Be Beautiful, Noble, Like the Antique Ant Jose G. Villa

Be beautiful, noble, like the antique ant,Who bore the storms as he bore the sun, Wearing neither gown nor helmet,though he was archbishop and soldier:Wore only his own flesh

Salute characters with gracious dignity:Though what these are is left toYour own terms. Exact: the universe isNot so small but these will be foundSomewhere. Exact: they will be found

Speak with great moderation: but thinkWith great fierceness, burning passion:Though what the ant thoughtNo annuals reveal, no his descendantsBreak the seal.

Trace the tracelessness of the ant,Every ant has reached this perfection.As he comes, so he goes,Flowing as water flows,Essential but secret like a rose. 

The Song of Maria ClaraJose P. Rizal

Sweet the hours in the native country, where friendly shines the sun above! Life is the breeze that sweeps the meadows; tranquil is death; most tender, love.

Warm kisses on the lips are playing as we awake to mother's face: the arms are seeking to embrace her, the eyes are smiling as they gaze.

How sweet to die for the native country, where friendly shines the sun above! Death is the breeze for him who has no country, no mother, and no love!

Love of CountryAndres Bonifacio

Is there any love that is noblerPurer and more sublime Than the love of the native country? What love is? Certainly none.

Though the mind may not cease reflecting And sifting with perseverance What humanity has printed and written: That will be the result, none other.

Sacred love! when thou reignest In a loyal heart, be it even A plebeian's, a rustic's untutored Thou makest it grand and revered.

To give the fatherland boundless honorIs the purpose of all who are worthy And who sing, or compose, or make verses To spread their country's glory.

There is nothing worth having the patriot Will not give for his native land: Blood  and wealth, and knowledge and effort, Even life, to be crushed and taken.

Why? What thing of infinite greatnessIs this, that all knees should be bended Before it? that it should be held higher Than the things most precious, even life? Ah! the land it is that gave us birth, Like a mother, and from her alone Came the pleasant rays like the sun's That warmed the benumbed body.

To her we owe the first breath That enlivened the breast oppressed And smothered in the abyss Of pain and grievous suffering.

With the love of country are coupled All dreams and all ideals,

From joyful, restless childhood Till the grave receives the body.

The times gone-by of gladness And the day to come that we sigh for When the yoke shall be taken from us: What are they but dreams of the patriot?

And every tree and branchlet Of its woods and its laughing meadows, Bring back to the mind the memory Of the mother and past days of gladness.

Its crystalline cooling waters That flow from the springs in the mountains,

The soft murmur of swift current Are balm to the heart that is drooping.

Unhappy the exile from his country! His mind, full of sad recollections, Is haunted by anxious longing For the land where stood his cradle.

Misfortune and death seem lighter When we suffer them for our country, And the more that for it we suffer, The more our love grows - oh, marvel! If our land with danger is threatened And help must be quickly forthcoming, Children, wife, and parents and brothers At her first call we must abandon.

And if our land, Filipinas, Is offended, and outraged her honor And her dignity into the mire Is dragged by the foreign impostor: Will by boundless grief not invaded Be the heart of the Filipino? And will not the most peaceful even Rise to avenge her honor? And whence will it come, the vengeance, The sacrifice of our life blood,

If at the end of the struggle,We shall fall into cruel bondage?

If to her fall and prostration Into the mire of fraud and derision Will be added the lash and the shackles, Naught being left her but mourning?

Who is there whom her condition Will not fill the soul with sorrow? Will the heart most hardened by treachery Not be moved to give her its life blood?

Will not, perchance, her sorrowDrive the Filipinos to come to the rescue Of the mother in agony, trampled Underfoot by the foe disgusting? Where is Filipino honor? Where the blood that must be set flowing? Their country in peril - why passive? Will they calmly see her suffer?

Come ye, who have been living Of future felicity dreaming, And have tasted naught but sorrow, Come, love your unhappy country.

Ye, in whom the struggling desire Has dried the springs of the bosom, May true love again be born in you And flow for your suffering country.

Ye, who have lost the fruit and the flower Of the trees of this life, withered early By so many perplexing sorrows, Revive and succor your country.

Ye, who are propitious victims Of deceit and bestial rigor, Arise now to save your country,Free her from the claws of the traitor!

Ye, wretches, who nothing demanded But to live 'midst sorrows and torments, Strike a blow to save your country, Since she is our common mother. Unto her in holocaust loving The last drop of your blood you must offer, If to free her your life you have given, Yours is glory then and redemption.

