing between two sets of fangs eager to tear it to pieces. There is the pro-Duterte horde facing it, and the corrupt cabal standing behind it. The only thing keeping this nation from being reduced to a bloody pulp is the veneer of decency everyone is hanging on to. Hanging by a thread.

Like Ken the mailman, we can choose “deterrence, not violence.” Like Schann, our leaders should nurture people by caring for them and giving them the environment to grow. That way, they stay loyal and will protect the country at all costs.

In the same way, the Philippines has nurtured its allies, and many of them are standing beside the country in its battle for its sovereignty now.

So we may be limping now like Ken, dog-bitten yes, but not about to be life-beaten.