Ninoy Aquino? The Filipino is worth living for!

Revised 28 August 2009 at 0637 hours
MANILA – 21 August 1983. He was coming back home, and they welcomed him with open arms and open guns: They escorted him out of the plane and shot him coming down the ramp even before he could set foot on his native soil. He was the one who had said earlier, 'The Filipino is worth dying for,' and then he let go.

If you're Filipino, are you sure Ninoy Aquino is truly your model of a hero? He died for what he believed in, being true to his word. Not many would-be Ninoy heroes can be trusted to be as good as their word. They can't let go. Can you?

What did Ninoy Aquino believe in? He talked gladly and glibly and long he never did get around to saying it in just a few words. I'd like to do it for him now. The way I see it, Ninoy Aquino wanted: Peace amidst prosperity, or democracy amidst development. Very reasonable, it seems to me, if too technical. But not to some people, those who wanted to preserve their privilege, or power, or both. Privilege corrupts, and power corrupts absolutely.

Democracy is of the people, for the people, by the people. When Ninoy was assassinated on 21 August 1983, I cursed and stopped believing in some whom I thought were democratic heroes. They showed their true colors.

But I never stopped believing in heroism. For that matter, I never stopped believing in the Filipino. I have since been studying heroism and in fact written a book (2005), and rewritten it (2008): My Hero! Jose Rizal: A journey of new discoveries into the mind of Asia's First Great Soul (177 pages, unpublished). As I studied the life, works and writings of Rizal, one of the insights I gained was that everyone is destined to be a hero. Whether we like it or not.

In fact, I have come to believe that already each one of us is a hero in his own right, except that we differ in how much of a hero we are able to make of ourselves. Ninoy was a Rizalian hero; the Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal died for his convictions. Is Rizal your hero? Are you willing to die for your convictions? I was.

I admire both Jose Rizal and Ninoy Aquino, martyr to their illusions for their country, my country. They loved the Philippines, and willingly died for her. I thank them both. I love my country too, and even today at 69 I have my own old and new illusions, but I'm not so brave a warrior as they. I'm a writer – I'd rather be read than dead!

This is a democratic country; I do have a choice, don't I? I choose life, as in, 'The Filipino is worth living for!'

We already have too many popular martyrs, including popular widows, but too few heroes. What's wrong with us?!

In 1898, it was Jose Rizal who gave up his life for his country; in 1983, it was Ninoy Aquino. And yet the Philippines remains the last of the Mohicans, those who were wise Indian warriors about to become extinct.

To save ourselves from doom, do we need any more widows? Any more martyrs? Don't look at me!

Look at yourself. Look at him. So, 'What's wrong with the Philippines?' Benigno S Aquino Jr asked in 1968, or 41 years ago (Foreign Affairs, US, July 1968 issue). Foreign Affairs Online limits reading to subscribers, but I'm glad to say the Internet doesn't have the last word. I know, because I'm a wide reader, very wide. Yesterday, 21 August 2009 as if to remind me to celebrate Ninoy Aquino's self-sacrifice, I dropped by my favorite secondhand bookshop and what was waiting for me there? For 20 pesos, the 1985 issue of Solidarity (the brainchild of Manong Frankie, F Sionil Jose), with that article published in full (pages 12-17). Serendipity. Actually, the title 'The Huk Rebellion' attracted me as a disciple of rebellion history. I didn't know Ninoy Aquino was buried there. When my wife opened the copy, she saw what I didn't notice and read the teaser for somebody's article, 'One vital natural resource has not been properly developed: the people.' And she asked me who said that, and I didn't know. She said his initials were BSA and I still didn't get it. So, inadvertently, I proved Benigno S Aquino's point – it matters that we use our head when we have to, and to teach others to go do likewise.

For too long, my beloved Philippines has remained a developing country we might as well call a spade a spade: The Philippines is a disadvantaged country, one among many in the community of Asian nations. Actually, when we say 'developed country' or 'developing country,' we are using the economic yardstick, and relying only on that single, unforgiving measure. Truth to tell, Gross National Product is too gross for me. In fact, it might as well be Greek to me – when they say the GNP is 5.7% this year, up by 2.3% from last year, it doesn't mean anything to me, sorry. My life hasn't significantly improved. I'm still without a regular job or an enterprise of my own. My wife still nags me; my daughter still hasn't finished her thesis (she hasn't even begun it); the mass media still carry on with their negative campaign against some people in government, thinking that they are doing it for the country. That is to say: GNP or not, the Philippines is being disadvantaged by Filipinos themselves. 'What fools these mortals be!' (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 3, Scene 2)

What good is good GNP?! Ninoy Aquino looked at it this way: 'The trouble is that there is one vital natural resource that has not been properly developed: the people.' I believe it when he said the Filipino race 'remains a depressed and dispirited people.' His explanation? The Filipinos had been liberated from the oppression of their masters – Spanish, Americans, Japanese – but even today they have not been liberated from the oppression of poverty. At the very least, they are deprived.

