In soaring prose, revolutionary President Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine independence from Spain 113 years ago today. The declaration announced the readiness of Filipinos to run their own land, free of the colonial yoke. The proclamation was directed at the world, in particular the country whose naval guns were trained, even as Aguinaldo spoke, on Manila Bay’s shoreline after sinking the entire Spanish armada in the Philippines.
Aguinaldo’s proclamation would take half a century and two world wars to be fully realized. By that time, many Filipinos had embraced the new colonizers, learning their language, adopting their system of government and imbibing their culture. In other Asian countries, parting with their colonizers was bitter. In the Philippines, the umbilical cord to the United States was maintained long after the Americans had formally relinquished any direct role in Philippine governance. Some quarters have observed that this dependence made the Philippines complacent in many aspects of national life, particularly matters of security.
Many of those other Asian countries have since shown what Aguinaldo could only proclaim 113 years ago: they were ready to run their own land. They wanted independence, and they made it work. Free of colonial rule, they didn’t run their respective countries like hell, or run them to the ground. Instead they struggled, confronting the difficult challenges of strengthening institutions and building a nation. Today many of these former colonies are free – from abject poverty, and from dependence on outside aid for national needs.
Aguinaldo and the Philippines’ other founding fathers also dreamed of that kind of independence. It remains an unfulfilled dream, and every Independence Day should serve as a reminder of the need to work for its realization. Every year that the nation falls farther behind its neighbors in human development indicators should give more urgency to the task.