Happy Birthday, Pepe, and Thanks

By Edwin D. Bael, June 19, 2014

Having studied a little of your works, dear Don Pepe,

I feel I know you a little somehow, like your agape

For Inang Bayan, this jewel of the sea of the orient,

That she may hold her smooth forehead high unbent:

Enjoy her dark eyes dry, her visage without frown,

No wrinkles, no stains of shame on her beauty brown.

Today we commemorate your “being given to the light”

Recalling the why of your existence, your life birthright;

How you sought to rectify what in her was improper,

Those within her and inflicted upon her by the colonizer;

You calmly faced death, falling to give her power to fly,

Dying to give her vigor to live, resting under her sky.

Like the moth attracted to the lamp, you sought fire

And light that you could set on fire awareness left dire

Amongst your people who had forgotten how to be human

Made as Beings Unlimited, fearing rather the bogeyman;

You wrote to give us light and love that we may awaken,

That noble deeds and self-respect shall forever be retaken.

So, Happy Birthday, Pepe! And thank you for your wisdom   

And your vision for us to become people at home in freedom,

Having respect by others and according mutual esteem;

Let our tribute for you be such as to rise above and redeem

Trivialities, egoistic positioning and self-serving publicity

And be for daily effort at our moral and material prosperity.