Source :
https://www.facebook.com/edwin.b.bellen/posts/550933874963021
Excerpts from a 1974 Letter from a Great Senator-Father, Sen. Jose W. Diokno (while he was in jail at Fort Bonifacio), to his Son, Jose Manuel, then 13 years old (Read by Atty. Jose Manuel Diokno during the Flag Raising Ceremony, Senate, Pasay City last May 15, 2006):
"Increasingly as you grow older, the values that you have learned from us, your parents, and from your Christian faith, will be called in question -- by you or others. Why be honest when it pays to be dishonest? Why be fair to others when they are unfair to you? Why fight for others when they won't fight for your -- or even for themselves? Why think for yourself when it is easier to let others think for you? Why lead when it is less troublesome to obey? Why have principles when others don't -- and they often get away with it? Why be good when it seems so much more pleasant to be bad?
'The answer, I think, is in what life means to you. If life means having a good time, money, fame power, security, then you don't need principles; all you need are techniques. In fact, it's better not to have principles; they would just get in your way. On the other hand, if life means more than those things, if happiness counts more than a good time, developing your talents more than developing wealth, respect more than fame, right more than power, and peace of soul more than security; if death doesn't end life but transforms it; then you must be true to yourself and to your God, and to love and truth, good and beauty, and justice and freedom, that are His other names and that He has made part of human nature.
'You will have to decide for yourself, which of those things life means to you. Neither I nor anyone else can decide this for you. But perhaps this will help you decide: that even those who know they do wrong feel compelled to convince others -- and eventually themselves -- that they are doing right. So the man of greed often gives generously to charity; the megalomaniac poses as a messiah; the coward hides his fears under the mask of being realistic; and the guilty wash away their guilt, like Pilate, by washing their hands with the excuse that "it isn't my choice" or "it isn't my job or "I can't do anything about it."
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