PHILIPPINES NOW
JOSE RIZAL: MORE THAN JUST
MANY FIGHT FOR THE
FREEDOM OF FILIPINOS BUT
ONLY JOSE RIZAL HAS
PIERCE TO THE HEART OF
MANY
  ose Rizal becomes an epitome of the
J true apostle of nationalism, a man of
unwavering national integrity and character.
“Beautiful and great is the country when her
sons, at the call to battle, make ready to
defend the ancient land of their ancestors,” a
piece he has written in Diariong Tagalog. His
words catch the attention of the world,
making it the start of a crusade he never
know he started even after his death.
Rizal never called for independence for the
Philippines. Nonetheless,
government considers him
radical and declares him an enemy of the
state. He became a part of the Propaganda
Movement, connecting him
Filipinos who wanted reform but he did not
play passively in the movement.
Even some of the Rizalista sects in Mount
Makiling, Mount Banahaw, and Mount Arayat
worship Jose Rizal as God. They call Rizal in a
variety of names: the Tagalog Christ, the Jove
Rex Al, the Son of God, Amang Doktor,
Amang Rizal, and so on. One time, while on
discussion about Rizal’s various
powers, an old Rizalista considers Rizal as the
Filipino Buddha because he was the first
Filipino to attain enlightenment. You could
imagine my amusement thinking about Rizal
sitting in Buddha-like position trying to
achieve Nirvana!.  (1891), which are Rizal’s best known works, became essential manuals for
Section of Diariong Tagalog. It is a nationalist newspaper in the
language Tagalog and Spanish during the conquest of Spain in
the Philippines founded by Marcelo Del Pilar in 1882
PHILLIPINES NOW | Jaby A. Lim | Section 75
A NATIONAL HERO
or Rizal, love of his Philippine homeland and dedication to
its betterment are the unquestioned ultimate reality and
F
meaning of his life, which he states in the clearest, yet
most elegant of words in yet another of his celebrated letters: “If
one must die, at least let him die in his country, for the good of
his country, and on behalf of his country” [“Si uno ha de morir,
que muera al menos en su patria, por su patria y para su patria”]
(qtd. in Fortú 105). It is no surprise that Rizal is known to this day
as the “Father of the Philippine Homeland,” and, to members of
the Filipino Independent Church, as “Saint José Rizal. His death is
a statement of courage, not fear; love of country, not shame;
pride of honor, not sedition—the big catharsis that made Filipinos
one people in one nation, bringing dishonor to Spain’s colonial
Sketched by himself in Berlin when
rule.
he was 25 years old.
the colonial
a dangerous
with other
The members of the Propaganda Movement. Ilustrados in Madrid
DETAIL >
mystical
MEET JOSE RIZAL
osé Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda is the seventh
How did Rizal become a saint? Wenceslao E. Retana, a noted
Spanish Filipinologist and biographer of Rizal, was the first to
child of sugar planter and landowner Francisco Mercado Rizal
mention Rizal’s canonization. Retana cited the “Acta de
and Teodora Alonso y Quintos, who has 11 children. He is a multi-
J lingual type of an intellectual breed who can converse in Canonizacion de los grandes Martires de la Patria Dr. Rizal y PP.
twenty-two languages with utmost clarity and exemplary proficiency by Burgos, Gomez y Zamora” published in Madrid in 1907 in his
the time he is thirty. He is an experimental scientist, an artist, and a
account of the canonization of Rizal. Rizal was declared a saint
musician, who also become a writer, playwright, poet, essayist, and novelist
in both Spanish and Tagalog. Noli Me Tangere (1887) and El Filibusterismo by the Philippine Independent Church or more widely known
as the Aglipayan Church which is a breakaway Catholic group
members of the Philippine independence movement. In them, Rizal
Indeed, unknown to most of us, Jose Rizal was canonized as a
portrays and then sharply criticizes the abuses of the Roman Catholic
clergy, especially the enormous wealth of the Spanish religious orders, their saint on September 24, 1903 by the Aglipayan Church and his
monopoly on ministries, their control of properties, their abuses of justice,
death anniversary was celebrated in a manner similar to those
and their mistreatment of the Filipinos in their own land. He is a model son
of the saints.
to others and a fine lover to women. He excelled at anything that he put his
mind to from medicine, poetry, sketching, architecture, sociology, and However, According to present Aglipayan Bishop Rev. Fr.
more.
Efraim Fajutagana, Rizal’s sainthood was revoked in the 1950s,
Spanish called natives Indios. Natives call themselves based on where
they are geographically located, like Cebuanos of Cebu and Tagalog of
since it was only done during the nationalistic phase of their
Manila. The Philippine islands are scattered, so is our unity. According to R. church—that is, during the early years of their separation from
Constantino, “Rizal saw clearly than his contemporaries and felt with more
the Catholic Church. So at present, the church no longer
intensity the problems of his country, though his viewpoint was delimited
by his particular status and upbringing. He was the first Filipino but he was
celebrates the feast days of Saint Jose Rizal, although they still
only a limited Filipino, the ilustrado Filipino who fought for national unity recognize Rizal as the foremost Philippine hero.
but feared the Revolution and loved his mother country in his own
ilustrado way.”