Filipino Heroes Quotes

Our forefathers were heroes. But why were they heroes? Because they fought for democracy. They fought for the life and liberty of the Filipino people. They fought for our independence, our freedom. They fought against tyranny, totalitarianism, and dictatorship. They fought for us and that is something we must be grateful for.

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!

You might wonder that I who who have served you in the field of diplomacy should set so much store by the power of nationalism. This is because I know from personal experience that in order to become an effective internationalist, one must strive to be a good nationalist. To be a worthy citizen of the world one must first prove himself to be a good Filipino.

To do my best, to increase and never lessen my country's pride was the underlying motivation of all I might attempt. ... I had to be outstanding, to make the greatest effort to win, to prove I was capable not in spite of having been born Filipino but because I was a Filipino.

Hero had the sense that Pol's Ilocano was stuck in time, that he only wanted to speak it with the people he'd always spoken it to, but even when Hero and Pol spoke in Ilocano with each other in California, there was a playacting stiffness in their voices that hadn't been there back in Vigan, when Hero used to hang on every word.

Hero opened her mouth, still unsure of whether to use English or Tagalog when talking to Paz. Paz had a habit of speaking to Roni in a mixture of English, Tagalog, and Pangasinan. It felt like Roni didn't really know the difference between Tagalog and Pangasinan, and moved between the two interchangeably as if they were one language. Nobody had told her otherwise, Hero supposed. But for Hero, listening to the mixture was like listening to a radio whose transmission would occasionally short out; she'd get half a sentence, then nothing -- eventually the intelligible parts would start back up, but she'd already lost her place in the conversation. But when Pol would come in, they'd switch to English, and like adjusting a dial to get a sharper signal, Hero would be able to tune in again.

Paz smiled, and answered the way Hero would learn she always answered: rather than lying, or even dodging the question, she preferred to speak the supposedly shameful truth as if it were something to be proud of. Of course not, she said, her voice sweet and direct. We're too poor to have anything like a car. She made it sound like it was desirable not to have a car, ridiculous to even want one. Hero had been impressed, not least of all because even she'd gotten in the habit of leaving a room whenever Tita Ticay entered it, terrified of her venomous tongue, her keen eyes, the ease with which she spotted weakness, and the please with which she toyed with it.

Paz was a few years older than her; looked younger. Hero saw her alone on the veranda, in a black dress patterned with what looked like large sampaguita vines. Her center-parted hair reached just to the top of her ass; it was the most expensive-looking thing about her. She appeared to understand that beauty, at least, was also a kind of wealth.

Hero was touched by the small gesture of courtesy, at first only minutely, and then, for no reason at all, deeply and wholly. It was possible she was about to cry, here in this kitchen, for the first time since she'd arrived in America. To prevent that from happening, she stuffed her mouth with an entire quarter of the pizza, then huffed and gasped as the molten bite burned her tongue.