“Unhappy is the land that needs a hero” is a famous line from the play Galileo written by Bertolt Brecht, a German playwright. This is not the case with us. Our nation has bred many heroes. The problem is we don’t know our heroes fully well. 

Ask any young Filipino student to enumerate names in our pantheon of heroes, he will probably stop after Rizal, Bonifacio, and maybe Tandang Sora. If you’re lucky he will probably remember General Luna and Gregorio del Pilar because he was required to watch their respective biopics as a school assignment. So how can we expect our young generation to feel a sense of reverence for them?

Even if they can name names, do young Filipinos appreciate what makes them heroes? What exceptional deeds did they accomplish? What was so noble about the causes they died for? What is their relevance to us?

This sad realization came to my mind when recently my good friend and National Artist Fides Cuyugan-Asensio sent me a Viber message relating how she was appalled to discover that the portraits of national martyrs, namely, former Chief Justice José Abad Santos,  Josefa Llanes Escoda, and Vicente Lim, have been replaced by the “face of an eagle with a punk hair-do”(sic) on the new 1,000 peso bills. She was, in her own words “very, very angry!”(sic). To her, this development is an act of “perverted consciousness... to erase the heroic sacrifices of our martyrs” and amounts to “historical bankruptcy” (sic).

 I could see where she was coming from. Reading her message, I nodded in agreement and told her so in response.

Indeed, we lack historical consciousness. We don’t have a deep sense of our past. 

Is it because we are a relatively young nation compared to China, Egypt, Japan, Iraq, or Iran? So young that we never had grand empires in our history to speak of? Is it because we don’t have Great Pyramids, a Great Wall, a Machu Picchu, or even an Angkor Wat or a BorobudurTemple or similar magnificent ancient structures to give us a reason to be proud. 

I remember that in our history subjects in high school and college, we had textbooks that we never bothered to read. Our teachers failed us by not being able to inspire us to be interested in history, much less our own Philippine history. 

My theory is that part of the reason is that our culture is not a reading culture. We are more visual than textual. We prefer pictures. Give the student a booklet in comics form about Diego Silang or Apolinario Mabini and he will most likely read it from cover to cover. 

The problem is compounded by the fact that the Millennials and Gen Z-ers are now immersed in what is called “digital space,” which is a dominantly visual world. The digital screen is where they live, play, and get their information. 

This is where the visual and performing arts must come in. We need artists who can make history come alive through the technique of storytelling in the various digital art forms, such as film, anime, and even video games. Let’s craft plays and musicals that will depict the lives of great Filipinos and significant turning points in our history.

It must be a whole-of-country project, involving all regions. Let’s tell our budget allocators to set aside funds for grants to have special classes in history writing and spur young writers to compose well researched biographies of our heroes or even engrossing historical fiction as long as they are factual. These can be later be adapted into popular TV drama series. Maybe we can hold a college festival of short plays on unknown regional heroes. For crying out loud, why not an exhibition of paintings portraying historical events and historic characters?

If we can persuade the Department of Education, the National Commission on Culture and the Arts, and the National Historical Commission to join hands and contribute to a common fund to be solely used to produce professional digital videos—live action or anime format—of great historical events and persons and then put them on streaming and social media platforms, imagine what this will do to make our history come alive within the hearts and minds of the Filipino youth. 

For heroes, I recommend giving special focus on heroes from the Visayas and Mindanao who have been long overlooked. It’s time we bring them into the light.  Off hand, I can name Leon Kilat, the Visayan hero of the Philippine Revolution, and Apolinar Velez of Maguindanao who led Filipino natives to resist the invading American forces during the Phil-American War. 

There’s nothing like the performing arts and cinema to breathe life into characters and situations. Every time a high school student or an ordinary Filipino watches a digital video about the life of a hero, it inculcates a deep love of country, patriotism, justice, freedom, and all the other values dramatically depicted through the power of sight and sound.

In this way, perhaps, we will build a reservoir of respect and reverence so deep that we will avoid making thoughtless and ill-considered decisions to erase our heroes from our official money bills as well as public buildings or, God forbid, our textbooks. 

We have to preserve whatever little cultural legacy we possess right now. Let’s harness the arts to awaken a new generation of Jose Rizals, Andres Bonifacios, Josefa Escodas, and Sultan Kudarats!