IF ANYTHING defines the Filipino, it may very well be that yearning for freedom. For no ancient monuments stand to suggest that we once had a golden age, although people of science continue to marvel at the technological genius and the intensity of the human will that went into the carving the Banaue rice terraces on sheer mountain faces. And no great literature exists to hint at a deep intellectual tradition, although the first Spanish friars who came to these islands found a highly literate people given to reading if not writing. But always--and for eternity, it seems--we Filipinos have strived for freedom. Indeed, Philippine history is little more than a story of freedom won, freedom lost and freedom regained.
An entry from the ''Diary of Lieutenant X,''an eyewitness account on the changeover of colonial power from Spain to the United States in 1898,reads: ''The real wealth of a country lies in the people themselves...A Filipino rebellion is not simply a political movement, it has the capacity to stop life itself. This is why exploiting the Filipinos could be a grave error on the part of the Americans.If it is their intention to make the Philippines their private fiefdom, they will have to eliminate the Filipinos or reduce them to slaves.''
What people are these for whom the American conquerors in Mindanao invented the .45 calibre to eliminate them?. And even then they would not bow to the designs of the foreign invaders.
What people are these who would attack a fully-armed Spanish encampment in Zamboanga bearing only bolos and knives led by a teenage farmer and teacher named Mariano de los Reyes?
What people are these who would stop the dictator's armed personnel carriers armed with nothing but bodies quivering not in fear, but exulting in the freedom that was nearly within their grasp.
Today the nation pauses to celebrate one of the high points in the Filipino's march to freedom. One hundred years ago, Filipino freedom fighters led by Emilio Aguinaldo declared that they were citizens of a free country. It was the culmination of three and a half centuries of resisting foreign rule, beginning with Lapulapu's triumph at Mactan. For more than 300 years, Filipino warriors like Dagohoy in Bohol and Sumoroy is Samar fought against the foreign oppressors. Then came the Propaganda Movement that set the stage for the the Revolution that carried the war to the very center of Spanish colonial power. For two years starting in 1896, the Filipinos, under the leadership of Andres Bonifacio and Aguinaldo, engaged the Spanish forces in battle after bloody battle. Then catching the scent of victory with the Americans deceptively on their side, they declared that they were finally free on June 12, 1896.
It was more of a wish than a reality. The United States had its own colonial designs. And six months later, the freedom that was at hand was taken away by the Americans, triggering a bloodier war that cost both sides tens of thousands of lives.
The end of the war marked the beginning of the struggle to regain freedom in another arena: the US Congress. But when the commitment was made to make the country free once more, the Japanese Imperial Army came and Filipino soldiers and guerrillas again had to take up arms to regain their freedom. The Japanese were driven out in 1945, and Philippine Independence was proclaimed, but still the country was not totally free. American firms enjoyed parity rights and US military forces remained at their bases.
Then a homegrown tyrant, no less than Ferdinand Marcos, emerged in 1972. The Filipinos lost their freedom along with their human rights and the nation's wealth. But the impulse to be free remained strong and in 1986, the people rose in a peaceful revolution at Edsa to drive Ferdinand Marcos out of power and out of the country.
In 1992, the country finally cast away the final vestiges of colonialism when the Senate rejected a new US bases treaty.
Now what remains to be done is the equally difficult task of liberating our people from native oppression so that they may be free from fear, ignorance and want.
A lot of people have wondered why we commemorate our defeats(Fall of Bataan,Fall of Corregidor,Fall of Manila,etc.) instead of our triumphs. But our defeats were triumphs of the spirit: The impulse to be free always remained to lift our souls from despair and inspire us to fight on until freedom was regained.From Kawit to Edsa, we served as an inspiration for our neighbors' own struggles to be free.
There's no legacy more noble that we can bequeath to our children and the community of nations.
Color us proud
YOU are seeing the Inquirer in red, white and blue with stars and sun shining brightly on its pages for the first time in its 12-year history. We are not quite ready to go color daily until July 31. But we had to do it. We couldn't let this day pass without painting the town red. A day that comes only once in a hundred and twenty years.
The color matches the nation's fiesta mood today. The nation takes on the color of its multi-hued history of falling down and getting up, of defeats and triumphs, and in between, always a people shaping and directing their own destiny. And dreaming to be the best the Filipino can be.
