A letter from Gregory J. Smith to Mark Solis's mother

Editor's Note: Gregory J. Smith is the original owner of the photograph that UP grad student Mark Vincent Solis claimed as his own and, through it, won a Chilean embassy photography contest. This letter to Filipinos and to Solis's mother Amelia is in response to her on-air apology on behalf of her son, which Mr. Smith saw on GMA News.

Dear friends, colleagues, and followers in the Philippines.

 

I was hoping to keep this short, but then I have never been a man of few words, so please bear with me. 
 

First, I am extremely happy to see so many of you join us on Facebook these last few days. Even though I’m sure that most of you would have preferred a rather different situation to bring your attention to my organization’s social endeavors in helping children at risk in Brazil. And, on a very small scale, also to the Philippines. But then new experiences always bring us new knowledge, and I am hoping that we can all learn something from this recent and most unfortunate episode created by Mark Joseph Solis, which seems to have engaged and rocked the entire Filipino society in a re-evaluation of its moral and ethical values. 

 

We only need to look around us, in the world today, to see that it is often tragic circumstances that provoke us to reaffirm our moral and ethical values. This is especially important in developing countries like Brazil and the Philippines, where our governors, either seem to generally lack the basic knowledge of such values, or simply neglect the importance of them to a developing society and its future generations. 

 

In this respect I feel our two countries are similar in many ways and unfortunately share many of the same evils, demanding from us all a constant need to correct those who unscrupulously challenge the moral and ethical principles that guide most of us law-abiding citizens in our plight for a more just and dignified society. 

 

On that point, we can all agree that Mr. Solis has failed, just like many of us sometimes fail during the course of our lives. But hopefully we learn from our mistakes and, generally speaking, all of us need a slap to the face, once in a while, to adjust our own egocentricity which, if not steered properly, can have tragic consequences on our lives and on the lives of those who are near and dear to us.

 

In Brazil, as in most other countries around the world parents, especially mothers, are central figures in the upbringing of their sons and daughters. I always say that mothers are the backbone of Brazilian society and it would not surprise me if this was not also true to a large extent in the Philippines, where the social and economic inequalities, just like ours, put an extra burden on mothers in their duties to bring up their children in a healthy and dignified manner. 

 

When tragedy first knocks on our doors, it is often the mothers who suffer the most; it is often the mothers who far too often have to carry the burdens of their sons' and daughters' wrongdoings.

 

We are not alone in this world; Solis is not alone in this world. There are hopefully those in our circle of family and friends that care and love us for whom or what we are, even when we sometimes lose direction.

 

I am the first to agree that Mr. Solis’s recent actions have only served to damage himself, as they damage the people who choose to assault banks and shops, steal cars, kidnap innocent citizens, rape women and children, practice physical or mental violence on others, start wars or even kill in their tormented ways to feed their egocentricity. 

 

There are so many wrongdoings in our world today that we often become speechless or even paralyzed for each new tragedy that provokes our own set of values and way of thinking. 

 

So, are we on the right track? It’s up to each and every one of us to choose the right direction and to help others around us to do the same because, in the end, we are all in the same boat together and what one person does right or wrong affects in one way or the other, dozens, sometimes thousands of people in their own circle.

 

I attend [to] numerous [other] mothers in my daily work with their children, and I feel deeply for them. I feel their suffering for sons and daughters who have often committed much worse crimes than Solis committed, or will probably ever commit, and I feel their often selfless love for their offspring. 

 

I felt that same love when watching the TV news broadcast [seen below].



While Solis’s words and articulations made no impact on me whatsoever, his mother’s simple and short apology to me, reminded me of who I am and what I represent in an ever tormented world. And I would have honestly wished to be beside her at that exact moment to share and comfort her in this sad moment of deception. 

 

It takes courage for a mother to speak out the way she did and I have immense respect for such people, no matter who she is trying to defend, because I have met them all here in Brazil before; mothers of killers, rapists, kidnappers, and thieves. 

 

As a mother she knows and understands only too well her son’s wrongdoings; but as a mother she has the ability to forgive and to guide, but do we have that same ability? I ask you?

 

I am known as a compassionate person although I don’t feel much compassion for how far Mr. Solis was willing to go in his absurd greediness for recognition, fame, and fortune. Those consequences he will now have to face due to the wrong choices he made and he will feel the after effects of them for many years to come. 

 

However I, here and now, openly accept his mother Amelia’s sincerest apologies to me for her son’s wrongdoings. I also have the capacity to forgive Solis for what he did and hopefully he has learnt a lesson from his fellow Filipino citizens that such things are not tolerated in a dignified society where we all have a responsibility for each other.

 

Good people, let’s move on now, because justice has already been done. 

 

We don’t want a tragedy worse than what we already have. That young man needs to move on too, change his attitudes and redirect himself on the right pathway to success, which we all know, is only possible through honest and hard labour, something Mark Solis will obviously have to learn along the way, because there is no other way.

 

Thank you for hearing me out!

 

Gregory J. Smith -- KDM, GMA News

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Gregory J. Smith is a social entrepreneur with the global network Ashoka and the founder of the Children At Risk Foundation. He is a Norwegian national who works in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This letter originally appeared on September 26 his Facebook Timeline. We are posting it here with his permission.