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    I Am A Filipino

    Uploaded by

    Dorina Mallanao

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    I Am A Filipino

    Uploaded by

    Dorina Mallanao
    4 views1 page

    Original Title

    I-am-a-Filipino

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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    4 views1 page

    I Am A Filipino

    Uploaded by

    Dorina Mallanao

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    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 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.

    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 first invader of this land, that nerved Lakandula in the combat 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 Gregorio 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 Malacañan Palace, in the symbolic act of possession
    and racial vindication.

    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 spirit, and in
    its struggles for liberation from the imperialist yoke. But I also know that the East must awake from its
    centuried sleep, shake off the lethargy that has bound his limbs, and start moving where destiny awaits.

    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 first they 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.

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