Heroes: Real, preferred, imagined

Heroism, or what makes heroes, is, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder. But that is at the basic, personal, level. Hence a father, for instance, is almost always a hero to his children, in the same way that a child is the most beautiful thing to a mother. Step outside the personal level, and things can get complicated. A community will differ on whom to look up as a hero.

Things can get even more cumbersome in the larger community that makes up a country. Left to their own devices, a country made up of so many people given to so many diversities will always be hard-pressed to agree on anything. This is why laws are necessary to whip people in line, march them toward a particular direction. And that is why I was floored by what Rigoberto Tiglao wrote in his column last Monday.

Tiglao, who claims to be a meticulous researcher, says there is no single Philippine law officially declaring anyone a national hero. Not even Jose Rizal, he says, is the beneficiary of a particular Philippine law officially declaring him to be one. The only law that pertains to Rizal is the one declaring December 30 as an official holiday. But even that law makes no mention of even the words hero or heroism.

This is most shocking considering that we Filipinos have always assumed Rizal and several others as national heroes. This is what we have always assumed because that is what we have always been taught. And this is what makes it different from what I have said at the outset. A father is a hero to his children because it is a personal thing. That is what the children feel, and thus believe.

To be taught about what Rizal and the others are is different. You may not feel it or believe it but because that is what you have been taught. You need to go along or you get a failing grade. In class, you cannot answer Rigoberto Tiglao to the question who is the greatest Filipino hero and hope to pass. That is why, to avoid complications, there ought to be a law officially declaring personalities as national heroes.

It is not enough that such recognition is in the text books or history books. Such books are written by individual persons and therefore subject to personal biases, never mind if they have been approved for use in school. The closest thing to an official declaration of national heroes was when then president Fidel Ramos constituted a committee to research, evaluate, and recommend a set of national heroes.

Ramos eventually shelved the idea because, according to Tiglao, Ramos' predecessor Cory Aquino insisted that her late husband Benigno Aquino Jr. be included in the list. If for no other reason than for rejecting the list, I think we owe Ramos our collective sense of gratitude. And I, personally, will consider him a national hero for saving this country from perpetuating the most pernicious political travesty of all time.

Given this revelation about there being no law that has actually made an official declaration of anyone as a national hero, maybe it is time our legislators corrected this aberration in our historical narrative. And now would be a most opportune time as any. The political opposition that has been behind the travesty of the yellow narrative has been decimated, resoundingly rejected by an awakened electorate.

A caveat, though. If any such legislation may be forthcoming, let it make do with the old names we have been traditionally taught in school. Let us not rip up this country again by introducing relatively new names that came to our consciousness only in the last century. Let their place in history be judged dispassionately by the succeeding generations who do not have any personal memory to becloud their assessment.