lopez jaena: what makes a hero?

I come from the school where Graciano Lopez Jaena was educated.  I am an alumnus of the same institution and presently I am its rector.  As rector of the seminary and as a formator of seminarians and future priests what interests me in Graciano Lopez Jaena is not so much history but the kind of formation he received that made him the one and only Graciano Lopez Jaena we come to know in our history as a nation.  What made him a hero? And more importantly what makes a person a hero?

We are all born with a capacity to become anything.  And along the way we get shaped by our circumstances in life – our parents and upbringing, our life situation, the school we come from, the classmates and friends we had, the significant persons we meet in life - we were shaped by what was happening around us and in our country as we were growing up, and then we form judgements and outlooks, we reason, we allow ourselves to be swayed with either reason or emotion or with both and then we make decisions.  And thus a few of us become villains and fewer still become heroes and the rest of us become what is referred to as the rest in the bell curve.  There are studies about how villains come to be.  But there are still a lot to be done as to how heroes are formed.  There is nothing definite.   But more or less this is how heroes come to be:

First, heroism always starts with compassion, when we begin to feel what others feel, when we begin to look into the other's life and allow ourselves to be affected, to be hurt, to be angry, to be judged by their situation, to be moved to care, to be concerned and finally to be moved to act and to help.

It is said that Lopez Jaena developed empathy when as a young man he practiced what medicine he learned in San Juan de Dios Hospital after being denied formal training in UST.  There in the lives of ordinary Filipinos in need of medical attention he saw the disparity between the haves and have nots.  He saw misplaced priorities in a government that could have done more to provide health services or even just the basic rudiments in educating people to care for themselves.  The agitation begun there many say.  Probably augmenting the early roots of altruism implanted by his parents and in the school he attended.  Perhaps it was not just simply and wholly love but also anger, resentment, a sense of injustice as to what is happening around him, a need to defend the defenseless.  These life situations, unavoidable in themselves, can either pull one to become callous, cold and hardhearted.  It can also pull one to be resigned to a situation many would like to believe is given, unavoidable and perhaps we are powerless to change.  Or it can move one to compassion and action, probably not in such a grand way but quietly and small scale.  As I said we are all born with a capacity to be anything.  Where you allow your heart to be, in response to a particular situation, spells the difference between a hero, a villain or the rest of the crowd.

One day as I went around the seminary refectory where our seminarians were eating lunch I noticed two grade seven seminarians seemingly arguing over their viand nga isda nga gin-fillet.  Indi gid man dalagko ang ila parte – gamay man lang. But one grade seven 12 year-old seminarian noticed nga kadamo sang iya nakuha nga sud-an kag ang iya sang classmate niya gamay lang.  So he picked a sizable portion from his plate with his fork and gave this to the other, ari o, gamay imo kuha, akon iya daku, imo ini.  But the other would not have it.  Sige lang ok lang ako sa sini.  But the other insisted, indi a imo ni ya, damo ang nakuha ko, gamay lang ang imo, so imo ini.  Sa baisay nila may isa nga ara sa kilid, nga nagdab-ot sang sud-an nga nagasiling, abi na kon indi sia.  But the other insisted, iya ni ya gani kay gamay ang iya nakuha, daku ang akon nakuha.  Finally the other gave in and took what was being offered.

Compassion starts when I focus my attention not just on my plate but also on the plate of others and allow the comparison to affect me, to judge me, to move me.  Many times difficulties in our relationship happen when we focus only, when we set our sight only to our own plate and close our eyes to the plates of others.   

Mind you in real life this is not just a plate of food.  Have we even considered how it feels to lose a father, or to lose a son, bisan makasasala pa na sia, bisan akig ka pa ako iya.  Masakit nga madulaan tatay ukon sang isa ka bata.  Huo e, may ara gid na ya tawo nga nami tudson, pero tatay na sang iban, bata na sang iban.  Pero ti we don't mind kay indi man ina akon plato, iya man to ya.  Many times, it happens like that - the cordon sanitaire we surround ourselves with destroys our natural capacity for empathy when we build walls around us, when we have stayed too long in our high towers and cannot anymore feel what other people feel.  Many times, our dogs get better sympathy than people.  Kay man ang concern ko lang iya ang plato ko.

And so what makes a hero?  It all starts with compassion, the capacity to feel what others feel and to decide to act on it in altruism.

What makes a hero?  The second criterion is the willingness to respond to a call, when one voluntarily engages on something that is beyond one's duty.  There is no requirement, there is no obligation and yet the hero chooses to do what is beyond his responsibility.

It is said that the word crisis in Chinese can either mean danger or opportunity.  The crisis that probably might have led Graciano Lopez Jaena to rethink his life was the injustice in which he was asked to cooperate to the powers that be by falsely testifying that certain prisoners died of natural causes when it was obvious that they had died at the hands of the mayor.  However instead of cowering in fear and compromising his principles of honesty and truthfulness, he made a stand.  The refusal to toe the line and to conform, and the persecution that followed where his life was threatened made Lopez Jaena decide to rethink his life's direction and he did this by turning a personal crisis, converting the crisis from danger into opportunity, the opportunity to serve his fellowmen and women beyond the call of duty. 

