Heartbreak marked Rizal’s love life
Greatest love of Rizal, the romantic, dominated his passion for women
Enchanted Rizal falls for Paris at first sight
Curious Rizal was fascinated by the paranormal
The Rizal Retraction and other cases
THE RIZAL RETRACTION AND OTHER CASES
by Peter Jaynul V. Uckung
In the Philippines today, forgery is usually resorted to redirect the flow of money from the rightful beneficiary to the unworthy pockets of invisible people.
That money is usually the target of forgery is known and practiced all over the world, but forgery in the hands of the wily, has power to effect a redirection of events and undoing of history. It has the power to obscure or beliee an occurrence or create an event that did not actually transpire. It also has the power to enslave and destroy.
In October 1600, the Muslim Ottoman Army and a Christian army, led by Austrians, with Hungarian, French, Maltese and German troops were battling it out for territory called Kanizsa. The Ottoman army was outgunned and outmanned, but the Ottoman commander, Tiryaki Hasan Pasha was a clever man. He knew that the Hungarians were not too happy to be allied with the Austrians. So he sent fake letters, designed them to be captured by the Austrians. The letters contained Hungarian alliance with Ottoman forces. The Austrian upon reading the fake letters signed by a reliable source (obviously forged) decided to kill all Hungarian soldiers.
The Hungarians revolted and the Christian army disintegrated from within. Thus, did the Ottomans won the battle, by issuing forged communication.
During World War II, the British, to protect the secrecy of the Allied plan to invade Sicily in 1943, launched operation Mincemeat. This was a deception campaign to mislead German Intelligence about the real target of the start of the Allied Invasion of Europe.
A series of seemingly genuine secret documents, with forged signatures, were attached to a British corpse dressed in military uniforms. It was left to float somewhere in a beach in Spain, where plenty of German agents were sure to get hold of it.
The body with the fake documents was found eventually and its documents seen by German agents. The documents identified Sardinia and Corsica as the targets of the Allied invasion. The Germans believed it, and was caught with their pants down when allied forces hit the beaches of the real target, which was Sicily.
This kind of deception was also used by the British against the Germans in North Africa. They placed a map of British minefields, then attached them to a corpse. The minefields were non-existent but the Germans saw the map and considered it true. Thus, they rerouted their tanks to areas with soft sand where they bogged down.
In 1944, a Japanese sea plane crashed near Cebu. According to Japanese military officials who were captured, and later released, they were accompanying Gen. Koga, Commander in Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. Gen. Koga died in the crash. A little later, Filipino fisherman recovered some Japanese documents. They delivered the documents to US Intelligence. The documents revealed that Leyte was lightly defended. As a result, the Americans shifted their invasion target to Leyte instead of Cotabato Bay in Mindanao.
On October 17, 1944 the invasion of Leyte went underway. Leyte was lightly defended as the Koga papers have indicated. But it was during the invasion of Leyte when the Japanese navy launched their last offensive strike against the US fleet, with the objective of obliterating it once and for all. They nearly succeeded. After this near-tragic event, the Koga papers were considered by some military strategists as spurious and could have been manufactured by the Japanese to mislead the American navy into thinking that Leyte was a defenceless island. That Leyte was a trap. And the Americans nearly fell into it.
In recent memory, there was an incident in which the forging of documents served to negate the existence of an independent Philippines.
In 1901, the Americans managed to capture a Filipino messenger, Cecilio Segismundo who carried with him documents from Aguinaldo. The American then faked some documents complete with forged signature, telling Aguinaldo that some Filipino officers were sending him guerrillas with American prisoners. With the help of a Spanish traitor, Lazaro Segovia, the Americans assembled a company of pro-American Filipino soldiers, the Macabebe scouts. These were the soldiers who penetrated the camp of Aguinaldo, disguised as soldiers of the Philippine Republic. They managed to capture Aguinaldo. With the president captured, his generals began to surrender, and the Republic began to fall.
The document of the retraction of Jose Rizal, too, is being hotly debated as to its authenticity.
It was supposed to have been signed by Jose Rizal moments before his death. There were many witnesses, most of them Jesuits. The document only surfaced for public viewing on May 13, 1935. It was found by Fr. Manuel A. Gracia at the Catholic hierarchy’s archive in Manila. But the original document was never shown to the public, only reproduc
tions of it.
However, Fr. Pio Pi, a Spanish Jesuit, reported that as early as 1907, the retraction of Rizal was copied verbatim and published in Spain, and reprinted in Manila. Fr. Gracia, who found the original document, also copied it verbatim.
In both reproductions, there were conflicting versions of the text. Add to this the date of the signing was very clear in the original Spanish document which Rizal supposedly signed. The date was “December 29, 1890.”
Later, another supposedly original document surfaced, it bears the date “December 29, 189C”. The number “0” was evidently altered to make it look like a letter C. Then still later, another supposedly original version came up. It has the date “December 29, 1896”. This time, the “0” became a “6”.
So which is which?
Those who strongly believed the faking of the Rizal retraction document, reported that the forger of Rizal’s signature was Roman Roque, the man who also forged the signature of Urbano Lacuna, which was used to capture Aguinaldo. The mastermind, they say, in both Lacuna’s and Rizal’s signature forging was Lazaro Segovia. They were approached by Spanish friars during the final day of the Filipino-American war to forge Rizal’s signature.
This story was revealed by Antonio K. Abad, who heard the tale from Roman Roque himself, them being neighbours.
To this day, the retraction issue is still raging like a wild fire in the forest of the night.
Others would like to believe that the purported retraction of Rizal was invented by the friars to deflect the heroism of Rizal which was centered on the friar abuses.
