Filipino Pushcart Educator is CNN Hero of the Year

We Filipinos have seen just about everything – typhoons that are both monstrous and benign, a government that reaks of corruption and self-interest, a self-righteous Church that judges everyone else except itself, decades long violence in the Southern Philippine island of Mindanao, extreme poverty that surrounds us. We have been through a lot as a nation, and as a people. 

 That’s why stories like that of Efren Penaflorida don’t just make us proud, it gives us the hope that we so desperately need. Efren’s story shows us that we can choose to rise above our situation rather then be engulfed by it; that we can choose to solve a problem rather be part of it.

 Thank you, Efren for showing the rest of the world that where you’re from, everyone is a hero.

 Mabuhay!