33 thoughts on “Sixty-six years before Bush”

  3. Good one, Manolo! You should read and record MLQ’s response to this one, as well as the debates in the Philippines that led up to Commonwealth status and Independence. So much has history been re-written by folks like Constantino and Joma and Nur Misuari, that the original sources need refreshment to remind us of how we actually got here.

  4. There was high hopes among the Americans that Filipinos will make the small country strong with its zeal for independence as French and Americans have charted their own destiny. That was sixty six years ago.

    Wrong. Proven dead wrong. The 1st democracy in Asia (Obama speech) is a hallow ringer with overpopulation, relied heavily on importation of rice for its food supply, mired in so much corruption with government’s band-aid and ping-pong policy, dominated by the rich landholder-family dynasties producing confusing laws that do not address the critical issues of the majority population sinking into poverty each year, disappearing quality education, leaders repeatedly panhandling for foreign doleouts for personal-political scams, its skilled workers and professionals continuously leaving the sinking country and largely known by its neighboring states as the sick country in Asia.

  7. “Look to the future.”

    Alexei Miller, chief executive of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, suggested oil could reach $250 by the end of 2009. If Arroyo had survived various crises in the past and stayed on power with the backing of the military generals and congress, the looming economic crises due to unprecedented high oil price in 2009 could be the tipping point that would drive the population against the government.

  8. “Why are so proud that we are the dogs of another nation?!”

    maybe the Pinoy migrants to the US can answer that

  9. “…the looming economic crises due to unprecedented high oil price in 2009 could be the tipping point that would drive the population against the government.”

    not even the heads of states/governments of the G7 countries can stop the oil price hike. no matter who occupies malacañang oil prices will continue to rise

  10. Why are so proud that we are the dogs of another nation?!”

    maybe the Pinoy migrants to the US can answer that

    tinanong ko sa manga kaibigan at kamag-anak sa Amerika, kung ininconsider nilang aso sila nang Amerika, sabi mas parang aso sila sa sarili nilang bansa.

    Sabi “at least” daw sa ‘Merika’ kahit na ang iba, di makatrabaho sa linya, di nadiscriminate nang kapuwa Amerikano, liban lang nang manga kaunting kababayan na pinsan di maiwasan magpintas, lalo na pag sinuswerte, young iba gusto lang magpaYabang.

    Ang sabi ko naman, inferioty complex lang siguro nang manga pinoy na iniisip na manga aso lang tayo nang ibang bansa..mas guapo pa tayo sa kanila, di ba?

  11. I have watched quite a few “The Explainer” shows:

    Before I really have questions on the actual date of our independence day on why we are celbrating June12 para lang ba madagdgan ang number rof years ng independence natin?Was DM in denial na inoccupy tao ng mga Amerikano?Nalimutan ko na kung ano sinabi mo Manolo pero I remember you mentioning Gurrero’s english translation of The Revolution.

    please correct me Manolo on this.even at the end Mabini wanted Aguinaldo to rise up against the Americans….

    http://www.univie.ac.at/Voelkerkunde/apsis/aufi/history/mabini11.htm

    Going back to Mr. Aguinaldo, I hope and pray that my observations, made without rancour and only in the performance of a painful duty, will not increase the bitterness in his heart but will rather awaken in him an ardent desire to make up for his past and recapture the general esteem with noteworthy acts of unselfishness and abnegation. When I was already a prisoner in Manila, in the bands or the American authorities, I hinted to Mr.. Aguinaldo, writing in El Comercio to correct an item in the Manila Times, that his only salvation was a glorious death on the battlefield. Shortly afterward, in another article published in La Fraternidad, I repeated this hint more explicitly and clearly, comparing him with Mr. Kruger. I knew that these articles would not please the American authorities, but I was convinced that, with Aguinaldo meeting death in a supreme effort to defend our national freedom, such an heroic act would restore his reputation and at the same time honour the Filipinos. However, my suggestions were not followed. I have no complaint because, even if Mr. Aguinaldo had proposed to act in accordance with them, I understand that it is not always possible to do what one wants. Moreover, it might be that his crimes were so grave that Providence would not judge him worthy of immortality, or that it would be for his own good to hear the judgment of public opinion so that repentance might touch the sensitive fibers of his heart. The frustrated Andres Bonifacio was wont to say when be was still alive that we should fear no one except History, and indeed History is implacable in doing justice, and its judgment is terrib le against the offender.

    I asked again because FDR mentioned that we would be an indepent nation in training.
    ngayon in training pa rin ba tayo?

  12. “Why are so proud that we are the dogs of another nation?” – ColdKing

    There a more polite term used by Howard Taft: little brown brother.

  13. mang_kiko

    “…sabi mas parang aso sila sa sarili nilang bansa.”

    rason lang nila yan para mag-migrate sa ‘tate

  17. scalia on, “no matter who occupies malacañang oil prices will continue to rise”

    True. But at certain price level it can bring disastrous effect on all prices of goods and services beyond the reach of majority of population to the point of Palace declaration of martial law to quell instability. The 1st world can absorb the impact of such projected high price, it is another matter for a third world country.

