Young Roots
Defining Independence
By Johanne Margarette R. Macob
116 YEARS have passed since our beloved Philippines declared its emancipation from the colonizers. Another way to state that we, Filipinos, have been enjoying the freedom our elders fought for, for about 1,392 months now. We can breathe freely. We can stride along pathways without fear. Or we can speak out our minds, provided that we are not violating anyone else’s freedom. Basically, that’s freedom for us Filipinos.
Still, thousands of days have gone and many, if not all, of us are still ‘prisoners’ of certain things that matter a lot in our lives. Many are still being suppressed, either by other people or worst, by their own selves.
In many parts of the world, and in our country, many of our fellows have been prisoners of poverty. While they blame the lack of services being delivered to them, this shouldn’t also mean having the lack of personal determination to work and improve our lives. Fortunate are certain places, such as our rich province, that are continuously seeking to eliminate poverty, but for some, the personal responsibility to do better is way more apparent and needed. In the end, we have to remember that if there is one thing we all have control of, it is just our selves.
We can say we have been freed and are happy to invoke all our rights. But at the end of the day, we have to realize that we have to look at the other side of the coin. We have our major responsibility to give ourselves the best possible life we could ever have. That is true personal freedom for me.
In the same vein, I commend how a mall observed the country’s Independence Day. It displayed a Philippine flag made up of thousands of pages of old newspapers, manifesting the many ways how the press participated in attaining the country’s freedom. The press has been very instrumental, and it still is, in providing information that the public need to know. Thus, I find it very ironic and pathetic that at certain times, the journalism that fights for the public’s right to know is being suppressed by some entities. Up to this day, this country, particularly the press in this case, has these ‘colonizers’ who would rather eliminate those they couldn’t control. We should not and will not give in.
Our present-day world still needs a lot of courage to take on freedom in its whole form. Freedom is about rights and responsibilities, that which balances power and duties, that which upholds leadership and obedience. Freedom is something we should continuously fight for and make peace with. We have been given the default ‘freedom’ by our heroes. It is our duty not only to maintain it but to make sure freedom levels it up into what freedom should really be about. Let us free ourselves from anything that is bad, for us to be able to do what is good. Happy Independence!
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