“Love is in the air!” This is the quotation that best describes the month of February. When we hear this month, Valentine’s Day comes to mind. In typical Filipino culture, Valentine’s Day is celebrated by modern courtship or dating, flower and gift giving, mall strolling, and hanging out. We do this sometimes to show our affection to our loved one. In connection to this, we can relate Valentine’s and the way we celebrate it to Filipino nationalism.
During Valentine’s day, we normally go to malls, parks, and lovely places but in expressing our nationalism, we can visit historical sites in the metro or in provinces. When dating, while dine-ins, and giving gifts and flowers are romantic, we can show our nationalism by buying local food, watching local movies (Indie films), buying local items to gift and flower shops to support local SMEs, and giving out indigenous items. Courting your loved one is a common way to show our love but if we showcase our nationalism, we can show our love by remembering our history and historical figures through reading their biography, studying history, and applying their positive traits for the benefit of our nation. Another romantic gesture is letter-giving wherein we can write letters and send it to someone through our local post offices to boost the Filipino culture of sending classic love letters.
There are also a lot of things to do for us to show our nationalism while celebrating Valentine’s Day. As a Filipino, aside from our loved ones, we should expand our deep affection to our tradition and culture, history, and to our kababayan. Nationalism and love cannot be separated, doing both every day and not only during occasion, can bring positive impact to our mother land.
