Don Sergio Osmeña’s National Heroes Day (1945) - Part 1
In a nation rising from the devastation of World War II, its leader, President Sergio Suico Osmeña Sr., the first and only Cebuano president, delivered a speech during the celebration of National Heroes Day on November 30, 1945:
Address of His Excellency Sergio Osmeña President of the Philippines As we celebrate National Heroes’ Day [Delivered at Capas, Tarlac, November 30, 1945]
It is fitting that this year we celebrate National Heroes’ Day here at Capas. No longer is this just another Philippine town; it is the home of immortal spirits. In its hallowed soil rest thousands of our fellow Filipinos who died for their country as much as those who were slain on the battlefield.
Like Bataan, Capas also stands for Filipino courage. Bataan and Capas represent two phases in the same unfoldment of Filipino valor, sacrifice, and triumph. In Bataan our soldiers fell heroically amidst the din and smoke of battle. In Capas, they succumbed to hunger and disease, victims of enemy cruelty.
But Capas was always more than a prison-camp. It was the heart not only of Filipino suffering, but of the Filipino spirit. In Bataan, though hopelessly outnumbered, our soldiers fought. In Capas they were wholly at the mercy of the enemy. They werestarved, beaten, tortured; thousands of them died. But their spirit was unconquerable. Capas has been wiped out as a prison-camp, but it remains as a symbol of spiritual resistance, a symbol of faith.
The enemy seemed everywhere victorious...Weak men might have said, “Why die in a hopeless cause? Let us submit. Submit.”
But between the men of Capas and despair an unquenchable flame of faith rose into the skies. The voice of that great champion of human rights, the late President Roosevelt, thundered across the sea—Be brave, he said, the entire resources of America in men and material are pledged to your redemption and freedom. From his exile our beloved President Quezon pleaded: Hold on, whatever the sacrifice, whatever the price, hold on. In the enveloping gloom, theirs could have been mere voices that mocked and taunted. Nevertheless, our people maintained faith. Jose Abad Santos died because he was a man of faith. These men of Capas, our whole nation, held on to the belief that the destiny of the Philippines was to be free; they refused to be slaves. (To be continued)
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