FEBRUARY

SPEECH OF29,
PRESIDENT
1944 LAUREL ADDRESSED TO THE FILIPINO YOUTH,
Speech of His Excellency, Jose P. Laurel, President of the Republic of
the Philippines, delivered over Station PIAM Manila, on February 29,
1944, addressed to the Filipino youth.

YOUTH OF MY BELOVED LAND:

In this critical period of our history, we need the heart, the soul and the vigor
of the youth of our land to help us build our country on the most enduring
basis of brotherhood and solidarity of all Filipinos. I am, therefore, happy to
know of the integration of the Filipino youth and that the Filipino youth is now
on the march. The question is: Where is it going? Is it marching with
irresistible will and determination toward progress and civilization, peace and
order, and the prosperity and happiness of the Fatherland? If it is, I, as the
chosen head of our nation and our people, heartily welcome it and bid it
Godspeed.

It is trite saying that the future belongs to youth, especially to those

dynamic, aggressive and self-con0dent young men and women who have
foresight. Thus they have the bounden duty to ensure it. So much faith the
greatest Filipino patriot and hero, Rizal, had in the youth of the land that
while he was still in his teens, he dedicated to it his prize winning poem
entitled “To the Filipino Youth,” and he called the Filipino youth not without
reason and justi0cation “Fair hope of my Fatherland.”

Several years later, when Rizal was in Madrid, he thought again of the
Filipino youth. On the occasion of the signal honor and distinction conferred
upon the famous Filipino painter Juan Luna when one of his paintings was
awarded the highest prize in the artistic world, Rizal o7ered a touching toast.
He expressed the fervent hope that the worthy and commendable examples
of Juan Luna, and Resurrection, another famed Filipino painter, will be
imitated or emulated by the Filipino youth. In the course of a few years that
youth had become to him more than the “fair hope of my fatherland”; it had
become the “sacred hope of my Fatherland.”

Rizal’s fair and sacred hope is represented by the young men and women of
today, by you, the Filipino youth on the march, you who will be either the
leaders and masters of your country and your country’s fate tomorrow or the
hewers of wood and drawers of water for other people more ambitious and
far-seeing than you, men with vision, with courage, and with an indomitable
will to succeed whatever be the obstacles.

Inspired by the same noble sentiment, the late Dr. Rafael Palma, builder of
the University of the Philippines, dedicated to the same youth, to the same
“fair and sacred hope” of the Fatherland, his last work and masterpiece, his
life-size biography of Rizal. In his dedicatory remarks he gave voice to his
abiding faith and con0dence in the ability of the Filipino young men and
women to make good.

Have they made good or are they making good? Were Rizal living today
would he be proud of them? Would he say, if he could see them from beyond
the tomb, that he did not die in vain, that his country’s sacred and beautiful
hope has not disappointed him and those who like him had given their full
measure of sacri0ce for the glory of their Fatherland?

How fare the youth of the land? Are they planting the seeds that will make
their country great? Do they realize the serious problems that now confront
the Republic of the Philippines, which is their Republic, and are they
contributing to the fullest extent to the solution of such problems? Are they
putting their strong and broad shoulders on the wheel of progress and
prosperity? Are they helping actively in the complete restoration of peace
and order in their country and in the gigantic reconstruction work which both
the people and the government must undertake? Are they doing their duty
as citizens of the Republic, working for the common happiness and welfare of
their respective communities?

As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Are the Filipino young men and women of today
sowing the seeds of peace and prosperity so that they will reap the fruits of
progress and tranquility? Man is the archetype of society. Both society and
the nation grow as the individuals grow. Unless our youth prepare for the
future, there will be no future for them.

“I want to let those who deny us every feeling of patriotism,” wrote Rizal,
“that we know how to die for our duty and for our convictions. What matters
death if one dies for what one loves, for one’s country, and for those one
adores?”