  18. dodong,

    still, the president cannot do anything to stop it. since oil became a powerful leverage in the 1970s, i dont think there has been a government overthrown due to nonstop oil price increases.

  19. “i dont think there has been a government overthrown due to nonstop oil price increases.”

    That is something we can watch and see how it unfolds.

  20. “Why are so proud that we are the dogs of another nation?!”

    ‘anthony scalia – maybe the Pinoy migrants to the US can answer that’

    So I can eat branded yummy dog food and not leftovers. Then I’ll send my dog shit to the Philippines so doggy Anthony Scalia can eat it.

  21. To put it nicely, the migrants have the quality choices of polished rice from Japan or jasmine rice from different country. While pinoy in Pinas can’t complain with the leftover rice from the US (25 percent broken rice).

    Reality check.

  22. supremo,

    “So I can eat branded yummy dog food and not leftovers. Then I’ll send my dog shit to the Philippines so doggy Anthony Scalia can eat it.”

    after you, my friend, after you

  23. “While pinoy in Pinas can’t complain with the leftover rice from the US (25 percent broken rice).

    Reality check.”

    oh the reasons Pinoys would come up with, just to migrate to ‘tate

  24. mlq3, if it’s fine w/ you, can you post it here your column about “nationalism”? as i was saying, it’s no longer available in the link you gave earlier. thanks.

  26. Nationalism
    By Manuel L. Quezon III
    Inquirer News Service

    AFTER THE MASSACRE at Amritsar, Mahatma Gandhi said to British officials led by the viceroy of India: “I beg you to accept that there is no people on earth who wouldn’t prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power.”

    About 10 years earlier, a Filipino said basically the same thing: “I prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans.” It was a sound bite heard around the world. But what all too few recalled was the essential sentence that came next: “Because, however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it.”

    To this day, there are Filipinos who, whenever something goes wrong, cackle and say, “Look, Quezon got his wish. We have a government run like hell!” As if it is something uniquely Quezonian — and Filipino — to want to run our own lives, badly as the case may be, rather than entrust it to the guidance of foreigners.

    What Quezon and Gandhi said roughly a decade apart is the essence of nationalism: a people, a nation, must have the chance to make good and bad decisions, because there is simply no substitute for decisions made for one’s self, by one’s self. Government will not always be good, leaders will not always be the best, but in the end, a government and its leaders must be selected by the people and no one else. Love of country, nationalism, requires that a people have the freedom both to make mistakes and achieve great things. After all, the lives of individuals as well as nations require learning, and one cannot learn without, at times, doing wrong or making mistakes. Surely it is better to make one’s own mistakes, to collectively endure errors of one’s choosing, rather than undertake the same risks at the direction of a colonial power.

    Nationalism is not my country, right or wrong, or everything for my countrymen at the expense of all aliens, but rather a more fundamental appreciation that one belongs to a people who have a country, and that the destiny of that country is in the hands of a people free to make errors but at the same time rectify their mistakes. It involves a sense of stewardship over a particular territory that geography and history have made the primary responsibility of no one else on earth but those who inhabit that territory.

    When, as a child, I first asked what nationalism meant, I was simply told, “It means love of country.” There are many kinds of love, as we all discover as we grow up, but fundamental to understanding love is that it requires a sense of self-worth and dignity. You cannot love and be loved, first of all, if you do not love yourself. And you cannot love properly if your love is the kind that is dependent merely on the approval of others, or measured by what you might believe to be the superior love of others. To love one’s country is to love one’s land and people with all their flaws, despite all their wrongs; and to maintain, at the same time, a conviction that one’s love for nation and nationhood will result in a better, stronger country.

    As a child, every August 19, I would look at the statue of Quezon in Letran and wonder what it was he was portrayed as being in the act of saying. Eventually I asked one Dominican, who looked at me sternly and thundered, “He is saying, ‘I love the Philippines!'” And the answer satisfied me.

    Many years later, I came across a recording of one of Quezon’s speeches, and it is the only one I have committed to memory both due to its brevity and its being to the point. The speech was recorded in the 1920s, when he was first diagnosed with tuberculosis and assumed he didn’t have much longer to live. It goes like this:

    “My fellow citizens: there is one thought I want you always to bear in mind. And that is: that you are Filipinos. That the Philippines are your country, and the only country God has given you. That you must keep it for yourselves, for your children, and for your children’s children, until the world is no more. You must live for it, and die for it, if necessary.

    “Your country is a great country. It has a great past, and a great future. The Philippines of yesterday are consecrated by the sacrifices of lives and treasure of your patriots, martyrs, and soldiers. The Philippines of today are honored by the wholehearted devotion to its cause of unselfish and courageous statesmen. The Philippines of tomorrow will be the country of plenty, of happiness, and of freedom. A Philippines with her raised in the midst of the West Pacific, mistress of her own destiny, holding in her hand the torch of freedom and democracy. A republic of virtuous and righteous men and women all working together for a better world than the one we have at present.”

