Press Release
April 5, 2009

Chiz urges gov't to focus on leading people to overcome crisis

Sen. Chiz Escudero said that today's celebration of the heroism of our soldiers who fought in Bataan and Corregidor should inspire everyone to pull together so the country can overcome the adverse economic fallout from the current global crisis.

"Today is not business as usual. The times demand that we set aside personal agendas for the urgent task at hand: that of leading our people in confronting and overcoming the difficult times in the days ahead," Escudero said in statement.

"Let us focus on ensuring food security for our people, protecting jobs of our workers, and keeping our children in school," the senator said.

Escudero said this year's commemoration of the gallant defense made by Filipino soldiers fighting under the American flag in Bataan and Corregidor is made "more meaningful" because their great sacrifice has been "finally recognized by the United States."

He pointed out that their heroic stand derailed the invasion timetable of the Japanese Imperial Army and allowed the Allied forces to regroup and eventually turn the tide against the Japanese forces.

"The heroism of our soldiers is especially inspiring because most of them were in their 20s, inexperienced in the art of warfare, who answered the call of the motherland with unflinching courage - so very much like the revolutionaries who won freedom and founded Asia's First Republic," Escudero said.

Thousands of Filipino and US soldiers were killed in Bataan and Corregidor and the subsequent "Death March" from Bataan to the prisoner-of-war camps in Capas, Tarlac.

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