A matter of conviction, Times are indeed hard

One look at lotto outlets and any doubts about people desperate enough for a win will vanish into thin air. Somebody said the only competition these betting stations get are the lines leading to the United States embassy.

Either way, the message is clear: escape from economic difficulties or the Philippines . In most cases, Filipinos can no longer distinguish which it is they are fleeing from because the lines have become blurred. The face of poverty has become synonymous with the Philippines .

It is debatable however if either or both promise a way out.

Out of the millions who religiously place their bets on lotto combinations, millions remain as impoverished as ever. Those who do win have not exactly known bliss as they hoped their earnings would bring them.

Overseas Filipino workers have been labeled as the “heroes”. They may yet be to a certain extent, given that with the exception of those who succeed in migrating to the US , working conditions require nothing than heroic virtues to survive let alone sustain families that have been left behind.

It is not the same as saying that life as an expatriate in the US is the ultimate. While working conditions are undeniably superior to those in most nations, the very state of being transported to another environment other than one's native habitat makes the separation something out of the ordinary.

Here lies the fork in the road between those who value material and financial prosperity to social and psychological, let alone moral and spiritual, factors. Perhaps with the exception of those who migrate as a family elsewhere, physical separation is one sure fire formula for a dysfunctional family.

People know how to rationalize their actions. Those who flee say it is better to suffer temporary separation as long as there is a future to look forward to, the future here being the promise of material and financial rewards that foreign employment is assumed to guarantee.

Those who remain argue that money may be hard to come by but that there is no substitute for an intact family when the children are still growing up. What they lack in material resources, they more than make up with the special bond that only a family physically bound together can experience.

The bottom line is that while a crisis undoubtedly exists, the solution is matter of personal conviction. One man's medicine is another man's poison. In matters of faith, the majority has no power.