Everyday heroes

Do we still need heroes today?

We do. No matter if the pessimists and millennials of today say otherwise, we do.

In a world increasingly fraught with uncertainties, constant changes, and doomsayers, there appears to be an increasing clamor for role models, for people who inspire others to do better, to nurture dreams, or to be positive influences in our lives.

Heroes do not need to be larger-than-life personalities we see on screen, like a pop star with a huge following, a political figure oozing with charisma, or even a Nobel Prize winner, nor are they Supergirl or Batman. As American composer-musician Adam Young puts it aptly "not all heroes wear capes".

Are they hard to find? No, if we know how to look for them, we can find them every day and everywhere.

Turn on the television or surf the Internet and we can catch scores of interviews with young people telling reporters that someday they want to be law enforcers or firefighters "because they help people".

When the pandemic started, we saw medical workers at the frontline, risking their own lives to save others. We saw how community workers wholeheartedly set up pantries where people could line up for free food. They are our modern-day heroes, choosing to remain nameless (and sadly sometimes, even forgotten) as the days wore on, and they remained standing bravely at their posts.

And what about the hardworking overseas Filipino workers, one of the principal boosters of our economy, whose sacrifices while working abroad have been the staple of many a story or television feature? I have seen, heard, and shared these stories as a former OFW myself toiling in Japan in the late 1990s. I know how it felt to be away from family, to deprive oneself of comfort to save money and wait for the big sale to buy goodies that will fill up the balikbayan box sitting in your room so that your loved ones can open their box come Christmas time. Stories about OFWs hit home, so much so that given a chance to pay it forward when I assumed my post at the Bureau of Customs — and in line with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr's expressed instructions to look after the welfare of OFWs and their families — I looked for an opportunity to do so, and immediately found one.

When news reached me that around 8,000 balikbayan boxes were gathering dust at the warehouses after "deconsolidators" had abandoned them, the Bureau immediately shipped the boxes to anxious and waiting families. Indeed, it was not the BoC's mandate, but it was the right thing to do. Nothing can match the excitement and joy of a loved one opening a box full of goodies bought through honest work in steamy sweatshops, ghastly households, or beaten up black and blue by other abusive employers.

Teachers, doctors, nurses, and first responders to emergencies like firefighters, policemen, soldiers, and street sweepers. Honest janitors or guards who return money left behind unknowingly, a five-year-old girl struggling to finish her homework under a lighted lamp post near a decrepit pedicab she calls home, the Bureau of Customs and other government employees who are religiously doing their work despite the mockery, resisting temptations, and the allure of illicit or illegal offers. They are our heroes, unnamed, unsung, derided even, and yet willing to stand up and fight for what is right.

They are in our midst, no need to look far and wide. Our everyday hero respects the law, obeys simple traffic rules, is kind and helpful to those in need, pays taxes, and shows concern for the environment.

They may not be as charismatic a leader as one of our national heroes, Andres Bonifacio, founder of the Katipunan, whose 159th birth anniversary will be marked on 30 November, but it's a start.
The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

Step by step, little by little, we can be heroes every day in our own way.

Baby steps, yet a good beginning.

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(Editor's Note: Yogi Filemon Ruiz is the Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs. He served as head of the BoC Enforcement and Security Unit for five years, and regional director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency for seven years.)