In the everlasting debate on ethical issues affecting our country, and with all the efforts undertaken to reverse the slide of moral values, the family is not always recognized as a main and powerful agent of change.
   We forget that our constitution, as well as those of several other countries, recognizes the family as “the foundation of the nation.” There is no doubt that Filipinos regard the family as the center of their lives, their primary support and source of moral strength. As Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, said last June, the “Filipino family continues to be strong, in spite of the attacks directed against it.”
   One would be tempted to say that with such a strong formation, our country should be an example of virtue and probity. Instead… If there is actually nothing wrong about the Filipino family per se and the wonderful values passed on from one generation to the next, why the continuing decline of moral values?
   The fact is that if we want to be serious about tackling the erosion of moral values, we should start where it all begins. We dare to say that the problems and solutions to our land’s woes can be found in our homes, in the relationships between spouses, with their children and relatives, as well as with other families.
   What we need to do is to apply the way we live in the family to society at large. If the family is the problem, the family is also the solution. For instance, most people would recognize the fact that the family is the source of their happiness. “My family first and foremost!” Nice words… when this means putting our relatives’ priorities before our own. But what if in so doing, we ruin other people’s lives, and therefore other families?
   Let’s take the issue of corruption. Most of the people who engage in it justify their action by saying they need to provide for their families. But they may forget that by exploiting their position for their own gain (i.e. their families), they bring misery to other families.
   If instead, we consider our relatives a part of a greater family, we may start applying what we live in our homes to all the people around us and moral values would start resurfacing in everyday life.
   Chiara Lubich, in a powerful message to the New Families of the Focolare in 1993, pointed out how the family could be the real model for society. “God created the family,” she said, “as a model and prototype for every other form of human community. This then is the family’s task: to keep love always alive, reviving those values that God has given the family and bringing them everywhere into society, generously and tirelessly.”
   Then too, The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, in its January 2006 Public Statement entitled Renewing Our Public Life Through Moral Values has indicated the family as the focal point of evangelization.
   Moral values are not declining, as they have been imprisoned in inner family circles. It would be enough to liberate them, and consider every person we meet as part of our own family, applying to them the same standards we use when dealing with our close relatives. We would see an immediate revival of our country’s magnificent traditional values.