A celebration of defeat
“Bataan has fallen. The Philippine-American troops on this war-ravaged and bloodstained peninsula have laid down their arms. With heads bloody but unbowed, they have yielded to the superior force and numbers of the enemy.” (Opening lines of the broadcast announcing the surrender of US-Philippine troops in Bataan on 9 April 1942)
April 9 marks a Philippine national holiday called “Araw ng Kagitingan” (some call it “Bataan Day,” or more accurately, “The fall of Bataan Day,” in the past).
9 April 1942, in history, marked the day when the United States Forces in the Philippines (USFIP) (formerly United States Forces in the Far East [USAFFE], renamed when US General Douglas McArthur fled from the Bataan peninsula a month before), through then Maj. Gen. Edward King, surrendered to the Japanese during World War II. This led subsequently to the infamous Bataan Death March.
My reservation for the celebration of this holiday comes in two fronts. One is on the issue on why we celebrate defeats (Fall of Bataan day). The other lies in the contradictory assertion of valor (Araw ng Kagitingan, or Day of Valor).
I perceive that a celebration of the fall of Bataan, in World War II, is a proxy celebration in favor of the Japanese. If there would have been any celebration that could be had to commemorate favorable events in World War II, the reconquest of the islands from the Japanese, would have been more vindicative. Still, even with that, I would hardly find that such celebration would merit a status of a national holiday in the Philippines, since it would be a derivative triumph that would be rightfully claimed principally by the United States (if it does, which I doubt, since the “liberation” of the Philippines was only incidental to the primary campaign to invade Japan at that time, as a retribution for the Pearl Harbor bombing).
The notion of celebrating defeat is not novel in this archipelago since there is premium on outcome generated from the emphasis of pain and suffering (which I find “Kundimatic”). Such fixation is disturbing since it foments a culture of non-physical masochism, and adoption of false achievements (such as, in the present, an alleged success in the fight against graft and corruption with the teary-eyed exposition of one Jun Lozada, where in fact there has been no such success yet.) It seems there is an improper blurring of the lines between a euphemistic consolation and a proper celebration, which is untenable.
On the other hand, adopting the title “Araw ng Kagitingan” (Day of Valor) to substitute “Bataan Day,” without detaching the context of the date of celebration did not help in rectify its flaw. What it actually did was an emphasis on the inherent ambiguity of the term “valor” (such as through Miguel De Cervantes: “True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.”). Occidental perception on valor may adopt a scale leaning towards the pragmatic notion of the power of self-recovery, while oriental perception can entertain the notion of valor which could be just one step less than foolhardiness. The correlation of the commemoration and the actual event provides a euphemistic appreciation of “valor,” in the context of surrender. In this light, I can’t see why a mitigation against rashness would not constitute rashness in itself.
On the other hand, if there is valor in surrender, without an admission of cowardice, I guess then that there is a valor in surrendering the Pag-asa group of islands in the Spratlys to the Chinese, without promulgating the necessary laws to establish the claim as required in a UN deadline, so as not to solicit their ire and allow the continuation of the benefits acquired from their economic concessions/loan facilities supposedly utilized for the “welfare” of the Filipino people. Section 7, Article II of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which provides that “The State shall pursue an independent foreign policy. In its relations with other states, the paramount consideration shall be national sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interest, and the right to self-determination” is a mere State principle anyhow, isn’t it?