This probability is not just pure conjecture.  There are studies that show that those who survived a disaster or a personal trauma are three times more likely to become a hero and a volunteer.  Yes, it is true.  I have seen victims and survivors who rose from the difficulties of the past to become better helpers and better guides for others, as sadly there are some who allowed the past to continue to hurt them.

Again I feel the need to repeat this, to insert it time and again in this short talk – the reality that we are all born with a capacity to become anything.  In World War II during the holocaust, the same situation that made some Christians help Jews is the same situation that made other Christians put Jews in the gas chamber – 6 million of them.  The same situation in martial law which made some people opportunistic is the same situation that made some people real heroes. 

So what makes us heroes is how we respond to the many situations we go through life personally and as a nation.  We can go through life angry and bitter or we can go through it hopeful and optimistic.  We can go the way of passivity or we can do something about it. We can get overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem, say of poverty and do nothing at all, or like Mother Teresa we can help one poor person at a time.  Heroism is not about extraordinary people.  Heroes are ordinary people. It is their action and their reaction to things that are extraordinary, when we allow a situation to look into possibilities of service, possibilities of doing good for others.  That is the second.

The third criterion to answer the question what makes a hero is the willingness to sacrifice, to recognize and accept that there is a cost and there are grave consequences to our actions.  This is where courage gets in. 

Lopez Jaena knew that writing Fray Botod would earn him the ire of the church.  He knew that the church colluding with government authorities then, can persecute him and make him suffer for his actions.  Nevertheless, he went ahead.  This was the first call to sacrifice.  Later however it was not just the fleeing and the leaving behind the Philippines his family and loved ones that would become the most difficult consequence of helping his countrymen.  In the end he had to abandon even his long-time ambition to become a doctor.  Probably, aside from financial considerations as the main reason for the shift from being a doctor, becoming an orator and writer made things a lot easier.  As a doctor, he can heal one person at a time, but he can inspire a greater number of people to make change happen through his pen and eloquence.  Sacrifice can mean choosing your weapons in life and choosing them well. 

Many times, we don't make choices anymore, not because we don't have a choice, but because we don't.  We just allow our anger to carry us through, we just allow our fears to paralyze us, we allow our passions to lead us blindly, we just allow our greed to take for ourselves what is not ours when nobody is looking, we just allow the popular to sway us in our convictions.  Sacrifice makes heroes for it means choosing wisely the weapons one uses to fight with in life's battles.

Finally, a heroic act is performed without any expectation of reward. 

In the seminary, I always tell the seminarians not to expect any reward for the good they do and the service they rendered.  Service itself is its own reward.  Be always happy for the opportunity to serve.  Don't expect a citation, don't expect a medal or recognition.  Just be happy that you were given the opportunity to serve.

There was once a holy priest who had worked so hard for God.  One day God decided to reward him.  So he sent an angel to the holy priest who said, “Because of your generosity and selflessness God decided to reward you.  Ask God whatever you want and he will grant you your wish.  Do you want the power to heal the sick, the angel asked. 

But the holy priest answered, “only God heals. 

So the angel asked, “do you want the power to convert even the most hardened of sinners?” 

And the holy priest answered, only God can convert sinners.  But the angel insisted saying, “you have to ask something at least.” 

And the holy priest replied, “if you insist, then I ask that goodness will flow through me without me knowing about it.” 

And so it happened.  Wherever his shadow falls the sick were healed, lands become productive, those who have problems were made stronger.  The priest did not know, and he never came to know that all this goodness became possible through him.  Even the people’s attention was directed to his shadow and not to him.  His prayer and wish were answered.

Graciano Lopez Jaena died of tuberculosis at the age of 40 and was buried the day after in a mass grave.  Well, we all know why this was such.  He died a poor man in a foreign country he could not even afford a wake, and even now his remains cannot be located.  He never saw the fruit of his labors which came 2 and a half years later when Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from Spain.  There was no reward for him.  Was he happy?  I have no way of knowing but I would like to think so, for any good deed is done for the satisfaction of doing so.

So what makes a hero?  Compassion, going beyond the call of duty or volunteerism, the willingness to face the sacrifice, risks and the cost, and the happiness that one gets in responding to the opportunity to serve others.

Research will tell us that a few people do evil and fewer still act as heroes.  The rest of us are the vast majority in the bell curve.  We are the reluctant heroes – and yet we are all born with a capacity to become anything. 

I am a believer, I would like to end this with a prayer, a prayer that summarizes in a short paragraph what I have just said in a lot of words, a prayer which in a way may fire us up to become heroes, not in the caliber of Lopez Jaena, but a hero nevertheless.   I would have wanted to call it a hero's prayer but alas it already has a title more popular that what I would have wanted to propose.  The prayer is popularly called the Prayer for Generosity and it says:

Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous; 
teach me to serve you as you deserve, 
to give and not to count the cost, 
to fight and not to heed the wounds, 
to toil and not to seek for rest, 
to labor and not to seek reward, 
except that of knowing that I do your will.

Amen. 

We honor a dead man today who can do no more for his country except to inspire.  Let us allow him to do just that at the very least, to allow him to inspire us, to stir us to go beyond ourselves and do heroic acts.

Thank you and good morning.

cf. Zimbardo, Philip:  What Makes a Hero?