Let’s talk about ‘I Love’

I so believe in love. Increasingly, I feel it as a force that brightens, lifts — and is the prime connector. Cliche as it may sound, love should be what makes the world go round. 

So what is love? It’s such an overused word. 

For me, love is a connection to the Divine. When I meditate every day, I can feel the force of love. And when I talk to people and feel them, I feel it — the force of love. It is such a great connector. 

In my very biased view, the great strength of Filipinos — of our race — is our ability to love. We are such a feeling race. We actually feel more than we intellectualize. We feel. I love.  The connection gives me joy. I feel happy when I go to the field and connect to people. Give them hope — I can feel their energy rebounding back to me. It is exhilarating! 

I feel supremely blessed to have been born in the Philippines — and be part of a race that is primed to love. 

My increasing realization is that love is the foundation of economic growth. It is not the money, or the technology, or a theory that is going to bring our country forward — it is love. 

This exists in all classes. I feel the heartiness when I talk to the upscale class. I can feel it when I talk to millennials. I can feel it when I talk to farmers and fishermen. It is an inherent component of our psyche, individually and as a people. 

So, what is love? I have come up with key components of expressions of love in the development field — the premier of which is integrity. If there is no transparency, no honesty — if it is duplicitous — and has hidden agendas, it is not love. Love is sincere — it is genuine and it is true. 

• Care of the environment. If we mutilate the world in which we live, the poor suffer. It is not love. Taking care of what God has given us is a key component of love. 

• Working together. An inherent expression of love is working together. Love is not judging, not putting people in boxes, it is seeing the inherent goodness in all — and connecting with that. Love is forgiving, letting go — communicating — and, yes, working together. One plus one equals 100. 

Business, entrepreneurship is a key component of development, but it can’t just be about the money. It needs to be compassionate. It should have decency, a commitment to principles.

When I was heavily involved in the clean-up of our esteros, one of the exhilarating effects is the lessening of crime. In Estero de Paco, what the researchers found was that the blotter statistics in the precincts had decreased by 40 percent — and I didn’t even deal with the police at all. The environment is intimately linked to one’s state of mind. In fact, in antroposophy, it is stated that if one’s sense of smell is continuously subjected to foul odor, then the first to be affected is one’s sense of morality, one’s sense of right and wrong. It makes sense that the crime rate in congested areas with poor septage and not much light and water is very high.

Life is an integration of various components. The lines are not rigid but rather a free flowing of energy.  In development, we need to look at everything from one integrated whole. This is why development is a collage of various elements coming together to make one beautiful piece. 

Since I can’t work for government and the private sector for a year, I have started an organization called I LOVE which stands for Investments in Loving Organizations for Village Economies. It’s building the country from the bottom up. My passion is to facilitate green models throughout the country where our people live better lives in record time. The key to success here is the ability to work together. To dream, to go out of the box, to look at possibilities coming from a space of love — of concern, of empathy.  I am often in awe of the ideas that come when one really cares. 

If there are people, institutions that want to get involved in I LOVE, or donate to communities on the ground, there is a slew of emerging possibilities. Please email hellogina@gworld.ph.

I  want to land a piece of  heaven in this country. When my father died, I started reading all these books of people who had “gone to the light” In almost all of the cases, they didn’t want to come back. Consistently, what they say is that the key element when one “leaves” is the experience of peace, of love. Heaven is love. Why do we have to die to experience heaven? Why can’t we land a piece of heaven here, right now? You know the song  I believe I can fly. The phrase I like before the chorus is: There are miracles in life I must achieve.

But first I know it starts inside of me!

If I can see it — then I can be it

If I just believe it — there is nothing to it!

I believe I can fly...

Beautiful, no? I love singing it with a crowd. Gets everyone, including myself, on a high.

Love you all. We hope ... we dream ... we do.