Philippines is the home of heroes in the making, heroes who choose life and live a life worth of its worth, to die with a purpose and to live with a motivation. It is within every Filipino blood and vein a hero ready to unleash and face life’s challenges with unbowed heads and unbent knees.
There is this hero that all throughout these years have marked within me the sense of responsibility. He is Rizal, my all-time inspiration when it comes in handling responsibilities. I have known Rizal for almost 13 years through reading his life story, watching films, listening to my mother’s bed night stories about his bravery and valour. However, it is only now that I realize that Rizal had been an ordinary person who did not only dream big but also did big things to aid his big dreams. He was selfless and that was the trait that I admired most about him. He had been a man of principles, true to his word and to his heart. He had a firm disposition that cannot be blown away with prejudices, libel, and slander. Never did I meet a man as unyielding as Rizal in today’s generation. However, there are these people who steadfastly dedicated their lives to life. Every village and street has its own stories of courage, selflessness, valour and heroism. Once a hero is born, change is about to roll its way to the limelight.
Rizal’s brave act before manifested a modern day Rizal. For example, CNN Hero of the Year 2009, Efren Peñaflorida had done great efforts in taking a big step on finding a solution to the fast growing number of out-of-school youths in our country. Together with the Dynamic Teen Company, they are pushing themselves to the limit with their very own “Pushcart Classroom.” Such act of heroism should really be given such credit. However, in ordinary days in our ordinary lives we can do extraordinary things that contribute to a nation’s progress just as Rizal would have wanted us to do. Heroic tales of today does not come in commercially televised programs but in real-life act in the daily realities of our lives. We are superheroes in our own right if we just firmly believe to the ‘will to do’ power and faith within ourselves that we can make a difference in our indifferent society.
Tomorrow, setbacks will reveal how people move and run a society. We don’t want a chaotic world. Nevertheless, one can still choose to be a hero, to make a change for a better world. We must also pay tribute to those who had done great efforts just to make history a never-ending array of books ready to be read, to be analyzed, to be contemplated, and especially to be applied. In this fast paced world, we must always remember that we are the faces of reality of the wombs of tomorrow. We are the unmasked superheroes of our time and the surrogates of our destiny. As Rizal quoted, “The youth is the hope of the nation.”
