EDITORIAL - Confusing the flag with an ice cream booth

Officials, alarmed by the waning interest of Filipinos in observing Independence Day, are suggesting a variety of ways which they believe will help resuscitate such interest, if it is not beyond resuscitation already.

It is very clear from their suggestions - one is for the day to be declared a family day complete with booths, etc - that they have missed the point entirely. A family day may indeed lure families to booths, but they will be there for the ice cream, not the patriotic fervor.

Patriotic fervor is an internal thing. Its open display and manifestation cannot be lured out of the depths of being by frivolous fanfare and generous come-ons. If it is there, it will surface of its own volition, unbidden.

And just as it is not easy to bring to life, so it is not easy to kill. If it is dead in the Filipino soul, it died a long and agonizing death, finally giving up the ghost when it became clear its continued beating in a hostile and uncaring national breast was no longer tenable.

It died because the national pride that sustains it can no longer derive sustenance from a people grown weary of the repeated subjugation and rape of the national interest by politicians and corrupt bureaucrats.

In the end, the malaise at the top eventually served its perhaps unintended purpose of leading by example, such that sloth, greed and corruption no longer inhabited government as their preferred domain. The debauchery of an entire nation is complete.

What family day are we talking about in a nation whose families have become all too willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of parting ways in order to jump this sinking ship? What booths are we talking about when institutions fail to deliver even the most basic expectations?

Why the hell do we cry when Manny Pacquiao beats the hell out of a foreign opponent? Because we are so empty inside. The patriotically robust do not cry. They miss nothing. National pride comes as a matter of course. They do not confuse the flag for an ice cream booth.