Sunday, December 7, 2008

LaMBs cannot speak nor do they have free will. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt you couldn't speak up or express yourself?

This is a great question! But unfortunately I can’t answer this straight forward because I can’t think of a good enough personal experience that's similar to this situation. I grew up in an environment where I am liberated; I could do anything I want. But sometimes, I deprive myself of that freedom when my parents are reprimanding me. I know that they have the best intention that’s why out of respect, I usually just keep my thoughts to myself and listen to what they have to say. This is just a small circumstance compared to what I have in mind. I would like to talk about this with a bigger story.

I love studying the history of different cultures because there’s always a valuable lesson that we can use immediately or something to help us along the way in our lives. Let me give a short summary of the Philippine history.

It was 1521 when the Philippines was first visited by the Spanish people lead by Ferdinand Magellan. Little by little, the Spaniards sent more men and this resulted to the Spanish Colonization; which lasted for three centuries. It was then followed by the American Colonization. At first the Americans and Filipinos were allies and supported each other. But inadvertently some misunderstandings lead to the Philippine-American war. The Americans governed the Philippines for almost 50 years. During the American era, Japan made a surprise attack to the Philippines which completely obliterated the country’s defenses in a matter of hours. A few years later, the Americans aided the Filipinos to regain freedom and rebuilt the Philippine Republic. During all the foreign colonizations, there were probably thousands of revolutions made against them. Over a million people died at gun point and most of those who survived were the ones who just kept silent.

Back to our topic, who else could relate better on the subject than Filipinos who went through the harsh years of their oppressors? They were ripped off from their right to speak and any slight form of resistance was their last act here on earth. I’m very sure that those Filipinos would burst out in tears if they could see how their grandchildren are living these days. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but all of us now live in a free country. And we are very lucky for the fact that no one can tell us how we are supposed to be in this world. We must cherish and put our freedom into good use because millions of lives were taken just to let us have a liberated life.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines

6 comments:

  1. Parents are full of experience in life. Their duty in life is to teach their children how to live a fruitful and meaningful life. The duty of children is to listen. There is a saying: you learn more by listening than by talking.

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  2. its good we have the freedom to express ourselves but it should also be done at the right time and place

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  3. i got stage fright. does that count?

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  4. In your blog it looks like the Filipinos would be the perfect lambs, see no evil, hear no evil and do no evil. What a shame!! Obey only because you have nothing else to do. Life is so beautiful so it would be a waste to be a lamb and have no dignity left for yourself.

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  5. I think all of use have their own secrets and that answers that.

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  6. We Filipinos are perfect LaMBs probably. Our president makes sure of that...

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