Incidentally, Fr. Pio Pi, who copied verbatim Rizal’s retraction, also figured prominently during the revolution. It was him, Andres Bonifacio reported, who had intimated to Aguinaldo the cessation of agitation in exchange of pardon.
There are also not a few people who believe that the autobiography of Josephine Bracken, written on February 22, 1897 is also forged and forged badly. The document supposedly written by Josephine herself supported the fact that they were married under the Catholic rites. But upon closer look, there is a glaring difference between the penmanship of the document, and other letters written by Josephine to Rizal.
Surely, we must put the question of retraction to rest, though Rizal is a hero, whether he retracted or not, we must investigate if he really did a turn-around. If he did not, and the documents were forgeries, then somebody has to pay for trying to deceive a nation.
Rizal Composed Rebellious Songs?
RIZAL COMPOSED REBELLIOUS SONGS?
by Ferdinan S. Gregorio
Filipinos are naturally inclined to music. In the pre-Spanish times, our ancestors loved to sing and play instruments during worship and festivities. Many of the ethnic groups today still have such practices. In the Philippine mainstream music, during the 1990’s, musicians categorized as “alternative” such as Yano, Radioactive Sago Project and Francis Magalona used sharp lyrics to call attention to the social problems in our country. More than a century ago, Spanish authorities accused our national hero of igniting a revolution by means of writing a seditious poem which was later transformed into a song.
In a letter to Ferdinand Blumentritt dated March13, 1895, Rizal wrote that he was teaching 16 pupils in Talisay, a place near Dapitan. He did not charge his pupils tuition, but instead asked them to help him construct a water-depository for the dry season. The subjects Rizal taught them were Spanish, French, German, English, Geography, History, Mathematics, Arithmetic, Science, Environment, Values and Geometry. Formal classes were held from 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon. After class, Rizal allowed his pupils the pupils to engage in sports to boost their strength, such as gymnastics, swimming, wrestling, boxing, boating and arnis. Rizal and his students often held class under a Talisay tree. In honor of this tree, he made this poem, which was later adapted to a melody, making it a song;
At Dapitan, the sandy shore
And rocks aloft on mountain crest
Form thy throne, O refuge blest,
That we from childhood days have known.
In your vales that flowers adorn
And your fruitful leafy shade,
Our thinking power are being made,
And soul with body being grown.
We are youth not long on earth
But our souls are free from sorrow;
Calm, strong men we’ll be tomorrow,
Who can guard our families’ right.
Lads are we whom naught can frighten,
Whether thunder, waves, or rain
Swift of arm, serene of mien
In peril, shall we wage our fights.
With our games we churn the sand,
Through the caves and crags we roam,
On the rocks we make our home,
Everywhere our arms can reach.
Neither dark nor night obscure
Cause us fear, nor fierce torment
That even Satan can invent
Life or death? We must face each!
“Talisayans”, people call us!
Mighty souls in bodies small
O’er Dapitan’s district all
No Talisay like this towers.
None can march our reservoir.
Our diving pool the sea profound!
No rowing boat the world around
For the moment can pass ours.
We study science exact;
The history of our motherland;
Three languages or four command;
Bring faith and reason in accord.
Our hands can manage at one time
The sail and working spade and pen,
The mason’s maul – for virile men
Companions – and the gun and sword.
Live, live, O leafy green Talisay!
Our voices sing thy praise in chorus
Clear star, precious treasure for us.
Our childhood’s wisdom and its balm.
In fights that wait for every man,
In sorrow and adversity,
Thy memory a charm will be,
And in the tomb, thy name, thy calm.
CHORUS
Hail, O Talisay!
Firm and untiring
Ever aspiring,
Stately thy gait.
Things, everywhere
In sea, land and air
Shalt thou dominate
The poem seemed to be free from any trace of revolutionary ideas. However, on December 2, 1896, at the time of the trial of Dr. Jose Rizal, copies of documents ascribed to Rizal were transmitted by Colonel Francisco Olive to the investigating officer Rafael Dominguez. The documents written in Tagalog, were confiscated by the Spanish authorities of the Veteran Civil Guard from Mr. Fresell’s warehouse, claiming that the papers were owned by Andres Bonifacio. Two of the subversive letters they found were entitled “To Talisay” (Verse), by Laonglaan (Rizal) and Kundiman (Verse) by J.P.R. (Jose P. Rizal). The documents were translated in English as follows;
To Talisay (Verse), by Laonglaan (Rizal). We are children, we are the latest born. But our hearts beat high, and tomorrow we shall be full-grown men who will know how to defend their hearths and homes. We are children, yes we are children but nothing daunts us, neither wave nor storm nor thunder. With strong right arm and unclouded brow we shall know how to fight in the hour of danger. Our hands shall take up in turn those instruments of sovereign Reason, the sword, the pen, the spade.
Kundiman (Verse). In the fair Eastern Region where the sun rises, a beautiful enchanted land lies prostrate under the heel of tyrants. Alas, she is my country, the country I love. She languishes, a slave laden with chains; happy the man who can set her free – Manila , 12, 9, 91 – J.P.R. (Jose Rizal)
The Spanish prosecutors claimed that the lyrics of Rizal’s Hymn to Talisay and Kundiman contained seditious ideas, encouraging the Filipinos to revolt. Jose Rizal denied that the confiscated papers with verses of Kundiman came from him, but he accepted the validity of To Talisay. An interesting question that remains unanswered is if there was a possibility that a copy of the Hymn to Talisay reached the hands of Andres Bonifacio, despite the fact that it was exclusively taught by Jose Rizal to his students in Talisay. Could it be possible that Rizal gave Dr. Pio Valenzuela a copy of the song during Dr. Valenzuela’s visit to Dapitan? Or it was a mere accident that Bonifacio and Rizal both used the words “sword, pen and spade” in their poems and letters, to which the Spanish authorities attached rebellious meanings, and used them as evidences to incriminate Jose Rizal.
