Held in honor and esteem

In the convoluted world of politics, a rare species is a person of integrity and decency. One such a man is Jimmy Carter. This then pays tribute to a world leader who, after exiting politics, continues to earn plaudits, no less a Nobel Laureate for Peace.

Last May when my internist daughter Randy attended a medical conference in Atlanta, Georgia, the hubby and I tagged along for a visit to the Carter Center, a must-see tourist site in Atlanta. We lingered in the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum which shows why, to this day, the 39 th President of the United States is held in honor and deep esteem by his fellow Americans. Plaques of appreciation and testimonials abound.

In 1982, after leaving the White House, Carter and his wife Rosalynn founded The Carter Center which “addresses national and international issues of public policy and attempts to promote democracy, protect human rights, and prevent disease and other afflictions.” Of course, we remember him well as the American President who went to the Philippines to build homes for the country's poor in pursuit of his project, Habitat for Humanity, a worldwide non-profit organization.

Except his having been US President, Jimmy Carter is pretty much like us all. Our ubiquitous peanut vendors will find common ground with this once most powerful man in the most powerful country in the world. Known as the peanut farmer who became President, Carter writes: “I began selling boiled peanuts on the streets of Plains [Georgia] when I was five years old. This was my first acquaintance with the outside world….I would take my little wagon into one of the fields nearest our house, pull a load of peanut vines out of the ground, carry them home, pick the peanut off the vines, wash them, and soak them in salty water overnight. The next morning, as early as possible, I boiled the peanuts for a half-hour or so until they were cooked but still firm, filled about twenty half-pound paper sacks (forty on Saturdays), and carried them to town in a basket, either walking down the railroad tracks or riding on my bike.” He calls “exceptional” the training for these tasks from his father.

If Carter could be detailed in his peanut enterprise, so was he in describing their old house that was typical for middle-income landowners. “In every bedroom was a slop jar (chamber pot) that was emptied each morning into the outdoor privy, about twenty yards from our back door. This small shack had a large hole for adults and a lower and smaller one for children; we wiped with old newspapers or pages torn from Sears, Roebuck catalogues. These were much better facilities than those I knew when I was with other families on the place, who squatted behind bushes and wiped with corncobs or leaves.” Primitive? That was America in 1924, the year Carter was born.

Glimpses into his boyhood showed Carter, a 3 rd grader, winning the contest for having read the most books. In 5 th grade, he was reading Tolstoi's “War and Peace.” If a comparative study is conducted, you get to wonder how much reading the likes of Estrada have made. Fate would have been kinder if Erap had read late into the night in aid of good governance instead of boozing it up or staking it high in casinos.

Those inured to “Filipino” time, consider this: “One characteristic that I inherited from my father—reinforced by my years in the navy—was an obsession with punctuality. He would always be well ahead of time to meet a train, attend a baseball game, or keep an appointment. It was inconceivable that his tardiness would keep anyone waiting, and he expected everyone around him to honor the same standards.”

What he writes in the tour brochure is a mix of the ordinary and the exceptional in the man: “I am a farmer, an engineer, a father and husband, a Christian, a politician and former governor, a planner, a businessman, a nuclear physicist, a naval officer, a canoeist and, among other things, a lover of Bob Dylan's songs and Dylan Thomas' poetry.”

Available to tourists is the latest copy of The Carter Center News featuring the recall referendum on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the opposing reactionary forces. The Center oversaw the referendum which resulted in the continued mandate of the left-leaning Venezuelan President. Declares the Center: “Our concern is not with who wins or loses but that a fair and democratic process enables the will of the people to be expressed and accepted. People around the world who hunger for democracy and peace rely on the Center's vigilant and disciplined neutrality, and we take their expectations seriously.”

I don't want to lose hope in our own ability to solve our problems, and I don't think our country lacks for Filipinos with Jimmy Carter's integrity and decency who would pull us out of the political morass we are in. I like to believe that there exists a broad mass of the populace who, for the sake of Inang Bayan —their only place under the sun—will join hands, yes, kapit-bisig onward to overhauling a corrupt system of government. Bayan muna, bago ako , remember? (Comments to juliaclagoc@yahoo.com )