To My Native LandTrinidad T. Subido

Beloved Land, let me explain thee                       Why thought of nearing death provokes a pain;'Tis not that I again shall never seeThese Orient Isles of kindly sun and rain;Not that the visionary spirit mustForego the wonders she had fondly schemed;Not that the flesh must soon succumb to dust,With the Love's avowals only half redeemed.

O my beloved land, whose air I breath,Whose bounty is my daily sustenance,How sad to leave with nothing to bequeath,How shameful, finally, to dare to rest

My thankful dust upon thy noble breast!Thy weal to serve, Thy glory to enhance.

Beggar ChildrenEmmanuel Torres Wherever they go, skies looking after themRemain lean ghosts of killer kites.Even their cloths have the ripholes of kitesCaught raving among high electric branches.Playgrounds they wander in are condemnedBy the fat book of proverbs: games have abandoned them.They trail the tracks of sparrows slingshotWould stone down, live, into their dreamless hands.Shreds of nests, windstruck, straw their hair.When they speak, plucking the high sleeves of strangersBeyond reach of sweat crowding their brows,It is all a hopscotch make-do language.Reaped from wall of liberal graffiti(Colorum profiles, amulet signals, pistolsPointed at hunger shaped like purse of hairy mouth)Patrolled by the shadow of a carnal cop.Their eyes, alert, are blacker than shadowThey spill about them and loose in crowded noons.Catch-as-catch-can is what their fingers learnFrom hoops of skinny thorns: thus they survive.If between the billboard siren and the rainy highwayTheir eyes fall on pebbles, their wishes are notFor marbles gleaming with rainbow swirls of heavenBut for hubcaps to take to as far as the next possible town.

When I See a Barong-BarongMaximo Ramos

When I see a barong-barong neighborhood in the heart of war-torn Manila;When I behold beside the Pasig sudden lean-tos defended against sun and rain with salvaged sheets of tin;When I take a truck ride through Suburbia and find nipa huts clustered within the shell-punched walls of former mansions of stone –I do not look away in shame or throw up my hands despairing for my people.I fill my chest with the bracing breeze of this my country and say:Though my race has been pushed around in his own land for nearly half a thousand years,Though my people have been double-crossed again and again by foreigners,Though my race has been pitted against themselves down the centuries;I joy to discover that they are whole and remained unbroken in spirit;

Building them makeshift huts of nipa and salvaged tin and standing straight with heads against the stars.

WHERE'S THE PATIS?Carmen Guerrero Nakpil

Travel has become the great Filipino dream. In the same way that an American dreams of becoming a millionaire or an English boy dreams of going to one of the great universities, the Filipino dreams of going abroad. His most constant vision is that of himself as tourist.

To visit Hong-kong, Tokyo and other cities of Asia, perchance, to catch a glimpse of Rome, Paris or London and to go to America (even if only for a week in a fly-specked motel in California) is the sum of all delights.

Yet having left the Manila International Airport in a pink cloud of despedidas and sampaguita garlands and pabilin, the dream turns into a nightmare very quickly. But why? Because the first bastion of the Filipino spirit is the palate. And in all the palaces and fleshpots and skyscrapers of that magic world called "abroad" there is no patis to be had.

Consider the Pinoy abroad. He has discarded barong tagalong or "polo" for a sleek, dark Western suit. He takes to the habiliments from Hongkong, Brooks Brothers or Savile Row with the greatest of ease. He has also shed the casual informality of manner that is characteristically Filipino. He gives himself the airs of a cosmopolite to the credit-card born. He is extravagantly courteous (specially in a borrowed language) and has taken to hand-kissing and to plenty of American "D'you minds?"

He hardly misses the heat, the native accents of Tagalog or Ilongo or the company of his brown-skinned cheerful compatriots. He takes, like a duck to water, to the skyscrapers, the temperate climate, the strange landscape and the fabled refinements of another world. How nice, after all, to be away from good old R.P. for a change!

But as he sits down to meal, no matter how sumptuous, his heart sinks. His stomach juices, he discovers, are much less neither as apahap nor lapu-lapu. Tournedos is meat done in a barbarian way, thick and barely cooked with red juices still oozing out. The safest choice is a steak. If the Pinoy can get it well done enough and sliced thinly enough, it might remind him of tapa.

If the waiter only knew enough about Philippine cuisine, he might suggest venison which is really something like tapang usa, or escargots which the unstylish poor on Philippine beaches know as snails. Or even frog legs which are a Pampango delight.

But this is the crux of the problem - where is the rice? A silver tray offers varieties of bread: slices of crusty French bread, soft yellow rolls, rye bread, crescents studded with sesame seeds. There are also potatoes in every conceivable manner, fried, mashed, boiled, buttered. But no rice.

