In 12 Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country, Alex Lacson deliberately ends with:
“Be a Good Parent.
Teach your kids to follow the law and love our country because it’s the most long-term, generational form of nation-building.”
Raising children with integrity, civic responsibility, and patriotism means those values get multiplied over decades—but it doesn’t mean it's an easy task. These days, technology has made it all the harder to connect with children. While it has provided them access to a vast world of information and entertainment, it has consequently shortened attention spans, increased distractions, and replaced meaningful conversations with interactions on an interface.
That said, it would definitely be frustrating to be on the receiving end: the one who has to tolerate the indifferent nods and sighs, to toughen up and limit their gadget use, or witness the eye roll as you say the common phrase, “back in my day.”
In a world that rushes, making it easy to be trapped in a digital bubble, it feels pointless to slow down and patiently teach children about our nation, as we desire for them to have it. The pace of modern life seems to demand quick reactions, not slow lessons—so why should children be instilled with values that cannot be easily applied?
But that is precisely why those values matter more.
Parents and even parental figures, such as teachers, should still exhaust all means to try. After all, Lacson ties lawfulness and love of country together for a reason: one without the other is incomplete. To be human is to always exist within a community; it is impossible to remain untouched by the concerns of the nation, even if your privilege shields you from some of them.
We cannot raise children who follow the law without loving the country. In doing so, we raise passive citizens who can turn to blind obedience, and loving the country without respecting its statutes can lead to chaotic “patriotism” that ignores systems meant to protect it.
Even as we acknowledge the flaws in the education system that are beyond our control, we can still make changes that show our own integrity, civic responsibility, and patriotism. We can still teach a child how to grow by leading by example.
In doing so, we can teach without having to do so in a classroom. By becoming the nation-builders we strive to raise, a parent’s influence shapes not just a single life, but an entire future voter, taxpayer, and community member. Eventually, they may also become another parent who passes on and exhibits those same values.
Everything we do for the Philippines will last only as long as the next generation believes in it and practices it. This is something they know can be accomplished because of their community, which demonstrated it to them despite living in challenging times.
Be a good parent—or a good parent figure to a child. And now in the future, this will bear fruit and feel less like just a small endeavor, but instead of a labor of love for a thriving nation.
by Rae Goco