CHAPTER V

KNOWING THE COUNTRY (MAKABANSA)

 NATIONAL HEROES/OUTSTANDING FILIPINO

1. Dr. Jose Rizal - The National Hero.
2. Andres Bonifacio - The Great Plebian and Father of the Katipunan.
3. General Gregorio del Pilar - Hero of the Battle of Tirad Pass.
4. General Emilio Aguinaldo - President of the First Philippine Republic.
5. Apolinario Mabini - Sublime Paralytic and Brains of the Revolution.
6. GOMBURZA - Martyred Priests of 1872.
7. Emilio Jacinto - Brains of the Katipunan.
8. General Antonio Luna - Cofounder of La Independencia.
9. Melchora Aquino (Tandang Sora) - Mother of Balintawak.
10. Graciano Lopez-Jaena - Greatest Filipino Orator of the Propaganda Movement.
11. Panday Pira - First Filipino Cannon-maker.
12. Mariano Ponce - Propagandist, Historian, Diplomat and Managing Editor of La
Solidaridad.
13. Gregoria de Jesus - Lakambini of Katipunan and Wife of Andres Bonifacio.
14. Fernando Ma. Guerrero - Poet of the Revolution.
15. Felipe Agoncillo - Outstanding Diplomat of the First Philippine Republic.
16. Rafael Palma - Cofounder of La Independencia and First UP President.
17. Juan Luna - Greatest Filipino Painter.
18. Marcelo H. Del Pilar - Greatest Journalist and Moving Spirit of the Propaganda
Movement.
19. Leona Florentino - First Filipino Poetes (from Ilocos Sur).
20. Pedro Paterno - Peacemaker of the Revolution.
21. Isabelo delos Reyes - Founder of Philippine Socialism.
22. Artemio Ricarte - Revolutionary General, known as Viborra.
23. Jose Palma - Wrote the Spanish Lyrics of the Philippine National Anthem.
24. Lakandola - Chief of Tondo, Friendly to the Spaniards.
25. Rajah Soliman - The Last Rajah of Manila.
26. Marcela Mari�o Agoncillo - Maker of the First Filipino Flag.
27. Galicano Apacible - One of the Founders of Katipunan.
28. Jose Ma. Panganiban - Bicolandia's Greatest Contribution to the Historic
Campaign for Reforms.
29. Diego Silang - Leader of the Ilocano Revolt.
30. Maria Josefa Gabriela Silang - Continued the Fight After her Husband's Death.
31. Lapu-Lapu - Chieftain of Mactan Who Killed Magellan. First Filipino Hero.
 32. Francisco Dagohoy - Leader of the Longest Revolt in Bohol.
33. Epifanio delos Santos - A Man of Many Talents; the Former Highway 54 is Now
Named After him (EDSA).
34. Francisco Baltazar - Prince of Tagalog Poets.
35. Teresa Magbanua - First Woman Fighter in Panay. Visayan Joan of Arc.
36. Trinidad Tecson - Mother of Biak-na-Bato.
37. Agueda Esteban - Wife of Artemio Ricarte Who Carried Secret Messages About
Spanish Troops.
38. General Francisco Makabulos - Leader of the Revolt in Tarlac.
39. Julian Felipe - Composer of the Philippine National Anthem.

 CITIZENSHIP OR NATIONALISM

I. Filipino nationalism refers to the awakening and support of a political identity

associated with modern Philippines leading to a wide-ranging campaign for political,
social, and economic freedom in the Philippines. This gradually emerged out of
various political and armed movements throughout most of the Spanish East Indies—
but which has long been fragmented and inconsistent with contemporary definitions
of such nationalism—as a consequence of more than three centuries of Spanish rule.
These movements are characterized by the upsurge of anti-colonialist sentiments and
ideals which peaked in the late 19th century led mostly by the ilustrado or landed,
educated elites, whether peninsulares, insulares, or native (Indio). This served as the
backbone of the first nationalist revolution in Asia, the Philippine Revolution of 1896.
[1] The modern concept would later be fully actualized upon the inception of a
Philippine state with its contemporary borders after being granted independence by
the United States by the 1946 Treaty of Manila.
II. Natural-born Filipinos are citizens of the Philippines from birth without having to
perform any act to acquire or perfect their Philippine citizenship. Those whose fathers
or mothers are citizens of the Philippines at the time of their birth and those born
before 17 January 1973, of Filipino mothers, who elect Philippine citizenship upon
reaching the age of majority are considered natural-born Filipinos.
Philippine citizenship law derives from the principle of jus sanguinis or the
citizenship of the parents

