UNE 12 or July 4? That question was answered years ago when then president Diosdado Macapagal issued Proclamation 28 declaring the first date as our Independence Day. June 12 referred to our fight against Spanish colonialism while July 4 referred to the “independence” given to us by the American colonialists. In a way, both signified our willingness to die for our freedom.
When I was young, I wondered whether we can be brave enough to pick up a weapon and wage war against our oppressors. Growing up in a middle class setting where intellectualism is given primacy over emotionalism, I actually thought we couldn’t, the revolutions we waged in the past notwithstanding. Then the Marcos dictatorship happened and the national democratic revolution erupted.
Again, I am from the middle class, a “petiburgis.” When I experienced the revolution up close, that was when I learned one truth: we are willing to die for a cause. Not necessarily the “petiburgis” or the elite but the broad masses of the people. As the cliché goes, the masses have nothing to lose but their chains.
Which brings me to the one issue hounding us as we celebrated Independence Day yesterday: the demand to defend our sovereignty. In the conflict over our territories in the South China Sea, our willingness to protect the integrity of our borders has been put to a question. The country’s leaders are being tested and the verdict can be found in the title of a movie: “Tinimbang Ka Nguni’t Kulang.”
Our leaders, from President Duterte to even former soldiers like Sen. Gregorio Honasan, when faced with China’s territorial grab in the South China Sea, have been one in saying we can’t fight China. Surveying China’s military might as against our puny armed forces, their attitude has been one of surrender. That attitude is being pounced upon by China to solidify its territorial grab.
Throughout history, it has always been the elite who question the Filipinos’ bravery and their willingness to fight for a cause. Which brings me to a meme that best summarizes this point. It showed bolo-wielding Katipuneros with the face of the hero Andres Bonifacio replaced with the face of President Duterte.
“Paano kung si Tatay (Digong) Noon ang Isang Bayani?” was the question posed. “Uwian na tayo, hindi natin kaya ang mga Kastila,” the Duterte image supposedly said. Then it quoted one of the President’s statements that summed up his refusal to assert our sovereignty in the South China Sea: “We cannot afford a war at this time because it will result in a massacre. I am not prepared to lose my soldiers.”
That line of thinking did permeate the elite when we fought the Spaniards and later the Americans who colonized us. It actually took an Andres Bonifacio, a “plebeian,” and the Filipino masses to stand up to the might of the Spaniards in a balance of power pointed out in a Yoyoy Villame song: “bolos and spears versus guns and cannons.” The revolution did seem unwinnable at the start. But when the masses of the people finally rose in arms, the well-equipped Spaniards were on the run.
Indeed, if our leaders of today were also our leaders after Spain colonized us, we would never have fought our colonizers. Those leaders would have told us that “we cannot afford war at this time.”