In one of his parting letters he wrote “My future, my life, my joys, all I have
sacri0ced for my love for her”—referring to the Philippines. “Whatever be my
fate, I will die blessing her and wishing her the dawn of her redemption.”
That, you will agree, is a wonderful sentiment. Does the Filipino youth of
today feel and cherish it?

Isagani, one of the youthful characters that stand out in bold relief in Rizal’s
Noli, once called on one of the leading lawyers in Manila for an advice. The
lawyer advised Isagani to follow the line of least resistance. “Why 0ght, why
think,” he argued, “when somebody else will do the 0ghting and thinking for
you? Prosperity, happiness, and peace of mind,” the legal adviser pointed
out, lie in the direction of the current. “Believe me,” he concluded, “you will
remember me and think me right when you have gray heirs like mine.”
What was Isagani’s retort? “When I have gray hairs like yours,” he answered,
“and I look back upon my past and see that I had worked only for myself,
without having done what I could well have done and should have done for
the country which has given me everything, then, every gray hair of mine
will be for me a thorn and instead of being proud of my gray hairs, I shall be
ashamed of them.”

Do the Filipino youth of today talk and feel that way? Are they fully aware of
the tremendous responsibility placed upon them by Rizal when he called
them “fair and sacred hope of the Fatherland?” Are they willing to die for
their convictions, to 0ght hunger and poverty and all the other evils that hard
times bring in their train so that their country, their people, their Republic,
might live in peace and in abundance?

Contrasting his age and that of his son, the father of Ibarra, Rizal’s hero in
the NOLI, said: “The future opens itself for you; for me it is closing. Your
a7ections are being born; mine are dying. Fire burns in your blood; frost is
congealing in mine; and yet you cry and do not know how to sacri0ce the
present for the future, a future which will be useful to you and your country.”

“You do not know how to sacri0ce the present for a useful, fruitful future.”
Surely, the youth of today cannot and will not accept that serious charge.
They cannot and will not disappoint their greatest hero, martyr and model.
They are ready and willing, I take it, to do their part, to work with their duly
constituted leaders for the salvation of their country especially during these
days of supreme ordeal when the fate of the Philippines is at stake as a result
of the scarcity of food and the continued pernicious and disloyal activities of
some of our citizens.

I am taking the liberty, therefore, on this occasion to invite and call upon all
the youth of the land to join hands with the forces of the government to
stimulate food production, to restore complete peace and order throughout
the length and breadth of the Philippines, and to work actively and
persistently for the welfare, progress and prosperity of the Republic. The
Republic is not of this generation to keep, but it is particularly for the young
generation and future generations to preserve and to enjoy.

I thank you for this opportunity of addressing the youth of the land on this
memorable occasion. I shall be happy to say a few words to you later in
connection with the integration movement of the Filipino youth not only in
the public and private schools but of all Filipino young men and women all
over the islands so that the youth of the land may be not only a strong factor
in supporting this government and in making this Republic an enduring
nation but also so that with the help and cooperation and loyalty of the
Filipino youth, we may be in a position to transmit as a heritage to future
generations a country, a people, compact and united in the bonds of a
common a7ection.

I thank you.

Source: O'ce of the Solicitor General Library

I Am A Filipino by Carlos P. Romulo

I am a Filipino— inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future. As such I
must prove equal to a two-fold task- the task of meeting my responsibility to the past,
and the task of performing my obligation to the future. I sprung from a hardy race - child
of many generations removed of ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries, the
memory comes rushing back to me: of brown-skinned men putting out to sea in ships
that were as frail as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne upon
the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the mighty swell of hope- hope
in the free abundance of new land that was to be their home and their children's forever.

This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore that their eyes first set upon,
every hill and mountain that beckoned to them with a green and purple invitation, every
mile of rolling plain that their view encompassed, every river and lake that promise a
plentiful living and the fruitfulness of commerce, is a hollowed spot to me.

