“Of Rizal and Of Nationalism…

from different Perspective”

Source: Tabotabo, C.V. Corpuz, R.M.& Gavilino, J.C.(2019).Jose P. Rizal:

Readings On Heroism. Quezon City: Pan Asia Book Exchange , Incorporation
Reading One. Rizal from the Perspective of Sen. Claro M. Recto
After the fierce battles to gain approval, the Rizal bill finally
becomes a law. Two years after its passage in the National Writers’
Conference in Baguio City the law’s author outlined once again his
ideals of a hero in the person of Rizal and the latter’s fictive works.
Rizal’s love of his country made him very careful and wary in his
moves and decisions against the conquerors. He knew the
capabilities of his people and the might of Spain that fighting the
conquerors by force was a form of suicide. The situation radiates to
the decision of America’s black novelist Richard Wright when asked
to participate in the communist movement of his country. He said I like
their passion to fight, the heat inside that pushed them, but I feel I am
not confident of the depth of their understanding about the cause they
are fighting for. What we had at the time were fighting farmers without
background on armies and training in warfare. They were peace –
loving ordinary peasants and farmers driven to fight by the hardships
they encountered every day.
Rizal was careful, he saw what it would be to leave his people under
the leadership of a man who like the farmers possessed nothing but
his own pure idealism. Bonifacio had nothing in his mind and heart
than to free the country from the Spaniards by any means. But a
Spanish free country was only a pure idea as there was no concrete
goal to achieve it. Owing to this observation Sen. Recto described
these two great Filipinos by calling each as idealist and realist .
Bonifacio is the idealist while Rizal the realist. Such descriptions
are in a polar opposite to what people commonly perceived as
Bonifacio the realist while Rizal should be the idealist, that Rizal
should be the thinking man while Bonifacio the acting. But the Senator
justified his points.
Rizal was the realist while Bonifacio the idealist. How a man who is
used to thinking and reflecting could be labeled realist while the man
of action is called the idealist. Rizal never put anything into action
without a possible victory. He based his decisions on facts and he
never drive into some conclusions without considering the possible
outcome of such an action. He knew very well the capacity of the
Filipinos against the Spaniards; to fight the Europeans was indeed a
form of suicide. He plans before he executes anything, so he was a
realist. He looks at the prevailing reality.
Now what of Bonifacio? He was a good man, a good Filipino who too
can inspire the modern - day Filipinos. But to compare him to Rizal on
matter of attitudes and orientation toward achieving Philippine
independence, he indeed was an idealist. First, he always wanted
total autonomy of the country from Spain. He had his aspiration while
other Filipinos like Rizal and other propagandists clamored to
recognize the country as genuine part of Spain. Second, he was
aware of the plight of his people against the well - armed Spaniards. It
was bolo against cannons, bamboo made arrows and spear against
the bursting cannon balls. He was aware it was a form of suicide, yet
he went on with the desire burning inside him to fight and nothing else
but to fight.
Rizal did not support the revolution; he proposed instead a peaceful
resolution. To achieve such goals, he proposed education as the true
and genuine vanguard of a nation. This aspiration was demonstrated
in the life of the hero and in the fiction he produced.
Sen. Recto identified the characters of the Noli and Fili who carried
the aspirations of Rizal. The hero wanted the Filipinos to be educated;
he put up a school in Dapitan. In the Noli he is Ibarra, a man of
refinement and culture who did all his best to put up a school. Isagani,
Padre Florentino and among all others all clamored for a peaceful
resolution to the colonial problems of the Filipinos. Sen. Recto
declared that it is true that the novels of Rizal have characters like
Cabesang Tales and Capitang Pablo who are robbers. Yet the senator
said these characters are not at all war mongering at the start. The
cruel and tenacious circumstance of their lives forced them to bear
arms against the oppressors.
At the end of the novels, peace suppressed cruelty. Padre
Florentino threw away the box of treasures and cried “for a greater
purpose may the vowel of the sea vomits you out.” The conquering
power of the pen and not the sword overpower everything. Sen. Recto
quoted Rizal saying the resolution of the Filipinos was baseless and
resulted to nothing; it was beyond the hero’s knowledge; it was a
disgrace to the people and dismay to those people who wanted to help
the Filipinos.
It is the liberal ideas of the people that a country can stand from its
own fall. The senator saw Rizal and his works as framework in
educating the Filipinos toward attaining this liberal idea. The novels of
Rizal described the harsh human condition when a race is grappled
by a foreign power. But the novels are clear such a harsh life did not
readily spring from the brutality of the conquerors. There is in the
people that made the race so prone and weak to the human predators.
Rizal called it “social cancer”; in our time we call it ignorance. Arcilla
(1992) the novels Rizal were not written solely for the Spaniards. It
was also meant for the Filipinos. Arcilla (1992) said the novel of Rizal
particularly the Noli was not simply a work that condemns the evil of
the Spaniards; it was a novel that gives commentaries on attitudes of
the Filipinos which Rizal called the cancer.
Senator Recto went beyond suggesting it. He authored a bill that
turned out into a law after the tedious legislation. It is now an Act that
requires the readings of the two novels of Rizal repeatedly mentioned
ahead.
Reading Two. Rizal from the Perspective of Sen. Jose P. Laurel
Sen. Jose P. Laurel had reasons for sponsoring the Rizal Law. Few
paragraphs later we have what he said. Right here it is worthy to
remember and a necessary information to know what Rizal had
spoken so much about the youth and he implored their significance to
nation building.
It is the youth then other Filipinos. As of this writing according to
(HTTPS://GOV.PH/) the Philippines has a student population of
377,025 distributed in the 4,258 colleges and universities scattered
around the archipelago. In few years - time these students shall be the
country’s entrepreneurs, politicians, teachers, engineers and so on
to all the various professions the country has.
But a great percentage of these future graduates will leave the
country to work for the rich in the countries where great
grandchildren of those who came to the Philippines as masters and
