Words of Wisdom, Words for Freedom > Remember the Day - November 5, 2014 (Million Mask March Philippines Wednesday, November 5 at 10:00am Batasan Hills, Quezon City) Quotable Quotes to Depict the Tenets and Principles of Human Rights 1. Human Rights, though guaranteed by existing laws, Constitutions and International Declarations, must still be intensively fought for and defended. “They have rights who dare defend them.” “Justice will only flourish when those who are not oppressed wax as indignant as those who are.” – Jose Marti – 2. We must never abdicate one of our most basic human rights, the right to decide rationally for ourselves and for the common good. “Ang taong walang sariling pagiisip ay taong walang pagkatao; ang bulag na taga-sunod sa pagiisip ng iba, ay parang pinakamababang uri ng hayop na sunod-sunod sa tali.” – Dr. Jose Protacio Realonda Mercado Rizal – 3. We must never barter our rights in a few pieces of gold even for the most efficient, benevolent, generous authoritarianism. “Art thou less a slave because thy master loves and caresses thee? – Pascal – 4. We must be cautious and vigilant against those who while professing in the guise democracy, manipulates the concept for their own selfish ulterior motives and claim for themselves rights they would deny others. “The oligarchy respects democracy only so long as they are the winners.” “Elections are nothing but a thermometer for the ruling class to gauge the people’s level of awareness.” – Carlos Marighella – “The bourgeois of our day considers himself the legitimate successor of the baron of old who thought every weapon in his own hand fair against the plebeian, while in the hands of the plebeian a weapon of any kind constituted a crime.” – Karl Marx – 5. The economic rights are the most basic human rights and that political oppression and military repression are in fact instruments to achieve economic domination by the few over the many. “While it is true that man cannot live with bread alone, it is even more true that man cannot live without bread.” “Massive misery is the price paid by the poor countries so that six percent of the World’s population may consume with impunity half of the wealth generated by the entire world.” – Eduardo Galeano – 6. The rights we demand, we demand for all, not for a sector or certain clusters of individuals alone. “Full opportunity for full development is the inalienable right of all. He who denies it is a tyrant, he who does not demand it is a coward, he who is indifferent to it is a slave, he who does not desire it is dead. The earth for all the people! That is the demand.” – Eugene Deb – 7. Humankind’s struggle for a better life and for the fullest attainment of freedom is hard and full of adversities, so that it should be a dire desire of every human being to assert his inherent rights. “At every crossing on the road that leads to the future, every progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand man appointed to guard the past.” – Maurice Maeterlinck – 8. The struggle for human freedom will be victorious in the end despite tortures, salvagings, bullets and jails. “Tyranny beheads the writers, lyricists, rhymesters and poets, but by secret subterranean springs their voice returns from the bottom of the well to the surface, and even in the darkness rises to the lips of the people.” – Pablo Neruda – “Not a grave of the murdered for freedom but grows seeds for freedom, in its turn to bear seed, which the winds carry afar and re-sow, and the rains and the snows nourish….” – Walt Whitman – Dr. Delmar Topinio Taclibon, Bt., DKR, KRSS, BSCE, MBA, PhD.D.A., October 11, 2014
Posted on: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 09:37:47 +0000
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