Color the Inquirer proud to be Filipino. Proud of what we have made of ourselves in a hundred years. We didn't get from
there to here without being roughed up periodically by either nature's fury or human tyranny. But, without fail, we have managed to come through--with flying colors.
So, the Inquirer in color more than meets the eye. It is a homage to the memory of our heroes. It is an affirmation of our faith in the Filipino.
An entry from the ''Diary of Lieutenant X,''an eyewitness account on the changeover of colonial power from Spain to the United States in 1898,reads: ''The real wealth of a country lies in the people themselves...A Filipino rebellion is not simply a political movement, it has the capacity to stop life itself. This is why exploiting the Filipinos could be a grave error on the part of the Americans.If it is their intention to make the Philippines their private fiefdom, they will have to eliminate the Filipinos or reduce them to slaves.''
What people are these for whom the American conquerors in Mindanao invented the .45 calibre to eliminate them?. And even then they would not bow to the designs of the foreign invaders.
What people are these who would attack a fully-armed Spanish encampment in Zamboanga bearing only bolos and knives led by a teenage farmer and teacher named Mariano de los Reyes?
What people are these who would stop the dictator's armed personnel carriers armed with nothing but bodies quivering not in fear, but exulting in the freedom that was nearly within their grasp.
Today the nation pauses to celebrate one of the high points in the Filipino's march to freedom. One hundred years ago, Filipino freedom fighters led by Emilio Aguinaldo declared that they were citizens of a free country. It was the culmination of three and a half centuries of resisting foreign rule, beginning with Lapulapu's triumph at Mactan. For more than 300 years, Filipino warriors like Dagohoy in Bohol and Sumoroy is Samar fought against the foreign oppressors. Then came the Propaganda Movement that set the stage for the the Revolution that carried the war to the very center of Spanish colonial power. For two years starting in 1896, the Filipinos, under the leadership of Andres Bonifacio and Aguinaldo, engaged the Spanish forces in battle after bloody battle. Then catching the scent of victory with the Americans deceptively on their side, they declared that they were finally free on June 12, 1896.
It was more of a wish than a reality. The United States had its own colonial designs. And six months later, the freedom that was at hand was taken away by the Americans, triggering a bloodier war that cost both sides tens of thousands of lives.
The end of the war marked the beginning of the struggle to regain freedom in another arena: the US Congress. But when the commitment was made to make the country free once more, the Japanese Imperial Army came and Filipino soldiers and guerrillas again had to take up arms to regain their freedom. The Japanese were driven out in 1945, and Philippine Independence was proclaimed, but still the country was not totally free. American firms enjoyed parity rights and US military forces remained at their bases.
Then a homegrown tyrant, no less than Ferdinand Marcos, emerged in 1972. The Filipinos lost their freedom along with their human rights and the nation's wealth. But the impulse to be free remained strong and in 1986, the people rose in a peaceful revolution at Edsa to drive Ferdinand Marcos out of power and out of the country.
In 1992, the country finally cast away the final vestiges of colonialism when the Senate rejected a new US bases treaty.
Now what remains to be done is the equally difficult task of liberating our people from native oppression so that they may be free from fear, ignorance and want.
A lot of people have wondered why we commemorate our defeats(Fall of Bataan,Fall of Corregidor,Fall of Manila,etc.) instead of our triumphs. But our defeats were triumphs of the spirit: The impulse to be free always remained to lift our souls from despair and inspire us to fight on until freedom was regained.From Kawit to Edsa, we served as an inspiration for our neighbors' own struggles to be free.
There's no legacy more noble that we can bequeath to our children and the community of nations.
Color us proud
YOU are seeing the Inquirer in red, white and blue with stars and sun shining brightly on its pages for the first time in its 12-year history. We are not quite ready to go color daily until July 31. But we had to do it. We couldn't let this day pass without painting the town red. A day that comes only once in a hundred and twenty years.
The color matches the nation's fiesta mood today. The nation takes on the color of its multi-hued history of falling down and getting up, of defeats and triumphs, and in between, always a people shaping and directing their own destiny. And dreaming to be the best the Filipino can be.
Color the Inquirer proud to be Filipino. Proud of what we have made of ourselves in a hundred years. We didn't get from
there to here without being roughed up periodically by either nature's fury or human tyranny. But, without fail, we have managed to come through--with flying colors.
So, the Inquirer in color more than meets the eye. It is a homage to the memory of our heroes. It is an affirmation of our faith in the Filipino.
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