‘Love is all we need’

Netnet Camomot .

SIMON Cowell has lost 20 pounds and his fans hardly recognized him at first. His weight loss secret: a vegan diet.

But “America’s Got Talent’s” (AGT) main attraction for now is not Cowell but the blind autistic singer and pianist Kodi Lee, 22, who has been wowing the AGT audience with his voice.

One secret behind success is to focus on one talent and develop that. Don’t spread yourself too thin, otherwise, each endeavor will have only shallow results.

Talent is faith’s way of leading you to the right path.

Once upon a time, Albert Einstein wrote this: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

There’s the Accountancy student who may feel stupid for not understanding the connection between debits and credits. He will eventually fail, and that will be his blessing in disguise for he will now have a chance to enrol in a college course he’s truly interested in.

There was a time when a Nursing degree served as one’s ticket for working abroad. But a country may change its foreign labor laws, or its president may say, “America First.”

If there’s one person who always follows her heart in everything that she does, it’s Gina Lopez.

Lopez passed away on Monday, and all we have now are quotations from her interviews, and the hope that the solid legacy she left behind would be appreciated and continued by those whose heart is as sincere as hers.

Metro Society featured her three years ago when she was appointed as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) by President Rody Duterte. In that interview, she said, “My vision for myself is to be able to always be aligned with my highest truth. I would like to be a conduit of light and love. I’m not going to determine what I’ll do or be, but as long as it always comes from my highest truth, that’s what I would like for myself.”

Her plan then as DENR secretary was summed up through this: “There are times when one needs hard love, right? That sometimes, just love and sweetness all the time is not what the country always needs. You want to be clear about what you have to do, make sure that you’re doing it not for any other agenda but one of service. The three words which I want DENR to live by are truth, service, and the common good. That’s how I ran the ABS-CBN Foundation and that’s how I want to run DENR.”

The Philippine Daily Inquirer posted a video on Facebook of Lopez facing the Commission on Appointments that asked her if she’s as extreme as she was then “being painted out to be in media.”

“I don’t know what the definition of extreme is,” she then replied. “I love my country and I love the people and I’m non-negotiable on my principles. I’m a very out of the box person. I work with the NPA, I work with the MILF, I work with the mining companies so I’m very out of the box, so I can do anything and everything but my non-negotiable commitment is to our people and the principles of integrity. I’m never gonna budge there because something in me will die. But in terms of possibilities of what can happen, my God! My other favorite song is, ‘I believe I can fly,’ so I wanna fly and then just fly and then fly with everyone and work with everyone like every single person here in this room has a dream. I can work with everyone and everyone but my non-negotiable commitment is to integrity. I will never sacrifice my principle so I don’t know if you call that extreme?”

After the Commission on Appointments rejected her appointment as DENR secretary, she said, “It is the constitutional right of every Filipino to a clean and healthy environment. It is our right in the Constitution and that is premier above all. And it is the duty of government to grant our people this right.”

The Pinoy suspected that some people’s vested interests were behind that rejection. Vested interests that could pay for a car loan, or could even give them a car for free—such alleged perks would have stopped with a DENR secretary who’s truly committed to her work. And that could be true also for politicians and other government agencies whose work allegedly involves loads of perks.

Such allegedly grafting and corrupting government officials should adopt the minimalist diet in order to stop their cravings for material things, and to help them realize that “Love is all that matters / Faithful and forever / Keepin’ us together / Love is all we need.”