see: Roces, Grace & Alfredo, Culture Shock! Philippines - A Guide to Customs and Etiquette Times Editions Pte Ltd, 1998; 159ff
The Spanish conquest that imposed itself on Philippine life grafted influences which took root and flowered into a unique Filipino culture. A new breed of Filipino emerged, a pupil who surpassed the master, demanding equality, critical of its weaknesses. The best and the brightest of this new Filipino was Dr Jose Rizal.
Whether the foreigner wishes to learn Philippine history or not, he cannot escape the Rizal presence. There is a monument to him in practically every town and plaza in the country; his likeness hangs in many schoolrooms and appears on the two-peso bill, the one peso coin and postage stamps. Every main street in the country is named Rizal, as well as an entire province, Manila's most important park, a theatre, and even mundane products like cement, beer, matches, cigars. [...] Rizal's monument in Rizal Park, where his bones are also interred, is under the vigil of guards of honor in full dress, and every important visiting dignitary lays a wreath in homage to him. Anniversaries of his birthday (June 19) and his martyrdom (December 30) are national holidays. [...]
All other national heroes may cause controversy and dispute; Jose Rizal is the one figure whose ideals and personal example enjoy genuine national admiration. To know Rizal is to understand the Filipino model. He represents the Filipino's highest aspirations.
Rizal was born on 19 June 1861, in Calamba, Laguna, of parents who belonged to the local elite harboring some Chinese ancestry. A highly educated woman for her time. Rizal's mother became a victim of the guardia civil and the alcalde injustice that so terrified her, she confessed to a crime of which she was innocent; she was imprisoned but subsequently absolved. The incident left a deep impression on the sensitive boy. His brother Paciano, a student of one of the three martyrs of the 1872 Gomburza affair, inculcated in his younger brother nationalistic pride.
Rizal's family valued education. His home boasted a vast private library, rare in those days when the friars limited available books to religious tracts. The precocious child grew up to be a brilliant scholar, attending Manila's Ateneo and the university of Santo Tomas; later he enrolled at Universidad Central de Madrid, specializing in ophthalmic surgery.
As a student in Spain, he became involved with Filipino students who agitated for Philippine reforms, in what has come to be known as the Propaganda Movement. In Berlin, at age, he wrote his first novel, Noli Me Tangere, the first socio-political novel describing Spanish and Filipino life in the Philippines with realistic accuracy. He annotated a new edition of Antonio de Morga's 1609 Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas to show with what admiration a distinguished Spaniard viewed Philippine prehistoric culture. His second novel, El Filibusterismo, explored violent revolution as a solution to Philippine ills. Rizal rejected this alternative unless the people were prepared, morally and culturally, to build a free nation: "Why independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?"
Rizal's activities stirred the powerful Spanish clergy and both his books were banned, the Dominicans charging that "The work Noli Me Tangere has been foung heretical, impious and scandalous from the religious perspective, anti-patriotic and subversive from the political point of view, injurious to the Spanish government...". While forming a non-violent organization called La Liga Filipina, Rizal was arrested and deported to Dapitan in Zamboanga.
During his four-year stay in Dapitan, Rizal set up a school in the Aristotelian manner, opened a hospital, installed a street lighting system from money won in a lottery, built a drainage system, introduced fishing methods, organized a cooperative to break the economic grip of the local Chinese merchant, wrote poems and carved sculpture. Through a secret emissary, the revolutionary organization, Katipunan, sought his involvement but he begged off, arguing that there were not enough guns to win. Instead he volunteered to serve as a medic in the Spanish Cuban war. He departed from Dapitan, unaware he was to die.
The Katipunan was uncovered. In the wake of night arrests, the leaders started the uprising. Although aboard a ship on the way to Cuba, Rizal was implicated, returned to Manila, tried, convicted, and publicly executed in Bagumbayan.
On his last night, he wrote a farewell poem which concealed inside an alcohol lamp that he gave to his sister. Ultimo Adios is the best loved Filipino poem. Every Filipino knows at least the first lines "Adios patria adorada...". At 35, an eye surgeon, scholar, linguist, painter, and sculptor, musician and composer, novelist, certainly a young man of great promise for the race, was martyred, a victim of the filicidal nature of colonialism. No other Filipino claims as much respect and affection for his selfless exemplary life.
| Home |