Sing to the tune of “Ang bayan ko’y tanging ikaw…”: (I) don’t love my own, my native land. Philippines, my Philippines.

A poet once wrote:
How do I love thee
Let me count the ways…

If every Filipino could only say those lines from the heart, the Philippines we see today would be a much better one.

Sadly, most of mother Philippines’ children seem to be saying, not in words but in deeds:
How don’t I love thee?
Let me count the ways.

The ways are many, but let’s explore a few just to prod us into deeper self-examination.

Philippines, I don’t love thee…

• When I am an employer and I keep two sets of payroll records: one true and one for the show. Show? Yes, show the Department of Labor inspector that I’m in “complete compliance” with minimum wage laws, wage orders, and other labor regulations by reporting heavenly figures. The true record is for my employees to master what they already know: below-minimum wage rate; extended hours with no overtime pay; deductions, authorized and otherwise; their signatures acknowledging that they received their pay and their hopefully correct and existing payslip.

• When I am a clever business person and I am quick to collect payment from my customers and slow — if not negligent — to pay my suppliers.

• When I am a merchant and I cheat my customers by: selling goods with hidden defects; selling defect-free goods which are cold-bloodedly overpriced; using tampered weighing scales so that a sale for 900 grams of rice would look like 1 kilo; selling imitation products and convince the buyer that it’s genuine.

• When I am a government official or employee and I have all the excuses not to attend to the needs of the transacting public unless an envelop stuffed with cash is secretly passed to me first, or “innocently” slid into my ready and waiting partially-opened desk drawer.

• When I arrive late at the receiving counter with a long line of people waiting to be serviced by the teller, and I don’t take my place at the end of the line but instead squeeze myself in at the space occupied by the first person in the line, or else find someone near the front of the queue and request that person to include my transaction with that person’s transaction.

• When I treat the road as the world’s biggest trash box by throwing out of the window of my car food wrappings, fruit peelings, used facial tissue, or any other item I classify as garbage (“What’s the street cleaner for?” I say).

• When I put the volume of my karaoke/videoke unit to maximum and sing to my heart’s delight without regard for the disturbance I cause to my neighbor either from my awful singing, or the offensive volume of sound, or both (This is a free country, I say).

• When I’m a driver and I use one hand and one eye to answer text messages in my cell phone while the car is in motion (I am an expert driver and I can drive with one hand and one eye, I say).

• When I have a habit of being late to work, in appointments, in events wherein my prompt arrival counts.

• When I only want to be served but I am unwilling to serve others; when I only want to receive favors but unwilling give the same; and when I do give service or favors, I do it half-heartedly.

• When I’m a voter and I don’t even care about knowing who the candidates are; or when I’m a voter and I don’t exercise my right to vote; or when I’m a voter and I sell my vote (I’m just being practical, I say).

• When I run for public office and my real agenda are to use my position to feed my ego, to use my power to oppress others, and to use my office to amass private wealth.

• When … etc.

Where’s the love for the Philippines when one Filipino can’t love other Filipinos by showing them the consideration they deserve as fellow human beings? Where’s the love when everybody seems to be saying “I’m merely doing to them what they do to me; I follow the golden rule“?

How can we be in a position to contribute to the progress and welfare of this country when it’s nearly impossible for us to declare with all honesty that we love the Philippines?

Why do our people have the nerve to blame the government alone for the sorry state the Philippines is in, when the root cause of all the ills is the inability of the same people to love their country?