Aguinaldo

By Gonzalo Duque

WE were sad to learn that our Capitol employees will not be given Christmas bonuses because the province’s founding date is not yet an established historical fact.

Wait, whoever was behind this preposterous reasoning must be unChristian.  Even your columnist is being blamed for the sorry fate of the employees because it was us   who started the controversy over the actual discovery of the province.

Naman, naman, sana naman hindi nangyari yan.   For our part, we were only crusading for what we thought should is a valid cause. Do you know that many are happy about our advocacy of clearing the air over the founding date of our province?

But to penalize the innocent employees for this harmless thought is cruelty of the first order, and we’re sure Gov. Spines has nothing to do about that distorted policy.

Let’s hope that before Dec. 25, or Christmas Day, mai- restore  na yong allo-wance nila.

 Guv’nor Spines is getting hit every now and then due to no  fault of his. We suggest  that  our friend instead of getting angry,  take  a sympathetic attitude or  immediately   shoot down suggestions and ideas that drive a gap between him and the people.

You know, even if we were not “that close” to either the late Governor Aguedo Agbayani and immediate past Governor Victor Agbayani, we doff our hat to their friendly and compassionate practices.  We know a lot of people who tirelessly talk about Victor’s showy affection for people.  And so we said baka magkaka problema si Spines if Victor runs for governor in 2010?

Changing the date of any important event, by the way, is easy, and our laws allow it.  So if we choose to actually fix date of Pangasinan’s discovery, the present leadership has the right to do so.

Christians who put the date of Christ’s birth on December 25 have not encountered any problem.  There are only a few who say that it’s not even in December that Christ was born. But the whole Christendom has been happy about the December 25 tradition.  Pero mas maganda kung mag-tally ang ritual at historia.

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Its Christmas season, and most of us are happily expecting either Christmas gifts or “aguinaldos” from godparents or ninongs and ninangs.

The name “Aguinaldo” represents a hero, the revolutionary leader who led many successful skirmishes during the country’s golden era – the Philippine revolution – when bolo-brandishing tough-hearted Pinoys, though less-armed, bravely fought the Spanish colonizers.

Gifted  with keen fighting skills, it was this young general who saved the country from total annihilation during the revolution.  It is ironic  that the other revolutionary whose memory today would show him as the more acceptable people’s  hero because he fought with all his heart brandishing a bolo and a revolver would be writtenor spoken about as the rival of the real national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, and in another sense, the antagonist of Ge-neral Aguinaldo.

The historical fact of the matter is that ALL the encounters he led against the Spaniards were complete failures.  Talo, ang daming Pinoy ang namatay.  Papaano, masyadong  mapusok, arya ng arya, tira ng tira, walang  “ducking” even if the enemy had superior firepower.  If Andres Bonifacio were alive today and would aspire to lead, baka hindi pwedeng mag mayor; maybe not even barangay captain.  We are now in a knowledge revolution, and we rely more on leaders with a keener, broader and informed view of things.

Pinapatay ba ni Aguinaldo si Bonifacio?  Let’s put it this way.  If there is a heckler in a smoothly-running meeting, are you not going to bring him outside?  And when he starts to threaten people to derail the meeting, what would you do? In time of war, decisiveness matters most.

It is with that framework of mind that, in our view, Bonifacio was eliminated.  What  happened in Mt. Buntis in Maragondon, Cavite was tragic, when Aguinaldo’s men led by a certain Sgt. Macapagal  were forced to  pump  bullets on  Bonifacio’s body. The situation called for it.  However you look at it, either as  an inevitable  course of events to successfully push the revolution  or the culmination of two revolutionists’ (Aguinaldo and Bonifacio) rivalry is   now  a thing of the past and must be viewed with candor and understanding.

They fought the invaders. We must be proud of that.  Or, are we?

(Readers may reach columnist at punch.sunday@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/playing-with-fire/ For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)