As the country commemorates its annual National Heroes Day at the end of the month, celebrating those who offered their lives for the posterity of the next generation, some of our would-be heroes, if there be any, are left with an overwhelming challenge of keeping the sanctity of this event afloat amid the incessant demands of change flooding in almost every aspect of governance.
But history is a conglomerate of diversified challenges. And these same challenges are renewed constantly within the context of our own contemporary scene. As such that commemorating a hero is not just an honor given to an individual who contributed a certain slant in our society; it is also secured as a reminder of our inherent ability to reaffirm ourselves simply by taking its cue on antiquity.
Valuing these heroes, however, isn't so much a fad in our streets lately, or even a matter of fact in our recent history. It is a practice that has been made obsolete in some of our more modern conventions of recognition and respect. Conventional hero-worship, which was an integral part in the development of a society in ancient times is slowly, if not steadily, been diffused in our public statues as well as in our opaque assimilation to classical forms of expression. It may have been debatable even more when instances of hero-worship, or commemoration for that matter, can actually foment any sense of pride when it crosses its path on both industrialization and globalization.
That in as much as we take pride in that challenge of reinventing ourselves through these heroic patterns in history, our perceptions, on the contrary, isn't exactly amenable or at least receptive to its connotative meaning. Just as its verbal predecessors of Latin and Greek languages, today's heroes are now viewed in the same eye as one who just recently visited the museum or the public library and finding the place it was: dead. It has all the sorry implications lately of being a total waste of time, an unnecessary accessory to the immediate needs of the present. Somehow it has lost its magic; the passion behind every remembrance of things past all gone; a look of pride in the face as it attempts to envision again its former glory all vanished in the fog of everyday concerns; and the thought of being a part of history all forgotten, blown up even in one commemorative day.
The changing of the times has made the transformation of hero-worship from its bloated belly into a flat one. Although some of our forefathers are still reaping the benefits of honor and emulation, our own set of new heroes, however, are somewhat polarized and distorted from its initial genealogy. And the adulation, most of the time, relishes upon the sensibilities of having that spark of notoriety at the very core, that the more notorious a hero has become, the more visage and vibrancy the adulation would turn out to be in the end.
Our new hero isn't exactly found in between bookends, in our college curriculum or even inside that lifeless museum, but rather in that increasing irrationality of our public perception, exacerbated perhaps in our equally inscrutable mass media. So potent was this perception that because of its absurdity at times, the venerable evil incarnate of the Third Reich, Hitler no less, nearly ran away as the main man in the last century, almost surpassing Einstein by the hair, as instances of his depiction as a counterfeit hero in some of our self-serving media outlets contributed so much notoriety over his purported influence.
The conventions of hero-worship somehow has to reinvent itself so as to be more relevant in today's ascendancy, since it has failed, over the years, to generate a following and somehow leave a lesson, or to cultivate a rudiment that enables the succeeding generation to follow suit from a historical perspective. In fact, we no longer cringe at the thought of elevating a gambling lord to heroic proportions by letting him betray his equally gambling buddy. That, in itself, because of the enormity of the gray areas proliferating inside our own way of life, that this hero-worship has evolved eventually into a side comment, a political grandstanding, or a seething indictment such as that of Efren Peñaflorida a year ago, rather than taking it as a necessary boost in our identity and determination as a people.
In the same reason that it wouldn't be a surprise to some people after he died tragically in that bus, that the fate of Rolando Mendoza may be considered, after all, an act of heroism not necessarily popular in the heroic sense. Since heroism, like all mechanisms running in an open field, will only intensify its grip when it is forced to jump over a gulch. That if, and when, some would put Mendoza at the behest of this new brand of heroism, since he has succeeded somehow of getting his message across our own fragile sensibilities despite the pressures involved and all the way through interracial lines between two neighboring countries, that we will not only find this new brash of heroic deeds dichotomous from the very beginning but is also irresolute and oftentimes irresponsible of its desired end.
An end only those outside of the country can empathize with. In that immediately after spilling all of its blood and drama inside that bus, that some, if not most, of our OFWs in Hong Kong were (and still are) already feeling the security of their conditions, yes, including that of Ronald Singson’s, as they try to surmise their survival from the humiliation and shame of a seemingly insignificant rescue operation. These workers, our very own heroes of the new generation, are now living probably under duress as they try to prepare for that heroic commemoration at the end of the month.
And while the whole nation is intent of celebrating the exploits of the past, it would have been more suitable perhaps if this commemoration would find its worth in the presence of our OFWs, particularly those in Hong Kong. As this would enable them to look in to their predicament as an opportunity not only for themselves, but for us also here back home, to reinstate ourselves again, not really in some hostile sense of wasting that once decorated life, but by being accountable also to our own fellow passengers, foreign or otherwise. As we try to induce the lessons of the past while maintaining a dignified outlook over our failures, our shortcomings, and our mistakes, especially in this finest hour.
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