I Am A Filipino by Gen. Carlos P.

Romulo

I am a Filipino–inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the and endurance, was my mother, and my sire was the West
uncertain future. As such I must prove equal to a two-fold that came thundering across the seas with the Cross and
task–the task of meeting my responsibility to the past, and Sword and the Machine. I am of the East, an eager
the task of performing my obligation to the future. participant in its spirit, and in its struggles for liberation
I sprung from a hardy race, child many generations from the imperialist yoke. But I also know that the East
removed of ancient Malayan pioneers. Across the centuries must awake from its centuried sleep, shake off the lethargy
the memory comes rushing back to me: of brown-skinned that has bound his limbs, and start moving where destiny
men putting out to sea in ships that were as frail as their awaits.
hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne upon For I, too, am of the West, and the vigorous peoples of the
the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the West have destroyed forever the peace and quiet that once
mighty swell of hope–hope in the free abundance of new were ours. I can no longer live, a being apart from those
land that was to be their home and their children’s forever. whose world now trembles to the roar of bomb and
This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore cannon-shot. I cannot say of a matter of universal
that their eyes first set upon, every hill and mountain that life-and-death, of freedom and slavery for all mankind, that
beckoned to them with a green-and-purple invitation, every it concerns me not. For no man and no nation is an island,
mile of rolling plain that their view encompassed, every but a part of the main, there is no longer any East and West–
river and lake that promised a plentiful living and the only individuals and nations making those momentous
fruitfulness of commerce, is a hallowed spot to me. choices which are the hinges upon which history resolves.

By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of At the vanguard of progress in this part of the world I stand–
law, human and divine, this land and all the appurtenances a forlorn figure in the eyes of some, but not one defeated
thereof–the black and fertile soil, the seas and lakes and and lost. For, through the thick, interlacing branches of
rivers teeming with fish, the forests with their inexhaustible habit and custom above me, I have seen the light of the sun,
wealth in wild life and timber, the mountains with their and I know that it is good. I have seen the light of justice and
bowels swollen with minerals–the whole of this rich and equality and freedom, my heart has been lifted by the vision
happy land has been, for centuries without number, the land of democracy, and I shall not rest until my land and my
of my fathers. This land I received in trust from them and in people shall have been blessed by these, beyond the power
trust will pass it to my children, and so on until the world is of any man or nation to subvert or destroy.
no more. I am a Filipino, and this is my inheritance. What pledge
I am a Filipino. In my blood runs the immortal seed of shall I give that I may prove worthy of my inheritance? I
heroes–seed that flowered down the centuries in deeds of shall give the pledge that has come ringing down the
courage and defiance. In my veins yet pulses the same hot corridors of the centuries, and it shall be compounded of the
blood that sent Lapulapu to battle against the first invader of joyous cries of my Malayan forebears when first they saw
this land, that nerved Lakandula in the combat against the the contours of this land loom before their eyes, of the battle
alien foe, that drove Diego Silang and Dagohoy into cries that have resounded in every field of combat from
rebellion against the foreign oppressor. Mactan to Tirad Pass, of the voices of my people when they
sing:
That seed is immortal. It is the self-same seed that flowered
in the heart of Jose Rizal that morning in Bagumbayan Land of the morning,
when a volley of shots put an end to all that was mortal of Child of the sun returning–
him and made his spirit deathless forever, the same that Ne’er shall invaders
flowered in the hearts of Bonifacio in Balintawak, of Trample thy sacred shore.
Gergorio del Pilar at Tirad Pass, of Antonio Luna at Out of the lush green of these seven thousand isles, out of
Calumpit; that bloomed in flowers of frustration in the sad the heartstrings of sixteen million people all vibrating to one
heart of Emilio Aguinaldo at Palanan, and yet burst fourth song, I shall weave the mighty fabric of my pledge. Out of
royally again in the proud heart of Manuel L. Quezon when the songs of the farmers at sunrise when they go to labor in
he stood at last on the threshold of ancient Malacañan the fields, out of the sweat of the hard-bitten pioneers in
Palace, in the symbolic act of possession and racial Mal-lig and Koronadal, out of the silent endurance of
vindication. stevedores at the piers and the ominous grumbling of
The seed I bear within me is an immortal seed. It is the mark peasants in Pampanga, out of the first cries of babies newly
of my manhood, the symbol of dignity as a human being. born and the lullabies that mothers sing, out of the crashing
Like the seeds that were once buried in the tomb of of gears and the whine of turbines in the factories, out of the
Tutankhamen many thousand years ago, it shall grow and crunch of plough-shares upturning the earth, out of the
flower and bear fruit again. It is the insignia of my race, and limitless patience of teachers in the classrooms and doctors
my generation is but a stage in the unending search of my in the clinics, out of the tramp of soldiers marching, I shall
people for freedom and happiness. make the pattern of my pledge:
I am a Filipino, child of the marriage of the East and the “I am a Filipino born to freedom, and I shall not rest until
West. The East, with its languor and mysticism, its passivity freedom shall have been added unto my inheritance—for
myself and my children and my children’s
children—forever.”