With the Man of Steel being a
blockbuster in the Philippine cinema recently, a concept of a powerful hero was
again fixed in the minds of its young audience while in reality; it will only
remain a fiction. Thus, as we grow up, we will face the question of what really
it really means to be a hero as we search for a role model in life, a person
who will set the paradigm for the member of the society to follow. We couldn’t
stay in a place where our basic rights to live is being oppress by the few,
it’s a basic instinct of a human being to free himself from what binds him. It
is an inherent right that not all people received because somehow in this
modern time, there are still few deprived of this very right. This may have
been imposed to them and is against their will. Therefore, whoever go against
the oppressor to free himself and the rest of the society where he/she belongs
to is deemed worthy of becoming a hero just like the past people we have
encounter in the pages of our history books. The history of the world had almost the same pattern. People will build a community, constitute a government where strong and powerful people will rise to the top. There will be corruption of power and struggle over dominance of his race then chaos will follow. A new group will rise against the old one but of course, with the help of someone who is strong and idealistic. They will build a government that suites to the people he/she will govern. Thus this scenario will be like a cycle of events, somehow the same as that of the dynastic cycle of China. As long as there is an oppressor and oppressed, there will be someone that will rise against it and that will be written down in the annals of human history as a hero.
In the history of
the Philippines, the model figure of a hero was embodied by no less than our
heroes, Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio and those who have not and made it
to the pages of History, when they struggled to pursue the goals amidst the
face of oppositions. They sacrifice their live for the cause of the country’s
freedom from occupation of several colonialists. They were noble men who died
and some of them live to see the Philippines liberated from its occupants.
Heroes are not only those use force to overcome the foreign occupational forces
as there are those who use nonviolent ways to fight for independence and those
who stood out and encouraged the individuals to cry for progress in their
working conditions. These men are to be recognized as heroes for their noble
advocacy in elevating the welfares of the deprived.
A hero is a person
of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and
noble qualities (according to
dictionary) and is not necessarily someone who has a power, a godlike
ability. In other sense, hero is not a character in the epics or in the comic
books, they are individuals who are selfless and is willing to protect his
friends, families or the communities for the greater good without any interest
of being above others. But reality speaks that they are not born, they are
chosen by the people amongst men worthy of respect and emulation. There must be
public commendation and verdict of their contributions to the society or else,
they will be akin to those who selflessly helped for the betterment of others
however they are unrecognized.
With more and more
people being regarded as hero despite not committing to the defense of his/her
fellow individuals, the perception was revolutionized due to the different
challenges of our times. There are times that the word is distorted
and abused. It became a misnomer for its erroneous usage for not everyone
has the quality to be a true hero, but there are persons who are not actually
heroes at all being labeled such as the opportunist politicians, who act as if
pro-poor in front of the media to seek support from the masses.
In the end, a hero is a genuine being who cares for the well being and success of others with no intentions of being famous or seeking an attention for fame or redemption. Someone who goes beyond one’s prospect may be measured a hero.
