1 Taken from “O.D.S. Orations, Declamations, and Speeches for Various Occasions” by C.S. Canonigo
THE FILIPINO CHALLENGE by Carlos P. Romulo
It is my privilege to bring you tonight the greetings of the acknowledged leader of the Filipino people, the symbol of Philippine loyalty to America, the symbol of Filipino resistance to Japan, the symbol of Filipino Redemption, the Honorable Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippines, who is very worthily represented by our charming First Lady of the Philippines, Mrs. Quezon … … Tonight, we are here to honor not only the 220 Jesuit Missionaries and their commander-in-chief in the Philippines but also those Filipino soldiers and those American soldiers who fought in Bataan and Corregidor, fortified by faith that outlasts because it transcends time. … And those boys in Bataan are talking to me now and they are willing to tell me … talk to them, talk to the American, tell them for us that they have a job to do. Our deaths must be avenged, our cause must be vindicated, and the American flag, the American flag which you, Romulo, saw ignominiously hauled down by the Japanese hands in Bataan and trampled upon by Japanese feet, and which we were powerless to protect, were outnumbered, we were fighting against odds, because our country was not prepared for war, because we were starving, we, who were fighting for the richest nation on earth … tell them. … My buddies in Bataan are asking me tonight, to tell you, it is your job to see to it that the flag which was hauled by the Japanese in the Philippines must go up, and up where it belongs. Tell your people the truth, shout it from every house-top if you must, but tell them the truth. Tell them how we fought, we fought, how we had to make hand-grenades out of bamboo and dynamite and nails! How we had to make bombs out of Coca-cola bottles, how we had to fish planes out of the bay, tie them together with bamboo strips and make them fly! Tell them that! Please, tell them that, so that every red-blooded American may resolve that here after no American or Filipino boy is to fight again as we fought in Bataan without the slightest chance, tell them that! … And plead with them, plead with them, my buddies are telling me, don’t forget Bataan, don’t forget Bataan, for Bataan is your flesh and blood,
Compiled by Ms. Tina Siuagan (Study and Thinking Skills Instructor)
2 Taken from “O.D.S. Orations, Declamations, and Speeches for Various Occasions” by C.S. Canonigo Bataan is freedom and freedom is American. And where freedom died, there a part of the American died… Don’t let the mighty sweep of the world events make your forget the early struggles … … When you sing the Star Spangled banner and you say, “O say can you see by the dawn’s early light,” … don’t forget that for those Filipino soldiers in Bataan there are no more light, Darkness has settled in the Philippines, jet-black darkness, and groping in that darkness are 16 million Filipinos loyal to you to the core. They have proved it with their lives waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for American manhood … waiting for America to come. … In the name of those who are prisoners, who are languishing away behind the barbed wire of concentration camps, the living dead, who, as I talk to you tonight, must be wondering if this America for which they fought still remembers them; and in the name of the dead Bataan, I, their messenger, ask you for God’s sake, don’t let them down, don’t let them down.
Compiled by Ms. Tina Siuagan (Study and Thinking Skills Instructor)