But I define poverty differently. If you have the greatest civilization in the world but it has no compunction in killing babies in the wombs, then that civilization is deprived and depraved. Poverty of the worst kind. Where materialism is the hidden agenda, I cannot consider it development; rather, I consider it devilment.

Ninoy Aquino describes the Philippines 41 years ago: 'Here is a land where freedom and its blessings are a reality for a minority and an illusion for the many.' He blames those whom he referred to as 'self-perpetuating elite.' He blames the rich who continually enriched themselves by taking advantage of the poor. 'Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor.'

And the rich will remain rich, and if they want to, they can afford to buy mass media space. Where mass media are employed to politicize people in terms of endearment towards certain personalities 12 months before the elections, as they do in the US and as imitated in the Philippines, that illustrates the power of money and the power of media. The rich cannot let go of their privilege; the mass media are only too glad to humor them.

And I? I'm glad I'm not rich. And I find I have to let go of Ninoy Aquino; he has inspired me enough. I'm on my own now. So, unlike Ninoy Aquino, I don't blame the rich – I blame everybody. How do I blame thee? Let me count the ways:

(1) I blame the Christians in my country for not being Christians in truth and in fact, for being all theory and no practice, for instance, showing they love God by loving their neighbors – in select villages. And the students? They love their neighbors – in select schools.

(2) I blame the educators – and that includes me – for teaching that the only way to a better life is to get a college degree and look for a well-paying job. Instant gratification. Whatever happened to self-reliance? Whatever happened to entrepreneurship? That is why we have the phenomenon of the OFWs, the creator of wealth, the destroyer of families.

(3) I blame the church leaders who are the very first to publicly display hate. 'Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil' – Ephesians 4: 26-27 (NRSV). They cannot hate without sinning; they cannot hate the sin without hating the sinner.

(4) I blame the citizen crusaders who cannot see the world in rose-colored glasses but, instead, only in depressing, dispiriting black & white. Incidentally, do they know that B&W is more expensive than color?

(5) I blame those people who can measure public good only in the quantity of the good life, not quality of life. That includes the brilliant, multi-awarded, Nobel Prize-winning economists.

(6) I blame the poor for remaining mendicants, for always demanding from the gods-that-be a better life and not doing something about it except begging for it or demanding it as their human right.

(7) I blame those in offices for mediocre thinking, like pocketing a couple of pencils and bringing these home for their children to use in school and thinking that it is not sinning, or thinking nothing of charging against the office for their luxurious taste.

(8) I blame the nationalists – and that included me – who think that the salvation of a country lies in speaking the national language, whatever that is.

(9) Ninoy Aquino blames the Americans for teaching us to be dependent on America and not stand on our two feet. I didn't; I don't. What did our national hero say about that? 'There are no masters where there are no slaves.'

(10) Ninoy Aquino blames Spain for destroying our native culture: codes, laws, script, historical records. I did; I don't anymore. I have come to realize that culture doesn't seem to be important to the Filipinos. When the Spaniards went, we gladly exchanged our lost identity and gladly became Brown Americans. And I'm thankful. Because English is the international lingua franca, and it is my first choice of language for writing. What would I do without American English? If you're looking for the real Filipino, look into the mirror – full-length.

(11) Locals and foreigners commonly blame corruption in high places for the sad state of affairs of the Filipinos. I don't. Rather, I blame the Filipinos. There are no corrupt people if there are no corrupters. Corruption starts small, like you handing over to the traffic police some coffee money so that he will not confiscate your driver's license after you violate a traffic rule. And then you complain that the policemen are corrupt. Ikaw and gumawa ng multo, ikaw ang natakot! You created the monster, now it's you who is deathly afraid!

(12) Filipinos themselves blame the University of the Philippines Los Baños for being the best in Asia one time; it is now 100 years old, and yet the Philippines continues to import rice from Thailand, for instance, where the government officials responsible for rice are graduates of UP Los Baños. What's the matter – we didn't learn from our own State University? Actually, it's political will. And that is true from the highest official to the lowest coffee boy. We never get around to being heroes ourselves. Heroism is nothing but doing the best you can whatever you are doing.

(13) I blame Manuel Luis Quezon for choosing a government run like hell by Filipinos rather than a government run like heaven by Americans. Look what we got! I would have loved to become a Brown American. It is not the color of your skin or the color of your words that makes you a patriot or an idiot, a hero or a heel – it's your God, whoever he is, or whatever.

Heroism is faith that the Filipino is worth living for. But remember: Faith without works is dead!