A TALE OF A LOST WALLET AND A SOCIETY THAT NURTURED IT, BAKIT GANITO SILA, AND BAKIT GANUN TAYO
Last weekend, I took a bus up to a mountain area in Nagasaki City, hurriedly got off and went to an onsen hoping to bathe away the past week’s stress while enjoying Nagasaki’s world famous view.
As I pulled my bag from my back, I saw that the front pocket was open, and my wallet was gone.
The panic set in. My life in Japan was practically in that brown leather thing, specially my residence card that must be with me all the time.
I had no time to waste. I called the bus company, then I went to the police. All they could tell me was that they were going to call me IF they find anything. I thanked them for their kindness, but I KNEW in my heart, I was never going to have it back.
Barely 2 hours later, as I was about to board the bus back home (thanks to my friends who wired me e-money to tide me over), I WAS PROVEN WRONG.
A Nagasaki Bus Company representative called me, telling me that they have my wallet. A passenger picked it up, surrendered it to the driver, who then dropped it at the office after the last stop of his route. The office was off the city center, but I of course did not mind delaying my bus trip home to rush there and get my ‘life’ back.
While on the bus to the office, it dawned on me: Grabe ano. A passenger picked it up, gave it to the driver and the driver simply delivered it to the office. Organic. Natural. For them, finding and returning lost items is like breathing. It’s a no-brainer. And as a teacher in Japan, it made me realize how the education system has nurtured them to be like this. BUT, I realized that there is something more.
Japanese people live in a society where their basic needs are met, a society that assures them
that while they are working their butts off, government services are being carried out, medical services are running, public transportation is always being improved, and that food, water and electricity are being delivered to homes efficiently. And most of all, they are assured that their salaries are livable, that even a bus driver has tenure, healthcare and social security.
They don’t have to steal a wallet that’s not theirs, because aside from the fact that they were raised to know that it’s wrong, they also don’t need it. Because whatever is there, they have it too. A little less, a little more maybe, but they do.
Meanwhile, back home, some good people would consider a lost item a blessing because they indeed NEED a blessing, because there is no hope in the usual means. Meanwhile, while they work hard, those in position pilfer public money for their own sakes, including money MEANT for education.
This is a story of a wallet, lost and returned. But this is also a microcosm of a society that nurtures dignity, and a reflection of a system thar allows its people to live with dignity.
Sana all, di ba? But while we are waiting for that to happen in our own soil, baka pwedeng simulan na natin sa sarili natin. Let’s reclaim that dignity by choosing leaders that have them too. Para hindi lang lost wallet ang kayang maibalik. Pati lost public funds, lost accountability, and many people’s lost hope.
Kaya naman di ba?
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