Friendship

I remember when as a young school boy we were made to make small Philippine and American flags fashioned from colored paper, or if you had the resources, the more expensive and glossy art paper, every fourth of July to commemorate Philippine-American friendship day. I had always believed that the great North American country was a benevolent and protective friend of my country, righteous and just, the champion of good against evil.

But my young mind was not analytical enough to be able to compare the abstract of Philippine-american friendship to the reality of my experience with friends in the community and school, which is to realize that none of my friends was benevolent and protective, righteous and just, champion of good against evil, and that friends were just peers and were no better than I was. All I knew was they were never larger than life. This is not to mean that there were no bullies around. There were. But they were enemies, not friends, but that is a different story.

It didn’t help that my father was your classic colonized subject, the epitome of a subjugated people, who only had praises for everything American and curses for everything native. It would take fifteen summers of my life to realize the great folly of the thing called Philippine-American friendship.

True enough, a quick look at the relations between the two countries will reveal the fallacy of this friendship. from the genocide of colonization to the unequal treaties, from the economic impositions to the military interference, from political dictates to cultural subjugation. Everything amounts to a relation found only between a master and a slave, a strong and a weak, king and vassal.

How this myth still controls the minds of our people is perhaps the greatest tragedy that has befallen this accursed nation. We always bounce back from the natural calamities that visit us with the regularity and certainty of a tax. But we are never able to end, much less see, American neo-colonial control as the biggest impediment to our development as a people. Ironically, we see it as God’s gift to us, a blessing for fortunate souls.

How a true friend can kill 1.2 million of our countrymen in the name of democracy and civilization escapes reason. How a friend can abandon us during the Japanese invasion because it really had no plans to defend the country in the frist place, only to claim heroic return after the people had essentially freed itself from the occupiers refutes sincerity. How a friend can prohibit and punish the display of a national flag while imposing a foreign language negates respect.

How can a friend preach freedom while supporting a dictator? How can a friend support development while vigorously exploiting the other’s limited resources? How can a friend provide real progress while deliberately tying the other to perpetual indebtedness?

How can friendship be real when it is founded only on deceit? How can friendship survive when it thrives only on selfish motives? How can there be friendship in the first place when there was only the intent to enslave at the very start.

True friendship is founded on mutual respect. And respect, like freedom which you have to fight for and win, is something you earn, not beg for.

Next time you wave the stars and stripes, or drive around with a bumper sticker declaring “proud to be an American”, make sure you are the pathetic ignorant fool that you want to be.

Great Slaughter

The Filipino-American War pictorial series #5

On February 23d there was a violent outbreak at Tondo in which the Tagals made a fierce and sudden onslaught upon the Americans. they were repulsed with great slaughter. In one yard of which a photograph was taken there were found no less than twenty dead.