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By OSCAR F. SANTOS

Coconut Industry Reform Movement (COIR)

FLAG day seeks to promote love of country. These days, everywhere, we see big flags emblazoned with the words, “Pilipinas Kong Mahal.”

But do we really love our country? Maybe so, but we certainly have a funny way of showing it.

The Philippines is blessed with an abundance of natural resources—forests, seas, rivers, lakes, and marine and wildlife. But what do we do?

We pollute the air we breathe, ravage our forests, defile our lakes and rivers, ruin our corals and poison our fish and aquatic life. We litter our streets and dump garbage on our waterways. We treat our natural resources as if they do not belong to us.

Many behave as if they have no pride in being Filipinos. Four out of 10 Filipinos want to leave the country and reside elsewhere. Many are even ashamed of being identified as Filipinos when they go abroad. Our so-called educated avoid speaking their native tongue. To speak with a pronounced native accent is considered “un-cool.” Many struggle to speak English, no matter how broken, because not to be able to is looked down upon.

We are unmindful of our responsibilities as citizens. We close our eyes to the corruption around us. We blatantly break the law, traffic rules most especially, every chance we get. We love to stress our individual rights, but we ignore other people’s. We clean our own backyards, but dump the trash on our neighbor’s side of the street.

We sell our votes and elect plunderers and nincompoops to the highest offices. We give known cheaters seats of honor. Our public officials behave like masters, forgetting that they are public servants. They abuse authority, take bribes, get involved in scandalous contracts, take liberties with public funds, and treat our institutions with utter disrespect.

James Fallows once said that we remain underdeveloped because of our “damaged culture,” having been under Spanish, American and Japanese rule for the last 500 years or so. Randy David puts it this way: “This trait goes by other names. It is the barbarism of mindless profit-seeking, of getting something for almost nothing, of doing brisk business on the despair of others. It is the culture of shabbiness, of mediocrity, of neglect, and of perpetual improvisation. It is the absolute contempt for the public.”

Why do we have no pride in being Filipino? We are so unlike our South Korean neighbors who, when their country was in dire straits, donated their jewels and precious possessions to help fund their government. We are so unlike our Japanese neighbors who care and hold sacred their hills and mountains. To them, the faintest suspicion of wrongdoing can make top officials jump off a cliff. To them, one’s honor comes first, and failing to do right by their country is unforgivable.

The flags we are displaying these days should remind us that we are no longer under foreign control. It is time for all of us to wake up and behave like true Filipinos who could truly say with pride and dignity, “Pilipinas Kong Mahal.”

By Izah Morales INQUIRER.net AS cliché as his declaration may sound, the words of our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal still resonate up to this day: "Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan." On the 110th celebration of Independence Day, the Department of Education-Special Event Unit held the 4th Pambansang Gawad Ulirang Kabataan, which recognized five young Filipino students. Among 51 nominees, Paul Julian Hao (Chiang Kai Shek College), Ben Ralph Yu (Davao City National High School), Stephen Panol (Fort Bonifacio High School), Jamil Repors (Kidapawan City National High School), and Kate Marie F. Benitez-Colmenares (Samal National High School) stood out as the grand winners of this year’s Ulirang Kabataan. Community service, scholastic achievement, versatility, personality and character, and interview served as the criteria for selection. The grand winners took home a total of P45,000, a plaque, medal, and a certificate. But more than the recognition is the responsibility that comes with it. “Nais lang namin ay patunayan sa buong Pilipinas at buong mundo, ang pagiging Pilipino. At ang pagiging Pilipino holds so much responsibility. And being awarded as Ulirang Kabataan is a great responsibility,” said Panol. And if Rizal were still alive up to this day, Benitez-Colmenares would live up to his words through service. “Kami po ay magseserbisyo sa abot ng aming makakaya upang mas makilala pa ang Pilipinas,” said Benitez-Colmenares. Gone are the days of just nodding or shaking heads. The youth of today are now more vocal and expressive of what they think and feel.

