Address of President Manuel L. Quezon On Policies and Achievements of The Government and Regeneration of The Filipino
Address of President Manuel L. Quezon On Policies and Achievements of The Government and Regeneration of The Filipino
Address of President Manuel L. Quezon On Policies and Achievements of The Government and Regeneration of The Filipino
Quezon
on Policies and Achievements of the
Government and Regeneration of the Filipino
[Delivered before the faculties and
student bodies of public and private
schools, colleges, and universities, at the José Rizal Memorial Field, August
19, 1938]
My Friends:
The task of economic preparation for independence has not been overlooked.
The Government has done everything to stimulate industry, help business, and
promote material progress. I sought to reopen the question of our trade
relations with the United States with a view to obtaining a modification of the
economic provisions of the Independence Law. The President of the United
States lent a sympathetic ear to my request and, in consultation with me, he
appointed the Joint Preparatory Committee on Philippine Affairs, which
committee has already studied the question of our future trade relations with
America and submitted its recommendations. With the income that we are
receiving from excise tax collections in the United States, and with the expected
changes in our trade relations with America, I feel that we shall be in fairly good
position to face the problems of economic readjustment and reconstruction, the
solution of which we cannot long delay. I propose in the remaining years of my
administration to give impetus to economic development pursuant to a
carefully prepared plan.
I have briefly outlined my policies and our achievements during the first half
of my administration, now about to close. I look upon these
accomplishments and these policies as affecting merely the superstructure,
the framework, of our national edifice. But just as a building of magnificent
architectural design, adorned with golden colonnade and arches, would
topple down and crumble to pieces when the earth trembles in seismic
activity, or when lashed by the fury of the winds, unless it be built upon solid
foundations, so our national structure, if it is to endure and be capable of
resisting political disorders and grave social upheavals, must rest upon the
rock-bottom of the character, the toil, and the physical prowess of the
people.
Wisdom and self-interest as well as a proper regard for our future security
and happiness should induce us to entertain no illusions nor a mistaken
pride as to ourselves. We are engaged in the epic task of building our nation,
to live and flourish, not for a day but for all time. We must find the flaws, if
there be any, in our concept of individual and community life, as well as in
our character, and proceed at once to remedy them.
I have an abiding faith in our people. I know that they have all the faculties
needed to become a powerful and enlightened nation. The Filipino is not
inferior to any man of any race. His physical, intellectual, and moral
qualities are as excellent as those of the proudest stock of mankind. But
some of these qualities, I am constrained to admit, have become dormant in
recent years. If we compare our individual and civic traits with those that
adorned our forefathers, we will find, I fear, that we, the Filipinos of today,
have lost much of the moral strength and power for growth of our ancestors.
They were strong-willed, earnest, adventurous people. They had traditions
potent in influence in their lives, individually and collectively. They had the
courage to be pioneers, to brave the seas, clear the forest and erect towns
and cities upon the wilderness. They led a life of toil and communal service.
Each one considered himself an active part of the body politic. But those
traditions are either lost or forgotten. They exist only as a hazy-mist in our
distant past. We must revive them, for we need the anchorage of these
traditions to guide and sustain us in the proper discharge of our political and
social obligations.
The upward climb of mankind has not been universal. In the human
landscape there are peaks and valleys and deep chasms. Generally there is
need of potent social upheavals, volcanic in proportions, to raise the lower
levels to greater heights.
There is no substitute for suffering and privation to bring out the finer
qualities in man, just as physical struggle develops his sinews. This is in
accord with biological laws. The battle for existence, the survival of the
fittest, is ever the rule of life in nature and among men. Stern necessity, the
urge that comes from fear of destruction, the loss of honor or of freedom,
reacting upon latent human faculties brings out the best that is in man. In
this respect, humanity as a whole has merely shown that it possesses the
same degree of adaptability exhibited by all species of nature. But man, after
sporadic periods of advancement, has not been able to hold permanently to
spiritual gains, and very often has slid back to his former stage when the
pressure is wholly or partially removed. This is occurring to our race. A
period of deterioration has started and, unless we check it, we shall soon be
on the down grade.
Freedom, no less than prosperity, has come to us, much more as a gift of
heaven than as the fruit of our own hard efforts through a long period of
suffering and privation. During the last forty years life has been too easy for
us. We have secured political rights almost for the asking, and we have
gained prosperity not only because of the bounties of our extraordinarily
fertile soil, but also through the advantages that our economic association
with the richest and most generous people in the world has given us. The
youth of the land that did not take part in the death-struggles of their fathers
nor have tasted the hardship of their lives, have led, from childhood, a life of
ease and relative comfort, and are enjoying the blessings of liberty for the
achievement of which they have done nothing and the lack of which they
have not felt.
Let us be realists. And let us above all be true to ourselves. The stakes are too
high—our liberties, those very liberties for which the Filipino of yesterday
fought and died, our happiness, and our very existence as a nation and as a
race. We cannot afford to suppress truth or to extenuate our shortcomings. Let
us cast away pretense and futile pride. Let us look at ourselves stripped of the
veil and trappings with which in our vanity we often cover ourselves. That we
are at all capable of doing this and detecting the weaknesses from which we
suffer is vindication enough of the excellence of our race.
Self-restraint is not an active power in us. Those who are high-strung and
emotional seldom utilize this great source of energy for the attainment of
desirable objectives. Our nerves snap into a frazzle when confronted with
danger or seemingly insurmountable difficulties. We abhor discipline, either
moral or physical, forgetting that self-discipline is the most effective process to
build fortitude of body and spirit.
