The Song Bayan Ko (My Country)

By ILIAD

Of course you know this song. But if you don't, OMG you should. What about it?

Bayan Ko has become a widely popular patriotic song right after the People Power Revolution that toppled the 14-year Marcos Dictatorship in February, 1986. It would be sung by the newly politicized citizenry and post-Edsa activist circles second to Lupang Hinirang, the national anthem.  

But before the triumph of the anti-dictatorship struggle, Bayan Ko would in itself be the story of the suppression of the freedom and democratic rights of the people when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and placed the entire country under authoritarian rule. It was taboo. Singing it in the open invited incarceration by the military, for being seditious and promoting rebellion.

Like the activists and leftist "subversives" that fought with even greater zeal during the dark years of the dictatorship, the music also went underground. It would be sung in secret meetings inside safe houses, in rites of compacts under the thick canopy of trees, the far-off hills, and houses of remote barrios beyond the reach of military operations. The stirring melody would also be hummed by detainees in the inner chambers of the enemy camp insulated by prison walls.

Yet like the freedom fighters and rural-urban warriors that never gave up even under extreme hardships in the constant shadow of death, Bayan Ko was imbued by its own lyrics with the spirit of indomitable courage. This was the sort of courage that underpinned the unwavering commitment to fight for the country’s liberation. It broke the barriers of fear to sing, to articulate, and to express the deep longing for release from Marcos’s imposed garrison state. As a line from the song says, “Ibon mang may layang lumipad, kulungin mo at pumipiglas.”

On February 21-25, 1986 around two million people massed up at the twelve-lane highway named Edsa to mount a political upheaval that irreversibly severed the fearsome military machine of Marcos, grounded his absolute power to a halt, and after four days of stalemate finally sent him fleeing from Malacanang Palace out of the country to a sojourn in the American state of Hawaii. Bayan Ko was now free. Its courageous hymn reverberated throughout the archipelago.

The February 1986 uprising was the historical watershed that separated how Bayan Ko would be sung then, prior to the ouster of Marcos’s fascist rule, and now in the climate of openness and free expression. Then, it was sung as a symbol of protest and defiance. Now, it is sung as a celebration of the people’s heroism,  and as a reaffirmation of the values of liberty and basic rights that the country can just no longer take for granted, given that harrowing ordeal of state terror of a repression.

As throwback further to the past, Bayan Ko was originally written in Spanish lyrics for the Severino Reyes zarzuela, Walang Sugat (no wound). It was attributed to General José Alejandrino, a propagandist. The melody and words were constructed to express opposition to the American Occupation that was going on at that time.

The well-known Tagalog wording now is by José Corazón de Jesús. The music was composed by Constancio de Guzmán.

Here is the song:

Bayan Ko

Ang bayan kong Pilipinas,

Lupain ng ginto't bulaklak,

Pag-ibig nasa kanyáng palad,

Nag-alay ng ganda't dilág.

At sa kanyáng yumi at ganda,

Dayuhan ay nahalina;

Bayan ko, binihag ka,

Nasadlak sa dusa.

Ibon mang may layang lumipad,

Kulungin mo at umiiyak,

Bayan pa kayáng sakdál dilág,

Ang 'dì magnasang makaalpás?

Pilipinas kong minumutyâ,

Pugad ng luhà ko't dalita;

Aking adhika,

Makita kang sakdál laya!

Post Script: Rock artist Freddie Aguilar popularized the taboo (because it was “subversive”) song during the heyday of the anti-dictatorship protest in 1986, which also saw the waning moment of Marcos’s rule. How ironic that Aguilar would now sing it at the inauguration of the republic’s 16^th president Rodrigo Duterte, in front of the dictator’s son and namesake who wants to revise history and vindicate his father by, among others, getting him buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, which the new president has agreed to.