If you think this will be another bashing of the Philippines and Filipinos, please leave my blog. You are not welcome here, nor are your thoughts. If you seek negativity, you will find none here.

Last night, my friend and I were talking about what I'd do if I become president of the Philippines. I have this idea: If I become president of the Philippines, the first thing I'd work on is education. After that, because of all the graduates, I'd work on employment. Then the economy will improve. Then I'll work on agriculture, and then environment (Because the Philippines is a beautiful place.). [Now that I think about it, I need to work on health first because sickly people can't study, hello. ONLY THEN can I work on education, then employment...]

Let me direct you to blogs I frequent. They belong to my friends, Julie Reyes and Pam Quizon. Please take the time to read them. They are fairly short but very moving.

PamQ's entry
Julie's entry

Read them? Good. Now here's what I have to say:

There is hope yet for the Philippines.

I'm sure a lot of us Filipinos have been slapped countless times with our weaknesses - our colonial mentality, our well-renowned procrastination and bahala na - and I'm sure it hurt. But we have to come to terms with those weaknesses and then reconcile with them. Enough with the bashing, please. We must work to overcome our weaknesses, not wallow in them.

There is hope yet for the Philippines.

But Rome wasn't built in a day. Don't be ridiculous. Get your head out of the clouds and look at what's happening right now. It's painstakingly slow, but a revolution, an intellectual uprising, is well on its way. But we must be patient. It will take work, lots and lots of it. Maybe we won't live to see the fruits of our labor, but we must labor just the same, if not for our sake, then for the sake of those who come after us.

There is hope yet for the Philippines.

And ask yourself what you can do to help. Seriously. We complain, and we complain, and we complain some more and that's all that there is to it, right? Wrong. We must all be catalysts in furthering this cause. And what we do doesn't have to be something monumental. It can be a little thing like NOT forwarding hate mail about the Philippines and the Filipinos, or not littering, or learning our history. The little things matter. Take a look around. Take five minutes to look around you, and tell me whether the Philippines can't use every bit of help you can give.

There is hope yet for the Philippines.

And I believe this. With every single ounce of faith I can muster, I believe it. I'm preachy, yes. But only because I know we are capable of doing more, and, for some of us, hating less.

Our country is a work in progress. Two things in the sentence I want to highlight: work and progress. We must work. Only then can we progress. Yes? Yes.

Nothing is certain until the end. So we must hope. We must believe.

I love the Philippines. Do you?

Labels: thoughts

kitten posted @ 8:05 PM