Respect in its Basic Form
I remember being lectured by our CLF (Christian Life Formation) teacher back in elementary school about respecting and honoring our parents. Being my usual self who dislikes blind obedience and always asks questions, I remember raising a specific question about abusive parents.
"What if the parent is abusive? What if they force you to blindly obey? What if they demand you to respect them like gods, but fail to respect you and treat you properly as their child? What if they don't really act as proper parents? What if they fail to respect you as a person? What if they throw bad words and curses at you, lashes out at you, hurts you irrationally?"
I clearly remember my teacher's reply: "If they really fail to act as good parents to you, you should still give them respect. If you can't respect them as your parents, at least respect them as human beings."
In addition to that, sadly, there are some people, that if you fail to respect them as authorities, they no longer respect you as human beings. For example, "pag hindi mo ko nirespeto bilang magulang mo, hindi kita rerespetuhin bilang tao." Which is just absolutely appalling.
So I guess it goes both ways. Doesn't matter if it's from a parent to a child, a teacher to a student, a sibling to a sibling, a boss to an employee, etc.
I hope everyone respects each other as human beings, regardless of authority, regardless of status, regardless of hierarchy, regardless of gender, regardless of religion, regardless of anything that differentiates us from each other.
Let's respect each other as human beings.
