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'Fraternal Greetings to Burma'
Radio statement over Station PIAM, Manila and Station
JOAK, Tokyo on the First Anniversary of the
Independence of Burma, August 1, 1994.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Radio Audience:
Last year on this day we hailed as a brother Oriental
people the declaration of the independence of
Burma because it marked the realization of a long
cherished dream of the Burmeses and because it
demonstrated the patent resolve of Japan to fulfill
her sacred mission in fighting the Greater East Asia
War.
We are happy today, on the occasion of the
first anniversary of this declaration, to greet
independent Burma and to extend our warmest
congratulations for the remarkable progress
achieved, for the undiminished determination not
only to make her independence real but to build an
impregnable rampart that will help secure the
liberties won for all Orientals.
It is appropriate to consider the price the
Burmese, under the brilliant leadership of Dr. Ba
Maw, have decided to pay and are paying to give
not only form but substance to the dream that began
to take concrete shape a year ago. The Burmese are
on the forefront of a titanic struggle from the very
beginning; what it costs to sustain that struggle at
their very door is not anything they have to gather
and understand by first or second-hand report. The
realities of this cost constitute the very texture of
their waking and sleeping hours.
Addressing his people a year before the
declaration of Burma's independence, Dr. Ba Maw
said "that the freedom of Burma can only be won by
blood and tears", adding the stern intimation that
"that time has now come". For the reconstruction of
Burma, the leader emphasized, "it will be necessary
for us to be fully prepared to shed more blood and
sweat".
The efforts of the Burmese to build a new
Burma at the same time that they have to fight to
clear and secure their frontiers from aggressors
menacing their freedom and hampering their work
of reconstruction are of a character to challenge the
wonder and respect of all men everywhere who
cherish the life of self-determination and self-
respect. We, Filipinos view them with no sympathy
and pride.
We view them with sympathy because our
present situation is not any vastly different from that
of the Burmese; for we are face by a big problem of
survival and reconstruction. We are proud of the
success achieved by the Burmese because it proves
Oriental capacity and worth, which remains our
eternal argument against any gratuitous alien
assumption of our own burdens and responsibilities.
"Burma," as he said, "like the Philippines,
has a special responsibility in Greater East Asia.
Strategically, Burma guards the western gateway to
East Asia. It is the backdoor to China, Thai, and
Malay, just as the Philippines guards the
southeastern gateway to East Asia. As such
guardians of the gateways of East Asia, Burma and
the Philippines will rise or fall together with East
Asia."
In extending fraternal greetings to Burma on
the first anniversary of her independence, the
Philippines joins Dr. Ba Maw's conviction that "one
billion East Asian peoples can win any war or any
peace together".
'One of the Greatest Statesmen of
our Country'
Press statement issued by the President upon learning
the death of Manuel L. Quezon, President of the
Commonwealth Government, August 2, 1944.
As a Filipino who loved his country well and
struggles in the past so that it might be free, the
entire Philippines mourns Mr. Quezon's passing
SACLUTI, Katrina Angela T.
B124
away. I have always valued his friendship and
admired his leadership and his courage when he
fought in Washington and in Manila, particularly
during the Wood administration, for his country's
freedom. Whatever his critics may say, Philippines
history will rank him as one of the greatest
statesmen of our country.

Over and above the vicissitudes of his

political career and the pathetic circumstances that
sundered him from his people in a fateful hour, we
treasure his memory of him: that he was a Filipino,
first and last, and was tenaciously proud of it. His
vision of a dignified, self-respecting, free and
independent nation will remain as the inalienable
heritage of the Filipino people. And because we
know this to have been his dream, it is hard to
believe that he could have given the so-called
independence law recently passed by the United
States Congress the seal of his wholehearted
approval.

A law which seeks to make the Philippines

virtually a permanent protectorate of the United
States could not have satisfied the requirements of
the Quezonian ideal of complete and absolute
independence.