PI 100 Midterms Reviewer

Topic 3: VENERATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING BY RENATO CONSTANTINO

- Key Points
o Rizal is considered as the Philippine national hero due to the
help/sponsorship of the American administration
o Another hero would have emerged if there is no Rizal. Meaning, history is not
directed by the desires or ideas of particular men.
o Revolution is still bound to happen even with the refusal of Rizal to lead and
it continued despite his condemnation of it
o Rizal’s concept of Filipino refers to the assimilation (Hispanization) of Filipinos
o Rizal and his viewpoints should be regarded more objectively in consideration
of everything he has done and the impact of his contribution
o Rizal is not an end-all, be-all in itself
o
- Rizal and the Revolution
o Rizal, our national hero, was not the leader of our revolution and he refuses
to align himself with the revolutionary forces
 He repudiated the revolution
 Manifesto of December 15, 1896
 … I do condemn this uprising – which dishonors us Filipinos
and discredits those that could plead our cause. I abhor its
criminal methods and disclaim all part in it, pitying from the
bottom of my heart the unwary that have been deceived into
taking part in it.
- An American-Sponsored Hero
o Result of American Sponsorship
 Encouraging a Rizal cult
 Minimize the importance of other heroes or even vilifying them
o His elevation to his present eminence above other Filipino heroes was due to
the Americans
 Governor William Howard Taft
 1901
o Suggested that the Philippine Commission to the
Filipinos be given a national hero
o Philippine Comission
 Its members were conservative ilustrados,
where Rizal belongs
 December 28, 1946
o Declaration of Rizal as the Philippine national hero
 Calls Rizal as:
o Greatest Filipino, a physician, a novelist, and a poet
(who) because of his struggle for betterment of
condition under Spanish rule was unjustly convicted
and shot
 Theodore Friend
  Between Two Empires (book)
o Who are the contestants for the Philippine national
hero?
 Rizal: model hero over other contestants
 Aguinaldo: too militant
 Bonifacio: too radical
 Mabini: unregenerate
 What are the Acts implemented to support Rizal?
 Act No. 137
o Organised the district of Morong and named it after
Rizal, the most Illustrious Filipino and Tagalog the
islands had ever known
 Act No. 243
o Erection of a monument in honor of Rizal at the Luneta
 Act No. 346
o Set aside the anniversary of his death (December 30) as
a day of observance
 Governor W. Cameron Forbes
 The Philippine Islands
o How did the American administration aid in the
recognition of Rizal?
 Setting aside the anniversary of his death to be
a day of observance
 Placing is picture on the postage stamp and
currency
 Teaching the young Filipinos as the greatest of
Filipino patriots
 Why did the Americans aid in the recognition of Rizal?
o It’s because Rizal urged the reform within by public
education
 What are the factors that contributed to Rizal’s acceptability to the
Americans as the official hero of the Filipinos?
 No embarrassing anti-American quotations from Rizal (since
he’s dead)
o Favored a hero who would not run against the grain of
American colonial policy
 Symbol of Spanish oppression
o Rizal’s dramatic martyrdom
 To redirect the hatred of Filipinos to the Spaniards and not
the Americans
 We as people felt the need for a superhero to bolster national ego
 A critical evaluation of Rizal cannot but lead to a revision of our
understanding of history and the role of individual in history
 The study of his life and works has developed into a cult distorting the
role and the place of Rizal in our history
 His weakness and errors have been subtly underplayed
 His virtues grossly exaggerated
- Role of Heroes
o The fundamental cause of mass action is not the utterances of a leader;
rather, these leaders have been impelled to action by historical forces
unleashed by social development.
 Group effort and should not be projected into one individual only
o Rizal was a hero because he was able to see the problems generated by
historical forces, discern the new social needs created by the historical
development of new social relationships, and take part in meeting these
needs.
o Rizal fought in his own ilustrado way
 He was the first Filipino but he was only a limited Filipino
- Innovation and Change
o Rizal lived in a period of great economic changes
 The country was undergoing grave and deep alterations which
resulted in a national awakening
 What led to an economic rethinking by liberal Spanish officials?