By Amando Doronila Inquirer MANILA, Philippines--Five months after his inauguration in January 1962 as fifth president of the Third Philippine Republic, Diosdado Macapagal stunned the nation, as well as the United States, with a proclamation declaring June 12 as Independence Day, replacing July 4, the day when the United States relinquished sovereignty to Filipinos in 1946. As Filipinos celebrated yesterday the 45th anniversary of the historic change of date, the nation stood deeply divided, following the May 2007 election, in contrast to the euphoria that united the people when they celebrated the first June 12 behind a newly elected president. More than a million people packed the Luneta [now Rizal Park] in a sea of humanity, compared with fewer than 300,000 that attended previous Fourth of July celebrations. The first June 12 celebration crowd was surpassed in size and nationalistic fervor only by the Independence Day parade at the Luneta during the 1998 centennial of Philippine Independence proclaimed by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo in Kawit. Macapagal of the Liberal Party, on the first June 12 celebration, seized the standard of Philippine nationalism from the Nacionalista Party administration of President Carlos P. Garcia, whom Macapagal defeated in the November 1961 election mainly on the issue of corruption stemming from Garcia’s “Filipino First” economy policy. Macapagal turned the tables on Garcia by accusing him of using economic nationalism to cover up corruption. He inaugurated a New Era administration promising “moral regeneration,” undertaking the liberalization of the economy under the tenets of “free enterprise,” and lifting a regime of foreign exchange and import controls that favored cronies of Garcia with business advantages and windfall profits from foreign exchange and import licensing. Macapagal, a charismatic, articulate and visionary leader, at first inspired great expectations of political and economic reforms and in ethical standards for the presidency, with his New Era programs modeled on US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s revolutionary 1934 New Deal that sparked the US recovery from the Great Depression of 1929 to 1933. But within months of his inauguration, Macapagal plunged into the turmoil of scandals and controversies spawned by his reforms, and rapidly dissipated the enormous political capital he had won in the election. Yesterday, the nation marked with a tinge poignancy one of the undoubtedly memorable legacies of the first Macapagal presidency to the nation, including the agrarian reform program and a strong suit for foreign policy, under the administration of his daughter, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. When President Arroyo presided over yesterday’s Independence Day rites, she was less of a nationalist vis-à-vis the United States than her illustrious father and had slipped into public disfavor more deeply than her father at the lowest ebb of his political fortunes, after she was overwhelmingly repudiated by the Filipino people in the last Senate election. When Macapagal spoke at the Luneta on his first June 12 address to the nation, his speech was drowned by waves of thunderous applause from more than a million Filipinos packed at the Luneta, waving small Philippine flags, especially when he said: “In the discharge of my responsibility as President of the Republic, I moved the observance of the anniversary of our independence to this day, because a nation is born into freedom on the day when such a people molded into a nation by a process of cultural evolution and sense of oneness born of common struggle and suffering, announce to the world that it asserts its natural right to liberty and is ready to defend it with blood, life and honor.” Macapagal had first noted, as a junior officer of the Philippine foreign service, that the celebration of a common Independence Day with the United States on July 4 “caused considerable inconvenience” since the American celebration “dwarfed that of the Philippines” and the common event “served to perpetuate unpleasant memories” of American colonial subjugation of the Philippines. In his memoirs, Macapagal said that after checking the reaction to shifting Independence Day to June 12, he found there was virtual unanimity on the desirability of transferring the celebration from July 4. A few suggested Jan. 21, the opening day of the Malolos Congress in 1899, or Jan. 23, when the Congress ratified the Kawit independence proclamation on June 12. The problem with these other dates was that the government Aguinaldo established when he proclaimed independence on June 12 was a dictatorship, and June 12 became the consensus. Macapagal found the occasion to declare the break on May 9, when the US House of Representatives rejected the $73-million additional war damage bill to the Philippines. The rejection touched off a wave of public indignation in the Philippines. It came as Macapagal was scheduled to make a state visit to the United States. He postponed the visit, and told US President John F. Kennedy in a letter: “The feeling of resentment among our people and attitude of the US Congress negate the atmosphere of goodwill upon which my state visit … was predicated.” The shift was one of the most widely applauded decisions Macapagal ever made. To emphasize the symbolism, he invited Aguinaldo to be the guest of honor at the first June 12 celebration. Aguinaldo wrote Macapagal to express his “profound gratitude” for the proclamation, calling it a “patriotic act” and saying that June 12 was the date “when we announced to the whole world that we were a free and independent nation.” The shift was formalized into law on Aug. 4, 1964, when Macapagal signed Republic Act 4166, declaring June 12 as Philippine Independence Day. July 4 faded into history to be known as Republic Day.

