1 Taken from O.D.S. Orations, Declamations, and Speeches for Various Occasions by C.S.

Canonigo

THE FILIPINO CHALLENGE

by Carlos P. Romulo

It is my privilege to bring you tonight the greetings of the

acknowledged leader of the Filipino people, the symbol of Philippine loyalty
to America, the symbol of Filipino resistance to Japan, the symbol of
Filipino Redemption, the Honorable Manuel L. Quezon, President of the
Philippines, who is very worthily represented by our charming First Lady of
the Philippines, Mrs. Quezon
Tonight, we are here to honor not only the 220 Jesuit Missionaries and
their commander-in-chief in the Philippines but also those Filipino soldiers
and those American soldiers who fought in Bataan and Corregidor, fortified
by faith that outlasts because it transcends time.
And those boys in Bataan are talking to me now and they are willing to
tell me talk to them, talk to the American, tell them for us that they have
a job to do. Our deaths must be avenged, our cause must be vindicated,
and the American flag, the American flag which you, Romulo, saw
ignominiously hauled down by the Japanese hands in Bataan and trampled
upon by Japanese feet, and which we were powerless to protect, were
outnumbered, we were fighting against odds, because our country was not
prepared for war, because we were starving, we, who were fighting for the
richest nation on earth tell them.
My buddies in Bataan are asking me tonight, to tell you, it is your job to
see to it that the flag which was hauled by the Japanese in the Philippines
must go up, and up where it belongs. Tell your people the truth, shout it
from every house-top if you must, but tell them the truth. Tell them how we
fought, we fought, how we had to make hand-grenades out of bamboo and
dynamite and nails! How we had to make bombs out of Coca-cola bottles,
how we had to fish planes out of the bay, tie them together with bamboo
strips and make them fly! Tell them that! Please, tell them that, so that
every red-blooded American may resolve that here after no American or
Filipino boy is to fight again as we fought in Bataan without the slightest
chance, tell them that!
And plead with them, plead with them, my buddies are telling me, dont
forget Bataan, dont forget Bataan, for Bataan is your flesh and blood,

Compiled by Ms. Tina Siuagan (Study and Thinking Skills Instructor)

2 Taken from O.D.S. Orations, Declamations, and Speeches for Various Occasions by C.S. Canonigo
Bataan is freedom and freedom is American. And where freedom died, there
a part of the American died
Dont let the mighty sweep of the world events make your forget the early
struggles
When you sing the Star Spangled banner and you say, O say can you
see by the dawns early light, dont forget that for those Filipino soldiers
in Bataan there are no more light, Darkness has settled in the Philippines,
jet-black darkness, and groping in that darkness are 16 million Filipinos
loyal to you to the core. They have proved it with their lives waiting, waiting,
waiting. Waiting for American manhood waiting for America to come.
In the name of those who are prisoners, who are languishing away
behind the barbed wire of concentration camps, the living dead, who, as I
talk to you tonight, must be wondering if this America for which they fought
still remembers them; and in the name of the dead Bataan, I, their
messenger, ask you for Gods sake, dont let them down, dont let them
down.

Compiled by Ms. Tina Siuagan (Study and Thinking Skills Instructor)