What Does It Mean to Be A Hero?
When the word “hero” comes to your mind, who do you think of? Maybe it’s Superman, Spiderman, or a real figure in our history, like Jose Rizal or Andres Bonifacio.
Every year, when we celebrate National Heroes’ Day on the last Monday of August, we often think of the same people. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—the heroes we remember and honor deserve to be celebrated for what they’ve done for our country. But that also raises a question: what does the modern hero look like? Who among us will someday be remembered by the future generations? What makes a hero in the first place? Is heroism defined by being buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani or by sacrificing one’s life for the country? When does one cease to be simply a person who has done good things and become a hero?
If there is someone in the present generation who would be considered a hero, who do you think it would be? The previous generations already have theirs: Lapulapu, Rizal, and Bonifacio. Even Ninoy Aquino is well on his way to being immortalized as a hero for his role in sparking the unrest that led to the 1986 EDSA Revolution. What’s interesting here is how heroism is perceived in hindsight rather than in the present, and how heroes are often only given recognition after they’ve died. The nature of life is that our flaws are often put on center stage while we’re alive, and only time allows us to see a clearer picture (or forget the mistakes) of those we idolize.
When we expect a hero to be this perfect figure who will save us from our problems, we make it into a category reserved for the dead and the “extraordinary”—it’s comfortable, because it demands nothing from us, the living. After all, how could we, with all of our faults and weaknesses, be the heroes people are waiting for?
There’s nothing wrong with wanting someone else to save us; the problem begins when we use that desire as an excuse to wait, and wait, and wait—especially when the people we’ve entrusted to lead us are the very ones failing us, the ones we made into heroes then left unquestioned.
We’ve seen it happen again and again: politicians, during their campaigns, promise change. And when they are elected, programs are made and funds are allocated, but the next year arrives and everything is still the same. It’s something that we’re acutely experiencing at the moment: flood control funds are allocated every year, yet this August has been one of the rainiest in recent years, and when the rains came, so did the floods. When our systems start failing us, who, then, do we turn to?
Somewhere in the flooded streets this past month, someone has probably become a child’s hero after staying up all night rescuing those trapped on the roofs of their homes, trying to escape the floods. Another waded through the murky water to help a stranger. And when the same floodwaters dragged mountains of rubbish from Manila Bay into one of Baclaran’s water channels, MMDA workers and garbage collectors struggled through that, too, hauling out trash from the water. They probably didn’t think of themselves as heroes. Our national heroes probably wouldn’t think they were heroes, either. They were just people who saw a problem and chose to act, sticking to their convictions. We only call it heroism in hindsight.
Maybe to be a hero is choosing to do the right thing, even when it’s hard. Even when it costs you something. Even when you don’t need to. If that’s all it takes—to notice and not look away—then maybe heroism was never solely for the extraordinary. Perhaps it was always something any of us could choose.
So stop looking up to the sky for someone to fly in and save us, because maybe we don’t need one. Maybe the person you were looking for was always someone you could be.