By Vincent Cabreza Inquirer BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- The flag believed by heirs of Emilio Aguinaldo to be that unfurled by the general in Kawit, Cavite, in 1898 still received no respect at Tuesday’s rites marking the 109th Independence Day. Marching bands accompanying the city government’s Freedom Day parade loudly made their way down Session Road, but only a handful of people paid quiet homage to the tattered relic encased in glass at the Aguinaldo Museum on Happy Glen Loop here. Emilio Aguinaldo Suntay III, the general’s great grandson, said he was glad that some people still managed to show up. The bad news, he said, was that the flag had only “our lifetime” -- or 30-50 more years -- to last. Suntay said technicians and preservation specialists of various facilities, including the Washington-based Smithsonian Institution, earlier warned the family that there was no technology available to restore and preserve the flag at its present state. He said the decay of the silk fabric had progressed beyond any known method of chemically or physically preserving it. “Nothing lasts, anyway. And that goes double for fabric,” Suntay said. Former Baguio representative Honorato Aquino, lawyer of the Aguinaldo heirs, said the family might seek a second opinion from Japanese experts. Meanwhile, Suntay said, the family would maintain the procedures that scientists had required for preserving the flag, “for as long as it remains intact.” The family was prepared for the flag’s inevitable decay, Suntay said. He said this was why he and other family members had commissioned University of the Philippines experts to replicate the flag down to the silk fabric. The replica was displayed here during the centennial of Philippine Independence in 1998. The original flag was later framed and secured from the ceiling of the Baguio museum. The National Historical Institute has yet to authenticate the original flag despite years of probing. But it was responsible for wrapping the fragile relic in a metallic net to keep the fabric from shredding under its own weight. The city government offered in 2006 to help raise capital to preserve the flag, but Suntay said the Aguinaldo heirs decided to raise the funds themselves. He said they were raised to follow a principle espoused by US President John F. Kennedy. “It doesn’t matter what the country can do for you, but what you can do for your country -- and what we are doing is protecting this symbol,” he said. Suntay said his grandmother, Cristina Aguinaldo Suntay, started this crusade when she inherited the flag, which the family discovered under the general’s deathbed. The original flag is distinctive because its sun bears a golden face paler than that in the contemporary flag that Baguio residents waved during Tuesday’s Freedom Day parade. The section symbolizing peacetime is light blue, in contrast to the dark blue hue in the contemporary flag. The phrase “Fuerzas Expedicionarias del Norte de Luzon” runs across one side of the flag, and the words “Libertad” and “Justicia” on the other side. Lack of funds has forced the family to share the original flag’s glass casing with an authentic flag used by General Gregorio del Pilar. Suntay said the family also managed to preserve a bloodstained flag used by Aguinaldo during the Philippine-Spanish War. Most of Tuesday’s visitors to the museum belonged to the anthropology class of Danish teacher Lars Kjaerholm, who has been sending students to the Philippines for social immersion activities. Baguio’s official representatives to the program were officials of the village of Salud Mitra led by village chief Nida Galace. Suntay said he did not mind the seeming snub of the family’s precious relic. His niece, Anna Suntay, attributed the low turnout of visitors to Malacañang’s earlier announcement that June 12 was a regular working day.

By INQUIRER.net MANILA, Philippines--Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has proclaimed June 12 as Philippine Independence Day in the American City “in appreciation of the contributions that Filipino-Americans have made,” Philippine Consul General Blesilda Cabrera said in a statement issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs Tuesday. The statement said Daley presented the proclamation to Cabrera during the reception he hosted on June 7 to mark Philippine Independence Day and celebrate Chicago's Philippine-American community. Daley also encouraged all Chicagoans to appreciate the contributions the Filipino-American community has made to Chicago, the statement said. In remarks, Daley said Filipino immigrants have played a major role in strengthening the cultural diversity, economic vitality and global presence of Chicago for more than 100 years. He cited Filipinos' strong family values and commitment to quality education and said he looked forward to continue working with the Filipino community to make Chicago “the best city in the world.” Daley also presented certificates of appreciation to three Filipino-Americans -- Dr. Virgilio Jonson, Angeles Carandang and Sam Castagña -- for their leadership in making Chicago a better place to live, work and raise a family in. The Filipino community, for its part, presented Daley with a painting of a countryside scene in the Philippines.

