Pro Deo et Patria

"Pro Deo et Patria" - "For God and Country"

Through elementary to high school, I studied at St. Andrew's School in Paranaque, Metro Manila. The St. Andrew's of my time was an all-boys Catholic high school. It is the same school that my father, most of my uncles, cousins and many of my best friends had also attended. Our school motto is "Pro Deo et Patria".

I really didn't think much about this motto while I was in St. Andrew's. It is only now close to two decades later that I have come to understand the meaning and relevance of this motto in my life.

I wasn't really patriotic early in my life. And when sentiments of country did rouse from deep inside of me, it was not for the right homeland. God had to take me away from my own people and into foreign lands to stir beliefs inside of my heart greater than myself. I had had to fall in love with the homelands of other peoples first and have had to have my heart broken twice in order for me to realize that I could love no other place but home.

Now, I can truly say that my sense of patriotism has finally found a love worth loving in a land and a people that had loved me back from the moment my parents have conceived me in body and God had given me soul.

I love my country, the Philippines! And as Almighty God would have me love all things well, I shall, for God and Country, love her the way a son should love a mother. For I know that home is where my heart is and my native homeland shall and will always be the Pearl of the Orient Seas, the one and only Republic of the Philippines, and my people, the one and only Filipino nation.

So help me, God.

- EJ San Miguel