References:
De la Costa, Horacio S.J. The Trial of Rizal: W.E. Retana’s Transcription of the Original Spanish Documents. Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1961
Jalosjos, Romeo. Jose Rizal’s Life and Legacies in Dapitan. Published by the City Government, Dapitan City. 2008
Tadhana. The Life and Works of Dr. Jose Rizal. Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission. 1960
The Rizal-Blumentritt Correspondence Volume II. Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission. 1961
The Problems after Rizal
by Peter Jaynul V. Uckung
The real problem with Jose Rizal is that he was gone too soon. He never had the chance to see the social cancer he so aptly described in his two novels, the Noli me tangere and El Filibusterismo mutate into something more virulent, oppressive, controlling way of life. By being dead, he could do nothing against the reincarnated social cancer, which continued to wreak havoc on the lives of the people, whose freedom he had tried to redeem with his blood.
Born rich, Rizal had little touch with the daily miseries endured by the mass of Filipinos during his time. Capable of furthering his studies, Rizal was the embodiment of the intellectual who firmly believed that the enlightened, no matter what race, is above unreasoning prejudice.
His scholarly sojourn in Europe convinced him of the infallibility of Science, not only as a source of truth, but as a conqueror of oppression. This belief was clearly based on an assumption which presupposed the existence of willingness, a reservoir of goodwill and simple goodness within the colonizer that would move him inevitably to correct the injustice done to the Filipino. Rizal’s call for reform and assimilation attested to this unshakable belief. He died disowning the revolution. But his death sounded the death knell to the colonial government of Spain in the Philippines.
Down came the tyrant priests, and with them came tumbling down all the feudalistic systems they helped imposed on the land, in the name of unrestricted control of power and profit.
Two years after Rizal’s death, there was national euphoria with the opening of the Malolos Congress.
Freedom and democracy, it seemed was here to stay, the colonial crisis was finally over.
Or so it seemed.
In trying to find meaning and relevance between Rizal and the Filipinos after a hundred and fifty years of his birth, even the shallowest of sceptic could say that the problems are not yet over, they were never gone, they’ve just been molecularly restructured into something barely recognizable, and, therefore, generally acceptable.
History is a very powerful tool for peace and progress, for it is only in assessing history that we could justify social change. But to purge history of the lessons therein, one must be unforgivingly critical. One must be like Rizal.
Here, the first sign of a revived colonialism is evident. It is the silencing of the critic. The critics are silenced with assassination. Critics are silenced when they are killed, like Rizal. Like the missing activists, or the broadcasters who were shot and buried in Cotabato.
Rizal certainly never experienced facing a problem which is defined by what happens to the stock market, or the banks. When these two financial entities get into trouble and begin to collapse, then it is called a crisis. And when big financial institutions collapse, too often the government bails them out by using tax payers money. The rich, then, get richer and the poor get poorer. Shade of colonialism?
The advent of technology has given the Filipinos a new range of jobs needing technical knowledge, knowledge to use information and communication at the touch of a finger wherever and whenever. It created companies needing legions and legions of Filipino call center agents with knowledge in computers, giving a semblance that we are providing computer wizards, which is the cutting edge in labor employment. But being high-tech is a myth of economic prosperity. There is a reality of low skill, low-wage non-unionized job.
A modern day Rizal would have noticed this deceptive technological “bonanza”.
Rizal had always champion education as the key for eventual independence. He was no longer around when the Americans implemented an educational system which gave even the poor the chance to go to school. Today public education hardly serves as an avenue for acquiring critical thinking and transformative reaction. Education mostly serves today as the initiator for the transmission of knowledge instrumental to the existing society. A society dominated by the will of business corporations and foreign powers who openly declare themselves democratic while ruling that the workers’ rights were literally against the law. A modern day Rizal would have no problems finding his Capitan Tiago pandering around business corporation owners and bowing to their wishes in exchange for monetary considerations, in every nook and cranny of the government service.
Rizal was declared national hero and protector of the Filipinos, but will he be surprised with the program of globalization, which has the underlying assumption that nationalism and protectionism are incompatible with social and economic development.
Rizal wrote that the Filipinos were not naturally lazy. He defended his countrymen by explaining the reasons affecting the li
ves of Filipinos. But mostly, he blamed the economic imperative of colonialism that brought about social decay in the Philippines. Today, it is often heard that the Filipinos themselves are to be blamed for their sorry lot, that culturally the Filipinos are inferior. And sometimes there is a subtle acceptance encouraged by the schools on this assumption. The English language of the elite is named correct usage, making the English of ordinary people inferior outlaw language. The nuances of the elite have become the gauge of status symbol. This was an old colonial rationale which was supposed to show the superiority of the colonizer, which linguistically disenfranchised many Filipinos.
Rizal had known long ago that the colonizer needed to inculcate in the Filipino a negative attitude toward his own culture. The colonizers encouraged the Filipinos to reject their own culture by instilling a false comprehension of their culture as something ugly and inferior.
When Rizal wrote the Noli me tangere and El Filibusterismo, he dramatized as no one before had done, the bitterness and alienation of the people. His reformatory approach to social change was to exercise influence within established institutions rather than fighting institutions from the outside. It did not work out. During the American regime, people shifted in strategy, perhaps remembering the futility of the propaganda movement, and used legislation and court litigation to secure constitutional rights. Later on, there were direct action techniques, utilizing the potential power of the masses along political and economic lines. Example of this was mass civil disobedience, which will create the kind of social dislocation that would bring attention and remedial actions from the government.
