In search of heroes

Philippine National Heroes Day, August 27, fell on a Sunday this year. So, days before, people started badgering newspaper offices, asking whether the day after, meaning Monday, August 28, would be a holiday - no classes, no work?

Anyone who picks up the phone and gets asked for directions to the nearest monument of a national hero, so he or she can offer flowers, would probably faint in shock and surprise. It just does not happen anymore.

The Philippines never took too willingly toward national heroes in a deeply emotional and patriotic way, although there are distinct and admirable exceptions. As a rule of thumb, however, find anyone who can even recite the names of five national heroes from today's generation.

Even President Arroyo saw it fit not to declare the following day a holiday anymore, which is rather surprising since she has carved a name for herself as the " holidayingest " president the Philippines ever had.

I mean, President Arroyo used to have this penchant for declaring extended holidays left and right, especially during weekends, justifying it as her way of promoting domestic tourism by allowing people more time to enjoy.

Perhaps that initiative may not have worked, if one considers that the vast majority of the people just does not have the kind of disposable income to make vacations and holiday trips a priority in their personal activities.

Except perhaps for students, most people would rather have more days of work in order to earn additional income. Companies, too, frown on more than the usual holidays. More holidays mean income losses from lack of productivity, or more expenses for additional pay in case people work.

Was this the reason why the president opted not to extend the weekend by declaring the day after the Sunday holiday a holiday too? Or has she succumbed to the creeping notion that too many people simply now ignore what makes a holiday a holiday.

Most official observances of holidays still come with official activities. But these are largely perfunctory and more gainful only in the photo opportunities they create. Notice how limp and emotionless the pictures that come out in the papers are in these activities.

For most of its national life, the Philippines has been under foreign domination. The original tribes never rose into one great unified nation before the natives were subjugated under three hundred years of Spanish rule.

Then came the Americans and the Japanese, each curtailing any realistic sense of national fervor from flowering other than the passion to be free. Freedom was the life of the limited party, not fragile personalities, no matter how great their personal contributions.

That is why, by comparison, we do not attach as intense feelings toward heroes memorials as most other peoples in other countries. There is no sublime air that envelops national monuments if some people even use them to sun out their laundry.

We can teach generations and generations of Filipinos about heroic values and the heroes that embodied these values and we can identify and set aside holidays for official observances of their births and deaths.

But unless there is a genuine passion that grips our hearts toward these heroes, we will never be able to generate that real sense of national pride so essential in unifying people toward a national goal. Patriotism just cannot be taught.

So why are we so unfeeling? Maybe because we have been frustrated in our expectations that national heroes inspire succeeding generations of leaders. Textbook lessons on national heroes fall flat and meaningless in the current scene.