Many works of art depict love for the land where one was born into this world. These are affirmations of the idea that each man is bound to respect the country where he took his first breath. The same idea is carried in our legal system. Treason is punished because the country as parent of each citizen provides security and protection. Its only demand from each citizen is loyalty. Underlying this framework is the assumption that it is natural for each citizen to love his country; each citizen, under the constitution, may be called upon to protect the country when under attack from foreign forces. One may be required to lay his life for it.
Love of country has been such a noble idea that it has existed even before countries, as we know them today, were formed. The movie 300 depicts how the city-state of Sparta, led by its king, fought a battle impossible to win. The idea best thought of in the Hellenic tradition. Despite its age, its brilliance continues to draw men to serve his country; up to this day, laying down one’s life for the country is still as noble.
However, citizens of countries today do not enjoy the same regard citizens of city-states had for theirs. The Philippines is currently experiencing massive outward immigration. It is estimated that as much as one-third of the Philippines’s citizens are residing outside the country temporarily or permanently. More conservative estimates put the figure at one-fifth. Lack of an actual number notwithstanding, it is proven by the fact that not a single Filipino cannot say that there is no OFW in their family.
A citizen in a country like ours might ask, “How can one love a country which does not provide enough? How can this country be loved when it seems there is no hope for it to become a better place to live in?”
I think the first reality that needs to be recognized is the fact that our country was formed not by force of culture or tradition but artificially by oppression and exploitation. Proof is abundant. The capital city of the country was pulverized during the Second World War. But all around the country remnants abound. The walls of Intramuros stand witness to the shelling. Liberation of the Filipino people was not the point of the Battle for Manila. It was between two oppressors vying for the right to exploit it. The country has been the object of such oppression and exploitation as far as the collective memory extends.
When one sees the way this country was ravished, it will be hard for him to leave it while it is vulnerable. However, most often than not, when the Filipino views his country’s colonial past, there is a failure to recognize the violence involved in it. It is possible that we have grown callous to the violence of oppression. However, this is not the case. The oppression that impinges on this country is of such sophistication that its citizens have been desensitized to the point of ignoring it.
The walls of Intramuros stand today as a reminder that they were not made to protect the Filipino. They were made to keep them in so the oppressor will have a cheap source of labor. The overwhelming acceptance of foreign investments in the outsourcing industry is a misplaced trust. Indeed, our country benefits from the inflow. But instead of liberating our economy, the point of these investments is to actually make it more dependent on a larger economy.
The second realization that needs to be seen by each citizen is the fact that his fate is intrinsic to the fate of his country. If people do see the violence of oppression and merely shrug shoulders, they are not properly responding to such an abhorrent sight. Again, such oppression is of a level of sophistication as to fool one to exhaust all his efforts in advancing his own good. Such an attitude divides the citizens even further. It is true that there are some citizens of this country who find the oppression objectionable from amongst the hundreds of others which simply see it and do not know how to respond to it.
Many would often complain about the lack of services and say that it is the country’s job to provide for its citizens. They fail to recognize that he is part of the thing that he says fails to extend him security. As a consequence, one may become selfish. To an extent, those who choose to go out of the country fail to recognize that their action was crafted by oppression itself. When one is able to situate one’s destiny as constituting that of his country, he will have more patience in trying to resist an escapist approach to the problem. Being one with the country would inspire one to pursue a proactive stance which truly engages at its source.
The third realization that a citizen needs to come about is that continued adherence and constant struggle constitute love of country. Love of country is not a natural inclination of men. Given a chance, men will be tempted to advance personal gains at the expense of others. The sum total of such action is a net deficit on the country. As such, it is rightly viewed that the oppression is maintained by those who benefit from it. Adherence to the country means restraining one’s self from such temptation.
Aside from constantly desiring to be part of one’s country, love for it entails a struggle. The first struggle being restrictive of one’s self from taking advantage of others; second corollary struggle is to learn how to deal with the oppression without taking advantage of other’s ignorance or weakness. The third struggle is to discern where one’s struggle must be directed. This is having the end in mind. That end is a country fully alive because its citizens love it, and do so not in consideration of some benefit but upon the realization that I AM MY COUNTRY.
The development of collective consciousness was abruptly cut when the elite hi-jacked the revolution in 1896, then collaborated with the colonizers so that they will gain, while the rest of the people were oppressed and slaughtered.
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