A hero is a social anomaly. The necessity for heroes reveals the ineffectivity of the government to remedy the problems beguiling society. Often, as in Rizal’s time, the government was the one abetting the problems, profiting from them, in expense of the people.
In reading and re-reading Rizal, especially his novels, which were twin vortices of truth, the reader will be pulled deeper into a different hidden plane of philosophy that is so unlike Rizal, and more of the dark, brooding filibustero we have come to know as Simoun, whose final purpose in life was to infiltrate the colonial authorities and spread the fire of revolution among his people.
Rizal and others like him, are a menace to people and governments who derive super profits from an impoverished people and who employ coercive instruments to keep the people meek and subservient, the better to control them with.
They have to stop Rizal even when he’s already dead. But how can they stop an immensely popular national memory like Rizal? They cannot stop him, that’s for sure, but they can mitigate the impact of his legacy. By encasing Rizal in layers after layers of trivialities, so thick and obfuscatingly complex that Rizal will only become a subject in school to be memorized and respected but eventually to be discarded as a relic of the past, incoherent with the computer age.
Only those who fear the likes of Rizal know him as Shiva, the destroyer of worlds. And must prevent people from ever knowing.
For Love of Country
FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY
by Ma. Cielito Reyno
Jose Rizal is said to have first expressed his sense of nation, and of the Philippines as a nation separate from Spain, as a young student in Manila. Proof of this, it is said, can be found in two of his writings. In his poem “To the Philippine Youth”, which he wrote in 1879, when he was 18 years old (and which won a prize from the literary group), Rizal speaks of the Filipino youth as the “Fair hope of my Motherland”, and of the “Indian land” whose “son” is offered “a shining crown”, by the “Spaniard… with wise and merciful hand”. Still in this poem, Rizal considered Spain as a loving and concerned mother to her daughter Filipinas.
In his memoirs as a student, later published as Reminiscences, he spoke of the time spent in his sophomore year at the Ateneo as being essentially the same as his first year, except that this year, he felt within himself the stirrings of “patriotic sentiments” and of an “exquisite sensibility”1. He might have been only referring to the sense that the Philippines, was a colony of Spain, and as such, the Philippines was a part of Spain. If this were the case, his patriotism was therefore directed toward Spain for being the Philippines’ mother country. Seen in another light, these words may have evidenced Rizal’s moment of epiphany, his own portent of a future time when he would awake to the tragedies that were the lot of his fellow indios, the rightful heirs of the Filipinas their motherland.
Some cite Rizal’s verse-play “Beside the Pasig” (written in 1880, when was 19), as his allegory of the Filipinos’ bondage under Spain2; however, the play’s protagonists are a young boy named Leonido, who defends the Christians, and Satan, who speaks against Spain for bringing Christianity to the Philippines.
As fate had it, Rizal ultimately awoke to the real state of the Philippines under the hands, not of a loving Mother Spain, but of an exploitative despot represented by the colonial government in Manila and the friars who held great influence over the government. His awakening may have come by way of his own experiences at the university, his family’s experience at the hands of the religious group that owned their farmland; and perhaps, from the stories about the reformist movement and the sacrifice of the three priests, collectively known as Gomburza, of ten years before. This last most likely were from his older brother Paciano, who had been close to Fr. Jose Burgos, and had been an outspoken critic of abuses during his years in college at the Colegio de San Jose.
Rizal saw the many injustices suffered by his fellow Filipinos: they depended on the religious corporations or on big landowners, for land to till, or for their living; people were afraid of airing their grievances or of talking or protesting against the friars or the government, in short, there was no real freedom of the press or speech. Most Filipinos lacked the privilege of education, and its resultant benefits, or if they did have education, this was the obscurantist kind generally propagated by the colonialist policy, which not only kept Filipinos in the dark about their rights, but worse, had molded them into an abject, submissive people ignorant or worse, ashamed of their own proud heritage, a heritage that existed even before the arrival of the Spaniards. Finally, Rizal realized that the Philippines had not been consistently represented in the Spanish parliament. For Rizal, this was the root of the absence of justice in the country, or of their being deprived of basic rights.
His essay “Love of Country” which he wrote in June 1882 (but appeared in the newspaper Diariong Tagalog Manila in August)3, when he was already in Spain, and he was 21 years old. In it he talks of “love of country” which “is never effaced once it has penetrated the heart, because it carries with it a divine stamp..;” that it is “the most powerful force behind the most sublime actions” and for that reason, love of country “of all loves…is the greatest, the most heroic and the most disinterested”.4 He speaks of the Motherland for whom “some have sacrificed their youth, their pleasures…others their blood; all have died bequeathing to their Motherland…Liberty and glory.”5
It can be inferred from his words that at this point Rizal’s sense of nation was now fully-formed and complete, and perhaps not by happenstance, its expression coincides with his departure from his country. While there is still no outright and open criticism of the friars, or the colonial government, or even of Spain for he may have only been being careful, Rizal by this time had become a nationalist and had gone abroad for the cause of his countrymen. This is confirmed by a line from a letter written to him by his friend Vicente Gella, in the same month he wrote “Love of Country”, (June 1882):
“If the absence of a son from the bosom of his esteemed family is sad, no less will be that of a friend who, being very dear to all of us …his friends and comrades, now is away from us seeking the welfare that we all desire. Had it not been for that, the separation would have been more painful for the distance that separates us. May God help you for the good that you do to your fellow countrymen.”
