I care for this country, do you?

By Reginald Tamayo

I am a Filipino and I am proud of it. And I love this country not only because it is where I live but it is where my roots are. It is the sanctuary of the Filipino values I cherish and it is where I find my home and where my heart is. It is here where I was born and it is here where my final resting place will be.

I show my love for myself as a Filipino and for this country by being a good citizen. I don’t sit on my arms and just watch what is happening in this country. I humbly participate in molding this nation to become a better place even when there are some of us who spit on her face. I show my concern for this country by expressing my dismay and displeasure if the state of the nation is bleak and the political leadership is weak. I show my care for this country by encouraging those who bother to look deeper into themselves and find out how to make this country more decent and more respectable. I wish I could say something riveting or moving to them. They have though my prayerful wishes and my assurance that they will not be forgotten.

I am a voice of change and I would like to add this voice to the band of voices who call for a genuine moral change in this country. I am aware that there are also voices that speak noise. There is much political noise being heard nowadays. These are from politicians who think they are the political messiahs of this country yet they are like the biblical Pharisees who prayed sincerely before the public yet inwardly they are evil vipers.

The reason why we are in a cycle of national crises is we don’t love much our country. It is not love but apathy when we watch helplessly our country being gang-raped by some political psychopaths. It is not also love but boredom when we passively allow social issues to persist like illegal numbers game of jueteng, graft and corruption, immorality, and other social evils. There seems to be no Filipino leader anymore who has a moral purpose to make a difference in the lives of the Filipinos. Instead, it appears that we are pleased to cuddle the present crop of our leaders who wantonly deplete the resources of our physical environment and who drain off our resources in the social and moral environment.

It is not love that we are showing to this country but sheer hatred to our motherland when we are submissive, aloof, and detached to these nasty, revolting social realities we are in and worse ultimately foster them because we easily volunteer our silence due to our spinelessness.

I wish our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal or Ninoy had been born during these trying times to inspire us, to create meaning into our lives as a Filipino people, and lead us into a culture of genuine change. It is so sad that we don’t have the likes of them in our midst. Regretfully the leadership torch they passed to us had been extinguished by this present generation. This is a lifetime shame for this country.

Be that as it may, I am in love with this country. I wish I could be another Rizal or another Ninoy just to prove that I really love this country.