Socially, we are inefficient. We are loathe to accept our social responsibilities.
We look upon our Government as the fountain source of living, to which we are
reluctant to give anything, but from which we expect every bounty and help. We
work slowly and scantily. We are afraid to exert ourselves in toil. We prefer a
life of ease and take pride in it, not knowing that there is dignity only in work.
We feel no compunction in living on the labor of others. This is singularly true
of that numerous group of small land-owners who are content with the meager
income from the rent of their land, instead of working it themselves, and from
their own sweat gain greater profits. These are the people who constitute our
middle class who should be the back-bone of the body politic. They are a liability
in our social structure. Their idleness is a drag upon the economic and social
advancement of our country, too heavy for any people to carry. They form a
stagnant pool which breeds anemia into the blood streams of the body politic
and will cause its certain death unless they awake to their responsibilities and
realize their ignoble existence.
This appraisal of the character of our people today may sound too severe. You
will realize that I would be happier if I could only shower praise upon my
countrymen. But my responsibility as head of this Nation compels me to face
and state facts, however disagreeable they may be to me or to our people, for it
is only thus that we can remedy existing evils that threaten to destroy the
vitality and vigor of the race. Because I have not lost faith that there is, within
us, all the spiritual and moral forces needed for the building of a great nation, I
am ruthless in pointing out our present shortcomings. Our task—it is a heroic
task—is to awaken and apply these faculties so that our people should become
what of right they should be: morally strong, virile, hard-working, refined,
enterprising, persevering, public-spirited.
Social and political conflicts have been the crucible in which the dynamic
faculties and virtues of man have been tempered and fused. Chivalry and the
Bushido, as well as the industrial revolution and the advancement of science
and art, are the offspring of death-struggles of man against man or of man
against nature. It is in a sense our misfortune that God has not visited such
trials and vicissitudes upon our people in adequate measure. We would be a
stronger, sturdier race if we had faced such ordeals. Much as we have endured
during our quest for liberty, our sufferings are as nothing compared with the
price paid by other peoples. Nevertheless, while we were engaged in our fight
for freedom, our nation produced men of great worth and character.
But—Bonifacio, M. H. del Pilar, Mabini, Luna—where are their equals now?
Who can compare with Rizal, with his serene wisdom and his great courage,
his spirit of self-sacrifice preferring death to slavery? Who is there that can
tread the level of loyalty and gallantry exhibited by Gregorio del Pilar who, like
a Spartan soldier, offered his life as a holocaust to duty? There were many
others, giants all, who lived in those days and gave luster to our name. They are
dead, and it seems that their individual and civic virtues were buried with
them. But the sparks still glow within us, and I know that in an emergency they
can be fanned into a flame that will fire our souls with heroic determination.
Some leaders of men have advocated the strenuous life; others a life of danger
and adventure. I offer to you the useful life, devoted to self-improvement and
the service of the state. It must be rooted on character, self-discipline, and
work. It should glorify productive enterprise, a high sense of responsibility,
and the ethical virtues. Its objectives are personal perfection and social
efficiency.
Today the Filipino is a sad and unimaginative man, perhaps because he has
been too long subjected to foreign domination. His sadness is reflected in his
speech and his songs. They are of renunciation and disappointment. You see it
on the canvas that he paints; you read it in the stories that he writes. If we
regenerate his spirit and change his outlook, his songs will be of joy, his
paintings of glory, his stories of achievement. Let us endow him with
optimism sand valor, and with the love of adventure of his forebears.
To attain these aims, it is imperative to fashion the culture and character of the
people, so as to provide them with spiritual and physical energies of the
highest order.
To insure the accomplishment of this task of national spiritual reconstruction, we
shall formulate and adopt a social code—a code of ethics and personal conduct—a
written Bushido—that can be explained in the schools, preached from the pulpits,
and taught in the streets and plazas, and in the remotest corners of our land. We
shall indoctrinate every man, woman, and child in its precepts. By every means
and power at my command, I shall strive to enforce its principles and to require
that they be so universally and constantly observed, that our children may breathe
it in the air and feel it in their very flesh. Every Filipino is a part and an objective of
this great national movement, the success of which depends upon his own success
in building up his character and developing his faculties.
Every official of the Government will have to cooperate, and ignorance of, or
failure to live up to, the rules of conduct established, will be a bar to public office.
There will be some superficial men, self-appointed guardians of democracy, who
would brand this movement as the first step towards totalitarianism. Let us not
heed them. It is the concern of democracy to raise the character of the people to the
highest peak, for democracy itself can only survive and be effective to promote the
common welfare, if the people are intelligent, virtuous, and efficient
We have attained our freedom, but our spirit is still bound by the shackles forged
from the frailties of our nature. We owe it to ourselves and our posterity to strike
them down.
We are Orientals. We are known for our placidity and passivity. In the world of
humanity we are looked upon as a quiet and smooth lake from which the
adventurous and enterprising may reap enjoyment and gain. I refuse to allow the
Filipino to be so regarded. We shall be a flowing stream, a rippling brook, a deep
and roaring torrent, full of life, of hope, of faith, and of strength. Through self-
discipline we shall harness all our energies, so that our power, spreading over the
length and breath of this Land will develop its resources, advance its culture,
secure social justice, give puissance to the Nation, and insure happiness and
contentment for all the people, under the ægis of liberty and peace
Other peoples of the world are straining themselves to attain higher levels of
progress and national security. We shall not lag behind.
The Filipino people are on the march, towards their destiny, to conquer their place
in the sun!