Another letter written by his friend Jose M. Cecilio, dated August 28, 1882, also corroborates this:
“I’m very glad that you will go to Madrid where you can do many things in favor of this country jointly with the other Filipinos..so long as they will not give us freedom of the press, abuses, arbitrariness, and injustices will prevail more than in other parts of the world.”6
Ultimately, it does not matter when or even how Rizal’s politicization came, or why he went abroad: to complete his medical studies there; or, to expand his opportunities for establishing himself as a writer7; or to embark on a career as an activist-writer who would use his pen to secure long-needed reforms in the social and political fabric of his country. And because the space for agitating for changes in the country was getting smaller by the day, it was time for him to leave. Under his leadership, together with the other Filipino youth, the Reform- or Propaganda movement– as it became known, flourished and triumphed. It triumphed not in the sense that it attained its main goals of obtaining parliamentary representation for the Filipinos, and freedom of the press, for these did not come to pass, but in the after- effects of its campaign, despite its apparent failure: other youths followed in their footsteps and took the next step- to begin the campaign for separation and independence. This was carried out by Bonifacio and the Katipunan, which launched the Revolution that, in turn, led to the birth of the Filipino nation.
And so Rizal became a crusader for his country’s freedom. He decided that love of country should supplant all other considerations, even that of his family or his own, or even of the woman he loved. From his correspondence with friends and family, he remained constant to his Muse and his cause: the Motherland and her freedom.
When he had completed his education, and his formation as a son deserving of the Motherland, Rizal felt it was time to return to her. Friends and family stopped him from returning, but he was determined to do so, for he believed that the true arena for the fight was his country itself, not some foreign land. In a letter dated October 1891, Rizal wrote,
“If our countrymen are counting on us here in Europe, they are very much mistaken…The battlefield is the Philippines: There is where we should meet…there we will help one another, there together we will suffer or triumph perhaps. The majority of our compatriots in Europe are afraid, they flee from the fire, and they are brave only so long as they are in a peaceful country! The Philippines should not count on them; she should depend on her own strength.”8
Rizal returned to the land of his birth knowing that its liberty cannot be “obtained…without pain or merit… nor is it granted gratis et amore.”9 He was prepared to return despite the risk of death, as he had written in June 1892 days before his arrival in Manila: “I offer my life gladly… Let those who deny us patriotism see that we know how to die for our duty and convictions…What does it matter to die, if one dies for what one loves, for the Native Land?” Rizal returned and offered up his life for his nation’s freedom four years later. Would that the nation born out of the ashes of his sacrifice continue to look up to him and live up to the legacy he left behind.
———————————————————————————————————————————————-
1 Reminiscences and Travels of Jose Rizal [Manila: National Historical Institute, 1977] p. 21. See also Austin Coates, Rizal Filipino Nationalist & Patriot [Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House,] p. 36; and Leon Ma. Guerrero, The First Filipino [National Historical Institute, 2006] p. 53.
2 Rizal’s Poems [Manila: National Historical Institute, 2002] p. 115; Guerrero, p. 79
3 Rizal’s Correspondence with Fellow Reformists [Manila: National Historical Institute, 1992] p. 2.
4 Rizal’s Prose [Manila: Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1962], p. 18
5 Ibid., p. 19.
6 Rizal’s Correspondence, op.cit., p. 4
7 Guerrero, p. 101-102.
8 Rizal’s Correspondence, pp. 629-630.
9 Ibid., p. 314.
Historical Context and Legal Basis of Rizal Day and Other Memorials in honor of Jose Rizal
HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND LEGAL BASIS OF RIZAL DAY AND OTHER MEMORIALS IN HONOR OF JOSE RIZAL
By: Quennie Ann J. Palafox
For over a century now, the nation has never failed to observe the anniversary of the martyrdom our great national hero, Dr. Jose P. Rizal. This year, the President will lead the simultaneous raising of Philippine flag at half-mast and wreath offering at the monument of Jose Rizal at the Rizal Park in Manila, Calamba, Laguna and in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte on December 30, 2010. The theme of this year’s commemoration is “Rizal: Haligi ng Bayan”.
Although frequently at the center of controversies and criticism of the public, the government must be given credits for its efforts in ensuring that the memory of Rizal stays in our hearts through the issuance of legislative acts, decrees and other proclamations honoring him.
Two years after the execution of Rizal in Bagumbayan, Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo issued on Dec. 20, 1898 a decree designating Dec. 30 as the anniversary of Jose Rizal’s death and also as “a national day of mourning” for Rizal and other victims of the Spanish government throughout its three centuries of oppressive rule. He made a directive that all national flags shall be hoisted at half-mast from 12 noon on Dec. 29 and all offices of the government shall be closed the whole day on December 30 as a sign of mourning. On December 30, 1898, Filipinos celebrated Rizal Day for the first time and chose Club Filipino in Manila to be the venue.
The Americans, to win the sympathy of the Filipinos, and to convince them that they were pro-Filipinos more than the Spaniards, gave Rizal official recognition. This was to make them conform to the new government. Rizal acquired the official title of title of Philippine National Hero in 1901 under the country’s first American civil governor, William Howard Taft. On the recommendation of Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, the Taft Commission renamed the district of Morong into the Province of Rizal through Act 137 on June 11, 1901. This was one of the first official steps taken by the Taft Commission to honor Rizal. Since then, Jose Rizal came to be known as the National Hero.
