MANILA, Philippines—“Old soldiers cannot just fade away. For there are battles that they still must fight—against injustice, bad governance, poverty and corruption.”

The call was made by former President Fidel V. Ramos, the keynote speaker during Wednesday’s US Veterans’ Day rites at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City.

Ramos, now chair of the Ramos Peace and Development Foundation and the Boao Forum for Asia, did not elaborate.

Instead, he noted “in international relations, the standards of justice still mainly depend on the authority of power to compel so that the strong still do all they can and the weak still accept what they must.”

According to Ramos, “this norm is no longer acceptable.”

He asserted, “to honor our heroic dead, we who are their heirs must try and live for some useful purpose in our remaining years.”

“A nation exemplifies itself not only by the citizens it produces, but also by those it honors and those it remembers,” Ramos said.

Patriotic duty

He emphasized “the rituals we observe here will be meaningful only if we depart from this sacred memorial resolved to dedicate the rest of our days to the ideals for which those who lie here and in unknown graves elsewhere gave their lives in the defense of freedom.”

At the same time, Ramos reminded both Filipino and American war veterans “it is essential—nay a patriotic duty—to realize that liberty exacts a high price from those who value it.”

“Our two peoples have paid dearly for the freedom we both enjoy,” he said.

But “as the late Pope John Paul II once reminded the young people of his native Poland—“it is what costs that constitutes value and we do not want liberty which costs us nothing.”

“For us veterans, the world has turned over many times since we were young warriors in the service of God, country and people. Those of us who have survived have earned their honorable retirement,” Ramos said.

In his remarks, the former leader also paid tribute to the “17,202 US soldiers, sailors and airmen who lie here (the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial), the largest concentration of America’s war dead in World War II, among them many of Filipino blood and origin.”

Bonds of brotherhood

According to US Veterans Affairs Office, 570 Philippine Scouts who served with their US comrades during WWII are also buried in the same cemetery.

“This cemetery reveals and highlights the bonds of brotherhood that have long existed between the Philippines and the US,” Ramos said.

According to Kristie Kenney, US ambassador to Manila, the site “represents the common sacrifices of both Filipinos and Americans in the struggle for freedom.”

Kenney dedicated US Veterans’ Day to the “cause of world peace and to honor American military veterans, living and dead, of all wars.”

Honoring both Filipino and American war veterans is a “symbol of our two nations’ ongoing partnership in the common struggle for the preservation of democracy,” she said.

The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial is administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission, a US government agency that operates and maintains 24 American cemeteries and 25 memorials and monuments in 15 countries.