Dear Editor,

Love and hate go hand in hand in the sense that we cannot truly/fully love someone without hating everything that goes against loving that person. Jesus Christ demanded such devotion from His followers. (Luke 14:26)

The same is true with loving our nation. Until public officials hate corruption, there’s nothing we can expect from them that would be adequate to address and stamp out the malaise.

The following is a personal confession of how I see BBM at this juncture in light of the longstanding problem of corruption and crookedness in the government and country at large.

With due respect, Your Excellency, Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr., you have yet to love the Philippines (“patawad po”) because you don’t seem to hate corruption. This is not anything political, neither am I being judgmental.

You only got mad when you said in your State of the Nation Address last year, “Mahiya naman kayo.” Or perhaps you just don’t hate corruption enough for you to emerge as a better leader and think/act right, be objective, prudent and indignant (truly, expectedly), consequent to all the exposés of ghost projects, insertions, pork barrel funds, the pocketing of confidential and intelligence funds, etc.

You don’t appear to hate corruption, or hate it enough to evolve as a President who will beat corruption before your term ends.

Things look a bit off for you, sir, as indicated by the way you (still) govern the country and trust your lieutenants like they are innocent newborn babies (e.g., Manuel Bonoan), aside from the manner by which you approved the 2026 national budget and how you’re handling/dispensing the budget like it is your own money. Again, “patawad po” for being frank, blunt and straightforward.

It looks like you have been jolted with only an intensity-3 temblor, after the actual, factual intensity-10 shocking, massively devastating betrayals and horrific, blatant, cataclysmic looting of the people’s money, vis-a-vis the fiasco in the Department of Public Works and Highways.

You appear to have been affected only slightly by the anomalous, ignominious revelations of “official depravity” and ransacking of the government coffers, one after another, courtesy of the animalistic/cannibalistic in the corridors of power (both government and private) involving all agencies, not just the DPWH.

I am praying hard for you, Mr. President, because I want you to finish your term with flying colors — for the country and God. Not for your glory or that of your family but in the service of the poor and poorer sectors of our society. Not of the avaricious, madly ambitious and opportunistic in the high echelons of our (rotten) body politic — but all for the upliftment of all Filipinos and the whole nation.

Let me say this for the nth time, dear countrymen, government corruption remains our number one problem. Until it is crushed, there is nothing any president or administration can do to alleviate the plight of Filipinos and to bring about a genuine “Bagong Pilipinas” that would soar to heights, competing with the best of the best in Southeast Asia.

At any rate, congratulations on the dismissal of the two impeachment cases filed against you in the Lower House. And Happy Valentine. Love the country. Hate corruption.

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” (Micah 6:8)

Reni M. Valenzuela

renimvalenzuela@yahoo.com