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History 2
MANILA, Philippines Philippine President Benigno Aquino III vowed Wednesday his country will not back down from any challenge to its sovereignty and territory amid a sea dispute with China.
He said in a speech marking the 115th anniversary of the country's independence from Spain that the Philippines has not claimed territory that clearly belongs to another country but only asks that "our territory, rights and dignity be respected."
"Aggression does not run in our veins, but neither will we back down from any challenge," Aquino told government workers, diplomats and supporters at a public square named after revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio, where he also led a flag-raising ceremony.
Aquino said in the next five years, 75 billion pesos ($1.74 billion) will be spent to modernize the armed forces.
He did not mention China by name, but the two countries have an ongoing territorial row in the disputed Spratly islands.
Last month, the Philippines protested the presence of a Chinese warship, two surveillance vessels and fishing boats off a shoal occupied by Filipino troops in the Spratlys in the latest territorial squabble between the two Asian countries.
Ayungin Shoal lies 196 kilometers (122 miles) from the southwestern Philippine province of Palawan. It is guarded by a Filipino marine unit based in a rusty warship that ran aground on a coral outcrop several years ago. The shoal is near Mischief Reef, which the Philippines had claimed but was occupied by China in 1995, sparking intense protests from Manila.
Chinese maritime surveillance ships have also taken control of Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island, and have roped off the entrance to its vast fishing lagoon following a two-month standoff with Philippine government ships last year. The chain of reefs and rocks 230 kilometers (143 miles) west of the northwestern Philippine province of Zambales falls under its 200-nautical miles (370-kilometer) exclusive economic zone, Filipino officials say. Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim parts of the Spratlys, a chain of islands, islets and reefs.
On Tuesday, some 30 Filipino protesters wearing colorful fish masks gathered outside China's consular office in Manila to demand a stop to Chinese intrusions into Philippine claimed islands in the Spratlys.
E-source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/06/12/4100411/philippines-vows-to-defend-territory.html

History 2

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Jejomar Binay led a flag raising ceremony at the Luneta Park as the country celebrated its 115th year of independence Wednesday.
The flag raising at the shrine of Dr. Jose Rizal was followed by a wreath laying ceremony. A 21-gun salute was also offered to the hero.

Binay was accompanied by Major General Essel Soriano, vice commander of Philippine Army.
Speaking to reporters, Binay said this day served as a time to remember the sacrifices made to attain independence.

Asked if he thought that the country was free, Binay said in Filipino: “It’s possible for us to deal with other nations, we can also offer our goodwill but this doesn’t mean that we’re no longer free.”

Among those gathered were representatives from the Veterans Federation of the Philippines, Knights of Rizal, MASON,Boys and Girls Scout of the Philippines, and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.

The program that started at 8 a.m. followed the theme: Kalayaan 2013: Ambagan Tungo sa Malawakang Kaunlaran.

Guards wearing the historical gray Katipunero uniform lined up in front of the monument.
Security officers from the Manila Police District were also seen in the area.

Kenneth Montegrande, spokesman of the National Parks Development Committee, said among the programs lined up for this day’s celebration, are the showing of free movies under the theme “SineKlayaan”, a dramatization on Rizal’s execution, a job fair, Sky Diving Exhibition, Band Exhibition, and free medical and dental check-ups.

From 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, Philippine Coast Guard, and Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, on the other hand, will stage a “MusiKalayaan Concert” at the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta.

E-sources: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/424821/binay-leads-115th-independence-day-rites-in-luneta

