‘Entering the Women’s Month of March, we expect that this year the author of Woman Enough and Other Essays (1963) shall finally and deservedly join the pantheon of Philippine National Artists.’
We’re outnumbered, outgunned. There’s no way we survive if we attack first. You brought me here because I speak Klingon. Then let me speak Klingon.” — Nyota Uhura to James Kirk [Star Trek Into Darkness]
Then Klingon it is: “suvtaHvIS tu’law’ TamtaHghach qeqtaHvIS.” If we are supposed to die for our country, then we should be able to enumerate the countrymen worth dying for. Like them:
(1) Nelia Sancho: “For 50 years the Japanese government kept its involvement in the conscription and procurement of the Asian ‘comfort women’ hidden. But they kept documents and records, and in the last two years private researchers have uncovered these sources and presented them as evidence against the Japanese government. It was only in July 1992 that the Japanese Foreign Minister finally admitted Japan’s responsibility and publicly apologized for this war crime. The case was also presented at the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights in August 1992, and a Committee on Post-War Compensation has been set up to study what could be done to redress the violation of women’s human rights.” [“‘Clutching a knifeblade’: Human rights and development from Asian women’s perspective,” Gender & Development, Volume 1, Number 2, pp. 31-36]
(2) Fe Del Mundo: “The importance of defining prematurity for the peoples of the Far East is clear since it is quite impossible for workers there to evaluate the results of their obstetric and pediatric care by Occidental standards unless they use a criterion for prematurity which corresponds in gestational age with that used elsewhere.” [“A Survey of Hospital-born Prematures in the Philippines,” 1961]
(3) Sister Mary John Mananzan: “The Philippines, Christianized in the context of Spanish colonialism in 1521, is today still the only Christian country in Asia. It is at present undergoing a serious economic and political crisis described by political analysts as approaching a revolutionary situation. Its economic problems are rooted in an unequal distribution of wealth…This very fundamental problem is compounded by the foreign control of its economy exercised by transnational corporations of United States and Japanese origins.” [“Prophecy As Resistance: A Philippine Experience,” International Review Of Mission]
(4) Estrella P. De Leon, MD, FCCP and Mita Pardo De Tavera, MD, FCCP: “During World War II, in October, 1944 the liberating American troops that landed in Leyte encountered a wholly unexpected enemy. ‘Snail fever’ was one of the medical disasters of World War 11.
Before it was brought under control, this epidemic at the height of a military offensive put 1,700 badly needed fighting men out of commission at a cost of three million dollars for treatment alone. Infantrymen wading through swamps and rice fields, engineers building pontoon bridges and men bathing in fresh water ponds and stream, were the chief victims. Early neurologic manifestations attributed to toxic edema of the brain.” [“Pulmonary Schistosomiasis in the Philippines,” Presented at the IX International Congress on Diseases of the Chest, Copenhagen, August 1966]
(5) Corazon Cojuangco Aquino: “I accept this award on behalf of those women and men today, who still dare to make the same fateful commitment to People Power, despite its uneven record of success. For every EDSA; Prague and Berlin, there has been an East Timor, a Rang Qon and a Tienanmen Square.” [https://www.rmaward.asia/awardees/aquino-corazon-cojuangco/]
(6) J.V. Sotejo: “The Philippines has had and still has a very liberal share of poverty, ignorance, disease, high infant mortality, malnutrition and other socio-economic and cultural problems both during the Spanish regime and in the early years of American occupation. Except for the eradication of certain dangerous communicable diseases prevalent at the beginning of this century, these same problems continue to plague our country. The need for trained Filipino nurses who would go into the homes of the people and help promote health and prevent disease had been recognized early and no stone was left unturned in the attempt to establish a training school for nurses. The first organized training school for nurses was established in 1907. In 1912 two Filipino nurses, graduates of the hospital nursing school, were sent to Cebu under the Bureau of Health to pioneer in public health nursing, chiefly home visiting, mother and baby care.” [“Preparing the Nurse for First Level Position in Public Health Nursing in the Basic Nursing Curriculum,” Int. J. Nurs. Stud., Vol. 5, 1968, pp. 89-102]
(7) Perla D. Santos Ocampo, M.D.: “The Philippines will also find itself in a world environment of limited armed conflict among other nations. The nation finds itself in between ideologically opposite poles, and as an innocent bystander it will be difficult to avoid the crossfire in terms of the impact of the international conflict on the economy. Children’s lives will be affected thereby, what with the ringside seats they have in viewing the disorder on television, and their uncanny knowledge of the strategy of star wars.” [“What Can Pediatricians Do for the Children in Asia in the 21st Century? (the Philippine Vision),” Acta Paediatr Jpn, Vol. 30, No.6, December 1988, pp. 647-653]
(8) Letizia Roxas Constantino: “During the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, pro-Japanese Filipino spies like the Makapili (Makabayang Kalipunan ng mga Pilipino) were commonly referred to as fifth columns.” [SM23, Issue Without Tears: “The Wonderful World of Words”]
(9) Gregoria De Jesus: “I still remember that I was once a winner in an examination given by the governor-general and the town curate and was the recipient of a silver medal with blue ribbon, a prize bestowed in recognition of my little learning…When I was about 18 years old, young men began to visit our house, and among them was Andres Bonifacio, who came in company with Ladislao Diwa and my cousin Teodoro Plata…Three months thereafter, just as I was beginning to like him, I learned that my father was against Bonifacio’s suit because he was a freemason…Six months later I had earnestly fallen in love with him, and my father, though opposed at first, in the end gave his consent because of his love for me and because I told him the whole truth.” [Philippine Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 1, June 1930]
And one more: Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil — icon of integrity in Philippine journalism, culture and history who had articulated “the deeper aspirations of history and the soul of the people” with her best-selling books (Question of Identity, 1973; The Philippines and the Filipino, 1977; The Philippines: The Land of the People, 1989; The Rice Conspiracy, 1990), her witty columns in Malaya (a Philippine national business daily broadsheet) and her stewardship of the Philippine National Historical Commission in the 1960s.
Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil was our banner-bearer to the Executive Board of the UNESCO in Paris in 1983 — a signal accomplishment in our era of globalization. Entering the Women’s Month of March, we expect that this year the author of Woman Enough and Other Essays (1963) shall finally and deservedly join the pantheon of Philippine National Artists.
