Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
In the Commemoration of Veterans’ Day

Delivered at Mount Samat, Pilar, Bataan, April 9, 1994]

A day of dedication

EVERY YEAR, on the 9th of April, we pay homage to the epic heroism and selfless sacrifice of Filipino and American soldiers who fought some of the greatest infantry battles of World War II right here where we are. These are the battles of Corregidor, Bataan and other heroic encounters which we commemorate in this “Araw ng Kagitingan.”

We are inspired by the words of our young Filipinos, by their pledge and commitment to work as hard, as sacrificially, and as dedicatedly as our heroes of World War II, represented here by so many of them.

An epic of human endurance

We are equally inspired by the pledges of the ambassadors of the United States and Japan, in the spirit of cooperation, solidarity and universal brotherhood, who said before us that they shall continue their commitments to help bring the Philippines to a better life, not too late from now, hopefully by the year 2000.

Mga mahal na kababayan, ang pagdiriwang ng Araw ng Kagitingan ay isang muling paglalaan sa diwa ng kalayaan, kaisahan at kaunlaran. Ito ay sagisag ng pangako ng buong bansang Filipino sa pagtatanggol ng kalayaan.

In this hallowed battleground, Filipino soldiers stood tall and proud in the defense of our motherland. Right at the start, our soldiers knew that their mission was to hold and delay the advance of the invaders, hoping that fresh reinforcements would arrive in time to extricate them from the fierce onslaught of the enemy. That they held on for five months of relentless aerial, naval and land attacks, thus upsetting Japan’s timetable toward the Southwest Pacific, was among the most significant and historic battles of the Second World War.

For Bataan-Corregidor was an epic of human endurance. While the enemy continually brought in fresh troops, the Filipino-American soldiers were sent to combat duty day in and day out—until they were killed, wounded or just dropped from sheer exhaustion.

Illness and the lack of food proved to be the worst enemies of the defenders. They could have continued fighting had medicine and food been available at the frontlines.

‘Sad but unashamed’

As it were, they defended this peninsula well beyond all expectations. But finally there was nothing more to prove. To stop the waste of more young men’s lives became the only sensible thing to do. General Jonathan Wainwright, the highest-ranking commander among the defenders, summed up the feelings of his officers and soldiers in the following words:

“I feel it my duty to the nation and to my troops to end this useless slaughter. There is apparently no relief in sight. American and Filipino troops have engaged the enemy nearly five months. We have done our full duty. We are sad but unashamed.”

For the surviving veterans who fought in Bataan and Corregidor—brave men now in the twilight of their lives—the events of the hot months of 1942 may now be merely deemed memories.

But to us, their successor-generation, including our two lady orator champions and the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and the high-school students out there who hiked all the way from Central Luzon to this hallowed shrine, to ask your remembrance of those war years is both an inspiration and a challenge as well as a social responsibility as we struggle in our time and, in our way, to assure a better life and a brighter future for our people.

The deeds of the men and the women of Bataan, Corregidor and other battlegrounds of the Philippine campaign teach us that the never-ending struggle for peace, freedom and prosperity exacts a price—a heavy price and individual self-sacrifice on behalf of the social whole and in our individual willingness to heed the call of civic duty.

The duty of citizenship

The idea of citizenship carries with it the sense of responsibility for what happens to the nation as a whole. In its original Greek sense, the word idiot refers to someone indifferent to his duties as a citizen.

Society is much more than an aggregation of individuals or families. Society, our Philippine society, has a recurrent hunger for some sense of the ideals for making an effort beyond personal enhancement and self-interest.

We are not just tenants in this land—this land, our beloved Philippines. We are not just transients here, and we are not just passing by. We are here on this land to stay—this land, our beloved Philippines—which the young men of Bataan and Corregidor fought so hard to defend.

And so, our task now with the successor-generation is to develop the habits of thought and of action to energize, to mobilize and labor steadily to achieve our national goals under our shared vision of “Philippines 2000.”

It is fitting that we set aside this day to renew to our veterans the honors and the recognition that they deserve. But more than medals and honors, our veterans and their dependents need to be assured of adequate benefits so that they can live out their lives in dignity.

