Separate Opinion : 'Lupang Hinirang'
Posted 01:42am (Mla time) May 15, 2005
By Isagani Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the May 15, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
MY SON Celso related to me a disturbing incident that he felt ought to be reported in this column. I am reporting it now in hopes that it will also disturb readers like you with whom, I am sure, we share a social conscience.
On April 29, he and his wife Alma went to the Duty-Free Shop in Parañaque. As it was still closed at the time, they stayed at the canteen where a number of people were also waiting. At 8:45 a.m., the public address system announced that the National Anthem was going to be played before the opening of the store. Dutifully and out of respect for the solemn hymn, Celso and Alma stood up, expecting others to do the same.
Surprisingly, however, no one else did. Some thirty of the waiting people remained seated and many of them continued eating. They chatted with each other while the anthem was being sung. The ceremony meant absolutely nothing to them unless it was at least a minor irritation to be patiently ignored and tolerated while they were finishing their
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breakfast. Some of them probably would have preferred a popular tune familiar to them and more agreeable to their taste. A popular vocalist warbling a mindless ditty would have been more welcome.
My son was shocked by the indifference of the seated persons and urged them to rise and honor the National Anthem. But they did not respond. They just looked at him, not with hostility but probably with amusement or puzzlement over his needless annoyance. They probably thought they were doing nothing wrong and minding their own business, which my son should also do, and relax. It was when the anthem finally ended that they decided it was time for them to stand up to go to the shop.
Celso says that he then approached the security guard and asked why he did not require the seated people to rise when the National Anthem was being played. The man replied that he was only a guard. He had tried to do this on previous occasions but was rebuffed, sometimes even angrily. Celso said it was his duty as a guard to maintain order in the premises but he said no one was causing any disorder. Disrespect for our National Anthem was rank disorder, my son said, but the guard merely shrugged and said as if to excuse himself, "Wala po akong magawa. Talaga pong ganyan ang Pilipino."
"I could not do anything, sir." he said. "Filipinos are really like that." Disgusting and despicable and cheap? No, sir! Filipinos are not really like that! Filipinos do not disdain those things that symbolize the highest and the best about our country like the Filipino flag and our National Anthem. The majority of our people are unlike those contemptible so-called citizens in that canteen who could not even bother to stand up while the song of our Republic was being sung.
Celso complained to an employee of the Duty-Free Shop who said he would report the matter to the management of the store. Let's wait and see what will happen. Coincidentally, when he and his wife went that same day to a moviehouse at SM Southmall, they encountered the same outrage to the National Anthem. As it was being played preparatory to the screening of the show, Celso and Alma again rose along with other respectful citizens. But as in the Duty-Free canteen, a number of couples, this time loving and not eating, stayed seated holding each other and oblivious to anything else. It was romantic but hardly patriotic.
I had a similar experience once but the offenders were a foreign couple. They remained seated when our National Anthem started to play, but when I shouted at them to stand up they did. They evidently wanted to avoid any unpleasantness. They were at least readily penitent than those fellow citizens of ours who had no compunction in exhibiting their contempt for our National Anthem and most likely also for the Philippine flag. They probably believed that their very nationality provided them with immunity from punishment for dishonoring the highest hallmarks of our Republic and displaying their disgust for the Republic itself.
The present generation does not seem to have the same devotion to country that we, as children, learned from our parents and teachers. At home and in school before the war, we were taught to love the Philippines as the land of our birth and "the child of the sun returning" as the English lyrics of the anthem then proclaimed. The soldiers who fought in Bataan must have gathered strength and courage from the strains of that sacred song as they resisted the alien invader, many of them to death.
Some may say that our anthem is not as martial as the Star Spangled Banner of the Americans or the Marseillaise of France to whip the blood to thoughts of glory. The Filipinos are not a bellicose people. Our "Lupang Hinirang" sings of peace, the beauty of our hills and seas and the azure skies, and the treasured liberty we will defend with our very lives. We should all rise to hear those gallant words.
Are people in Cebu more patriotic than people in Manila?
Originally Posted by FK
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