WHY do we have the names and images of Philippine national heroes on provinces, cities, parks, avenues and streets, bases, government ships and on a galore of other things? To ensure that continue to remember there were those who sacrificed for the country and that they have a country that is worth sacrificing for.
Apparently, BSP chief Benjamin Diokno doesn’t understand this as he has announced that he will be erasing particular national heroes in the news series of Peso bills to be replaced with an eagle’s head.
The backlash to his decision first came from the families of the World War II heroes of three towering heroic figures whom the Japanese executed in the course of the Pacific War (1940 -1945).
The three are Josefa Llanes Escoda, Vicente Lim and Jose Abad Santos whose visages will be removed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas from the P1,000 banknote and substituted by an oversized Philippine eagle head.
Currently, the backside of the P 1000 bill is a pearl; why not replace that with the eagle’s head to symbolize the Philippine’s natural features?
The Abad Santos, Escoda and Lim families are up-in-arms over this ill-advised decision by BSP chief Benjamin Diokno to remove the images of their hero-kin from the high circulation P1000 bill prompting one relative to say, “It’s like killing these three people again, and it’s more painful than what the Japanese did, because the ones that are redesigning the banknote are Filipinos…”
I started to write this article early this week after I signed a petition against the plan of Diokno on ‘change.org.’
A few days has passed before I got to continuing my piece, and I have found that the opposition to the BSP move is indeed massive and growing. The growing backlash seemed to have been a reaction to Diokno’s insensitive and callous response to the initial opposition.
Governor Diokno of the BSP has defended his move saying “Heroes will remain heroes whether they are in the notes or not…” This former gofer of the multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank, ADB, European Commission, and most importantly, USAID, is bereft of any understanding of nationalism and the sense of nationhood, or does he actually want to undermine nationhood?
Some pundits had broached the thought that Diokno may be in cahoots with ADB (Japanese run), World Bank (American run) and their USAID buddies to help deodorize the brutality of Japanese aggression against the Philippines and Filipinos in line with the rehabilitation of Japanese militarism the U.S. has initiated to form the alliance against China – that would drag in the Philippines.
It was later that I read the BSP’s plan to remove all the national heroes down the line, the three martyrs against Japanese occupation in the P1,000 bill, Ninoy Aquino and Cory on the P500, Roxas in the P100 bill, Osmeña in the P50, Manuel Roxas on the P20, down to Bonifacio in the P5 bill and Rizal in the P 2 bill. But there were those who agree of removing Ninoy and Cory in the P500 bill as they are seen as in fact, traitors.
The BSP has since clarified that the P 1000 bill with the three martyrs against the Japanese occupation of the Philippines will not be demonetized, but the clamor to remove Ninoy and Cory continue to reverberate.
Some have suggested the image of Generalismo Macario Sakay, last revolutionary leader to surrender to the Americans to replace Ninoy and Cory. I believe that’s a splendid idea.
(Samahan si Ka Mentong Laurel at mga panauhin sa “Power Thinks” tuwing Miyerkules @6pm Live Global Talk News Radio (GTNR) sa Facebook at sa Talk News TV sa You Tube; at tuwing Linggo 8 to 10am sa RP1 738khz AM sa radyo.)