Being Pinoy

Is not about using - or mangling - a foreign language in place of your own. It is not the brand you prefer to use or misuse, the color of your hair or the lack of it, the shine or dullness of your eyes enhanced by blue contacts, or those imported clothes you wear or do not wear.

If anything, these only reflect your style, mentality, breeding or budget.

It lies not on the insults heaped from your yesteryears' Indios to today's Flips, which boxed your identity into idiosyncratic observations of those who profess to know you more.

Prejudice, they seem to forget, is ignorance. Sometimes, you have to remember that yourself.

You are Pinoy, the Past. Waking up, you are the child nurtured by your parents to moral values passed from one generation to the next. Respect, humility, courage, pride, wisdom, grace. You ate them, spoke them, and later sharpened them in your youth.

You, too, are Pinoy of the World. For who are you without knowing your neighbors, your fellow citizens of the world? While the Great Divide dots you to a part of the Asian region, you traveled the fullness of earth and made your presence known.

As did your great ancestors and heroes. Your Juan Luna wowed the art world with his "La Spoliarium" as you carved your Jose Rizal in his overcoat, recognizing his travels to Europe where he met with other Filipinos and later formed the "La Liga Filipina".

You know your territories well, and will do everything to protect these from getting into the hands of tyrants, foreign or local. Your Revolution of 1898, the countless revolts before it, the Uprising at EDSA which toppled the Dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the many mass demonstrations and upheavals before it, the shutting down of the US Bases that had been maligning your sovereignty. These attest to your knowledge of what is yours and your courage and strength to safeguard it.

Though many have betrayed you and stopped you from your struggles to ensure the lives of your family, of your kin, of your fellow Filipinos, the best in you always shine through. A heritage of heroism in action.

You have shed blood and won your freedom. You have shone your identity through and stood proud among the free. Your battle is long won.

But it remains a sad picture out there as you squat somewhere in the slums of the city, as you become part of the millions lining up to find work, as your children beg at those dangerous streets, as your young sell their soul to any bidder, as you and your family starve, and your president asks you to save, scrimp and sacrifice.

You have completed yourself with your past and with the world. Now is the time to meet the challenges of today. Your country needs the hero in you once again.