Congratulations to the winner of the “Blog for Mindanao 2014” contest – JT De Jesusfrom Zamboanga City.
Check out his blog entry:
Bangsamoro. The things that comes into my mind are harassment, war, hatred and so on. But that was before I learned and deeply understand what Bangsamoro really is.
As we grow up, we gain more knowledge. And as we gain more knowledge, we start to have our own perspective about a specific thing around us. I’m a ninth grader, and still, I know that my knowledge is still not enough for me to judge anything, anything around me, everything I see, or everyone I know.
But peace, peace is a small word, but very hard to understand. If we can’t understand, we cannot apply. For me, peace is the way people live. The way we interact, the way we do things normally. I know that almost all knows what peace literally means, but figuratively, some of us still don’t.
A year ago, we still remember the Zamboanga Crisis that affected all people here in Zamboanga. Bombs, gunshots, everything, is just normal to us. It almost lasted for 1 month, and we did evacuate. We travelled Zamboanga to Ipil, Zamboanga Del Sur, and we stayed there for almost 1 week. The crisis really affected many people, and that includes us. The crisis caused so much destruction, low economy rate and many things that people doesn’t want to happen, but it did.
See? If there’s no peace, the crisis will still be on going for sure, but there is. So, from that, we can conclude that peace, is very very much important. We can’t see peace, but we can feel it. Very much important that it is essential for human in terms of interaction. It’s not only a word with a five letter, but it is also a word we feel, a word that is very important, that if it does not exist, so do we. So we can still change our perspective to what Bangsamoro means, we can change harassment to harmony, war to freedom, and hatred to love. As what Mother Teresa had said, “Peace begins with a smile.” So, why don’t you smile, like, forever?