Rizal’s dedication in preserving the Filipino identity

impressed his circles. What is the greatest significance and

relevance of Rizal’s annotation to Morga’s “Sucesos De Las
Islas Filipinas”? Has Rizal helped in preserving Filipino
national identity? Or did Rizal help to find a place for the
Filipino in the annals of history?

Rizal's purpose in publishing his annotated version of de Morga's Sucesos de las Islas
Filipinas (Events of the Philippine Islands, originally published in 1609) was to
demonstrate to the Filipino people their own real culture and identity, not just a pre-
Spanish history. He chose the Sucesos because he "considered it necessary to invoke the
testimony of an illustrous Spaniard who governed the destinies of the Philippines in the
beginning of her new era and witnessed the last moments of our ancient nationality,"
despite knowing most of the books written about the Philippines. Clarifications and
amplifications of facts, refutations of statements when appropriate, and confirmations
when tested against other sources were all included in his annotations. Rizal gave the
Filipinos the annotated Sucesos with the sage advice that "to forecast a nation's fate, it is
necessary to examine the books that tell of her past."

Rizal is considered as the “father of nationalism” and the First Filipino”, not because he
helped establish an independent Philippine state (in fact, he specifically and explicitly
denounced the 1896 Revolution against Spain), but because he was instrumental in the
creation of the conceptualization of “Filipino” as an ethnopolitical collective – as “a people”,
or, in the language of nationalism “the people”. In other words, Rizal is acclaimed the father
“Philippine Nationalism” for his intellectual and idealistic support for Philippine
Independence. He was not a war monger, but rather an academic seeking as peaceful,
logical, and political a solution as possible for Filipinos' freedom from colonial domination
over the political and social aspects of their lives in the Philippines. He preached and
encouraged Filipinos to recognize their potential as citizens of the Philippines, as well as
their obligations and responsibilities to their motherland.

To sum it up, Rizal's discovery of Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas was a happy
accident. He had been conceptualizing the Filipino as a people with a unique civilisation
that had been destroyed by colonization, rather than as a people who were equal to their
Spanish colonizers. Rizal discovered the answer to his question in Morga's book, which he
decided to reprint with his annotation. The Morga annotations provided the seeds of the
idea of how the Filipinos should view themselves amidst a growing nationalism that
eventually led to the formation of a nation.