Is the Filipino Still Worth Dying For?
Is the Filipino Still Worth Dying For?
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The Link, August 21, 2025
By Hanz Efren G. Abantao II
“I have carefully weighed the virtues and faults of the Filipino and I have come to the conclusion that he is worth dying for.” – Benigno Simeon “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr.
Today, we commemorate the life of a true Filipino, who changed the course of our history. The late-journalist and senator from Tarlac, Ninoy Aquino Jr., lived in one of the darkest periods of Philippine history. In the early years of the term of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., when Martial Law was not yet declared, Ninoy Aquino was the fiercest critic of government abuses. When Martial Law was declared, the senator was arrested along with the other members of the opposition in 1973. The political tyranny of the time was rampant. However, his time in prison only ended in March of 1980 due to a heart attack in his cell. He was permitted to leave the country and stay in the United States.
His exile was a brief pause. On August 21, 1983, despite the death threats, he went back to the Philippines with the name “Marcial Bonifacio” to negotiate with the Marcos regime—to promote peace and unity. Instead, he was shot dead for the Filipino he considered “worth dying for.” With his death being the springboard to a national consciousness, the restoration of Philippine democracy happened under his wife, Corazon Cojuanco Aquino, in 1986.
Now, it has been 42 years since Ninoy Aquino’s passing, where freedom had its spark. Ninoy Aquino faced the issues of his time with courage and idealism; he sought not bloodshed, but the brotherhood of man. To every Lourdesian who recites the Creed until its last tenet, “I am a Filipino” and knows the issues reminiscent of today—personality politics, extrajudicial killings, and socioeconomic divide—it must be asked:
Is the Filipino still worth dying for?
References:
From senator to prisoner: The story of Ninoy Aquino. (n.d.). Ateneo Martial Law Museum.
https://learn.martiallawmuseum.ph/magaral/from-senator-to-prisoner-the-story-of-ninoy-aquino/
[Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. delivering a speech]. (n.d.). Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).
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