The Pinoy learns that rice is considered a vegetable in Europe and America. The staff of life a vegetable!And when it comes - a special order which takes at least half an hour -the grains are large, oval and foreign-looking and what's more, yellow with butter. And oh horrors! - one must shove it with a fork or pile it with one's knife on the back of another fork.

After a few days of these debacles, the Pinoy, sick with longing, decides to comb the strange city for a Chinese restaurant, the closest thing to the beloved gastronomic county. There, in the company of other Asian exiles, he will put his nose finally in a bowl of rice and find it more fragrant than an English rose garden, more exciting than a castle on the Rhine and more delicious than pink champagne.

To go with the rice there is siopao (not so rich as at Salazar) pancit guisado reeking with garlic (but never so good as any that can be had on the sidewalks of Quiapo) fried lumpia with the incorrect sauce, and even mami (but nothing like the down-town wanton)Better than a Chinese restaurant is the kitchen of a kababayan. When in a foreign city, a Pinoy searches every busy sidewalk, theatre, restaurant for the well-remembered golden features of a fellow-pinoy. But make it no mistake.

« Mi Último Adiós »

¡Adiós, Patria adorada, región del sol querida,Perla del mar de oriente, nuestro perdido Edén!A darte voy alegre la triste mustia vida,Y fuera más brillante, más fresca, más florida,También por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.

En campos de batalla, luchando con delirio,Otros te dan sus vidas sin dudas, sin pesar;El sitio nada importa, ciprés, laurel o lirio,Cadalso o campo abierto, combate o cruel martirio,Lo mismo es si lo piden la patria y el hogar.

Yo muero cuando veo que el cielo se coloraY al fin anuncia el día tras lóbrego capuz;si grana necesitas para teñir tu aurora,Vierte la sangre mía, derrámala en buen horaY dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz.

Mis sueños cuando apenas muchacho adolescente,Mis sueños cuando joven ya lleno de vigor,Fueron el verte un día, joya del mar de oriente,Secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente,Sin ceño, sin arrugas, sin manchas de rubor

Ensueño de mi vida, mi ardiente vivo anhelo,¡Salud te grita el alma que pronto va a partir!¡Salud! Ah, que es hermoso caer por darte vuelo,Morir por darte vida, morir bajo tu cielo,Y en tu encantada tierra la eternidad dormir.

Si sobre mi sepulcro vieres brotar un díaEntre la espesa yerba sencilla, humilde flor,Acércala a tus labios y besa al alma mía,Y sienta yo en mi frente bajo la tumba fría,De tu ternura el soplo, de tu hálito el calor.

Deja a la luna verme con luz tranquila y

suave,Deja que el alba envíe su resplandor fugaz,Deja gemir al viento con su murmullo grave,Y si desciende y posa sobre mi cruz un ave,Deja que el ave entone su cántico de paz.

Deja que el sol, ardiendo, las lluvias evaporeY al cielo tornen puras, con mi clamor en pos;Deja que un ser amigo mi fin temprano lloreY en las serenas tardes cuando por mí alguien ore,¡Ora también, oh Patria, por mi descanso a Dios!

Ora por todos cuantos murieron sin ventura,Por cuantos padecieron tormentos sin igual,Por nuestras pobres madres que gimen su amargura;Por huérfanos y viudas, por presos en torturaY ora por ti que veas tu redención final.

Y cuando en noche oscura se envuelva el cementerioY solos sólo muertos queden velando allí,No turbes su reposo, no turbes el misterio,Tal vez acordes oigas de cítara o salterio,Soy yo, querida Patria, yo que te canto a ti.

Y cuando ya mi tumba de todos olvidadaNo tenga cruz ni piedra que marquen su lugar,Deja que la are el hombre, la esparza con la azada,Y mis cenizas, antes que vuelvan a la nada,El polvo de tu alfombra que vayan a formar.

Entonces nada importa me pongas en olvido.Tu atmósfera, tu espacio, tus valles cruzaré.Vibrante y limpia nota seré para tu oído,Aroma, luz, colores, rumor, canto, gemido,Constante repitiendo la esencia de mi fe.

Mi patria idolatrada, dolor de mis dolores,Querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adiós.Ahí te dejo todo, mis padres, mis amores.Voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores,Donde la fe no mata, donde el que reina es Dios.

Adiós, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mía,Amigos de la infancia en el perdido hogar,Dad gracias que descanso del fatigoso día;Adiós, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegría,Adiós, queridos seres, morir es descansar.