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Hi, I’m Lorie, and I am passionate about seeing the Philippines get off her feet.

Warning. The next few paragraphs are random, unstructured rants and questions. I wonder if you’ll be able to get anything from it, but heck, I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to spew for so long.

We all wonder why we are a country that seems deep in crap. Everyone I know seems to be flying the coop, to escape all the mud-slinging everywhere. It’s not just in the political arena, there is mudslinging even in our workplace, in our neighborhood, heck, even in our own homes. Where is this hostility coming from?

I don’t have answers to that. All I know is that I am annoyed. I am annoyed most of all at myself, because I do exactly what I abhor and criticize.

Cito Beltran once said in a church service he spoke in, that our national sin is… GOSSIP. I couldn’t agree more. What is it with my addiction to The Buzz anyway? I rationalize by saying that I am fascinated by human nature. Heck, what an idiotic assertion. Fascinated about what? How Ethel Booba is now trying to get her ex Alex Crisano to pay for his sports car?!

Now where is that perversion coming from anyway? The morbid fascination with other people’s lives?

And then there’s this one thing that I really am allergic to: why is it that the highest aspiration of the average Filipina is to marry a White Man?

I have nothing against Caucasians. I respect people of other races. But I think that we have such a macabre fascination with latching on to a White Person to get to our dreams. It is so perversely pervasive that I think being a mail-order bride is the highest aspiration of many of our beautiful women. Ugh.

We have been told for so long that we are no-good, that we can never stand on our own, that we are never going to be anything. We are mongrels, slaves, scum that can never be good enough. And what’s worse is that we believe it, and have turned this into a mantra that has become a recurrent theme in our lives.

Now that is what we have to break. We have to stop flogging ourselves with the poverty mentality. We have to get away from thinking we are in lack. Because the more we think, the more we believe. The more we believe, the more it becomes an ingrained, pervasive pattern in our lives.

True, you don’t know where to get baby’s formula tomorrow. True, the bills need to be paid. But you know what, the solution is not in chasing after money. If you do that, you are making money your god. You think money would be abundant if it becomes your obsession? NO. I believe that the more you chase money, the more it will be elusive. Why, because you totally ignored the one Source of all the riches you could ever need. He won’t give you the resources, because He only blesses those that seek after His heart. As He said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these will be added onto you.”

I believe that we do not have a money or a character problem. We all have a LORDSHIP problem. Our addictions have become our lords. Addicted to work, addicted to entertainment, addicted to religion. We have ignored the One who should be our Director, our Road Map, and the Road we walk on. We do not have a relationship with Him. Rather, He has become our piggy bank, our wishing well. We have stopped delighting in Him, we have turned Him into an institution to be either feared or abused.

I believe that this country is destined for greatness. But we are old wineskins. We have never unlearned what our colonizers have brainwashed us with. I believe it is about time that we allow our Winepresser to squeeze us of the old wine, then have Him make our old wineskins new, to make way for the new Wine: a new mindset, a new anchor/center in life, a new lifestyle.

Let us stop perpetuating negativity. Nip gossip at the bud, confront and negotiate through offenses, misunderstandings and conflict with openness and maturity. Stop the balat-sibuyas mentality. Let us be open to criticism and correction, so that we can learn or unlearn, get up, then move on and be better people.

Replace self-deprecating thoughts with encouraging ones. It would be good to use quotes from the Bible that have spoken to you. Turn these into a daily persistent reminder, and you will be one step to changing this country. As you realize and believe in your capacity, in our capacity as a nation, do what you need to do: be excellent in everything, have faith in God, and let’s count down for the day the Philippines becomes a prosperous country.

Bangon, Pilipinas, Bangon.

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