Before, most of us don't give nothing of a cent about ordinary Efren Penaflorida and what he does. Now, he's in every front page and headline of every local and international news after being highly recognized as a Hero of 2009. It is sad that such great appreciation for his good works has been granted not by his countrymen but of foreign advocates.
Efren Penaflorida, a Filipino street education advocate, received no or very little support from his countrymen and his Philippine government yet continued his passion of providing good education to poor children. And now he's named by CNN as Hero of the Year for 2009.
What went wrong for us Filipinos to be so blind of what the world can see?
We focus too much of pointing fingers to the corrupt a-holes in the government that we hardly notice the little good things that the modest “others” are carrying out to uplift the current situation of the country. No wonder, many Filipinos leave the country and, what usually happens, become successful in a foreign land. Why can’t we do it here?
Mr. Penaflorida did. We are just too busy of our daily uneventful routine to notice.
But the world did.
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