A FILIPINO

A Filipino!

I am proud to be a Filipino:

Proud of the Past .

Proud of my Ancestors,

Bold Malays,

Brown as burnt grass,

Stripped to the Waist,

Little muscles rippling under skin smooth as satin,

While swift barangays

Drive through sunny seas.

Proud I am!

Proud of My centuries

Of Peaceful village life,

Of folk-ways slowly ripening,

Of laws ad customs gradually growing,

Tested and revised by long experience.

Under the aegis of our tribal Gods.

Proud I am.

Proud of our Patience under Spanish yoke;

Proud that from our conquerors we took

Much of the good,

Little of the Bad,

And all the while remained ourselves.

Prouder still

That, covered all the years,

The five was yet unquenched,

And blazed hotly

In fierce revolt against oppression.

I am proud of that revolt-

The heroes it made,

The tradition, it left to me,

A Filipino!

A Filipino!

A Filipino, rejoicing in the Past.

But o! the greater joy when my eager eyes

Gaze to the Dawn-

A dawn fast brightening into morning-

The dawn of a day.

More glorious than any that has been before,

A day of which I myself

Shall bear the burden and the heat,

That through the labors of my hand and brain

My son’s son be proud to call himself

A Filipino!