The Philippines will be celebrating Independence Day on Monday, June 12, and though the country is still not emancipated in some ways, it is, without a shred of a doubt, a free and sovereign country.
Let me count the ways.
1. Its being the archipelago of the free is one reason I love my country.
Virtually all forms of media, traditional and online, are unbridled (you are only held by your own interests, not the fear of being sent to a military stockade), and those who are maligned by media also have the right to seek redress in the courts.
Have passport, will travel — unless there is a hold order against you.
No one is forced to render service in the military. You can worship in the church of your choice and vote into office the candidate of your choice even if civil society frowns on the antics of the clown you voted into Congress.
2. I love the Philippines because my great-grandfather, the late Thomas Loudon of Carbondale, Illinois, chose to live in the Philippines and die in the Philippines, in the beautiful island of Palawan where he built a home after the Spanish-American War. He could have returned to Illinois after the war, but he was smitten by Palawan — and a Filipina named Cornelia (my grandmother Mary was one of their three daughters). A widower by the time World War II broke out, he could again have abandoned the Philippines, but he stayed and was incarcerated with other Americans at UST. He was later buried in his beloved Palawan — the home he chose for the rest of his life and beyond.
Thomas’ daughter, my grandma Mary, was sent to the US to study, and in one meeting of the Filipino-American students association in Kansas, she met a Filipino, Nazario Mayor, who once served in the Army (the Philippines was a US colony at the time) and was taking up engineering at the University of Kansas. Guess what? She agreed to marry him only if he returned to the Philippines with her. And he did. Both of them chose the Philippines even if they were already ensconced in the land of milk and honey. She took him home to her beloved Palawan, and they made their home on the islet of Bugsuk. My late father Frank was their third child.
3. My grandfather, Col. Nazario B. Mayor, shed blood on the altar of its freedom.
Growing up, I remember my Grandpa Zario’s room was wallpapered with medals, including the Purple Heart. But it was only recently, through the works of American authors like Steve Moore and Douglas Campbell writing about the POWs in Palawan, that I realized the extent of my grandfather’s valor. I am in awe of his uncommon valor and almost blind patriotism.
Grandpa “Zario,” according to Campbell’s book Eight Survived (a book on the survivors of the USS Flier, the only downed World War II submariners to survive and evade capture by swimming over to Palawan), was willing to give up everything for love of country.
“When the Japanese attacked Manila, Mayor left Bugsuk and boarded a ship headed for the battle lines…He left Bugsuk and later wrote a letter to (his wife) Mary, which she read to the children one night at supper. Their father told them he was being hunted by the Japanese. If the enemy came after Mary and the children, he wrote, he would not surrender to free them because to do so would jeopardize the resistance movement,” Campbell wrote. My late father Frank was one of his children. (The others being Nellie, Bobby, Mary Anne, Coney, Buddy and later, baby Lorraine).
Palawan is actually one of the many islands that figured prominently during World War II. On Dec. 14, 1944, 139 American prisoners were herded by Japanese forces into a trench in what is now known as Puerto Princesa’s Plaza Cuartel. Gasoline was poured into the trench and then set ablaze. By digging through the sides of the trench and then jumping off a cliff, 11 soldiers survived the inferno. Many of them sought refuge in the home of my Grandpa Zario and Grandma Mary — who were not afraid to hide them from the enemy.
4. I love the Philippines because of its people. A former colleague and his wife love going where their car takes them, crisscrossing Luzon like a zipper. Once, they got stranded in a remote coastal town and desperately knocked on the door of the lone hut they saw. The man of the house let them in and made room for them in the crowded hut. He gave them carton (cardboard boxes) to spread out on the floor like a mat, and there they spent the night. When they awoke the next day, their host invited them for breakfast — steamed lobsters, which were waiting for them on the bamboo table. How many people will let you into their homes in the dead of night and go out of their way to serve you freshly caught steamed lobsters the morning after?
World-famous travel blogger and Bench endorser Jeremy Jauncey told a group of Filipino journalists during his recent Manila visit that he once lost his flip-flops on the banks of a waterfall in Cebu and out of the blue, without him asking, two little boys leaped into the river to retrieve them. Kindness, straight from very young hearts.
5. I love the Philippines because its islands are breathtakingly beautiful. I cannot forget going around the islands of El Nido in Palawan, and shrieking in delight at the kaleidoscope of colors beneath the sapphire waters, and the cathedral-like limestone formations jutting above them. The World Travel Awards recently gave El Nido Resorts its “Asia’s Responsible Tourism Award” for 2017.
And I’ll always be in awe of the Mayon volcano, so majestic, so perfectly graceful it leads your eyes upward in gratitude to the Almighty for this perfect showcase of architecture and engineering.
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And though the heat and humidity in the Philippines can make you wilt, and the streets sometimes resemble parking lots, where else in the world can you have a full-body home service massage for less than $10?
There are many understandable reasons why millions of Filipinos have chosen to live in other countries — but watch how they salivate at the thought of adobo, tuyo and kamatis and manggang hilaw and bagoong.
Maligayang Araw ng Kalayaan, mga kababayan!
(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)