WAKE UP AND LIVE

By Mario D. Ortiz

The welfare of the people is the supreme law. So goes a time-honored maxim legal
jurisprudence.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are all looking very elegant today. I could see that you are among the
well-to-do, the fortunate, even the rich. But did you ever try to visit the slum areas and witness their
run-down conditions? Those places stink. And the people there wallowing in poverty and ignorance,
have only their souls to identify them as human beings. They are Filipinos, too- habitués of this glorious
Pearl of the Orient Seas. Yet, what are you doing for them? You who enjoy the blessings of democracy
and the advantages of higher learning?

I accuse you of abandoning the poor and the miserable. I accuse you of neglecting your less
fortunate countrymen. I accuse you of sleeping on your obligations as a citizen. I accuse you of want of
civic spirit, without which a community will not grow, and its people cannot enjoy the luxury of peace
and a measure of happiness. In accusing you, I am accusing myself, too, because I am a part of you.

There must be a good Samaritan in every one of us. For what use are your riches if others wallow
in poverty? What is the use of power and fame, if many of our brothers and sisters live like beasts of
burden?

Yes, the answer to community development is self-help. Give the best of yourself to the solution
of the myriad problems confronting your people. Educate them. Lead them. Help them. For God helps
those who help themselves.

If you do this, there shall be one day rise of a great nation where people are peaceful and
contented because they have enough to eat; where surroundings are clean and beautiful; where
factories hum with the tempo progress; where there is no social caste; and the laborer can afford to look
up to anyone with dignity; where every Filipino lives beneath the shelter of happy homes.

Fellow citizens: Do not sleep on your duties. Wake up – and live!