Today, August 21, is a nonworking holiday in the country in remembrance of Benigno S. Aquino Jr., “the greatest president we never had”. I want to pay special tribute to his courage, which he demonstrated many times over during the course of his service to the nation. From the moment he started opposing the policies of the government at that time, up until his years in prison, his continued attacks against the Marcos regime despite his illness and a death sentence, Ninoy displayed sheer bravery in the face of threat, risk to himself and family and even death. Some of Ninoy’s daring may have come from his bloodline, being a grandson of Servillano Aquino y Aguilar, a general in the anticolonial Philippine Revolution of 1896 and the Philippine-American War in 1898.
In a final display of courage, done in the name of the country he dearly loved, Ninoy returned to the
Philippines even if he knew that he would most probably be killed. And he was, in a last ditch effort to
silence him by men who had none of his bravery. Little did they know that this would only fire up the nation to start a revolution.
The Spanish Jesuit and philosopher Baltasar Gracian y Morales famously said, “Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit”. Unfortunately, there are plenty of personalities in power who believe that their intelligence, their smarts, or even their wisdom, would be enough to create lasting and significant change. But even our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, without taking up arms or any weapon aside from his pen, displayed fearlessness and daring when he fought for freedom against the colonial rule of Spain. Coming from the lives of these two great men—Ninoy and Rizal—we come to know that wisdom coupled with courage is a combination that carries the potential to topple over entire regimes and foreign colonizers. May it be a guide for those who are currently running the nation.
Allow me to end this column with a famous quote from another warrior, war veteran and former US President Theodore Roosevelt, who, once in his life, delivered a long speech right after an assassination attempt, still bleeding from the bullet lodged in his chest. “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”