History 2
Independence
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
9:37 pm | Tuesday, June 11th, 2013
Who’s the bigger hero, Jose Rizal or Andres Bonifacio?
We’ve expended no small amount of energy, or indeed passion, trying to answer that question, and will probably expend a little bit more of it over the next several months as we inch toward Bonifacio’s 150th birth anniversary in November. P-Noy’s Independence Day speech on Wednesday will highlight the drama, being held at the Liwasang Bonifacio and dwelling, if the press releases are to be believed, on Bonifacio’s greatness.
The question is not irrelevant, and is often fraught with meaning and implication. Such as during the 1960s and 1970s when the Left extoled the virtues of Bonifacio over Rizal and proposed to make him the national hero instead of Rizal. The argument being that Bonifacio acted while Rizal merely wrote, Bonifacio waged a revolution while Rizal merely campaigned for reform, Bonifacio represented freedom while Rizal represented only enlightenment. Indeed, the argument being that the only reason Rizal and not Bonifacio was the national hero was that Rizal was burgis while Bonifacio was proletarian, Rizal wielded the pen while Bonifacio wielded the bolo, Rizal was safe while Bonifacio remained dangerous.
Truly, the past is never past.
I did buy the argument in my activist days, but I’ve since thoroughly revised my opinion. Both in fact were revolutionaries through and through. Both in fact were dangerous in the extreme.
The fault lies in thinking that writing is not acting, ideas do not move the world, only actions do. Rizal wrote, and by doing so moved the world, and by doing so changed the world. By his work, indeed by what he was—writer, doctor, artist, scientist, historian, ethnographer, lover: a Renaissance man in every respect—he showed not just that the indio could be equal to his master but that he could be better than him. The Spaniards were right to find Rizal the most subversive person in the country. His very existence assailed them.
You need no further proof of it than that Bonifacio himself thought so. Rizal was his greatest influence along with Victor Hugo. He was what turned him into one of the world’s greatest revolutionaries.
Yes, the world’s. A thing grossly unappreciated, simply because unlike Mao and Ho and Mandela, he did not write as resolutely as he acted, he did not theorize as resolutely as he practiced. And, well, he did not live long enough to see the fruits of his labor. Or fight yet another tyrant from another shore.
But what Bonifacio did was spectacular, envisioning, founding, and launching the first plebeian, or proletarian, revolution in the colonies. The Latin American revolutions had come earlier, in the 1820s, but they had been bourgeois revolutions, led by the creoles and mestizos. Bonifacio’s revolution was not, it was organized by an indio, led by a working man who sold canes and fans, unleashed by someone who had fought adversity all his life but had sought salvation and liberation and freedom not just for himself but for his fellow indios. Until it was seized from him, plucked away from him, by an elite that had scoffed at it and blocked it but wanted it for itself when it began to show the promise of success.
I leave this country to (re)discover Bonifacio’s greatness over the next few months as scholars and commentators and public officials draw more attention to it. But though the question of whether Rizal or Bonifacio is the greater hero is not unimportant—and has at least the supreme merit of getting us to be more interested in the past; nothing like controversy or intrigue to do the trick—there’s one far more so.
That is the question of why after such an auspicious beginning, we’ve reached such a pathetic ending. Why after a grand and heroic time—having to debate who is the grander hero, Rizal or Bonifacio, is an embarrassment of riches—we’ve reached a miserable and pedestrian pass. Why after a time when we had the vision and resolve to make history, to try to change the world, we’ve reached a pass where we just want to make do, to get by as best we may in strange and hostile lands.
Of course we have another colonizer, the one that came after we came near to toppling the first, to thank for that. Who are of course the Americans, who seized Spain’s colonies toward the end of the 19th century, who insisted that the one country that had produced Rizal and Bonifacio, the enlightenment and the revolution in the very far East, was badly in need of civilizing. Who rooted out every seed and sapling and shoot of the Filipino’s pride, preventing him from flying his flag, from singing his songs, from remembering everything that came before that gave him dignity, that gave him character, that defined him.
And of course we have another despot, oppressor, an a–hole who came well after we had presumably gained our freedom, after we were presumably breathing the air of free men, who turned us into a nation of slaves again after vowing fervently to make this nation great again. Name that tune, or tyrant.
But in the end, we have ourselves to thank for it, in our unwillingness to be like Rizal and Bonifacio and fight against arguably prodigious adversity, and meet head-on a patently daunting challenge. In our refusal to be like Bernardo Carpio, pushing against the clashing rocks of forgetfulness and mediocrity, willing, bidding, flailing at ourselves to remember we truly were great once and can be so again. In our inability, like Theseus, to discover Ariadne’s thread, which is our thread to the past, which is our recollection of the past, a past as grand and glorious as they come in all its striving and for all its constantly being thwarted, and to find our way out of the Minotaur’s cave.
Our war for independence isn’t over. It’s raging in the mind.

E-source: http://opinion.inquirer.net/54419/independence

History 2
PUERTO PRINCESA CITY – Filipinos students usually learn about patriotism by studying the life of Jose Rizal or Andres Bonifacio’s struggle for independence against Spanish colonizers. But not in the Kalayaan Group of Islands (KIG) and other towns of Palawan province.
There, students are not just lectured about national heroes. They are also taught about freedom and patriotism through fresher lessons that are more fitting to the challenges faced by the country as it pushes its claim over portions of Spratlys, including KIG, which are also claimed by China and other Asian countries. At the start of classes on Monday, officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) Western Command (Wescom) joined school children all over the province in their flag ceremony. After leading the recitation of the “Panatang Makabayan” (Patriotic Oath), AFP officers imparted messages of peace and nationalism, including the importance of the Philippines’ claim over KIG. With a map of the West Philippine Sea, Major Oliver Banaria, commander of the 6th Civil Relations Group, showed the students of East Central School the islands that comprise Kalayaan, stressing the importance of engaging the youth in territorial issues concerning the West Philippine Sea.
“Mahalagang malaman ng mga kabataan, kasabay ng pagtuturo natin sa kanila ng pagiging makabayan in their formative years, 'yong kahalagahan ng claimnatin sa Kalayaan. Na atin 'yong Kalayaan at para sa kanila, sa susunod na henerasyon ng mga Pilipino kaya natin ipinaglalaban ang Kalayaan” Banaria told InterAksyon.com. [The youth should learn the importance of our claim in Kalayaan while we teach them to become nationalistic during their formative years. Kalayaan is ours and it’s for them, too, for the next generation of Filipinos, that’s why we are fighting for Kalayaan.] Wescom chief Major General Rustico Guerrero said AFP’s activity with the students was very relevant and timely.
“As our country faces challenging times, this activity fortifies our most potent weapon to overcome the odds –faith in God and love for our country. With these, we shall stand strong as a nation, from generation to generation,” Guerrero said.
The Philippine has been protesting what it calls the "provocative and illegal presence" of two Chinese surveillance vessels and a military ship within KIG’s Ayungin Reef. Manila called on Beijing to respect Philippine sovereignty over its waters. The Philippines said two Chinese maritime surveillance ships and a warship had been spotted off the reef. The Chinese ships appeared to have accompanied some 30 fishing vessels from China, which were scattered around Ayungin. By: Elmer Badilla, InterAksyon.com
June 4, 2013 6:56 AM
E-source: http://www.interaksyon.com/article/63247/in-palawan-student-lessons-on-patriotism-are-not-just-about-rizal-but-spratlys-too