By Maila Ager INQUIRER.net MANILA, Philippines--President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo reiterated her call for unity on Tuesday urging all leaders to set aside politics and prioritize the interest of the people as she led the country's celebration of the 109th anniversary of Independence Day. “Obligasyon nating lahat sa ating mga ninuno lalo na sa mga nagbuwis ng kanilang dugo at buhay para sa ating kalayaan na tayo’y magkaisa at magsikap upang mabigyan ng magandang buhay ang bawat Filipino (It is our duty to our forebears, especially to those who gave their lives for our freedom, that we unite and uplift the quality of life of every Filipino),” Arroyo said in her speech after flag-raising and wreath-laying ceremonies at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila. “Kung nakipaglaban noon ang ating mga bayani upang matamo ang kalayaan, nararapat lamang na ipagpatuloy natin ang naunang layunin upang mapalaya ang sambayanan mula sa kahirapan (If our heroes fought to gain our independence, then it is but fitting that we continue their legacy to free our nation from poverty),” she said. “The people desire political stability and economic reforms. It is hoped that we will continue on the path that gives priority to the people instead of politics, she added. The President had made the call for national reconciliation during her speech at the adjournment of the 13th Congress last Thursday, where she urged both her political allies and foes to move forward from the “contentious” May polls. Arroyo said this year’s Independence Day celebration would be more meaningful if every one would show his heroism in facing the present challenges of the country. Improving the economy and its continued growth was a key to liberate the Filipino people from poverty, the President said. Instead of politics, Arroyo boasted that her administration is more focused on pro-growth, pro-trade and pro-investment strategies that would help address the problem of poverty of more Filipinos. She mentioned the robust growth of the economy, a more balanced budget and, more importantly, expenditures for public service can be had as well as an increase in the salaries of government employees, she pointed out. The President ended her speech with a prayer for everyone, especially for those in need. This year's theme was “Sama-sama sa pagpupunyagi at pagdiriwang.”

By Vincent Cabreza Northern Luzon Bureau BAGUIO CITY, Philippines--You won’t find the Philippine flag laid out on the tombstones of Ibaloi revolutionary heroes Mateo “Kustacio” Carantes and Mateo Cariño on Tuesday, Independence Day. This omission was not made out of spite. Few in this generation recall the names of their former presidents, much less obscure members of the Katipunan in Igorot country, who helped General Emilio Aguinaldo escape from the Americans when the Philippine-American war broke out in 1899. Ignorance, however, is no longer an excuse, at least for a group of young Igorot professionals who have started filming the legacy of their region’s cultural and historical heroes. Dr. Ryan Guinaran and Betty Lestino have formed ResearchMate Inc. to draw factual accounts of Igorot heroism for this generation of Cordillerans. ResearchMate has completed filming a reenactment of the liberation of Baguio and Benguet, using amateur actors, aged between 12 and 30 years old. The film focuses on war veterans from Ibaloi, Kankaney, and Mt. Province groups who stayed here to fight in spite of the fact that the Imperial Japanese Army had converted Camp John Hay into its Philippine headquarters during World War II. Many of the actors are great, great grandchildren of these veterans, who were teenagers when they fought the Japanese. Sections of the film are posted on YouTube on the web or are promoted enthusiastically by Cordilleran bloggers to overseas Igorots. Guinaran said he hoped to get the films distributed in schools, or even through the pirated DVD network to win a wider audience. He may follow the marketing strategy used by Raymund Red who toured the independently produced movie, “Sakay,” around the country alongside his actors. Heroism is an oft-quoted value that has lost its meaning to present generations, according to Listino, a former researcher of the Philippine Rice Institute. She said this has been working against the case for Igorot heroes, who were too far off the fringe of mainstream society to even win official recognition. The heirs of Carantes said it took Ibaloi families years of painstaking research to even get the National Historical Institute to acknowledge their great grandparents as legitimate Katipuneros. Carantes was a community leader who coordinated the Katipunan activities in the Cordillera during the 1896 Revolution. Notes compiled by the late Ibaloi historian Geoffrey Carantes indicated that Mateo Carantes may have helped hide Aguinaldo as he made his way through the Cordilleras to escape American troops. Members of the Cariño clan have obtained the most-detailed archival records about their great grandfather from the United States. Aside from Cariño’s revolutionary links, he was also credited with winning a landmark US Supreme Court case that recognized his right over lands that became Camp John Hay. The US military converted Cariño’s pastureland into a garrison. The Ibaloi protested America’s actions in a series of cases that culminated in 1909, the same year the summer capital was officially chartered.

