are we truly free?

For 15 minutes last night, my ADHD was suspended as I sat on the edge of my seat, listening to the speech of Chief Justice Reynato Puno. He delivered the speech in tagalog, but TJ had an english version of the speech in his site.

This paragraph just tugged at my Pinoy soul:

“As long as the Filipino suffers from the lack of proper education, we are not free. Those who cannot understand their rights and responsibilities to the society can never be free. As long as there are those who seek for new lives abroad because they find disillusionment and lack of hope in the future of this country, we are not truly free. Where there remains a hand stretched and begging for food in the streets, and there are those who are forced to commit a crime only to survive, we are not truly free. As long as there is disrespect to even just a single vote of a citizen, we are not free. Liberty goes hand in hand with dignity. A person that is truly free is possessed of dignity—he is full and complete. He is nobody’s slave and is dictated upon only by his own conscience.” -- Chief Justice Reynato Puno, Independence Day 2007, Caloocan City