by Tommy Matic IV
When exiled Revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo arrived in Hong Kong following the truce at Biak na Bato, he did not have to go back. Indeed this is the accusation leveled against him by many of his own countrymen today, that the money he was paid was a "bribe (suhol)" and that he "sold out to the Spaniards". But if that is true, consider this - he went BACK to the Philippines and spent the money on The Revolution in the form of modern rifles, ammunition for those rifles, uniforms, payroll for soldiers and officials, opening a military academy and starting a new Republic. HE WAS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO DO ANY OF THAT.
Miong did NOT have to go back. He did not have to spend the money on weapons and ammunition and uniforms and payroll for what would most likely be a lost cause. He had enough to live comfortably in Hong Kong or even in Europe. He could have gone to Paris and lived like a millionaire. He could have been the wealthy ex Revolutionary living it up in the Netherlands (AHEM-AHEM) comfortable and safe.
Instead he chose danger, deprivation, three years of fighting, running, hiding, keeping the flame of INDEPENDENCIA alive for a people that were slowly but inevitably conceding defeat to a colonial power far stronger than Spain had ever been. He chose to return and fight the good fight, to keep his honor not his safety, not his family's safety. He and his men sacrificed that the idea of Philippine independence would be WRITTEN IN THEIR BLOOD across the length and breadth of the archipelago wherever native hearts were beating.
The Philippines was not going to go quietly into the night like Puerto Rico or Guam. It would not benevolently assimilate, it would not acquiesce. It would continue to desire freedom and full independence because of what Aguinaldo and his men carved into the depths of the Filipino soul.
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