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Friday, March 29, 2024

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I am a Filipino" by Carlos P. Romulo, published in August 1941 in the Philippines Herald, is often seen as a manifesto for the Filipino’s desire for independence.

Romulo, a statesman, diplomat, author and journalist who served under eight Philippine presidents and was the country's representative to the United States and the United Nations, wrote passionately about the desire of Filipinos to be free. His essay seems particularly poignant, coming as it did mere months before the Philippines shed one colonial authority—the Americans—for the invading Japanese.

This week, as the nation prepares to mark its 121st Independence Day, Romulo’s essay is as relevant today as it was when it was first published.

“I am a Filipino–inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future,” Romulo’s essay begins. “As such I must prove equal to a two-fold task–the task of meeting my responsibility to the past, and the task of performing my obligation to the future.”

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We too, seem to be hostage to an uncertain future in 2019—a world where facts no longer seem to matter, and where demagogues and tyrants dominate, and where civility no longer has a place in our national discourse.

Romulo speaks of our heroes, as well.

“I am a Filipino. In my blood runs the immortal seed of heroes–seed that flowered down the centuries in deeds of courage and defiance. In my veins yet pulses the same hot blood that sent Lapu-Lapu to battle against the first invader of this land, that nerved Lakandula in the combat against the alien foe, that drove Diego Silang and Dagohoy into rebellion against the foreign oppressor.

That seed is immortal. It is the self-same seed that flowered in the heart of Jose Rizal that morning in Bagumbayan when a volley of shots put an end to all that was mortal of him and made his spirit deathless forever, the same that flowered in the hearts of Bonifacio in Balintawak, of Gergorio del Pilar at Tirad Pass, of Antonio Luna at Calumpit; that bloomed in flowers of frustration in the sad heart of Emilio Aguinaldo at Palanan, and yet burst fourth royally again in the proud heart of Manuel L. Quezon when he stood at last on the threshold of ancient Malacañang Palace…”

Romulo also wrote of unity and progress.

“Out of the lush green of these seven thousand isles, out of the heartstrings of 16-million people all vibrating to one song, I shall weave the mighty fabric of my pledge. Out of the songs of the farmers at sunrise when they go to labor in the fields, out of the sweat of the hard-bitten pioneers in Mal-lig and Koronadal, out of the silent endurance of stevedores at the piers and the ominous grumbling of peasants in Pampanga, out of the first cries of babies newly born and the lullabies that mothers sing, out of the crashing of gears and the whine of turbines in the factories, out of the crunch of plough-shares upturning the earth, out of the limitless patience of teachers in the classrooms and doctors in the clinics, out of the tramp of soldiers marching, I shall make the pattern of my pledge:

“I am a Filipino born to freedom, and I shall not rest until freedom shall have been added unto my inheritance—for myself and my children and my children’s children—forever.”

Deviod of the crass and vulgar language favored these days, Romulo’s manifesto is as relevant—and as powerful—today as it was when it was written with such eloquence, grace and civility almost eight decades ago.

When we read about some government official wanting to tear out a critic’s genitals with pliers, or an arrogant broadcaster saying he will shove a public servant’s face into a toilet bowl, we weep for the loss of our common civility—and yearn for a time when language was used, not to shove us down into the muck, but to help us aim higher and to achieve greatness.

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