You Cannot Eat Nationalism

Leandro V. Coronel

This Country is going to the dogs. The misery index of many Filipinos must be unconscionably high. The
quality of life is abominably low. By this we mean that the average Filipino must contend daily with a
pitiful lack of basic necessities pertaining to hygiene, nutrition, clean air and water, housing, etc.

My Understanding: Our country is getting poorer and poorer. The quality of life among Filipinos is so low
that the basic needs are not enough especially on hygiene (cleanliness), nutrition, clean air, etc.

Economic growth faltering as it is currently continues to be unequitable. Too much of the nation’s
wealth is in the hands of too few people. The rich get all the gravy and the poor the crumbs. Keith
richburg of the Washington Post was right we are the Asian equivalent of apartheid South Africa. The
filthy rich among us are the pre-Mandela Afrikaners and the multitude of grindingly poor Filipinos the
blacks.

My Understanding: Economic growth is shaky. Wealth is only for the few rich.

Our politics is immature and our politicians are either shrewd manipulators or clueless buffoons. Our
politicians are slick snake-oil salesmen who’ve continually sold us fake elixirs, promising to cure all our
maladies.

My Understanding: Our polities are immature and our politicians are clever manipulators, tricky and
fond of promises.

We Filipinos are too child-like and immature. Many of us bristled with anger when James Follows the
American journalist and presidential speechwriter, called our a “flawed culture” because of, among
other faults, our lack of a sense of public responsibility. But he was right. Look around you and witness,
for example, our careless disregard for our surroundings. I’ve been to many countries but ours is the
only one I know where people throw away their litter freely wherever they please. And let’s not even
get into what men do when they nonchalantly walk up to a wall or the side of a vehicle and unzip
themselves.

My Understanding: We Filipinos are irresponsible people. We throw our litters wherever we please.
Men urinate wherever they please too.

The Philippines slide to ruin wasn’t greased only by our lecherous leaders, the one’s who’ve sold us out
of greed, cowardice or treason. We’re not at the edge of the precipice only because our politicians have
been corrupt. We’re not in abyss only because the rich have pigged out on the nation’s wealth. We’re
not in a morass because of the scheming foreigners who’ve come and gone carrying away the nation’s
treasures.
The Philippines is not only destroyed by our corrupt leaders but also by dishonest foreigners who come
and go carrying away our treasures.

We’re nation close to despair and destruction because we’re allowed all the greed and lechery and
manipulation to happen. We’re been apathetic and uncaring about the welfare and future of our
country. The sightless but insightful Helen Keller said: “Science may have found a cure for most evils but
it has found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings.”

We don’t care about the welfare and future of our country. We allow greediness and manipulation to
happen to us.

We Filipinos don’t have enough love of country and the collective foresight and resolve to put our
shoulders to the notion’s buttresses and keep it safe and sound. By our collective actions we’ve
succeeded only in bringing our country and ourselves down. And let’s get it right: it’s not only our
politicians, police and petty public servants who are corrupt. All of society is corrupt.

All levels in our society is corrupt.

If we don’t do something soon, we will be plunging our country in civil conflicts large and small. Anarchy
and chaos will reign and economic ruin will prevail. As is, economic and moral deprivation have driven
many of our fellow citizens to crime, various from of prostitution and, worse, overseas where they often
have the status of chattel.

If we don’t do something soon, immorality will prevail.

As it is, only the timid still obey the law. The government has lost its moral authority to lead the people
and the might to fight the enemies of public order. The citizenry feels the government has been of no
use or aid to them. No wonder then that we Filipinos have no sense of loyalty to the nation. Why else
would many of us be abandoning it in droves and adopt, without any pangs of guilt, another country as
our own? How else explain the tepid attitude among most of us toward the centennial celebration of
our independence?

If the government will fail to look after the citizens then there will be no loyalty and nationalism.

There is no sense of gratitude among us for being a Filipino. What good is nationalism if the symbol of
the nation, the government, fails or even refuses to look after its citizens? A hungry populace cannot eat
nationalism. You cannot extract gratitude from a neglected ward.

But would we really allow our country to smolder in poverty and crime and eventually expire as a viable
nation, as a “tiger economy” as we’ve been boasting over the past few years? Would we really accept
the fate of a failed society? A spent culture? A defeated
I don’t think so. We’re too intelligent a people to let that happen. But it will take a new attitude, a new
mentality, a new approach, a new thinking, indeed a new culture to reverse our courage to do it for, as
Confucius said: “To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.”

Change, therefore, is what the times require. “There is a certain relief in change,” wrote Washington
Irving. “As I found in traveling in a stagecoach,” Irving continued, “it is often a comfort so shift one’s
position and be bruised in a new place.”

As we go about changing the way we do things, we will suffer bruise in many places. We will be black
and blue in many spots. We may end up scarred. But the bruises and the scars will be worth the effort if
to we do change for the better. The only way to succeed is to begin. The beginning of the year is a good
time to start.

As an intelligent people we can easily change positively our attitude to make our country great again.
“We should work not words.”