I GO SOMEWHERE, WHERE THE ONE WHO
REIGNS IS GOD come along their way. Where is now the legacy of
By: ARVIN B. VILLAGARCIA
“I go where there are no slaves, hangmen or
oppressors; where faith does not kill; where the
one who reigns is God.” This was a strong
remarkable statement given by a man of courage and
intellect when men in the Philippines were still under
the cruel hands of the foreign invaders, when people
were deprived of their rights to do freely what they
wanted to do. The beasts in the Philippine History
grabbed our dear fellowmen including our beloved
and well-respected ancestors around their necks as
slaves of this barbarous group of Spaniards, and that
is exactly 496 years ago.
Brothers and sisters, I stand right here before
you to state something about how did Filipinos fight
for our freedom during the Spanish era. Have you
ever imagined yourself treading the streets of the past
painted with the blood of our great mighty soldiers
and heroes? Have you ever imagined yourself bearing
the pain while watching your helpless fellowmen
suffered from the inhumanity of these savage
invaders? I know for sure that you can easily conceive
of these scenarios but you would never feel what they
felt during such time.
There were killings! Killings that changed
the lives of the people of the ancient times. People in
all ages were slowly being murdered while their poor
family seemed helpless staring at them as they shut
their eyes forever. With all these cruelties, don’t you
think that the fight was unfair? Well, I do but
someone has changed the way I thought about how to
fight equally, without seeing stains of human blood
and traces of brutality in the battlefield.
He is….The man of nation……A warrior of
human intellect, faith and conviction……the bravest
hero and a father of wisdom whose words are like a
quick sword striking the genuine hearts and innocent
minds of his people awakening them to the reality that
they have to fight for what is right in not so-brutal
means but rather in a very intellectual manner to raise
a peaceful battle amongst the Spanish colonizers who
aimed to own and rule over the Philippines hundred
years ago. The man I am talking about is Dr. Jose P.
Rizal. His astounding greatness in writing paved a
way for the whole Filipino nation to revolt without
harming others and losing their dignity—keeping
themselves in progress on achieving the freedom
they have lost for years.
To our board of judges, ladies and
gentlemen, I would like to say that it is very
saddening in my part to hear that there were people
nowadays who were killed and being killed
unexpectedly by armed strangers and even those who
have been killed after being victimized as illegal drug
pushers and drug lords in the country. This has
something to do with the subject of my speech today.
It might seem a different situation but the fact that
there were killings and war among people, my speech
would matter in terms of solving the problem in a
peaceful and humane way. One reason why the
Philippines does not prosper is because of the way the
people think, decide and deal with the problems that
Rizal? Where is the concept of fighting for your rights
and correcting someone’s mistakes against the law
without physical torture and death punishment? Why
do these authorities tend to finish the lives of these
people? Why do they always prefer to punish these
criminals in a harsh and detrimental way?
To my beloved audience, I would like to tell you
that there are a lot of ways you have to consider in
dealing with the very problem, say for instance
“WAR ON DRUGS”. The case will not only be
solved by firing a shot on the head of the suspected
illegal drug user. It is also unjust to kill immediately
those people who are too much innocent of the
present crime. There was one I heard in the news a
couple of months ago who has been shot 24 times to
death after which the authority and the crime
investigators have proven that the persons who were
once suspected and killed are clean-handed. Now, tell
me. Ladies and Gentlemen, do you think everything
that goes in the process is still fair? Do you think that
such way of solving the problem can make a peaceful
country? Of course not. These will just worsen the
status quo of the issue in the Philippines.
Aside from it, we also had the Marawi Siege
which started on May 23rd 2017 killing a number of
soldiers and terrorists who were involved in the
traumatic battle in Marawi, Lanao Del Sur. Added to
it is the clash between all the politicians and the
government and its people. How will this end up?
When will the people stop making clamor in the
national and even international news about how
hawkish our government is. The world is full of
obvious things which nobody by any chance ever
observes. There are other ways to resolve such
conflicts in which no men in our country will be killed
at all. There should be no killings! There should be no
bloody war! There should be no brutality all over the
nation. Look what has been done by Rizal, even how
savage the Spanish Colonizers were to our
countrymen, he had still fought against them without
the use of bombs and shot guns which would
definitely take away the life of every individual
present in that era. Only he has a quill and a paper and
a right way of thinking in taking a step to revolt but
see how effective it was in bringing back the freedom
without forcing another war to arise.
For we are men, we are all equal in the eyes
of our God. We all deserve a life to live. We have to
fight for what is right in a rightful and just manner,
without hurting our dear fellowmen. Ladies and
gentlemen, I am here to say that Filipinos have always
a chance to prosper and survive amidst all the crises
they encounter, in a peaceful and humane manner
without losing others’ lives and human dignity. They
have to make people realize that Philippines is still
the kind of nation that everybody has been looking for
in which they are fearing no one and there are no
people to be feared with but only God.
“I go where there are no slaves, hangmen
or oppressors; where faith does not kill; where the
one who reigns is God.”