How much have we given those whom the war debauched in mind and soul? Who has ever sponsored or contributed to benefits for the relief and rehabilitation of those whose consciences were widowed of charity and orphaned of principle in the moral battles of the Occupation? Yet as I look upon our country today, I cannot escape the conviction that the true tragedy of the Filipino people has been not the loss of our material possessions, our buildings, our churches, our sugar-mills and rice-mills, our plantations, our bridges and homes, but the death-march of so many of our cherished traditions and standards in so many of our men and women. I find the sad spectacle of public servants unashamedly living beyond their visible means, more disturbing than the most pitiful wreck by the wayside. I find the hand extended to receive a bribe more shocking than the mangled limb of a veteran turned beggar. For there is always hope of material reconstruction; there is always a remedy for physical sickness; but moral disease, moral ruin, if not immediately attended to, can be irreparable and incurable sometimes.
Tañada, as quoted in Encore, This Week, 19 September 1948