Love the Philippines, warts and all, and help protect its people, natural resources, environment, etc.

The recent ad campaign project of the Philippines’ Department of Tourism dubbed as “Love the Philippines,” worth a staggering P49 million, is but a challenge to the international community to visit the country as tourists and at the same time LOVE the places, people, pilgrimages, cultural visits, and adventures in the midst of abject poverty, widespread corruption, and tyranny.

Love the Philippines and its people by:

Enjoying the sea, the cool waters, and rivers while being reminded of the many sacrifices of the people, especially indigenous communities, to protect and defend the land from an exploitative business agenda disguised as so-called “development projects.”

Praising and honoring the forests, mountains, and plains and joining the people in caring and ensuring that the next generation will enjoy these gifts of beauty, splendor, and life-sustaining nature, and similarly pass on such bequests to their children’s children. Note that the Philippines is one of Asia’s most dangerous countries for environmental activists and land defenders.

Visiting museums and historical places, and discovering how these connect with you and your country as well as the family and community you represent or to which you belong. Read, ponder upon, and consider the heroism and courage of our ancestors who resisted colonial plunder, oppression, and exploitation.

Talking and dialoguing with the community of farmers, progressive scientists, indigenous peoples, industrial workers, fisherfolks, and women who are engaged in social change. Listen, learn, and love the hope and struggle that they carry on so that we can live with dignity and pride.

“Love the Philippines” goes beyond a tourism agenda. If the global community loves the Philippines, this is the best time to visit the country. Gaze upon its people and places and the natural beauty of physical resources through the lens of environmental defenders and with the ecological perspective of protecting and defending the rights of the people to ensure sovereignty and patrimony. Listen to the stories of farmers, especially the poor ones, and agricultural workers who tend to the fields and till the land, who work hard from dawn to dusk and marvelously contour the lands and fields, yet their lives remain impoverished. Converse with nationalist historians and patriotic youth and learn with them, especially how they tell and retell of the overwhelming LOVE our heroes and martyrs offered to defend the motherland. You have all the rights and access to stay at plush hotels and condominiums, and you are also invited to listen to the stories of the demolitions of the homes of the urban poor to give way to high-rise buildings and towering edifices.

Do not be discouraged to come here, despite learning that one Larry Gadon who criticized a female journalist with his foul and repugnant words, now sits on the right side of the President as his anti-poverty adviser. It could be a shock to you, as it was to us. His law license was indefinitely suspended last year and now he has been disbarred by the Supreme Court, for his “misogynistic, sexist, abusive and repeated intemperate language” (“Palace keeping Gadon despite SC disbarment,” News, 6/29/23). Likewise, you might ask, why still love the Philippines, when the previous administration of Rodrigo Duterte has blood on its hands as thousands were killed in his “war on drugs”? And worse while the current administration has no plans to return to the International Criminal Court that investigates such bloody war on drugs.

Love the Philippines. Stand with its people in pursuing peace, truth, justice, democracy and in protecting the land, seas, rivers, forest, mountains, flora, and fauna.

Norma P. Dollaga,

Kapatirang Simbahan

Para sa Bayan,

kasimbayan@yahoo.com.ph