OUR NATIONAL, Dr. Jose Rizal once said, “I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land. You who have it to see, welcome it — and forget not those who have fallen during the night!”
Many have perished never to see the light of freedom during the Spanish occupation, such as Apolinario Mabini and Andres Bonifacio, whose likeness used to be on our P10 bill.
Former President Manuel Quezon lobbied for Philippine independence from the Americans, but died before seeing his effort come to fruition. Quezon’s image used to be on our P20 bill, now P20 coin.
Jose Abad Santos, Josefa Llanes Escoda, and Vicente Lim all fought the Japanese and died resisting them during World War II. Their faces used to be on our P1,000 bill until they were removed and replaced by the Philippine eagle in 2022.
During the Marcos dictatorship, we lost a generation of our best and brightest for resisting the dictatorship. Edgar Jopson, Bobby dela Paz, Johnny Escandor, Macliing Dulag, and Ninoy Aquino were tortured and killed during this period, but they served as inspiration for Filipinos to fight against those that have abused their power. Ninoy’s image is currently on our P500 bill.
“Forget not those who have fallen during the night!” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas released the new bill designs for 2025 that shows the faces of our national heroes being replaced with images of animals. It seems that the government has rejected Rizal’s lonely plea and sage advice.
For more than two decades, the dictator’s family has been hard at work trying to rewrite history and erase from our collective memory the heroes who bravely fought for our freedom. But, as public historian Professor Xiao Chua said, “A people devoid of heroes. What a country. But no amount of defacement of our heroes and great leaders will take away the lessons they left behind and the spirit of nation-building that they exemplified.”
Seriously, are we really going to forget those who have fallen during the night? Do we really want a country devoid of heroes? Are we better off forgetting them? Are they trying to make us forget that the blood of heroes runs in our veins so they can replace it with the blood of slaves and let tyrants rule again? Another thing that Rizal said, “there are no tyrants where there are no slaves.”
May the legacy and spirit of all our martyrs and leaders about to be removed from our bills continue to be remembered and serve as inspiration in the hearts of our people.
At the end of the day, it is the people who decide. And Ninoy, just like Rizal, believed that we can only win freedom by deserving it. And when the people reach these heights, God provides the weapon, and the idols and the tyrants fall like a house of cards and freedom shines in the first dawn.
(Statement of the August Twenty-One Movement, 19 Dec. 2024)