By Jerome Aning Inquirer MANILA, Philippines--Honor the unsung heroes -- the teachers and poll watchdog volunteers who served in the recent midterm elections, as well as the victims of extrajudicial killings and involuntary disappearances. This was the Independence Day message of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines president and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo. Aside from honoring the heroes who helped the country attain nationhood 109 years ago, he urged Filipinos to remember the ordinary heroes. “In the attempt to showcase some great, mighty and popular personalities as icons of the bayani (hero), let us not lose sight of the innumerable and unnamed bayani of our country’s history,” Lagdameo said Monday in a statement reflecting on the theme of Tuesday’s Independence Day celebration: “Kalayaan 2007: Bayan, Bayani, Bayanihan.” The prelate cited the volunteers of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections and the public school teachers “who, despite odds, difficulties, obstacles, frustrations and threats, defended the sacredness of the ballot against those desecrating groups.” Lagdameo added: “In the midst of rampant and wholesale ‘buy and sale’ of votes, there were still those who refused to be controlled by the dictatorship of money. Their small stories are worth noting down on Independence Day.” A teacher, Nellie Banaag, and a poll watcher, Leticia Ramos, died in a fire on May 15 after five armed men torched a school in Taysan, Batangas, during the counting of votes. Another teacher, school district supervisor Musa Dimasidsing who exposed cheating in the Maguindanao provincial elections, was shot dead on Saturday. Lagdameo said in his message that the extrajudicial killings, involuntary disappearances, and cases of graft and corruption should be a reminder to everyone “that while we have been liberated from the control of foreign invaders, we are victims of the abuses and exploitation of fellow Filipinos.” He added: “There is so much demand for restitution for helpless and voiceless victims. May we not consider the uncompensated victims also bayani ng bayan (nation’s heroes), especially since their appeals are apparently falling on deaf ears?” The Catholic Church in the Philippines has joined the clamor for “the restoration or return of the victims of disappearances,” the archbishop said in his message. “Our prayer is that they will be allowed to return safe and sound to their grieving and anxious families, to enjoy basic freedom.”

FILIPINOS in Saipan trooped to the Civic Center in Susupe for the annual Pistang Pinoy celebration of Philippine independence. Here's an excerpt from the Saipan Tribune article:

For thousands of Filipinos and their families in the CNMI, the Civic Center in Susupe was ground zero last Sunday, with the annual Pistang Pinoy in celebration of this year’s 109th Philippine Independence.

The annual tradition, prefaced by the raising of the Philippine flag at the grounds of the Marianas Business Plaza (the erstwhile Nauru Building), was held two days ahead of schedule to ensure the participation of hundreds in the all-day affair. Headed by Philippine Consul General Wilfredo DL Maximo and other consulate and labor officials, dozens of Filipinos representing different organizations and groups gathered at the back of Marianas Business Plaza on Sunday for the Independence Day ceremony at 7am.

The Saipan Tribune also posted Consul General Maximo's Independence Day message.

HERE'S an excerpt from the Hernando Today article:

WEEKI WACHEE — Maria Busque was born in the Philippines, lived among other Filipinos for years in Canada and California, but she never felt the urge to join a club with others who shared her ethnicity until she moved to Florida. “Everybody here is friendly,” Busque, who was still chewing the last bit of food she had eaten during Saturday’s cookout. “I love the activities. We are very active in the community. Here, you have to give back. “In California, it was totally different,” she continued. “You felt like an outsider.” The Hernando County Philippine-American Association celebrated the 109th Philippine Independence Day Saturday at Linda Pedersen Park.