 The English occupation of the country
 End of the galleon trade
 Latin-American revolution
 The establishment of non-Hispanic commercial homes broke the
insular belt that had circumscribed the Philippines
 monopolized the import-export trade
 European and American financing were vital agents in the emerging
export economy
 Increased surpluses of agricultural export products (Abaca and
sugarcane)
 These economic developments led to improvement in:
 communications
 Functional road system
 Opening of railroad lines
 Improved postal services
 Telegraph in 1873
 Manila’s water system (1870)
 Street cars (1881(
 Telephone and electric lights in the metropolitan area
 Reduction of the Spain-Manila voyage to thirty days after the
opening of Suez Canal
- Ideological Framework
o There is a desire for equality with the Spaniards
 Real equality with the Spaniards must be based on national freedom
and independence
o Anti-clericalism became the ideological style of the period
o Rizal had to become a Spaniard first before becoming a Filipino
o Rizal’s original aim is to elevate the Indio to the level of Spaniards via
assimilation (Hispanized Filipinos)
  This gave birth to the development of separation and birth of national
consciousness
o What are Rizal’s contribution to the development of Filipino nationhood?
 Winning of our name as a race
 Recognition of our people as one
 Elevation of the Indio into Filipino
- The Concept of Filipino Nationhood
o Rizal repudiated decolonization
 As a result, we have not yet distinguished the True Filipino from the
Incipient Filipino (Hispanized Filipino)
o True Filipino
 One who is consciously striving for decolonization and independence
o Filipinos
 Originally referred to the creoles or Spaniards born in the Philippines
 Hispanized and urbanized Indios along with Spanish mestizos and
Sangley mestizos
o Indios
 Natives
o La Solidaridad
 Rizal and other indios in Paris began to use the term indios bravos
 Espoused the cause of liberalism and fought for democratic solutions
to the problems that beset the Spanish colonies
o The winning of the term Filipino was an anti-colonial victory for it signified
the recognition of racial equality between Spaniards and Filipinos
- The “Limited” Filipinos
o During the time of Rizal it was a limited victory for us.
 Limited Filipinos based on education and property, specifically for
Ilustrados
o The challenge is to recognize the masses as the real nation and their
transformation into real Filipinos
 Can be achieved through the process of decolonization
o Rizal’s ilustrado orientation manifests itself in his novels
 Ibara, the hero, was a Spanish mestizo
 He could portray the Spaniards, creole, and mestizo with mastery due
to his upbringing
 Very hazy description of characters who belonged to the masses
o Rizal was an ilustrado hero
 He died for his people, yet his repudiation of the Revolution was an
act against the people
 He believed in freedom not so much as a national right but as
something to be deserved
 He did not want us to fight for independence. He wanted us to wait
for the time when Spain would abandon us
 COLONIAL MENTALITY
o Rizal believed that independence should not be granted until we were
educated enough to appreciate its importance and blessings, and until we
were economically self-reliant
  Supports the American administration
o People learn an educate themselves in the process of struggling for freedom
and liberty. They attain their highest potential only when they are masters of
their own destiny.
o Colonialism sells the idea that freedom is a diploma to be granted by superior
people to an inferior one after years of apprenticeship
- The Precursors of Mendicancy
o Rizal and his generation were the precursors of the present day mendicants
 The elite had a subconscious disrespect for the ability of the people to
articulate their own demands and to move on their own
o Ilustrados
 Hispanized sector that wanted to be called Filipinos in the creole
sense: Filipino-Spaniards
- Ilustrados and Indios
o Katipunan
 Bonifacio saw in people’s action the only road to liberation
 A people’s movement based on confidence in the people’s capacity to
act in its own behalf
 Embodied the unity of revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary
practice
o Propagandist
 Embodiment of a consciousness without a movement
o We cannot make Rizal out to be the infallible determinant of our national
goals, as his blind idolators have been trying to do.
- Blind adoration
o To be uncritical and unhistorical is to distort the meaning of the heroic
individual’s life, and to encourage a cult bereft of historical meaning
- Limitations of Rizal
o Rizal would have been at a loss to see through the more sophisticated myths
and to recognize the subtle techniques of present-day colonialists, given the
state of his knowledge and experience
o Many of his social criticisms are still valid today because certain aspects of
our life are still carry-overs of the feudal and colonial society of his time.
o A true appreciation of Rizal would require that we study these social
criticisms and take steps to eradicate the evils he decried.
- The Negation of Rizal
o We cannot rely on Rizal alone
o A true hero is one with the masses; he does not exist above them