    These are the basics we often overlook, but which are the requirements for true love of country: A sense of identity. A sense of belonging. A sense of responsibility and accountability to the past, to the present, and to the future. Most of all, a dream of a country that is no one’s but our own, and for which we must always retain the fondest dreams to inspire us as we go about our daily lives.

    thanks mlq3. it’s a beautiful masterpiece as i have expected and very inspiring specially those quotes from your grandfather.

    between me and my wife it was her whom i think has innate qualities of being nationalistic. i’ve been guilty at times of leaving the country too. i had suggested to her in the past about moving out for the sake of the children but she has been steadfast on her resolve to stay put. she always says, “i can be of better help here instead of going out, perform my social obligation and serve my country by offering my services to those in need. i love this beautiful country and i will live and die here.” who can beat that?

    “I LOVE THE PHILS.”

  27. KG:
    “I asked again because FDR mentioned that we would be an indepent nation in training.
    ngayon in training pa rin ba tayo?    ”

    No longer, KG., We’ve graduated with flying colors from OJT under supervision by IMF. We’re now a contractual employee – renewable every six years. Or until a new management takes over in between.

  28. “In 1946 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt had told Lord Halifax, the British ambassador in Washington: “Persian oil is yours; we’ll share Kuwait and Iraq. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it’s ours.” Daniel Yergin,The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

    The establishment of the Philippine Commonwelath by imperial dictat was helped along by America’s economic distress in 1933. FDR then increased the dollar price for gold effectively devaluing the dollar and banned the private ownership of gold.

    Off course that meant that all gold in the Philippines became property of the U.S. state directly.

    By 1942 FDR had to make sure the Pinoys stayed with the U.S. versus the Japs.

    Even though by 1944 -45 it was the Huks who were carrying the fight to the Japs, the Americans betrayed the Pinoys after the kanutos favored the Japs in reconstruction over the Pinas. That is history and how can anyone change the facts. Again and again the Kanos betrayed their most faithful and trusted ally – the Pinoy.

  29. “the destiny of that country is in the hands of a people free to make errors but at the same time rectify their mistakes.”

    Filipinos simply don’t rectify their mistakes, they are repeated over and over and over and over and over again, again and again. Like selling their votes to landholder wealthy families who control senate, congress or any positions in the government – you can see the father, wife, sons, relatives….. or just the basic issue of using local resources (agriculture) to become self-sufficient on food supply as opposed to import mentality (may tong kasi). Philippine leaders have found errors to their advantages -making profitable deals here and there while doing band-aid solutions.

  30. “history is implacable in doing justice, and its judgment is terrible against the offender.” mabini as quoted by KG

    maybe so, but in this day and age of revisionism, re-writing, propaganda masqueraded as history, wikipedia as infallible authority, you-tube, fabricated tapes and composite pictures, etc., it’s not easy to separate authentic history from that which is fraudulent. the credibility of the historian as well as irrefutable basis of his/her account are important factors to history’s authenticity.

  31. “My fellow citizens: there is one thought I want you always to bear in mind. And that is: that you are Filipinos. That the Philippines are your country, and the only country God has given you. That you must keep it for yourselves, for your children, and for your children’s children, until the world is no more. You must live for it, and die for it, if necessary. MLQ

    dodong,

    don’t worry about us filipinos. we will take care of our bad leaders when the right time comes. just like what the late pres Manuel L. Quezon said, “however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it”. marcos stayed for almost 20 years but it’s not going to happen anymore. you only see the bad side of the country but some of us who are not too dependent on the govt and are not deterred by bad politics can see the bigger picture. there is great hope. there are plenty of good leaders out there and there are good citizens as well who are ready to serve (not necessarily in the govt) and who would never sell their souls as you’re trying to portray here (re selling of votes).

    our country, the phils, as described by pres. Quezon is a great country. the reason why others who already left always come home to spend the remainder of their lives in the phils. (unless they want to stay in a nursing home). that goes also to those captivated foreigners who fell in love with this beautiful country and preferred to live and die in the phils. i have friends who left for the US but came back for good and i have an american neighbor now who likes the phils so much he doesn’t want to go back to the US anymore. then there’s Dylan Wilk of GK saying: “The Filipino is worth living for… when you start living for others, …that’s when you truly live.” how can you not appreciate such an unselfish act coming from a stranger?

    as for you dodong, better enjoy your good life there in your adopted country and don’t stress yourself with too much negativity concerning the country you left. where you are now, you are blessed. enjoy the full benefits and protection of a great country where you don’t need to make your own sacrifices to reap it. it was laid to you unselfishly by others before you who did the hard work and made the ultimate sacrifice so that their future children (including you) will have a better life.

  32. grd,

    great post.

    i cant really understand some ex-pinoys. they already have abandoned their first country, and yet they insist on putting it down further

  33. yo manolo,

    grd just described the profile of the anti anti-gloria school:

    people “who are not too dependent on the govt and are not deterred by bad politics” and who “can see the bigger picture.”

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