We have seen al ot of people act and speak like Americans, dress and eat like Americans, think and write like Americans, in fact, live like Americans. But we have never seen one cry after becoming an American, until we saw te picture of two senior senior Filipinos in a newspaper recentyl, one breaking down and bawling like a kid, while pledging allegiance to the United States of America.
We never thought American citizenship could mean so much to some of our people. Maybe, they have to become one out necessity or for convenience or for whatever reason, but it never occurred to me that it could be an obsession.
We felt sad. It is as if our country, which has nrsed and rasied these people to manhood, can never give them the good life they have been dreaming of. Isn’t it enought that we have to leave our beloved country for another? Do we have to cry with joy? It is ironic that, while many of us are trying to disengage ourselves from the American or from anything foreign for that matter so that we could stand on our own two feet, here come these people displaying extreme colonial mentality.
we don’t want to be unkind to thses people because they are already old and probably wanted to experience a little prosperity and good life in their old age. But it is an insult to the dignity of the Filipino people to see their countrymen weep shamelessly, with joy, after being sworn in as American citizens.
While ti is true that the Philippines is not a land of milk and honey and that here, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, corrupt government officials and crooked politicians abound, politics is an industry, and it is afavorite playground of natural calamities, compounded by manmade disasters, still, we must bear in mind that the Philippines is our beloved land. This is where we weere born. This is the land our forefathers died for, and the land God gave us to cherish! Are we going to leave her because she is proverty-stricken? Our country need us today, tomorrow and forever. If we leave her, she will die! Let us stick to her, for better or for worse.