It was also during the American times that Rizal’s death anniversary was made an official holiday. On February 1, 1902, the Philippine Commission enacted Act. No. 345 which set December 30 of each year as Rizal Day, and made it one of the ten official holidays of the Philippines. As the nationalist spirit of the Filipinos was at the highest point during that time, they were able to convince the government to erect a monument for Rizal. Thus, Act No. 243 was enacted on September 28, 1901 granting the right to use public land upon the Luneta in the City of Manila upon which to erect a statue of Jose Rizal.
So important was the observation of Rizal Day that President Quirino approved on June 9, 1948 Republic Act No. 229 which prohibits cockfighting, horse racing and jai-alai every 30th of December of each year, in order to have proper observance of Rizal Day.
To give ample time to prepare for the birth centenary of Jose Rizal in 1961, the Rizal National Centennial Commission was created by Executive Order No. 52, issued by Pres. Ramon Magsaysay on August 10, 1954 to undertake the construction of a National Cultural Shrine and other memorials to be dedicated to Jose Rizal. JRNCC became Rizal Presidential Committee on 1 July 1962 after President Diosdado Macapagal issued Executive Order No. 14.
Jose Rizal’s vast role in the attainment of the nation’s freedom led to the issuance of Republic Act 1425 on June 12, 1956. Commonly known as the Rizal Act, it was sponsored by Senator Claro M. Recto. It requires the curricula of private and public schools, colleges and universities courses to include the life, works and writings of Jose Rizal, particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo in order to educate the students about the concept of nationalism.
A few days before the celebration of the birth centenary of Jose Rizal in 1961, Pres. Garcia issued Executive Order No. 429 on June 2, creating a decoration intended to perpetuate Rizal’s memory, to be known as the Rizal Pro Patria Award. It was to be awarded by the President of the Philippines to those who have rendered outstanding work for the benefit of their community. Among the recipients of this decoration in the past were N. V. M. Gonzalez, Alejandro Roces, Juan Nakpil, Felipe Padilla De Leon, and Wilfredo Ma. Guerero.
In Manila streets were named with reference to the national hero, Jose Rizal. In Sampaloc, two streets are named after his pen names, Laong Laan and Dimasalang. Blumentritt, a main thoroughfare, was named after Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt, Rizal’s friend, while Dapitan street situated near the University of Santo Tomas was named after a municipality in Zamboanga del Norte, where Rizal was deported in 1892. Other street names have references to Rizal’s novels such as Sisa, Basilio, and Simoun.
Rizal monuments are concrete memorials to his legacy. The most prominent is the Rizal monument in Manila, unveiled on December 30, 1913 in line with the 17th Anniversary of the martyrdom of Jose Rizal. However, the Rizal monument in the town Daet in Camarines Norte holds the distinction of the first ever erected in honor of Rizal.
In the 1920s, Rizal Day was very popular and a much awaited event with the entire city going to Luneta to spot the parade of the Rizal Day, a parade as glamorous as the carnival parade of February. In his memorable Rizal Day address, Pres. Quezon declared through Commonwealth Act No. 184 the adoption of Tagalog as the basis of the national language of the Philippines on December 30, 1937.
The Rizal Day celebration of December 30, 1942 required the display of Japanese flags in Filipino homes. Attended by Jorge Vargas Benigno Aquino, Sr, and Jose P. Laurel, Sr., a Nippongo program on Rizal was held in 1942, during which the hero’s “Ultimo Adios” was recited in Japanese. This event also witnessed the inauguration of Kalibapi.
Just after the war in 1946, the country saw floral offerings and a civic parade in observance of Rizal Day in 1946. President Roxas was joined by high officials of the national government and representatives of the United States Army and Navy and foreign nations who offered wreaths at the foot of Rizal’s monument.
On December 30, 1950, all Philippine flags throughout the island were raised at half-mast in all public buildings and vessels to commemorate the martyrdom of Rizal. There was also floral offering at the Rizal monument at Luneta and concert in the afternoon.
A crowd estimated to be from 300-500, 000 persons gathered at the Luneta on December 30, 1953 to attend the inauguration of Ramon Magsaysay as president of the Republic of the Philippines. The Constitution had made the Rizal Day event even more memorable having specified the date of the day for the inauguration of President of the Republic as stipulated in Sec. 4 of Article VII of the 1935 Constitution. However, this was moved to June 30 by virtue of the 1987 Constitution which is being observed until now.
December 30, 1996 was the centenary of the martyrdom of Rizal. Highlights included the tracing of the last walk of Rizal from his detention cell at Fort Santiago followed by the reenactment of the hero’s execution and flag raising at Luneta Park, Manila. A monument of Rizal was also inaugurated on 5 December 1996 along the Avenida de Las Islas Filipinas in Madrid, Spain.
Rizal Day is a day of appreciating Jose Rizal as a hero, an icon and a perfect example on how to be a Filipino. To quote the late Sen. Blas Ople, “Jose Rizal remains the supreme hero of the Philippines because of the quality of his sacrifice, his absolute dedication to the interest of his people, and his achievement in many fields of endeavors”.
Rizal’s timeless challenge – To Serve the Nation
RIZAL’S TIMELESS CHALLENGE – TO SERVE THE NATION
by Ma. Cielito Reyno
In these times of unprecedented exodus abroad of youth searching for jobs or the fulfillment of their dreams; of public servants going back on their oath of honest service, in exchange for the returns of Mammon; of activists who continue to disappear and die in the course of their mission to change society for the least of that society; or of the rare Filipino who risks his own life and family if only to serve the cause of truth- it would be fitting to remember Rizal’s timeless call to all patriots of past, present and future as a gauge of our own place and worth as Filipinos at this point in our history.
