Happiness in giving and sharing

Inquirer’s front-page photo on Thursday showed hostages—three foreigners and a Filipino woman—seated on the ground as masked men pointed the muzzles of their high-caliber rifles at them.

One of the masked men held a machete in one hand while the other rested on the head of one of the hostages.

What was the message implied in the photo?

That the Philippine military and police are a bunch of nincompoops who couldn’t catch the kidnappers after they made a daring raid on a resort on an island a few minutes by boat from Davao City.

The boat that carried the kidnappers and hostages from Samal Island in Davao del Norte province took a long time to arrive at their destination yet they were not caught or overtaken by government troops pursuing them.

Helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and gunboats were used in the pursuit operation, but the kidnappers laughed all the way to their hideout with their hostages.

They must have doubled up with laughter while the helicopters and planes were circling overhead and the gunboats were scouring the seas a few meters away from the getaway boat.

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He was not campaigning for a seat in the Senate nor was he rooting for anybody on the administration ticket, but Cristino “Bong” Naguiat has been going to out-of-the-way places in the country to build classrooms.

Naguiat is chair and CEO of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), one of the government’s revenue-earning agencies.

His pet project is building classrooms or rebuilding schools destroyed by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”

He has gone to barrios at the foot of the Sierra Madre mountain range in Luzon and a mountain barangay in Davao Oriental province in Mindanao to supervise the construction of school buildings or turn these over to barangay or town officials.

“I feel very good inside when I see the happy faces of children and their parents over the completion of a school in a remote place,” Naguiat told me.

His statement was in answer to my question on why he had to go to far-flung barangays when his subordinates could do it for him.

Pagcor’s top honcho has been making sorties to faraway places almost every week for the past three months to satisfy a newfound urge to help the downtrodden.

It’s not just seeing the completion of a classroom that gives joy to Naguiat but also helping the less fortunate he meets along the way.

“There was this child who dragged himself to school in a barangay in the Visayas. So I ordered my men to buy a wheelchair for him. He was overjoyed and I also felt joy,” said Naguiat.

“Ang sarap tumulong (Helping others gives you a wonderful feeling),” he said.

This reminds me of a verse I read somewhere about happiness which I am paraphrasing:

Happiness is measured not by the life you live, but in caring for others;

Neither is it measured by the possessions you have acquired, but the joy and love you have shared;

Nor by the lofty titles you have been conferred with, but by the happy people whose lives you have touched.

Naguiat has found happiness by living a life of giving and sharing.