AS I was taking my dinner in a restaurant in Makati, I couldn't help but overhear a Filipino diner expressing his embarrassment over his country's shameful performance and image as seen by the whole world. "The officials are corrupt, the crime rate is so high, its people are cowards..." were just some of the sardonic remarks coming from him.

     Similarly, in other occasions, I have heard other Filipinos talk deprecatingly against the Philippines. They see so much mess in the way things are run and how the younger ones are absorbing the corrupt values of their elders. They sight that things may no longer become better even in their lifetime. They bewail the fact that national problems have overlapped and intertwined with each other that future leaders will be lost as to how and where to begin solving them.

     Others have expressed their frustrations by migrating. Others have given up and accepted lowly jobs overseas just to bring food to their tables. Others, despite being placed in harm's way like in Iraq, have chosen dangerous jobs over (as they perceive) dying in hunger in the Philippines.

     To these people, the Philippines is no longer for them or their children but for the rich and the powerful few including foreigners who can corrupt those in influential positions.

     Perhaps it's about time that Filipinos look back to their glorious past when despite experiencing centuries of tyranny they threw away the yoke of foreign rule and declared independence. If that's too long ago, perhaps they can look back into the not-so-distant past when they bloodlessly overthrew an enthrenched and corrupt dynasty and in its stead put a housewife to rule over this country.

     I do not spouse rebellion but a change of heart, a change of spirit-the rise from the gutters of defeatism to the upper hil of pisitivism-from hatred to love of country, from shame to pride of being a Filipino.

     Filipinos must remember that the Philippines is their mother country and though it might have delivered dozens of black sheep, it has also produced hundreds of sons and daughters looked up to by the world as heroes and champions.

     Filipinos must remember that God has provided them a land so greatly blessed that foreigners have traveled afar and even shed blood to possess it.

     With this remembrance, perhaps Filipinos can wallowing in self-deprecation and start initiating steps to recover their pride and liberate their beloved country from the tentacle of the greedy and the corrupt who are not only turning the people's patrimony into their personal heirloom but are the cause of shame to the Philippines.

     So instead of "cursing in the dark", eloquent Filipinos should now "light their candles" by continuously expressing the Filipinos' rights to better government, to better education, to better life. The not so eloquent in speech can speak through their actions by not condoning corrupt practices and ostracizing neighbors who get rich through graft.

     Being a Christian nation, Filipinos should express their concern by asking their spirtual leaders to look into the lifestyle of the members of their flock. Spiritual leaders should focus on those who shamelessly join their spiritual rallies just before election time to get the votes of their flocks. If these government flaunt their power and wealth far beyond their incomes, then the spiritual leaders must denounce them publicly and erase them from their church's membership.

     OFWs, who are better off than most of their countrymen, must share the heavy burden of reclaiming the greatness of the Philippines. Although they are already partially doing this by working far from their loved ones to keep the Philippine economy afloat, nevertheless OFWs must exert more effort to influence Philippine leaders. This they can do by discarding the walls of ethnicity, religion, regionalism and other personal differences that divide them and then forming a strong bond of unity so that as one strong and dedicated force, OFWs can have the leverage to implement change especially the change of leaders.

     For its part, UPAK through Pinoy Balita is willing to support OFWs in Korea in their march towards UNITY and encourage them to get back that wonderful feeling of being proud to be Filipino.