A Philippine Hero

I. for my part, have d wholeness every issue affirmable to avoid it, although at the cost of many rights uselessly sacrificed My g everyplacenment substructure not remain indifferent in view of the violent and rapacious seizure of its territory by a nation which has arrogated to itself the title brain of oppressed nations. Thus my government is disposed to open hostilities if America attacks the Visayas. Upon their heads be solely the blood which may be shed. Emilio Aguinaldo Proclamation, Malolos, January 5, 1899In Larry Henares program, some of the panelists -staunch admirers of Aguinaldo- uttered the oft-repeated view that the general fai direct to achieve greatness in the eyes of Filipinos plainly because he lived too long. He didnt die young, in the flower of y come to the foreh, a standardised Jacinto, or in some twilight of the gods manner, equivalent Bonifacio. He wasnt martyred, analogous Rizal, and he didnt die, penurious and neglected, like Mabini. He simply live d on, and on, until he became something like an antiquated relict fit for gawking at, but not for reverence. Poor, unheralded man.No one ever made it clear if anyone asked Aguinaldo if thats what he felt. I would think that Aguinaldo was highly fortunate to have lived so long. He outlived many of his friends, but he also outlived all of his enemies. He was reviled during his lifetime -in some cases, because he baffling himself in politics and thus made himself fair game- but he lived to see emancipation day moved to June 12. Isnt having lived long enough to be told of that change an exquisite achievement? And throughout his life, he had the loyalty and obedience of the those who belonged to the League of the Veterans of the Revolution.The things held against him, the sordid Tejeros Convention -one professor of history has pointed out that in that location were more votes cast than there were actually people to cast them- which led to the eventual execution of Bonifacio, and the assassination of Gen. Antonio Luna which was a great blow to the legions viability of the forces of the Republic, may forever bar him from reaching the same exalted household in the affections of the Filipino people. They will always haunt him. But they do not, I think, diminish his greatness at all.The power struggle -a raw(a) coup dtat, some have called it- that led to Bonifacios bulgefall does make for wretched reading. And his execution was a poor end for a patriot. But is much(prenominal) indignation over this, warranted? Do people get upset over this because, in reality, they are applying quasi-religious morality to a subject that should be divorced from it? Why should standards befitting religious sainthood be applied to temporal heroism? Must you be close (in the way people like Fr. Nudas would define it) to be a hero? A hero for a secular rural?When Bonifacios competence to hold the portfolio of the department of the Interior was questioned by Daniel Tirona, the Su premo, indignant, demanded a retraction. He failed to get it. Furious, he declared the proceedings nonentity and void, and left. NCC Chairman Laurel recounted with pride on Henares program how his grandfather, Sotero, head of the Batangas delegating at Tejeros, and a Bonifacio supporter, reacted to the uproar that followed. He called for lambanog. He drank, pulled out his gun, and place it on the table. He demanded that, as they had all agreed to earlier, the decision of the legal age be respected.Otherwise, mag ubusan na tayo. The majority sided with Aguinaldo. Bonifacio (or, depending on how you see it, Aguinaldo) had thrown and twisted down the gauntlet. As Sotero Laurel might have put it then, matira ang matibay. Aguinaldo won, obviously. The thing is, in a revolutionary situation, extreme situations call for extreme measures. You cant conk and sort things out and massage egos while the enemy tries to kill you all . Every revolution everywhere has been marred with competing factions, many of whom act out of less-than-noble motives. In the end, one group must prevail, one destiny achieved.The Revolution, for good or ill, had its destiny tied to Aguinaldo. While the movement (as Mabini saw it) faltered as a result of the Supremos liquidation, it made it through. It was suspended after biak-na-bato, resumed again, and gave birth to the resolution made from a window of a house in Kawit on June 12. The proclamation of the Philippines as a free country. The Republic did not prosper. Was it Aguinaldos breakage? The fault of the Ilustrados? Did it fail because of competing views and interests within it, divisions that exist to this day in our country and in different countries with similar histories?Left to ourselves, they had as good a chance of eventually working them out as any other people on earth. But they werent left alone. They were subdued with krag rifles and American tactics. Laudably, the centennial Commission has made it clear that it is the proclamation and not the substance of independence that will be commemorated in 1998. A proclamation whose aspirations have endured. As have its symbols our flag, our anthem. Aspirations we strove to fulfill in 1946, aspirations every generation tries to fulfill up to the present. Aguinaldo was responsible for that declaration, that flag, that anthem.He gave the nation vessels to contain its soul. We should be able to grant him for being a flawed man and a poor politician. once again and again, our pantheon of heroes has been besieged by angry mobs, intent on pulling down -or raising up high above the others- the statues of great Filipinos. We, who should, as befits a supposedly democratic and liberal state, find nothing wrong or ignoble in having our heroes stand side-by-side, remain obsessed with establishing heroic hierarchies, as though the leaders we revere were petty princelings subject to Byzantine rules of precedence. are we a people unworthy of heroes in the first place?