Glorious Manila

OUR WHOLESOME INHERITANCE
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This was just one of the external products of our beautiful national genetic code generating from what we had inside. We inherited this code when we, with our consolidated people and archipelago were born as a nation out of the womb of mother Spain in 1898.(1)

It was a golden era of quality stock of people with good fruits flowing out of our productive hands: quality rural and urban development; our own Constitución Política de Malolos "with the most progressive ideas of autonomous and self-governing local communities, unmatched even today."; our own Academia Militar; our own agricultural system; and our own direction towards maturity correcting whatever defects and imbalances in our character.(2)(3)

But the americans invaded us in 1899. We defended fiercely our beautiful stock, our dignity as a nation. In order to force the warriors among us to surrender, the americans held hostage our families and neighbors and brought them out of our barrios to a zero sanitation reconcentration camps. By the time many of us surrendered, 500,000 to 900,000 of us died.(4)(5)

It was our national developmental code that regulated our national behavior. This is the code of excellence inherent in our embryonic formation which manifested during our birth as a nation, by our having a filipino national identity, by our development of our systems, our unity, our nationalism and how with so little and inspite of the tremendous injuries inflicted on us, we defended our nation against the invasion of an overwhelmingly superior aggressor.

Severely weakened, the americans transmitted into our different systems including defense, education, economic, and political, a developmental program which would apparently be our own but with artificial american manipulation and subtleness, transformed us into worshipping dependents of the americans. They distorted our very own history.

Our attempts at consolidation of control of whatever resources that were still remaining in our possession, were frustrated. We lost control of our resources and our economic situation to the opportunistic chinese invasion in the 1900s because they were given protection by the americans.(6)(7)(8)(9)910) All these prolonged assaults on our physical integrity, and national sovereignty and dignity by foreigners took a heavy toll on the very structure of our national developmental code. Our national identity and dignity was severely injured. Our beautiful stock was corrupted. We became submissive to their will.

Having lost our national identity and dignity, like a rape victim, we became alienated from our inherited nation. We began to despise ourselves as a nation and have been reduced to surviving individuals. We threw our wastes on our very own rivers and stole from our very own people. We have taken advantage of each other over our national resources and handed them over to our foreign invaders who provided us with what satisfies our flesh and what satisfies us, as individuals.

Only when we become aware that we have an inheritance and how and where it was taken, can we recover our national identity. Only then, can we recover our beautiful stock. Only then can we recover our national genetic code and regenerate once more our beautiful stock from which development of not only the once glorious Manila will again spring, but our once glorious Filipinas.

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References:

1. CORPUZ, Onofre D., 1989, 'Roots of the Filipino Nation, Vol. 1', Quezon City, Philippines: Aklahi Foundation, Inc., X, XI, 5.
2. CORPUZ, Onofre D., 1989, 'Keeping the Spirit of 1896 Alive' in Hector Santos, ed., Philippine Centenial Series, at http://www.bibingka.com/phg/misc/spirit96.htm Quezon City, Philippines: Aklahi Foundation, Inc., X, XI, 5.
3. AGONCILLO, Teodoro A., 1990. 'History of the Filipino People', Garotech Publishing, 117 2nd St., Bitoon Circle, commonwealth, Quezon City. 200-210.
4. GRAY, Heather, Nov. 17, 2003. 'Resistance to US Military Occupation: The Case of the Philippines, commonDreams.org. http://www.commondreams.org/
5. CORPUZ, Onofre D., 1989, 'Roots of the Filipino Nation, Vol. 2', Quezon City, Philippines: Aklahi Foundation, Inc., 483, 566.
6. TAN, Antonio, 'The Chinese in the Philippines, A Study of National Awakenings 1898-1935, 1892-183
7. Editorial, The Tribune, June 5, 1926
8. FILIPINAS FOUNDATION INC., 1975, 'Philippine Majority-Minority Relations and Ethnic attitudes, An In-Depth Study', 89
9. McBEATH, 'Political Integration of the Philippine Chinese', 34, 36-37
10. AGPALO, Remegio E., 'The Political Process and the Nationalization of Retail Trade in the Philippines', 103, 131, 193-218

Photo Courtesies:
f1. posted by Animo, http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=96172&page=399
f2. posted by Animo, http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=96172&page=399
f3. posted by Animo, http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=96172&page=399
f4. La Solidaridad Blog, "La Bella Filipina" painting by Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, http://laonlaan.blogspot.com/2007/03/la-bella-filipina.html


José Miguel García