Independence
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer
Last updated 01:58am (Mla time) 06/14/2007
Emilio Aguinaldo waved the flag in Kawit, Cavite, in defiance of tyranny 109 years ago. His great-grandson, Emilio Aguinaldo Suntay III, waved the flag in Baguio City in defiance of insanity 109 years later. If Suntay should remain steadfast to his nationalist convictions, he may yet add more than genealogical meanings to the “great” in “great-grandson.”
Suntay’s beef was with Arroyo’s sacrilege of declaring June 12 a “working holiday.” He asked all freedom-loving Filipinos to defy the order to work. He invoked the authority of one particular person for it. It was not his great-grandfather, it was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s not very great father. Diosdado Macapagal himself had defied the traditional observance of Philippine Independence on July 4, which was when the United States granted independence to its colony 61 years ago, when he moved it to June 12, which was when the Filipino revolutionaries proclaimed it.
Suntay said he was alarmed that Arroyo’s decision to “reduce the relevance of Philippine independence to support an economic theory” did not spark outrage among the public. Patriotism and not tourism, he said, was the key to solving many of this country’s problems. “If you love your country, you wouldn’t harm it. I submit that patriotism is the missing ingredient to our lost opportunities.”
The part about why a sacrilege like this doesn’t spark outrage among the public shows only the tragedy of this country. It is the clearest indication of the Filipinos’ transformation from a race of lions to a race of sheep, from a race of titans to a race of dwarves (notwithstanding that Emilio Aguinaldo and Arroyo probably have the same height), from a race of freedom-loving heroes to a race of chain-loving cowards.
The public isn’t outraged by June 12 being turned into an ordinary, wretched, bedraggled day in the life of Juan de la Cruz? The public isn’t even outraged that the very life of Juan de la Cruz, in the heroic figures of Jonas Burgos and Musa Dimasidsing, is taken out of him. The murder of the latter is mind-bogglingly outrageous. Why this government’s officials, not least the commissioners of the Commission on Elections, are not even now quaking in their boots from the prospect of being torn limb from limb by an angry mob, only we can say.
Holidays are not unlike laws: They can be enforced only to the extent that the public holds them sacred. A law the public cares little for will not be obeyed, a holiday a public cares little for will not be observed. Take the Fourth of July in America. For all his stupidity (his audacity stems from it), George W. Bush will never think to declare that a working holiday. The American public will find it easier to declare their independence from him, or his independence from the White House, not to speak of this world. The same is true of Christmas Day in this country. Try declaring December 25 a working holiday if it falls on a Tuesday or Thursday. Filipinos will find it a lot easier to have Christmas with Arroyo on a permanent holiday.
That Arroyo feels free to trifle with Independence Day doesn’t just show her contempt for anything that can’t be translated into money or power. Though there’s that too: If she can think nothing of trifling with human life, she can think nothing of trifling with human freedom. It shows as well our contempt for what can’t be translated into food and survival. The reason Arroyo can declare with impunity June 12 a working holiday is that it holds little meaning for us. Asking us to forget independence is just like asking us to forget “Hello Garci.” She knows we are not going to be duly, or unduly, incensed by it.
That is our tragedy. Because Suntay is dead right (emphasis, alas, on dead) when he says that lack of patriotism has cost us a host of opportunities. In fact, it has cost us everything, probably including our future. It’s not just that a country, like a man, doesn’t live by bread alone, it is that love of country is bread itself, or the inexhaustible source of it.
I myself have said it again and again: Our leaders keep looking at other countries, wondering whether it’s democracy or authoritarianism, capitalism or socialism that has worked for them. They overlook the one thing all our Asian neighbors have, whatever government they have, whatever political proclivities their leaders have, and that is a sense of country, if not a passion for it. That is what they have and we do not.
Other Asian countries may have tyrants and crooks, but they have patriotic tyrants and crooks. Suharto stole more than Ferdinand Marcos -- $35 billion to Marcos’ $15 billion, if Transparency International is to be believed. (We have two of the top 10 crooks, Marcos and Joseph Estrada, in 2nd and 10th; we should have a third soon, probably at 3rd, unless she gets to rule as long as Marcos did). But with a huge difference: Suharto kept the money in Indonesia, Marcos (and his successors) stashed their loot abroad. Suharto’s dirty money is keeping Indonesians employed, Marcos’ (and his successors’) disappeared money is driving Filipinos abroad.
Suntay is dead right (alas, again, emphasis on dead) when he says that if you love your country, you won’t think to harm it. If you’ll be living in this country for the rest of your life, and your children and children’s children with you, you’ll want to safeguard it. If you’ll be living in America at the end of the day, and your children’s and children’s children with you, you’ll think nothing of despoiling it. If you think of this country like the family you love, you’ll want to protect it. If you think of this country like a stranger you don’t know, you won’t mind screwing it.
Or, well, maybe if you think of this country as the family you hate for treating you like an outcast child, you’ll want to spite it.
But that’s another story.
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