By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of law, human and divine, this
land and all the appurtenances thereof - the black and fertile soil, the seas and lakes
and rivers teeming with fish, the forests with their inexhaustible wealth in wild life and
timber, the mountains with their bowels swollen with minerals - the whole of this rich and
happy land has been, for centuries without number, the land of my fathers. This land I
received in trust from them and in trust will pass it to my children, and so on until the
world no more.

I am a Filipino. In my blood runs the immortal seed of heroes - seed that flowered down
the centuries in deeds of courage and defiance. In my veins yet pulses the same hot
blood that sent Lapulapu to battle against the alien foe that drove Diego Silang and
Dagohoy into rebellion against the foreign oppressor.

That seed is immortal. It is the self-same seed that flowered in the heart of Jose Rizal
that morning in Bagumbayan when a volley of shots put an end to all that was mortal of
him and made his spirit deathless forever; the same that flowered in the hearts of
Bonifacio in Balintawak, of Gergorio del Pilar at Tirad Pass, of Antonio Luna at Calumpit;
that bloomed in flowers of frustration in the sad heart of Emilio Aguinaldo at Palanan,
and yet burst forth royally again in the proud heart of Manuel L. Quezon when he stood
at last on the threshold of ancient Malacañang Palace, in the symbolic act of possession
and racial vindication.

The seed I bear within me is an immortal seed. It is the mark of my manhood, the
symbol of dignity as a human being. Like the seeds that were once buried in the tomb of
Tutankhamen many thousand years ago, it shall grow and flower and bear fruit again. It
is the insigne of my race, and my generation is but a stage in the unending search of my
people for freedom and happiness.

I am a Filipino, child of the marriage of the East and the West. The East, with its languor
and mysticism, its passivity and endurance, was my mother, and my sire was the West
that came thundering across the seas with the Cross and Sword and the Machine. I am
of the East, an eager participant in its struggles for liberation from the imperialist yoke.
But I also know that the East must awake from its centuried sleep, shape of the lethargy
that has bound his limbs, and start moving where destiny awaits.

For, I, too, am of the West, and the vigorous peoples of the West have destroyed
forever the peace and quiet that once was ours. I can no longer live, being apart from
those world now trembles to the roar of bomb and cannon shot. For no man and no
nation is an island, but a part of the main, there is no longer any East and West - only
individuals and nations making those momentous choices that are hinges upon which
history resolves.

At the vanguard of progress in this part of the world I stand - a forlorn figure in the eyes
of some, but not one defeated and lost. For through the thick, interlacing branches of
habit and custom above me I have seen the light of the sun, and I know that it is good. I
have seen the light of justice and equality and freedom and my heart has been lifted by
the vision of democracy, and I shall not rest until my land and my people shall have
been blessed by these, beyond the power of any man or nation to subvert or destroy.

I am a Filipino, and this is my inheritance. What pledge shall I give that I may prove
worthy of my inheritance? I shall give the pledge that has come ringing down the
corridors of the centuries, and it shall be compounded of the joyous cries of my Malayan
forebears when they first saw the contours of this land loom before their eyes, of the
battle cries that have resounded in every field of combat from Mactan to Tirad pass, of
the voices of my people when they sing:

Land of the Morning, Child of the sun returning…Ne'er shall invaders Trample thy
sacred shore.
Out of the lush green of these seven thousand isles, out of the heartstrings of sixteen
million people all vibrating to one song, I shall weave the mighty fabric of my pledge.
Out of the songs of the farmers at sunrise when they go to labor in the fields; out of the
sweat of the hard-bitten pioneers in Mal-ig and Koronadal; out of the silent endurance of
stevedores at the piers and the ominous grumbling of peasants Pampanga; out of the
first cries of babies newly born and the lullabies that mothers sing; out of the crashing of
gears and the whine of turbines in the factories; out of the crunch of ploughs upturning
the earth; out of the limitless patience of teachers in the classrooms and doctors in the
clinics; out of the tramp of soldiers marching, I shall make the pattern of my pledge:

"I am a Filipino born of freedom and I shall not rest until freedom shall have been added
unto my inheritance - for myself and my children's children - forever.