‘The Filipino is worth dying for’(*)

NOTHING is worth killing him for

A perverse twist to a noble ideal is upon us. And who bats an eyelid? Does anyone care which side of history we will find ourselves on – with retrospect, even five years from now?

Meanwhile a number of determined journalists persist in trying to hold society accountable, knowing that most don’t want to know. Knowing that one day…

In a New York Times article entitled ‘Death on the Night Shift in Duterte’s Manila’ (Feb 22, 2017) Miguel Syjuco writes:

“‘It’s the new normal,’ a photojournalist told me. ‘It’s easier and cheaper to kill them. We can only document it, for a time when Filipinos have regained their sanity.'”

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(*)“I have asked myself many times: Is the Filipino worth suffering, or even dying, for? Is he not a coward who would readily yield to any colonizer, be he foreign or homegrown? Is a Filipino more comfortable under an authoritarian leader because he does not want to be burdened with the freedom of choice? Is he unprepared, or worse, ill-suited for presidential or parliamentary democracy?

I have carefully weighed the virtues and the faults of the Filipino and I have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for because he is the nation’s greatest untapped resource.”

Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. on August 4, 1980 in New York City, USA.