But I love this country!

This is my response to that commentary in PDI, which by now a lot have already read and commented to.

I spent the last 4 years of my life working for the Pro-Life advocacy. What we do is to defend the most basic foundations of this society: life, marriage, and family. In a nutshell, we are ensuring the future of our children - even the children of those who do not believe in our cause - that they may be born into a country where life is protected, the sacredness of a marriage between one man and one woman is upheld, and the bond of the family is strengthened. After all, a country whose citizens are upright is a country of progress. And upright citizens come from families where they learned values and virtue.

For doing what we do, we are branded as hypocrites, bigots, haters, religious zealots, fanatics, medieval, backward-thinking, people from the dark ages, crazies, "Catholibans" (Catholic Talibans), homophobic, unchristian, "bobo", idiot, "tanga" etc. In fact, pro-lifers hold the unofficial record of being the recipient of so many derogatory terms in one lifetime.

Do we mind being called such mean names? Most of the time, we don't even care if they call us such, because we love this country so much. The hate comes with the job. And the job calls us to love our country

I love this country! This is where I was born. I love the fact that this country is a beautiful land filled with beautiful people.

I love it that we are a race of world-class workers. The Philippines cannot conquer the world, but Filipinos can.

Of all the countries in Asia and in the Pacific, this is where God chose to plant the seed of the Catholic faith so many centuries ago when Magellan accidentally discovered our islands.

This is the country that our heroes and patriots shed their blood for. I want to do the same. Our heroes believed in this country; they did not die just for us to hate the very country they died for.

I do not hate this country, even though it has given me every reason to do so.

Given, this country ain't perfect. The traffic situation is just impossible, the politicians are crooked, the people can get greedy too, sometimes. Every election, provided the elections weren't rigged to begin with, people vote for the same scumbags that screw them over a thousand times, and the ones who run are only those who can afford the expense of running for public office; in short, more scumbags.

But I still love this country. I would like to see the day when the upright and the wise do stay in this country and run this country with a vision for the common good. For the mean time, hoping against hope, I continue to spread the Pro-Life message, because I believe it is the way to building this nation from the ground up.