for two good men

today is my dad's birthday. i bet it is a lot happier than his birthday 25 years ago,
the day ninoy became the ninoy i know now.

i only know him through what others say of him,
from my father, and his father, my mother's father.

and as i pray for two good men whose lives were marked by particular events that occured some august 21 years ago, i share this essay below.

father danny shared father jojo's wonderful homily about ninoy too (link here).
the one below is my piece for this UP contest. it made it to the prelims but i did not show up because i did not feel so good yesterday and so i share it here instead.

nothing fancy. just my take on why i think the guy is cool.
even if i've never seen him.

happy birthday, pa! happy good day, ninoy.
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Tatay would beam with pride every time he recalls how he stood in line, in a very long line, to see Ninoy peacefully at rest. One wonders why one would feel proud seeing a dead man. But the answer is easy. The dead man he is lining up for is no ordinary man and his was no ordinary feat.

Ninoy made Pinoys out of Pinoys when Pinoys would rather be anyone else.

There was nothing to be proud about being under the whims of a dictator. It was easy to be keen on being someone else. It was easy to be keen on being somewhere else. But Ninoy stood as a Filipino in the Philippines, and the rest of the nation did what it had to do. But though the lines were long just to see him one last time, the time for true national prosperity never came to be.

There is nothing to be proud about being in a stolen democracy. It is easy to be keen on being someone else. It is easy to be keen on being somewhere else. Mine is a generation who will yield to the demands of a call center accent or to the requirements of a fly-by-night nursing school. But there is no point blaming us for our seeming apathy or lack of long term goals. There is no point pointing fingers.

But Ninoy did point fingers. Ninoy pointed fingers at himself. Instead of incessantly cursing the enemy away from the land where the war took place, he came and fought as a Filipino in the Philippines. He fought and did his part.

I was born in 1987, seven months after Filipinos drove the enemy away. I never really witnessed firsthand any of the fruits of Ninoy's death. But I realize that neither did he.His life was taken years before his dream was realized. I still think his dreams have not yet been realized to this day.

The new century puts much of his dreams into new contexts he may not have imagined. It would have been very hard in the 1980s to imagine that a World Trade Center be pulverized to the ground by passenger planes. It would have been very hard in the 1980s to imagine that a Filipino could say I Love You to the world via a computer virus. It would have been very hard in the 1980s to imagine a Filipino call center accent trainer training agents to sound like someone else just to serve people thousands of miles away.

Most of our lives will be taken before our dreams will be fully realized. But if, like Ninoy, we do our part and see it as part of something so much greater, then we would have lived well.

Because the Filipino is worth living for.And after much living well, because the Filipino is worth dying for. And so on his deathbed, even Tatay still beams with pride.