About True Filipino Courage

Many officials of the Philippine government once claimed they’re here to help. Flooding interrupts and destroys the lives of Filipinos nationwide, so they spoke of projects meant to control it. In hindsight, we should have been cautious. As the typhoons of 2025 came and went, flooding remained a constant across Metro Manila and the nation. So, it should be no surprise that the Filipino people wondered about what exactly were the flood control projects doing. As it turned out, most weren’t actually constructed. If one was lucky enough to be built though, it ended up substandard, incomplete, or both. Either way, the ‘ghostly’ nature of these projects made them naturally useless against very real floodwaters. Meanwhile, the budget meant for these projects ended up dry and safe in the pockets of kleptocrats: corrupt politicians and contractors.

Naturally, we Filipinos were outraged. Some of us gathered on the streets in anti-corruption protests with the goal of bringing justice. They even created a viral chant calling to arrest the corrupt elements of our government. Yet, in spite of congressional investigations, there have been no convictions. All names are detained, but not yet proven guilty. In fact, the story might not even be close to over. Just recently, Lacson accused ex-DPWH chief Manuel Bonoan of having intentionally provided false data to the Malacañang. He and the Blue Ribbon Committee plan to investigate this with DPWH documents including records made by the late Catalina Cabral, whose death is itself being investigated.

With such a large incident of corruption like this happening in our very country, affecting millions of lives, it serves as proof of just how terrifying those nine, simple words are. And yet, hope finds a way. Philippine history tells the story of a more hopeless time, and how true Filipino courage ended it. Not just the courage of the people, but of those who had the power to choose.

The EDSA People’s Power Revolution was not fated to be victorious. While the lovely idea of an entire nation gathering in one highway to bloodlessly end a dictatorship is often told, there is always more that’s left behind. The revolution was not the first and last event but the culmination of growing faithlessness to the New Society. We all know that Corazon Aquino played a vital role in the revolution. But, if certain key figures, such as Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel V. Ramos had never betrayed Ferdinand Marcos Sr., then the revolution may not have happened, let alone have been successful and bloodless. These two men were part of a certain group known as the Rolex 12, Ferdinand Marcos’s most trusted advisors. It was their desertion combined with the protests of two million Filipinos in their defence that convinced Ferdinand Marcos Sr. that he had run out of time. Once even your closest friends that you worked so hard to gain favor with lose faith in you, what does that say about what you’re doing?

And yet, Enrile and Ramos could’ve just done nothing. Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was a dictator. In time, he could have put down the protests the snap elections caused. They could have waited for his regime to convince the Filipino people of the “correct” result. As his cronies, they also enjoyed benefits that would end if he was ousted. But in the end, here we are in a democratic Philippines. This too, like the protests, are a display of true Filipino courage. For, as Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Anyone can through hardships to achieve a goal but it is having power that shows who you really are. And resisting its corrupting influence requires true courage.

When I was a far younger boy, I was a shy and weird kid. I was born with asthma which forced me to stay at home in my very early years. It took me a long time to undo the effects of that isolation and learn how to converse with others. In the meantime, my inability caused me to be excluded from most friend groups. And yet, I kept dreaming of a time where I would be popular. A time where everyone would be my friend and everyone would just listen to me for once. True power, in my eyes, was when people listened to you when you simply spoke.

Somewhere in my second year of high school did I realize that I had suddenly achieved that dream. That, for once, my fellow classmates saw me as smart and worthy of trust. But most importantly, in my opinion, someone who could be respected for it. I loved the feeling, but after a while, I started to wonder how I had even gotten to that point. At first, I had no idea what actions I had taken to get to this point. At that time, I rationalized it as pure luck. Perhaps a few good decisions in the right place and time is what led to me getting here. Perhaps God’s eternally mysterious plan is what nudged me into the right direction, with my experiences of rejection teaching me the lessons many would only learn later on. Perhaps these all have some truth to them, but now, I know what I really did to get here.

I was never one to simply accept my weaknesses and shortcomings. For me, failure was always a sign that a better outcome existed. That feeling was what I channeled into self-improvement; into learning and adapting with every mistake. Every failure I took as a step towards building a greater me. Eventually, I started making the right decisions. I learned through trial and error what people liked to hear. I learned how to connect and relate with them until I made less and less mistakes. Until, one day, the people around me finally had a reason to listen and accept me for who I am. I showed strength in the face of suffering to get what I want, and even that is courage, too.

We Filipinos like to think that true courage requires grandiose actions. That true courage can only be shown and practiced through flashy rebellion and revolution. This is still true and it is seen in the protests against corruption. But while fighting for justice in an overt way is a form of courage, true courage runs deeper than just that. Within each one of us is the power to change our lives for the better. It may not be a grand display of blazing glory, but change must start somewhere. And, like a tiny mustard seed that grows into the largest tree, courage too may start small but result in the most radical of changes.

We all know what it means to go through adversity. The very act of aiming to achieve something requires you to take steps towards it; to break the current status quo. The current established flow of events is the path of least resistance, and attempting to alter its direction requires one to put effort into overcoming the forces against it. And yet, what is often the most difficult part towards achieving a goal is overcoming inaction: the fear of taking the first step to change the status quo. It is easy to overcome obstacles on your path to your goal if you are sure that there is no way back, but being at the crossroads of choice, knowing the permanence of our decisions is what immobilizes us. What is in front of us in the present might be abject suffering, but we tend to believe that it is better to bear the pain that we are used to than the pain that we are new to. If we really wish to attain our dreams, we must learn to overcome this ‘neurosis’ with our own inner strength. And that is the definition of courage: strength in the face of pain, whether the result of such neurosis or due to existing, real obstacles.

And so, even if the media likes to say that the world ends sooner or later due to corruption or some other societal illness, I remain hopeful and honest. Perhaps I will never be a part of a big protest like the brave citizens that joined the EDSA People Power Revolution, but that’s fine. True courage runs deeper than just that, and the revolution is just one of many examples that show what courage can really do.

As St. Francis once said, we all must “start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." Even if small, each and every one of our little good deeds add up to a real whole that we do not always see. Just by holding onto love, faith, and hope do we hold off the waves of negativity flooding our nation and the world. Within our families, friendships, and communities, we keep the tradition of peace and understanding alive. And perhaps it will be this that will inspire and provide the foundation for future reforms, brought in because our collective action made charity the new normal. You never know just how much of what you do actually affects the way others live, butterfly effect and all.

Indeed, the only person you can trust on this Earth is yourself, but let that not discourage you from being kind, caring, and trusting. Fred Rogers once said that when he saw scary things on the television, his mother told him to look for the helpers. To look for those that, in their courage, broke through the fear of acting against the norm to help those who were suffering.

You can’t trust other people to start the winds of change, for they are waiting for someone else too. But you can trust yourself to be the first to act. To be the one that breaks the ice and shows others that they too can act.