due respect for filipinos

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 2005)

I am Don, a Filipino. It is not every time that you see a movie where we Filipinos fight with Americans and at the same time play an important role. I just hope this film will clear our country of being called "The sick man of Asia". I just hope that after you watch this movie, you will see how we fought the Japanese with just our own ingenuity. Australia and New Zealand has banned Philippines from their tourist spots thereby contributing to the already ailing Filipino economy-which gets most of its dollar income from tourists. I guess this is how their "great" countries repay us for delaying the Japanese invasion-which could have reached them if the Philippines just caved in to the Japanese. Have they forgotten that it was because of our raped Filipino women, impaled children, and beheaded and/or butchered men were the reasons why they are so "great" now? Foreigners ask us why can't we rise from our past like the Japanese. We Filipinos usually just bow down and think solemnly of the past and say to ourselves "How can we?! When all of our gold were taken by Japan?!". How unjust it is that the world just treats our country with such disgust when it is the Philippines who endured the most for them so that they can have the liberty and abundance that they are enjoying now.
I just want to add a spoiler here. I was so filled with emotion when Capatain Pajota faced the tank with just the submachine gun - knowing the bomb might not work and that he could have been ripped or blown away by the tank rounds. I applaud the people behind this movie for not cutting that part for it is a revelation of the bravery of the Filipino. I could just remember the time when our troops were pulled out of Iraq because two of our fellowmen were hostages. Our president pulled them out. It would create political instability if she did not do so. We are not cowards. We can fight anyone carrying a laser gun with just our fists. We can find Bin Laden and hunt him down with our rangers for days,months even carrying only a tin can for water supply and just using a rusted Enfield or a worn down M1Garand. Our rangers in Mindanao battle the terrorists knowing they will die on that day because of insufficient armor and bullets. The Filipino rangers' only defense is their superb knowledge of the terrain. Our rangers count the trees and even know their location thereby making them immune to traps or landmines. We Filipinos are not cowards. I hope when you watch this film you will have a different view of us. That we deserve the proper respect and acknowledgment. We are the proud Filipino - and we have been fighting foreigners off our land for five hundred years now...and you know what-- we are still fighting foreigners off our land.
It is not because Philippines was backward that's why it was colonized and invaded... it is because the Philippines was colonized and invaded over and over again that's why the Philippines is backward.