oppressors are now living. The situation raises a question if
something has changed after a century of the master - servant
relation.
But at any rate, Rizal did not clamor for a total autonomy of the
Philippines from Spain. He even said there is enough room for every
one in the Philippines. He only asked for two conditions. The first is to
educate the Filipinos. Second is to reform the abusive Spanish
government.
The reason why Rizal wanted the Filipinos to be educated before
they can work with others is clear. It is to stop the master – servant
relation. He implied that other people can work in the Philippines as
partner and no longer on the master – servant. The preposition used
is “with” and not “for”. Unfortunately, to work “with” others is
impossible if these two others are not in balance between their
education. Imbalance in education will always result to subjugation
where one of the others will work as servant while the other will do the
managing and eventually maligning. In business there is no other
aspiration than to maximize income which should be achieved by any
means maligning or not.
 More than hundred years since Rizal lauded his aspirations for his
country almost every Filipino is now educated. It is seen on the
number of schools offering basic and higher education around the
country. The Filipinos now work and paid according to agreement that
is between employer and employee. What is important more now is
that almost every Filipinos desire for a quality education. They have
found education the answer to their personal needs particularly
financial.
They are educated, but the kind of education they received is still
to be determined if it hits the desire of Rizal. There is an education that
does not end in financial fulfillment. Those politicians convicted of
plunder and corruption bragged to be graduates from prestigious
schools of the country. There is an education that holds the service to
the country a priority, a kind that produces women like Spartan
mothers who as described by Rizal shed no tears when informed that
their sons died in defense of the country.
Rizal dreamed that every Filipino will find beauty and discover self
fulfillment in his or her service for the country. It is the ideal he died
for and the Rizal Law asks everyone to look after him as model.
Former Sen. Laurel supported the move in the legislative branch to
ratify the proposal to make the course Rizal a requirement in the
college education. He argued that Rizal was the forerunner in the
action to carve the Filipino nationalism. The independence achieved
by the country and its eventual nationhood was owed to him. It is just
inevitable for the citizens of this country particularly the young to
absorb the principles that brought the hero to Bagumbayan in the
morning of December 30, 1896.
Reading Three. Rizal from the Perspective of Fr. Horacio de la Costa
S. J.
Few years before the Rizal Law was approved Bishop Rufino J.
Santos, D.D. Archbishop of Manila sent a pastoral letter representing
the stand of the church toward the proposal of making the reading of
Rizal’s novels a requirement in college. A bishop’s letter was then
drafted and among the names with part in drafting the pastoral letter
came out Fr. Horacio de la Costa S.J. He was a Filipino Jesuit, a
historian and a former dean of Ateneo de manila’s College of Arts. He
was a scholar and a literary figure.
According to Schumacher (2011) it appears that de la Costa was
asked by the bishop to draft the pastoral letter. Several drafts were
made and some changes were made. But de la Costa was still believed
to be the major author of the pastoral letter.
The Jesuit priest maintained that the national hero was a man of
outstanding moral character with a strong adherence to truth. His
works specifically the novels that speak of truth shall become the
foundation of the political and societal standard of the Filipino people.
Based on the outlooks of Rizal as perceived by de la Costa, and if
the Filipino really like to build up a nation, then making Rizal and his
works as blueprint is inevitable. He was morally upright, and he was
devoted to the truth. No race can settle into a nation without those
characteristics of its people. So long as the Filipinos aspire for
nationhood, so long as they continue to dream of cultural autonomy,
they need Rizal and his works.
On the contrary signs of losing cultural autonomy and failing effort
to obtain a nation of their own are seen on the people’s disregard to
the ideals implanted on them in the past. Leaders show a continued
dependence on other countries, the people’s disrespect to culture
and their blatant defiance to orders represented by laws, are clear
signs of moral depravity. What will happen next are crumbled people
dependent on the crumbs the rich can toss into them.
Nation building is attained to by first, strengthening self - pride,
then, imposing nationalism. It is the path to a genuine independence,
and independence is the most important fiber of a nation. Again, from
the same source according to de la Costa, Rizal devoted himself to
educating the people as the only means to safeguard them from any
form of tyranny and dominion in the future. Rizal also worked hard to
lift up the ethical standard of the Filipinos; he wanted the Filipinos to
fight back against injustices imputed unto them by the foreign power
of Spain.
When Senator Recto introduced the Rizal Law in 1956 the
controversies of the bishop’s statement became apparent. De la
Costa, the said drafter of the pastoral letter was not in the Philippines
when the law was debated and the said pastoral was even available
ahead of 1956.
The pastoral letter explained about the mandatory reading of the
said novels in both private and public schools. The first draft which
was solely written Fr. De la Costa glorifies the national hero and his
novels. But tone changed in the following drafts when an interlocutor
believed to be Fr. Jesus Cavanna surfaced. It then contains some
claims that Rizal through the actions and voices of his characters he
attacked the church.
At the end a unified conclusion was reached. Schumacher (2011) it
was declared that the novels were found no serious dangers to faith
and morals of the Catholic. It further says that it conforms to the
teaching of the gospels and right reason. It was only recommended
the novels shall not be given to the young readers without strict
guidance of important adults particularly teachers. Important
recommendation was further highlighted, to come up with annotated
text of the novels. Annotation will explain the contents of the novels
that involved the Catholic faith. Its basic purpose is to guide the
readers particularly the young who have no trainings in reading
historical fiction and besides young readers are prone to immediate
acceptance of what is on print.