It may be said that Rizal’s foremost mission in life had been determined for him by fate- and early in his life. In 1872 Fathers Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomes and Jacinto Zamora, priests whose names were identified with the movement to reform the priesthood, and the Catholic Church itself, in the Philippines, were executed on the ground of inciting the Mutiny of Cavite. That execution proved to be Rizal’s political epiphany, the beginning of his coming of age as a Filipino aware of being part of one nation. It was to culminate in full fruition at his death more than 20 years later, but by then a generation of his fellow natives had been molded, by his life’s work, into Filipinos with a sense of nation.
The generation into which Rizal was born was the generation that up till then produced the greatest of Filipino youth. It grew up in the worst and best of times, a time of upheaval, and revolution and sacrifice, the call to which Rizal and his fellow youth had unhesitatingly, and without looking back, answered.
Among them, however, Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar, a fellow Propagandist, stood out for their determination. Del Pilar had left homeland, wife and two daughters to wage his political struggle in Spain. He would die there. Rizal was driven by one thing and one thing only: to serve the nation. He spoke of it a year after he left his homeland for studies in Spain: “In my heart I have suppressed all loves, except that of my native land; in my mind I have erased all ideas which do not signify her progress; and my lips have forgotten the names of the native races in the Philippines in order not to say more than Filipinos.”
Rizal’s chief aim was to reform Philippine society, first by uncovering its ills and second, by awakening the Filipino youth. His enemies were the oppressive colonial government, but especially the corrupt elements among the friars, members of the religious orders that exerted the greatest influence over the government and thereby held complete sway over the lives of the Filipinos.
Rizal knew the best way to awaken the youth and lead them toward right action was through education, but especially foreign education. For local education, being controlled by the friars then kept the Filipinos in the dark, ignorant of their rights and heritage- and meek in the face of oppression. This was partly why he left for Spain in 1882, to continue his studies there.
Championing the cause of the nation for him entailed becoming the best person he could be. He carried over to his activism the mental and physical disciplines he learned from his elders.
His capacity for self-denial had developed to such a degree that enabled him -when he was short on funds abroad- to breakfast on a few biscuits for days on end; to take exams on an empty stomach or go for hours without food; to burn the candle at both ends studying his lessons or learning a new language; to steel himself from falling into the trap of drinking and gambling, which had waylaid many of his compatriots from their mission; to retain his empathy for the downtrodden as when moved upon encountering a child begging in the streets of Madrid, perhaps reminding him of the child beggars back home.
He plunged himself into the thick of the Propaganda, a movement that agitated for government reforms in the Philippines, foremost of which was Filipinos’ assimilation in the Spanish nation through representation in the Cortes (Spanish Parliament). He waged his campaign among progressive members of the Cortes and Spanish intellectuals; he wrote letters and articles for La Solidaridad, the Propaganda mouthpiece, as well as other publications, producing some of his best work during this period such as “The Indolence of the Filipinos”; “Message to the Women of Malolos”, or “The Philippines a Century Hence”.
Despite his deprivations, he continued to push himself to serve his nation’s cause finally producing his greatest work, the novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, works that paved his way to an untimely death but also to a lasting place in the hearts and minds of his compatriots.
Of his vision for the Filipinos, Rizal wrote his comrade Mariano Ponce in 1888: “Let this be our only motto: For the welfare of the Native Land. On the day when all Filipinos should think like him [Del Pilar] and like us, on that day we shall have fulfilled our arduous mission, which is the formation of the Filipino nation”. To Rizal that nation was a nation free of injustice, oppression and corruption. May the Filipinos of today finally begin fulfilling this timeless challenge of Rizal.
Why Rizal will not win as President in 2010
WHY RIZAL WILL NOT WIN AS PRESIDENT IN 2010
By: Quennie Ann Palafox
Rizal is alive every 30th of December, the day he was shot at Bagumbayan Field. The celebration of Rizal Day is based on the decree issued by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo on Dec. 20, 1898 declaring Dec. 30 as the anniversary of Jose Rizal’s death and also as “a national day of mourning” for other people who were victims of the three-century oppression of the Spaniards.
There are still continuing debates whether Rizal Day should be celebrated every December or move the holiday to June 19 which is his birthday. Historian Esteban de Ocampo quoted Pres. Quezon’s statement that, “Rizal’s execution on that fateful day in itself created a national feeling among the people”. This feeling brings every Filipino to gather in plazas, parks and other venues to look back at the way Rizal lived his meaningful life.
In the forthcoming presidential election in 2010, we will elect a president whom we believe is the rightful leader who shall bear our hopes and aspirations. If Rizal were alive today, he will be the perfect candidate running for President because throughout his whole life he subordinated his personal interests to those of his country and the national welfare. With that, Filipinos look upon him as a stalwart symbol of patriotism and nationalism. Rizal’s writings pronounce the values of freedom, and the right of every individual to life, liberty, and equality before the law. He even became the defender of rights which he firmly believed should be enjoyed by everyone who has experienced injustice in his times. Throughout his life, he experience injustice, directly or otherwise: there was the arbitrary arrest and detention of his aged mother, the deportation of his brother-in-law brought about by trouble over the lands in Calamba, and his own deportation without trial in Dapitan. He would be among the foremost to condemn the use of force to dominate people and armed aggression to seize territory. He would be against the horrible scene of the Maguindanao massacre of some members of a political clan in Maguindanao and journalists.
