I Killed Her (Declamation) was so tight around her.

My God,
what is the use of ten years of
I killed her because I do love her. study if I couldn't even use it at my
These hands, these hands that mother's pain.
gave life to many, killed her
because of my love for her. Then one night, I heard a strange
cry. I run to her room. "Do you
Ladies and Gentlemen of this love me, child?"… she asked, as I
honorable court, please listen to embrace her. " Yes, mother….. If
me, listen to my story before you only I could get all your pain and
give my verdict. I am Dr. Reyes, a agonies…"
cancer specialist. I was born in a
slum district of Batalon. My father " Then….. if you love me, end my
oh! I don't know him for I am a sufferings, kill me… Let me die."
child of faith. My mother brought
me up in such determination and "But, mother, I promise to give life
my ambition was to escape the and not to end it."
filthy and horrible place of Batalon.
I was nourished with hope that God…. She did not deserve the
someday I might live a life different unhappiness. She deserves to be
from her. My mother had a burning happy.
faith that she turned the nights into
days. All her efforts were not in I run to my room and came back
vain for I pushed through with with a syringe.
flying colors. My mother who had
given her whole life to me had "Mother, forgive me…. God,
tears in her eyes as she pinned please understand me…."
the gold medal on my proud chest.
"Mother, mother, you must not
Later on, I was sent as a scholar die….. Don't leave, I love you. It
of the Philippines to the United was only a distilled
States of America. I embraced my water…..Mother…… Mother…….
mother… tightly as I've reached MOTHER……"
the plane….."Mother, mother,.." I
whispered. You will always be my Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, give
best mother in the world. me your verdict. Yes, it was only
distilled water which ended the
After four years, I came back with sufferings of my mother.
laurels. I became a cancer
specialist. I gave my mother Judge me….. Punish me………
everything but I was too late. I who
had used to ease the pain of GO, punish me………….. Thy will
many, came too late for the life of be done!!
my dying mother. I gave the best
treatment but the grasp of death
I am a Filipino(Speech Choir)
Carlos Peña Romulo, Sr

I am a Filipino–inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future. As such I must prove
equal to a two-fold task–the task of meeting my responsibility to the past, and the task of
performing my obligation to the future.
I sprung from a hardy race, child many generations removed of ancient Malayan pioneers.
Across the centuries the memory comes rushing back to me: of brown-skinned men putting out
to sea in ships that were as frail as their hearts were stout. Over the sea I see them come, borne
upon the billowing wave and the whistling wind, carried upon the mighty swell of hope–hope in
the free abundance of new land that was to be their home and their children’s forever.
This is the land they sought and found. Every inch of shore that their eyes first set upon, every
hill and mountain that beckoned to them with a green-and-purple invitation, every mile of rolling
plain that their view encompassed, every river and lake that promised a plentiful living and the
fruitfulness of commerce, is a hallowed spot to me.
By the strength of their hearts and hands, by every right of law, human and divine, this land and
all the appurtenances thereof–the black and fertile soil, the seas and lakes and rivers teeming
with fish, the forests with their inexhaustible wealth in wild life and timber, the mountains with
their bowels swollen with minerals–the whole of this rich and happy land has been, for centuries
without number, the land of my fathers. This land I received in trust from them and in trust will
pass it to my children, and so on until the world is no more.
I am a Filipino. In my blood runs the immortal seed of heroes–seed that flowered down the
centuries in deeds of courage and defiance. In my veins yet pulses the same hot blood that sent
Lapulapu to battle against the first invader of this land, that nerved Lakandula in the combat
against the alien foe, that drove Diego Silang and Dagohoy into rebellion against the foreign
oppressor.
That seed is immortal. It is the self-same seed that flowered in the heart of Jose Rizal that
morning in Bagumbayan when a volley of shots put an end to all that was mortal of him and
made his spirit deathless forever, the same that flowered in the hearts of Bonifacio in
Balintawak, of Gergorio del Pilar at Tirad Pass, of Antonio Luna at Calumpit; that bloomed in
flowers of frustration in the sad heart of Emilio Aguinaldo at Palanan, and yet burst forth royally
again in the proud heart of Manuel L. Quezon when he stood at last on the threshold of ancient
Malacañan Palace, in the symbolic act of possession and racial vindication.
The seed I bear within me is an immortal seed. It is the mark of my manhood, the symbol of
dignity as a human being. Like the seeds that were once buried in the tomb of Tutankhamen
many thousand years ago, it shall grow and flower and bear fruit again. It is the insignia of my
race, and my generation is but a stage in the unending search of my people for freedom and
happiness.
I am a Filipino, child of the marriage of the East and the West. The East, with its languor and
mysticism, its passivity and endurance, was my mother, and my sire was the West that came
thundering across the seas with the Cross and Sword and the Machine. I am of the East, an eager
participant in its spirit, and in its struggles for liberation from the imperialist yoke. But I also
know that the East must awake from its centuried sleep, shake off the lethargy that has bound his
limbs, and start moving where destiny awaits.
For I, too, am of the West, and the vigorous peoples of the West have destroyed forever the
peace and quiet that once were ours. I can no longer live, a being apart from those whose world
now trembles to the roar of bomb and cannon-shot. I cannot say of a matter of universal life-and-
death, of freedom and slavery for all mankind, that it concerns me not. For no man and no nation
is an island, but a part of the main, there is no longer any East and West–only individuals and
nations making those momentous choices which are the hinges upon which history resolves.
At the vanguard of progress in this part of the world I stand–a forlorn figure in the eyes of some,
but not one defeated and lost. For, through the thick, interlacing branches of habit and custom
above me, I have seen the light of the sun, and I know that it is good. I have seen the light of
justice and equality and freedom, my heart has been lifted by the vision of democracy, and I shall
not rest until my land and my people shall have been blessed by these, beyond the power of any
man or nation to subvert or destroy.
I am a Filipino, and this is my inheritance. What pledge shall I give that I may prove worthy of
my inheritance? I shall give the pledge that has come ringing down the corridors of the centuries,
and it shall be compounded of the joyous cries of my Malayan forebears when first they saw the
contours of this land loom before their eyes, of the battle cries that have resounded in every field
of combat from Mactan to Tirad Pass, of the voices of my people when they sing:
Land of the morning,
Child of the sun returning–
Ne’er shall invaders
Trample thy sacred shore.
Out of the lush green of these seven thousand isles, out of the heartstrings of sixteen million
people all vibrating to one song, I shall weave the mighty fabric of my pledge. Out of the songs
of the farmers at sunrise when they go to labor in the fields, out of the sweat of the hard-bitten
pioneers in Mal-lig and Koronadal, out of the silent endurance of stevedores at the piers and the
ominous grumbling of peasants in Pampanga, out of the first cries of babies newly born and the
lullabies that mothers sing, out of the crashing of gears and the whine of turbines in the factories,
out of the crunch of plough-shares upturning the earth, out of the limitless patience of teachers in
the classrooms and doctors in the clinics, out of the tramp of soldiers marching, I shall make the
pattern of my pledge:
“I am a Filipino born to freedom, and I shall not rest until freedom shall have been added unto
my inheritance—for myself and my children and my children’s children—forever.”