Don Sergio Osmeña’s National Heroes Day speech (1945) – Part 2
In a nation rising from the devastation of World War II, its leader, President Sergio Suico Osmeña Sr., the first and only Cebuano president, delivered a speech during the celebration of National Heroes Day on November 30, 1945:
“When I speak of Bataan and Capas I do not have in mind only the geographical confines of these particular places. Every jungle, every mountain pass where our guerillas and volunteers fought, was Bataan. Fort Santiago and every prison throughout the land where patriots were tortured and died still defying the enemy, was Capas. All the occupied area of the Philippines was Capas a huge concentration camp where the Filipino could pit only his spirit and faith against the brutal might of the invader. It is not alone the dead who are the heroes. There are countless heroes among the living, men and women who are now anonymously going about the tasks of peace. It can be said to the everlasting glory of our people that they passed through the country’s hour of trial with a common courage and devotion.
“We shall raise a monument here in Capas. It will be more than a memorial—it will rise as a challenge; a challenge from the dead, to us, the living, to be worthy of their sacrifice. Capas will be the voice of our national conscience. If we allow shallow dissention to stand in the way of our duty; if we allow ourselves to be too easily frustrated in the building of a better society,—a voice will cry in Capas: “Have we then died in vain?”
“There is only one way in which those of us who live, can repay those who have died and given their all to the cause of liberty. Rizal and Bonifacio, whose memory we particularly commemorate today, and all our country’s martyrs have died in the trust that the Philippines would yet be happy, prosperous, and free. With courage and determination we must strive to realize that vision.
“Together with the Filipinos who so fearlessly resisted the invader, we also remember, today, our American comrades who came from across the seas. Many of them gave their lives and sleep beneath our soil, close beside our own sacred dead, thousands of miles away from their homeland. To them also we extend the tribute of our reverence and eternal gratitude.
“I enjoin all Filipinos, throughout our land and wherever else they may be, to resolve on this solemn occasion to seek to be worthy of our heroic dead. I pray Almighty God to give us, out of His infinite goodness, the wisdom, the courage, the energy to build a better Philippines, so that we may say truly to the men of Capas, and to all our countrymen who fell in the night, that they did not die in vain. In life and death they are unforgettable. Their memory remains a living presence, tragic and glorious.” (Last of two parts)
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