The first week of January 2024 brought a sea of devotees of Our Lady of Perpertual Help to Baclaran, and the Black Nazarene to Quiapo, to ask for blessings and guidance for the new year. Religiosity is part of the Filipino psyche. But it should not end with attending the holy mass, lighting a candle, walking on one’s knees, and wiping with a handkerchief and kissing the hands and feet of the Nazarene. Most devotees pray for miracles of healing and financial prosperity but have no plan of changing their perverse ways. This devotion to images must be converted to devotion to country.

The perennial evils of poverty, crime and corruption have held back the upliftment of the lives of millions of Filipinos who endure low-grade education, high food prices due to inefficiencies in agriculture, delayed justice that impacts prison populations, inadequate health care and undermanned hospitals, daily grind of traffic jams and snail paced implementation of mass rapid public transportation projects, jumbled foreign policy influencing sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea, glitches in the supply of electricity, water, and internet instability. These all require government action, whether in the national or local level. But millions of ordinary citizens should not ignore the edict of being considerate of one’s neighbor to the betterment of our society.

It is truly embarrassing to observe the laziness of Filipinos dining in burger chains, coffee shops or convenience stores. After consuming their meals, they simply rush out without even putting away their trash in recycling bins of the joint. An acute episode of Alzheimer’s has wiped out in their minds the school’s instruction of Clean As You Go or CLAYGO. And even in their own homes, Filipinos are indifferent to the need to segregate garbage (degradable and non-degradable materials such as plastic, paper, and cans). They leave it up to the local government garbage collector without PPE to do the unsanitary task of scavenging and segregating recyclable plastics, paper and cans amidst the filth of domestic garbage. Many Filipinos are oblivious to the fact that dumpsites have a fixed serviceable lifespan which is cut short by this failure to recycle.

Instead of taking care of streams, springs and rivers, Filipinos treat these bodies of water as cesspools and mini dumpsites. They have this idiotic belief that local government is there, together with students engaged in community service of NSTP, to clean up the mess they made. They have forgotten the lesson that nature penalizes men for abusing the environment. In addition to pollution, we have to contend with floodwaters thickened with mud and garbage that carries leptospirosis and other diseases.

We also note the selfishness of Filipinos with respect to their real properties. Wanting to make use of every square meter of land, they ignore the “easements” set by the Civil Code such as “light and view” of windows and walls, setback distance of 2 meters on party walls, Altius non tollendi, drainage, architectural motif, and other deed restrictions of the subdivision. With the exception of a few upscale subdivisions that strictly enforce easements on lot owners, most subdivisions end up looking as blighted low-cost row houses standing side by side as fire hazards waiting to be engulfed by fire. The law on easements were made to put into practice the biblical edict to love thy neighbor as one self. Unfortunately, the religiosity of Filipinos has not permeated to kind consideration of their fellowmen.

We Filipinos must do our share in making life better for everyone. This Filipino religiosity expressed by devotion to images must be converted to devotion to our country and consideration of fellowmen. Otherwise, one ends up being called a religious hypocrite.