Armando Tino Binaldo Jr.

Critique Paper
Sin, Jaime Cardinal, “Ang Bayan Muna Bago Sarili: Excerpts from the Homily of Jaime

Cardinal Sin at the mass Celebrating the 5th Death Anniversary of Ninoy Aquino.”

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to make Filipinos aware of Jaime Cardinal Sin's Homily message on 
Ninoy Aquino's 5th death anniversary. 

Jaime Cardinal Sin's homily addressed what is currently happening in our society, namely, F
ilipinos' greed and selfishness, which is destroying our country. 

This societal problem can be solved if each of us changes our attitudes for the betterment 
of our country. 

We can make Ninoy Aquino proud by being the best that we can be for our country and, m
ore importantly, by making the entire country a better place for each of us.

Main Body

The title of the article is “Ang Bayan Muna Bago ang Sarili” from the Homily of Jaime Cardinal Sin at the
mass of celebrating the 5th death anniversary of Ninoy Aquino. There came a time where the Philippines
experienced martial law from president Marcos that resulted to unfavorable happenings. Freedom was
deprived from the Filipinos during the martial law and it came to a point that the Filipinos was already
full of all the crap that was happening and started making their move to end martial law to regain
freedom once again. Ninoy Aqiuno was a senator back then who was one of the people against what
was happening during martial law and so he lead the movement against the martial law. Because he was
against martial law he was exile from the Philippines and stayed in the United States of Amer but he
came to a decision of coming home to his beloved country but it came with a price which caused his
death. Ninoy Aquino’s death was a wake-up call to all Filipinos that Marcos’ reign should end and so
then they needed another person to lead them in this movement, there came the wife of Ninoy Aquino,
Cory Aquino who ran for president and was successful in winning and ending president Marcos’ reign
and so is the killings and violence under his reign.

This homily happened during the movement against president Marcos with president Cory as
their present leader. Jaime Cardinal Sin’s aim was to awaken the spirit every Filipinos to do what is right.
The Philippines was full of K.K.K. which stands for Kanya-Kanya’ng Katwiran, Kanya-Kanya’ng
Kagustuhan, Kanya-kanya’ng Kabig or and worst, Kanya-Kanya’ng Kurakot. Because of the selfishness of
the Filipinos the country was put at stake. A lot of violence and killings was present because of our
selfishness. “Ang Bayan Muna Bago ang Sarili” was lost and “Sarili” which means their own was all that
was left. Jaime Cardinal Sin wanted the Filipinos to regain their love for the Philippines that should be
bigger than their vanity.
 The message of Jaime Cardinal Sin’s Homily should be heard by every Filipino because of current
state of the country. It was a realization message for the Filipinos that every Filipino should really start
gaining their love and respect for their own country to bring back peace in the Philippines.

For me the article was good because it had a purpose that can make the country a better place.
It criticized the Filipinos to show what should be done to end the problem. It was great that Jaime
Cardinal Sin was able to not pinpoint directly on the person behind the cause of all the violence during
that time. It was a good decision for him to pinpoint the Filipinos in general. In general, it was a well
written article about Jaime Cardinal Sin’s Homily.