The day I saw ordinary Filipinos once again lining up for hours under the heat to secure a few kilos of rice—while politicians grinned behind tarpaulins the size of basketball courts—I felt something inside me crack. Not anger alone. Not disappointment alone. Something heavier. For the first time in my life, I caught myself whispering a sentence I never imagined I would say with a straight face: I regret being born Filipino. And that realization frightened me more than the crisis itself.
I grew up believing that the Filipino spirit could survive anything. We survived dictatorship, typhoons, earthquakes, corruption scandals, coups, inflation, and endless promises packaged like cheap shampoo sachets during election season. We were always told that resilience was our greatest strength. But lately, I have begun to suspect that the word “resilience” has also become a convenient sedative handed to exhausted citizens so they will continue enduring what should never have been normal in the first place. People who are constantly praised for surviving misery eventually stop asking why misery keeps visiting their doorstep like an uninvited relative who knows he will still be fed.
What crushes me most is the shamelessness. Corruption in this country is no longer hidden behind curtains; it dances in public like a drunk uncle at a fiesta who has lost all awareness of embarrassment. Officials accused of anomalies still win elections. Government agencies promise transparency while documents vanish faster than pancit at a barangay birthday party. Political dynasties multiply like mosquitoes after rain. And somehow, those who steal from the public treasury still manage to speak the language of patriotism with perfect confidence, wrapping themselves in the flag as if nationalism were detergent strong enough to wash away greed.
Then comes the economic frustration that ordinary Filipinos carry daily like sacks of hollow blocks on their backs. Prices climb mercilessly while salaries crawl like tired snails. Jeepney drivers count coins with trembling patience. Teachers work double jobs. Nurses leave for other countries because loving the Philippines no longer pays the bills. Even young professionals who did everything “right”—earned degrees, worked hard, stayed disciplined—still feel financially trapped. We are told the economy is growing, yet many Filipinos experience that growth the way one experiences a rainbow: visible from afar, beautiful in reports, but impossible to hold.
What makes the situation more painful is the normalization of incompetence. In other countries, a major public blunder can end political careers. Here, some officials survive disasters they themselves worsened. Flood-control projects fail while cities drown repeatedly. Transportation systems malfunction so often that commuters speak of them the way farmers speak of unpredictable weather: irritating, exhausting, but expected. Press conferences sometimes sound less like governance and more like variety shows with microphones. I often wonder how a country blessed with intelligent citizens continuously ends up being managed by people who mistake slogans for solutions.
Social media worsened the sickness. Every crisis instantly becomes a gladiator match between fanatics defending politicians as though they were their favorite basketball teams. Facts drown in edited clips, fake quotes, recycled propaganda, and comment sections boiling with insults. I have seen Filipinos attack fellow Filipinos more passionately than they criticize actual corruption. Some people no longer vote for competence or integrity; they vote for emotional attachment, family loyalty, celebrity appeal, or algorithm-fed outrage. Politics has become entertainment, and the nation is paying for the tickets with inflation, debt, and lost opportunities.
Yet despite all this bitterness, what hurts me most is that I still love this country. That is the tragedy of it. If I did not care, none of this would wound me so deeply. I still love the sound of tricycles at dawn in the provinces, the chaos of wet markets, the humor of Filipinos during blackouts and floods, the old women gossiping outside sari-sari stores, the fishermen waking before sunrise, the students commuting half-asleep with heavy backpacks and impossible dreams. The Philippines is beautiful. That is precisely why watching it repeatedly betrayed by greed feels unbearable. Loving this country today sometimes feels like watching a gifted child continuously ruin his own future.
I do not think the answer is blind optimism, nor permanent cynicism. One is denial; the other is surrender. What I believe now is that patriotism should no longer mean defending politicians like saints or romanticizing suffering like a national hobby. Loving the Philippines must include demanding better from it—better leaders, better institutions, better voters, better memory, better standards. Maybe the real proof that I still care is that I remain angry. Because indifference is quieter than frustration, and the day Filipinos completely stop feeling ashamed, outraged, and disappointed by corruption and incompetence, that may be the day the country is truly lost.
