What of Filipino Heroes for Filipinos and Fil-Ams in the United States?

Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse (Asian American History & Culture)

"One hundred years later, Filipinos in the United States and Filipino Americans have every reason to ask what Rizal - along with the revolution he inadvertently inspired some seven thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean- has to do with student and academic communities in the United States today. They certainly won't appear in most classes on U.S. history, or Asian American OR U.S. ethnic studies for that matter. Why should Americans (even US minorities) concern themselves with FIlipino- or for that matter any extra- or anti- United States- nationalism? If anything, Filipino immigrants taking the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) exam might find more compelling reasons to know the importance of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. than the likes of Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, or Graciano Lopez Jaena- three Filipino intellectuals and publicists who wrote mostly in Spanish, had conflicting loyalties between mother Spain and their native Filipinas, and didn't have much of an opinion on the United States by the time they died in 1896.

Even if thousands of US-based Filipinos and Filipino Americans continue to commemorate Rizal's execution on Rizal Day (December 30), celebrated with food and formal dress everywhere from Alexandria to Detroit, how many of us know or care that del Pilar and Lopez Jaena died of poverty and tuberculosis (the same year Rizal died), neglected and forgotten by everyone, as a new generation of Filipino thinkers and revolutionaries braced itself for a war against the past and future empires of the Western world? And if we did know the history of those who inspired an entire generation to go to war against the superior arms and resources of that vast and powerful North American country, would we care?"

Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse (Asian American History & Culture) (Paperback) by Antonio Tiongson (Editor), Ricardo Gutierrez (Editor), Edgardo Gutierrez (Editor), January 2006

Ninoy Aquino: A Hero For All Seasons

"The shot reverberated throughout the country but instead of scaring the people with the awesome display of martial law power, it freed them from their lethargic acceptance of martial rule and roused them to a fever-pitch revulsion of it.

At Ninoy’s wake, thousands of people from all segments of society – the rich, the poor, men, women, and children – paid him their last respects. And 10 days later, more two million people walked 12 hours from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. beside his bier to escort him to his final resting place or watched from the sidewalks more in anger than in sadness at what they thought was a senseless sacrifice of the life of a man who was destined for greatness."

"But was Ninoy a hero made or was he hero born?

The question may sound academic but it has a bearing on whether or not Ninoy deserves the accolades that he has been receiving from our people since 1986 when martial law was finally uprooted from the land.

Skeptics probably entertain the view that setting aside August 21 of every year is an example of an undue honor for the man who would be hero.

I beg to disagree. It is not the setting aside of August 21 to commemorate the day of Ninoy’s assassination every year that makes him a hero. To belabour the point, it is rather the sum of his selfless deeds that makes him so and gives meaning to August 21 as a celebratory occasion for the people to remind ourselves of the meaning of his life and especially of his epic death."

"Despite its inherently evil connotations, Ninoy’s assassination - as the Fates had decreed it – was, thus, a good thing for the Philippine society as a whole.

For as the philosopher Jean Baudrillard asked, “What is a society without a heroic dimension?”

Ninoy Aquino offered his life to answer the question and in the process proved the sceptics wrong. He also showed that he was right along with those of us who believed in our people: that indeed, the Filipino was worth dying for."

-Privilege Statement of Sen. Nene Pimentel at the Senate
August 13, 2008

Carlos P. Romulo: I Walk With Heroes

I Walked With Heroes

"Other lives may find their happiest moments infiltrated with tragedy, and their proudest touched with comedy."

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"Let us teach our people again to be proud that they are Filipinos. Let us teach them to realize anew that being a Filipino means having as rich and noble a heritage of language, culture, patriotism and heroic deeds as any nation on earth. Let us teach a steadfast faith in Divine Providence, a stable family institution, the unhampered enjoyment of civil liberties, the advantages of constitutional government, the potentials of a rich and spacious land."

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"A strengthened national spirit can provide the motive power to rise our people from the depths and... pour new life and vigor in the national system.

The reinvigoration of the national spirit must take place in the grass roots, in every city, town and barrio in the Philippines, and it must start among our own people... To be a worthy citizen of the world one must first prove himself to be a good Filipino."

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"Our world is constantly in change and the great change is always toward freedom. When we speak of freedom we speak of equality. Nations will rise and fall but equality remains the ideal."

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"I am a molecule adrift in a mighty ocean, but I see in my life the molecules struggling for its full place. I have seen my struggle duplicated a billion fold, not only in the Philippines, but in Asia and Africa, yes, even here in America. The universal aim is to achieve respect for the entire human race, not for the dominant few."

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"We inch forward like worms dragging in the dust. But the spark is within us all. I have seen it everywhere in our world and I have seen its recognition increase. The worth of the human soul is undergoing a new evaluation, and not by color or creed... I have known heroes old and young, I have seen them live and die. I know more in the process of growing, and their young brave face are lifted in hope. When the world looks dark we must remember them, for we have need of them always, and by their lives they make the rest of our human race worth-while."

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"There is always promise of the interesting tomorrow."

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"All in all, it is a good life we are living, in a good world filled with good friends."

- Carlos P. Romulo (14 January 1899-15 December 1985), Filipino Diplomat, politician, author, Pulitzer Prize winner; excerpts from the autobiographical book I walked with Heroes, 1961