""Can you do something for me?" he asked his audience. "Yes!" we said. "Can we all sing the national anthem together?"
In that sunlit pavilion, in a farm where lemongrass is grown, duck eggs are harvested, and goat cheese is made by a community who reap what they sow, we campers stood up, placed our right hands over our hearts, and sang Lupang Hinirang, led by this brown-haired British man with a microphone in his hand.
For the first time in my life, I understood what the song was saying. For the first time in my life, I meant what I was singing. "…Ang mamatay nang dahil sa 'yo." I was willing.
At Gawad Kalinga, we are called to be heroes for our countrymen. It builds on bayanihan, a trait we Filipinos have had even before the colonizers arrived."
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