The season has come, once more, to think of Philippine independence. This time, barely weeks from a mid-term election that again showcased to the world how hellish the exercise of suffrage in our country can be. Which brings to mind the oft-quoted statement of President Manuel L. Quezon that he ‘preferred the Philippines run like hell by Filipinos rather than like heaven by Americans’.

Did he really wish hell for his own people?

When Governor General Leonard Wood came to his position (1921 to 1927), he stopped the “Filipinization” and trend to autonomy initiated by his predecessor Francis Burton Harrison. Wood’s policies were seen by Quezon and other Filipino leaders as erosion of the hard fought gains towards independence. That, in short, was the historical context. The complete statement, in reference to Governor General Wood, was: “I prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government run like heaven by Americans because however bad a Filipino government might be, it can still be improved”. Unfortunately, we have given too much focus on the first part; we forgot the second part altogether.

I submit Quezon did not wish hell upon his people.

His main point was not the ephemeral consequences of what could appear as a “heaven” or a “hell”, but rather the eternal substance of the people of the Philippines exercising their God-given power to choose their own destiny.

No matter how right or nice the direction or results might be (how like heaven), if one could do nothing but follow, cannot make his own mistakes, cannot correct those same mistakes, and will always have someone or something to blame for any event or phenomenon, then that person is less than a full human being; that person will lack self-respect, lack self-esteem, lack self-reliance, lack self-responsibility and thus will never attain independence.

I submit that that was the real point of President Quezon. He wanted his people to stand on their own, fly on their own, chart their own destiny; to be independent and thus be enabled for positive interdependence. I also submit that when he uttered those words, he did not mean our people should be run by a rich, powerful and monopolistic clique whose main interest is of and for their very own perpetuation in power; but by, of and for the people themselves whose main decision criterion is “the greatest good of the greatest number”.

Perhaps a lot of us Filipinos missed that substantive point or have not realized it.

Could this explain why we are a people still mired in the continuing exercise of expending our energies in blaming Spain and America, any and all “isms”, and each other, instead of focusing our individual and group efforts on doing what needs to be done, now, together, like an orchestra, to achieve our common purposes?