A great political statesman as Rizal would have been if had lived in our times, this man from Calamba will have little chance of winning the presidential race because he would not understand Philippine politics, and would not be able to afford to finance his campaign in the form of TV commercial. Rizal may have been an excellent public speaker that could attract the intellectual with his wit, but, he could hardly attract large numbers of followers as he could not pay for celebritys endorser who would entertain the masses after hearing Rizal’s boring speeches on nationalist and patriotism. The majority of the Filipinos today could not relate what Rizal had dreamed of during his times downgrading Rizal’s liberalist tradition since our country is no longer under Spain. Unlike other politicians who appear in business ads such as beauty and household products, Rizal would not be into the habit of making headlines in the newspaper or become the talk of the town because he even refused to discuss his personal life. As a genuine gentleman, he would rather keep his romance with Josephine Bracken or other women a secret unlike many politicians of today who would proudly announce before a press conference their escapades with different celebrities so as to be famous.
Rizal was a staunch opponent of the government and criticized this political institution for not doing its function in providing services to the citizens. He relentlessly attacked the friars in his two novels; the Noli and the Fili, for making themselves wealthy from the church’s money and abusing their powers. In his campaign for change he would have avoided accusing an opponent of immorality simply because he himself would be eyeing a government seat in the next election. He would have disliked giving promises that he could not fulfill because he is a person of principle. In other words, Rizal will not survive the infamous Philippine election and will be overwhelmingly defeated by his opponents who have mastered the game of Philippine politics.
Rizal is a leader the country needs today, for men who knew Rizal best often said that he lived “the most gracious, cleanest life of his generation. Sadly, his uprightness and moral servitude to his countrymen will not earn him the leadership of this country because is not corrupt. He could have been the perfect candidate for president in 2010 with his excellent educational background and his dedication to serve his countrymen. Rizal’s ideas on politics and governance could be this nation’s only hope for the attainment of justice, peace and prosperity, but Rizal can only be a hero and would never be a president.
Rizal with his courage and honor is still indispensable to us Filipinos being a guide through the path toward serenity and liberty. He continually inspires us with his brand of heroism and nationalism. Rizal, our hero, will forever be significant in this day and age.
Timeless Lessons from Rizal
TIMELESS LESSONS FROM RIZAL
by Ma. Cielito G. Reyno
In these times of crisis we Filipinos would do well to look back at the code of virtues Rizal abided by to help us put meaning to our own struggles for survival. Rizal embodied and realized the best of what the Filipino can be. His triumphs and struggles even against the certainty of failure inspired the Katipunaneros to launch the Revolution despite great odds, and realize Asia’s first independent Republic. And today, it is still Rizal that leads this generation to continue and perchance finish what he began: the formation of a nation where every Filipino is truly free.
Rizal ceaselessly aspired for the ideal. When he came of age, this took the form of fighting injustice in society. To liberate his fellow Filipinos from the bondages of political tyranny and its corollaries, misery and ignorance, became his all-consuming raison d’etre, pervading all aspects of his life, in the end excluding all other considerations- family, friends, personal happiness, and life itself. Rizal became a leader of the reformist movement called Propaganda, an unwavering campaign for political and social freedoms, lobbying the peninsular government, using their connections with the liberal Spanish politicians. He wrote unceasingly for the La Solidaridad, mouthpiece of the Propaganda, hoping as did his fellow Propagandists that the pleas of the Filipinos would be heard by the powers-that-be. He produced the two novels that he hoped would succeed in achieving his goals where all other means had failed, but which ultimately led to his death.
For his people Rizal was ready to give up everything, despite feelings of guilt at his dear ones suffering, as he once wrote: “You know very well that always… I am ready to serve my country not only with the pen but also with my life whenever my country would demand of me this sacrifice…and God could ask me, why did you not combat the evil and injustice when you saw them? But when I think that all – parents, siblings, friends…– have to suffer on account of my name I feel immensely unfortunate…I ask myself if it is better to be a good relative than a true Christian…”
Rizal was among the first to affirm the Filipino. He studied Philippine history to prove Filipinos had a culture of their own, prior to colonization, that the Filipinos were not inferior to the white man. It was what made him take up the annotation of Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, and comb the shelves of the London Library for books on Philippine history. Pride in the worth of the Filipino was what provoked him to shatter the myth of the so-called “indolence of the Filipino” and to reduce those Filipinos who denied their native tongue into rotten fish; to seriously study Tagalog and attempt to produce a comprehensive Tagalog dictionary. It was this same conviction that made him embrace the generic term indio with all its negative connotations, and turned it into one of dignity and nobility.
Rizal put a premium on the value of time, and to make good use of it he exerted a constant effort to improve himself, investing much time and persistence in his own education, taking up sculpture, painting, aside from the usual academics. He learned other languages including German, even translating Schiller’s William Tell into Tagalong. He constantly kept himself abreast of the current trends in philosophy and science by reading and attending scholarly dialogues.
During his exile in Dapitan, he assiduously studied the local flora and fauna, collected various specimens, and shared findings with colleagues.
He learned early the virtue of denying oneself, as when he left home to live at a boys’ school in another town. In Madrid while studying medicine, he experienced homesickness and physical deprivation, staying in cramped quarters in the low end of the city or skipping meals to save money for rent. It was routine for him to forego socials to focus on his studies. When he was in Berlin preparing the Noli for publication, and later in Ghent, for the publication of El Filibusterismo, he again had to forego meals for lack of funds. In Dapitan, he used his winnings from a lottery contest to build light and water systems for the locals. He put up a school for the local boys, with himself as teacher, treating patients for free, and spurred the locals to plant fruit trees, sugar cane, cacao, and to form their own marketing group.
As the nation marks the martyrdom of Rizal it is only fitting to look once again at the way he lived his brief life, to be inspired to move forward for ourselves and for nation.