Section 5. The sum of three hundred thousand pesos is hereby law.
law. Allied with the church in battle against Rizal Bill were the Holy
authorized to be appropriated out of any fund not otherwise
appropriated in the National Treasury to carry out the purposes of
this act.
In order to carry out the purposes of a law successfully, of
course, you need a budget for its implementation. Specifically, for
the Rizal Law it was 300,000 pesos that was authorized as a
budget. We haven’t really found detailed accounts about its
specifics but there are some accounts stating that it was in
compliance with the purposes stated in section 2 and 3 wherein; it
was stated that all schools are obliged to keep in their libraries an
adequate number of copies of Noli and El Fili including Rizal’s other
works. It was also stated that translated versions will be printed in
cheap and will be distributed free of charge to persons desiring to
read them. Hence, for the overall production and distribution of
copies stated in this Act, a budget of 300,000 was therefore
appropriated.
Section 6. The Act shall take effect upon its approval.
Republic Act No. 1425: The Rizal Law is about
implementing rules to educate people about the Life, Works and
Writings of our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal, especially his novels
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. This is to give the students
and the future generations an ample background and for them to
understand about how Jose Rizal hands over his life for our
country. Since again, no matter how hard we tried in searching for
the IRR of RA 1425, wala juy mugawas.But we want to give you a
short background before the Act took effect—before the Rizal Bill
became the Rizal Law.
On April 3, the Senate Committee on Education filed the
Senate Bill No. 438. The bill became controversial as the powerful
Catholic Church began to express opposition against its passage.
The Catholic Church was indirectly included in the debates and
played a major role for the intervention of signing of the bill into a
under lock and key in the school libraries, Recto rejected this
Name Society of the Philippines, Catholic Action of the Philippines,
Legion of Mary, Knights of Columbus and Daughters of Isabela.
Oppositions argued that the bill would go against freedom
of conscience and religion, The Catholic Bishops Conference of the
Philippines (CBCP) submitted a pastoral letter to which according,
Rizal violated Canon Law 1399 which forbids or bans books that
attack or ridicule the catholic doctrine and practices. Oppositors
argued that among the 333 pages of Noli Me Tangere, only 25
passages are nationalistic while 120 passages are anti-catholic.
While upon scrutiny of thetwo novels by some members of
catholic hierarchial, 170 passages in Noli Me Tangere and 50 in El
Filibusterismo are against catholic fatih. Furthermore, oppositors
pointed out that Rizal admitted that he did not only attack the
friars who acted deceptively on the Filipinos but also the catholic
faith itself. They suggested a reading material for students as to
what they called Rizalian Anthology, a collection of Rizal's literary
works that contain the patriotic philosophy excluding the two
novels.
Of course, Recto and Laurel defended the bill and argued
that the only objective of the bill is to keep the memory of the
national hero alive in every Filipino's mind, to emanate Rizal as he
peacefully fought for freedom, and not to go against religion.
Excitement and intense scnenes were eventually arisen in
settling the Rizal Bill. One of which was the debate of Cebu
Representative Ramon Durano and Pampanga Representative
Emilio Cortes that ended with a fistfight in Congress. Bacolod City
Bishop Manuel Yap threatened to campaign against pro-rizal bill
legislators nad to punish them in future elections. Catholic Schools
Representatives threatened to close down their schools if the Rizal
Bill was passed. Recto told them that if they did, the State could
nationalize the catholic schools. When there was a proposal to use
the expurgated novels as textbooks and put the original copies
amendment and expressed:
"The people who would eliminate the books of Rizal from
the schools...would bot out from our minds the memory of the
national hero...this is not a fight against Recto but a fight against
Rizal...now that Rizal is dead and they can no longer attempt at his
life, they are attempting to blot out his memory."
Due to apparently never-ending debate on the Rizal Bill,
approved amendments were formulated through ideas of three
senators. Senator Laurel' created an amendment to the original bill
in which, other that Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, works
written by Rizal and works wriiten by others about Rizal would be
included and reading of the unexpurgated revision of the two
novels would no longer be compulsory to elementary and
secondary levels but would be strictly observed to college level.
Senator Lim suggested the exemption to those students who feel
that reading Rizal's novels would negatively affect his or her faith.
Senator Primicias created an additional amendment that
promulgates the rules and regulations in getting an exemption only
from reading the two novels through written statement or affidavit
and not from taking the Rizal Course. According to historian
Ambeth Ocampo, no student has ever availed of this exemption.
After the revised amendments, the bill was finally passed on May
17, 1956 and was signed into law as Republic Act 1425 by President
Ramon Magsaysay on June 12 of the same year.
The debates on the Rizal Bill also ensued in the House of
Representatives. On April 19, 1956, the House of Representatives
filed their own identical version of the Senate Bill No. 438 in which
they call. On May 17, 1956, the Senate and House versions were
approved. And finally, on June 12, 1956, President Magsaysay
signed the bill into law which became Republic Act No. 1425. The
Act took effect from June 12, 1956 up to the present date.