As Secretary of National Defense, I initiated as early as 1988 the standardization and upgrading of benefits for military veterans and their dependents. And this was eventually enacted by Congress and signed into law. This bill, principally authored by then, or still, Senator Alberto Romulo and then-Congressman Eduardo Pilapil, became Republic Act 6948 when President Corazon Aquino signed it into law on April 1990, on this very same day.

As Secretary of National Defense, I also worked to seek the support and approval of Congress, President Aquino and her financial advisers, to rehabilitate the Philippine Veterans Bank—work and support that paid off when the Bank was reopened in 1992, mainly through the efforts again of Senator Alberto Romulo and then-Congressman Eduardo Pilapil.

Veterans’ benefits

Today, I have signed in your presence Republic Act 7696, authored principally by again, Senator Alberto Romulo, with almost all of the members of the Senate as cosponsors, and on the part of the House, authored by Congressman Mariano Badelles, and cosponsored by the majority of the House members.

Republic Act 7696 amends certain sections of Republic Act 6948, and among the highlights of this new law are the increase of the old-age pension of military veterans, from P500 to P1,000 a month.

Pambihira ito, mga kapatid at mga kasamang beterano, dahil sa kahit na maliit pa lamang yan, kayo lamang ang nagkaroon ng 100 percent increase sa buong pamahalaan. But do not despair, wait a while, stop dying, [laughter] dahil sa mayroong escalation clause yan. As time goes on, without further recourse to Congress, tataas yang pension na yan.

There is also the increase of the pension of surviving spouses and dependents and the increase of burial assistance—never mind—I will not mention that anymore [Laughter].

Likewise, it provides for the increase in the monthly disability pension of our war heroes, depending on the level of the disability.

In addition to this, we have opened an expanded office for veterans and reserve affairs in the Department of National Defense. And I have designated one of our very own veterans, retired General Ernesto Gidaya, as the Undersecretary for Veterans and Reserve Affairs, to underscore the importance of the veterans sector in our national society.

Other manifestations of our deep concern for our veterans and their families are the following:

The organization of the Filipino War Veterans Foundation to extend assistance to veterans from the private sector, and that organization, after four years of existence, has now been able to build a trust fund of P30 million, mostly from contributions of corporate donors, as well as a lot of small Filipinos, as a token of their appreciation for the services rendered by our veterans.

Medical assistance

We have also expanded the hospitalization and other medical benefits at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center by establishing veterans wards in various Government hospitals all over the country, and by providing financial support for the rehabilitation and development of the Malantang Memorial Cemetery National Shrine in Iloilo, which was the area of operations of one of the most famous guerrilla resistance outfits during World War II, the 6th Military District under the late General Macario Peralta.

We are also pursuing the unresolved claims with the United States government for the services of Filipino veterans during World War II. For this purpose, we have established the Office of Veterans Affairs at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., formerly headed by the late Ambassador Nicanor Jimenez; now, by retired General Tagumpay Nanadiego

And during our visit to the White House in November 1993, as already mentioned by Ambassador John Negroponte, I renewed the issue of such claims with our good friend, President Bill Clinton. He did not say outright yes, but neither did he say outright no. So, we will keep working on it now, with this renewed and strengthened relations between the Philippines and the United States.

To fast-track the registration of those Filipino veterans who have acquired U.S. citizenship but who have decided to remain in the Philippines, I have directed Justice Secretary Franklin Drilon to adopt a special procedure to register such veterans in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy and to create a special task force within his department to handle the registration and immigration problems.

Even as we undertake all of these, we realize that our efforts to improve the lot of our war veterans really are not enough, for they can never be enough.

Our tribute to heroism

Whatever we do—the successor-generations—can only be partial recognition of what we owe them. Whatever we do can only be just a humble tribute to their courage and heroism.

We can never savor the blessings of peace and truly appreciate the value of human dignity unless we recall the rigors of war which our war veterans went through.

Let us make this day—and every day, for that matter—a day of dedication so that we not only honor the sacrifices of our war heroes and our war dead but also assure the younger Filipinos after us a brighter future than what ours has been.

On this day of gallantry and courage, let us rededicate ourselves to the task of bringing our people to their redemption and triumph so that we can fulfill the promise of this land of freedom, our beloved Philippines, carved out and built for us by generations of Filipino heroes.