 NATIONAL IDENTITIES
Nationalistic ideology culminated in the Philippines after a long anti-colonial
struggle against Spain in 1896. The struggle gave rise to the Filipino national ideology
known as Filipinism. The ideology serves as collective, unifying, and guiding force that
freed the nation from colonial rule. It is the same ideology that has varied in degree,
operating as a guiding force within the nation in order to uphold and maintain the
autonomy, unity and identity under many past administrations. History shows that
 through the nationalistic ideology – Filipinism, the Filipino people struggled as a
collective self-having been identified as one with the nation. This ideology has been
resuscitated as deemed necessary and relevant to the spirit of the times. Hence, time and
again it has served as an awakening mechanism during different administrations.
Philippine society has experienced a variety of economic, political, and sociological
upheavals as it trudges along the way to development. As a developing country, it needs
to surmount the problem of poverty that gave rise to some societal problem indicative of
moral degradation. While these seem to be explainable in the name of economic necessity
and in the midst of poverty, the two past administrations of Corazon Aquino and Fidel
Ramos have paid great concern to the moral conditions of the Philippines. Both
converged at a common point that the country is suffering from poverty in material sense
engendered by, among other things, the poverty of the Filipino spirit. In line with this, the
Aquino administration declared 1988 to 1998 as the Philippine Decade of Nationalism.
This was continued under the National Moral Recovery Program of the Ramos
administration in 1992. Both programs placed paramount importance upon nationalism or
love of country or the Filipino ideology, Filipinism, as a response to the perceived need
to regenerate the seemingly lost Filipino spirit. The programs reflected the recognition of
the need to reawaken and strengthen the Filipino values of national identity to develop
Filipinos who are willing to be involved in the concerns of their society and responsible
to their duties as citizens. The thrusts of the programs cohere with the findings of
previous studies on the sense of nationalism and national identity among Filipino
children.

 IMAGINING THE NATION

When we cheer for a particular team and country in a cricket game, we rarely
question what reasoning has gone into our idea of 'nationalism' at that point. The history
of nationalism is now far enough in the past for us to take it for granted that all human
beings have nations and that 'good' human beings profess a loyalty towards their own
nations. However, when one asks “What is a nation?” or “Why is the nation so
important?”, one finds that often such fundamental questions are ones that we have never
had occasion to ask ourselves and we do not have ready answers for them. Over the past
few decades several answers have been given to these questions and yet social scientists
are dissatisfied with the descriptions they have available to them.

Ernest Renan provided one of the earliest answers to the question, 'What is a Nation?':
A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Only two things, actually, constitute this soul, this
spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. One is the possession in
common of a rich legacy of remembrances; the other is the actual consent, the desire to
live together, the will to continue to value the heritage which all hold in common.
Though this was one of the first answers to the question and is more than a century old,
this answer is far from obsolete. In fact, it seems to keep re-surfacing in common
understandings of nationalism. This definition points us towards the two crucial factors
that have resurfaced in the discourse of nationalism practically everywhere in history: a
shared past and the will to “live together” under one State.

Memories of shared glory, great sacrifices and suffering are vital in creating a sense of
solidarity. The nation is projected as a territory which has been unified by ancient ties
which then gain an almost sacred connotation. Even the youngest of nations seeks to
create for itself a very old history.

Thus, T to deny the `sacred' bond of the nation then becomes almost to blaspheme against
an order that is natural and higher than any that a human being has created. This then
leads us to the latter element—the will to live together. This is crucial because it includes
within it a certain complicity or conformity to the idea of the nation, and is the emotional
investment we make in the nation.

This is why cheering in a cricket match is an act charged with significance. Think of
instances when somebody cheering for another country, an 'opponent', is labelled 'anti-
national' or a 'traitor', and the fact that this reaction is generally considered natural and
justified.