Separate Opinion
‘Bayan Ko’
By Isagani A. Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:44:00 07/05/2008
I HEARD IT AGAIN AFTER SO LONG, that almost forgotten song that had stirred us to helpless anger and finally turned our fear into valor against the wicked regime of Marcos and his fellow scoundrels. It was being sung on that quiet morning by a 10-year-old boy, with histrionic feeling and aplomb but, most likely, without understanding its sentiment and meaning.
It had become popular during the dictatorship when it was first sung, innocently perhaps, by some unknown vocalist whose only ambition must have been to be another Diomedes Maturan and not to assassinate Ferdinand Marcos. Another singer, this one with political resentments, must have seen the song as a form of protest and so dared to sing it as such. Many others understood the potentials of the song for the cause of the Unido headed by Salvador H. Laurel and began singing it too. Soon Doy himself and his son Cocoy, and the beautiful Celia too, were also singing it.
Criticism of Marcos and his family was strictly prohibited and often landed many a reckless discontent in a military prison. There were outstanding exceptions, of course, like Eggie Duran Apostol and her circle of female journalists more courageous than many of their male colleagues. Speaker J. B. Laurel Jr. delivered a scathing attack against the Marcoses at a dinner where Imelda was guest of honor, and the audience applauded heartily but with their hands hidden carefully under the table. Laurel was not arrested. There were the law professors, too, whom the military did not molest probably because they were wary of the students who protected us except those they had sent to spy on us while pretending to be activists.
But it was not to these favored or feared groups that the song was important because they were spared from persecution in any case as the despot had commanded. The song was especially useful to the general public who could be hauled to jail for any imagined or intentional insolence against him, but not for simply singing it. The clever lawyers of the FLAG and the Mabini could argue for the ordinary citizens that the song merely expressed their deep love for their country and not their hatred of martial law. That song clearly implied that second feeling but it was safely concealed in its innocent words.
The song was introduced during the 1920s, lyrics written by Jose Corazon de Jesus and the music composed by Constancio de Guzman. It immediately became the message of the nationalist movement that saw many Filipinos persecuted under the Sedition Law strictly enforced by the American administration. Among them was my own father who at the age of 21 won a national poetry contest with his piece entitled “Himagsikan.” He escaped conviction with the help of two young lawyers who later became members of the House of Representatives.
Display of the Philippine flag was prohibited then but not the singing of that song that inspired the desire to be free more feelingly than the official national anthem that described our country as the “cradle of noble heroes” where, ironically, “ne’er shall invaders trample (its) sacred shores.” Compared to that tame hymn, the theme song of the nationalist movement, while lamenting our subjection to a foreign power, merely described our country as a caged bird longing to be free but made the unsaid message clearly understood.
“Ang bayan kong Pilipinas, lupain ng ginto’t bulaklak, pag-ibig ang sa kanyang palad, nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag,” the song begins. “At sa kanyang yumi at ganda, dayuhan ay nahalina, bayan ko, binihag ka, nasadlak sa dusa.” My Philippines, land of gold and flowers, love bestowed beauty and grace upon her. But her modesty and comeliness attracted the foreigner who held her in bondage and despair.
“Ibon mang may layang lumipad, kulungin mo at umiiyak, bayan pa kayang sakdal dilag ang di magnasang makaalpas.” If even a bird that is free to fly will cry if it is confined in a cage, how much more will a country as graceful as ours weep if it is deprived of its liberty. “Pilipinas kong minamahal, pugad ng luha ko’t dalita, aming adhika, makita kang sakdal laya.” My beloved Philippines, land of my tears and sadness, our fervent yearning is to see you completely free.
Such was the tender but resolute appeal of that song that it strengthened the peaceful efforts of our new leaders to work for our “complete, absolute and immediate independence” from the United States that we finally won in 1946. And its message was as poignant and demanding as ever when it urged the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and forced the resignation of Joseph Estrada in 2001.
Now it is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s turn. As in Edsa 1 and Edsa 2, “Bayan Ko” must be sung again to eject the lawless tenant from Malacańang, this time for the corruption of her administration, the pretended solicitude that gives crumbs to the destitute but morsels to the rich, the falsification of elections, the violation of human rights, the growing inroads of the military in the civilian government, the ascendancy of mediocrity in the public service, and many other serious abuses that reprovingly warn us that we are again not free.
And so the fateful song must ring and be heard again -- loud and clear as in the valiant past: Bayan ko, aming adhika, makita kang sakdal laya!
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