RA 1425, aka Rizal Law, mandates all the educational institutions in the Philippines to teach the life, works

and writings of Jose Rizal. Its primary aim is to inculcate in students an increased sense of nationalism at
a time when the Filipino identity is threatened by various factors.

The Context of the Rizal Bill

The aftermath of the 2nd world war left the PH struggling on its feet. The countless problems, challenges,
and damages brought by the war called for recovery on a national scale. Prominent individuals who
championed nationalism and patriotism were at the forefront of forwarding measures to instill such
values in the Philippine society. These people worked hard to find ways to aid the Filipino youth in the
formation of their national consciousness.

Sen. Claro M. Recto – main proponent of the Rizal Bill

- He believed that studying the life and works of Jose Rizal would be instrumental in teaching
the youth to stand up for their country, therefore embodying the values and ideals of Rizal

Three people who opposed the bill when it was brought to the Senate. However, it was met with stiff
opposition from the Catholic Church when it was sponsored by

Sen. Jose P. Laurel - the head of the Senate committee on education.

- He helped Sen. Recto defend the viability and practicality of having the bill enacted into law.
- He firmly believed that the passing of the bill into law will be integral in achieving the noble
intent of bringing to the Filipinos a sense of nationalism that would help them understand the
importance of sovereignty.

The Church accused Recto of being a communist and anti-catholic. They believed that mandating students
to read Rizal’s novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, would violate the freedom of conscience and
religion. In an attempt to block the passing of the bill into law, the Church urged their supporters to write
to their congressmen and senators to show their opposition to the bill. Fortifying their opposition, the
Church organized symposiums and fora to denounce the approval of the said bill.

Fr. Jesus Cavanna, a staunch oppositionist of the bill, argued that the novels belonged to the past and that
teaching them would misinterpret the current conditions of the PH.

Jesus Paredes – Radio Veritas commentator, said that Catholics had the right to refuse to read the novels
as it would endanger their salvation.

Oppositions:

Catholic Action of the PH

Congregation of the Mission

Knights of Columbus

Catholic Teachers Guild

Supporters:
Veteranos de la Revolucion (Spirit of 1896)

Alagad ni Rizal

The Freemasons

Knights of Rizal

Notable action taken by the Catholic Church to oppose the passing of the bill into law: publishing a pastoral
letter written by then Archbishop of Manila, Rufino Santos. Stated that Catholic students would be
affected if compulsory reading of the unexpurgated version would push through. It was read in all the
masses that were celebrated in the Diocese of Manila.

One oppositionist to the bill said that Rizal attacked dogmas, beliefs, and practices of the Church. Cuenco,
another staunch oppositionist, highlighted Rizal’s denial of the existence of purgatory, as it was not found
in the bible, and that Moses and Jesus Christ did not mention its existence. These, among other reasons,
were emphasized in debates inside the Senate.

Outside the Senate, a rumor had spread that the Catholic Schools threatened to close down if the bill was
passed. Recto refused to believe the possibility of such threat because schools would lose profit if they
closed.

Given these debated, whether to pass the bill or not, it was suggested that a compromise be made to
appease those who opposed the bill. It was then agreed that the expurgated versions of Rizal’s novel
would be used.

Recto, who had supported the required reading of the unexpurgated versions, declared: “The people who
would eliminate the books of Rizal from the schools would blot out from our minds the memory of the
national hero. This is not a fight against Recto but a fight against Rizal,” adding that since Rizal is dead,
they are attempting to suppress his memory.

May 12, 1956 – the bill, with the compromise inserted by Laurel, was approved unanimously.

The bill specified that only college students would have the option to read the unexpurgated versions of
the clerically-contested reading materials. There was also an amendment made to the original bill that
included the teaching of Rizal’s other works, aside from the two novels. Despite all the controversies,
arguments, and opposition against the Rizal Bill, it was finally enacted on June 12, 1956.

Why Study Rizal?

Scholars and academicians are one in saying that a mandated course on Rizal is as helpful as any other
course that teaches values that a student may carry for the rest of his/ her life

Studying Rizal in the 21st century helps student make sense of the present by looking back at the past. For
instance, Rizal’s illustrations of 19th century PH may aid today’s generation in recognizing the ills of present
day PH.

With students exposed to many foreign influences, studying Rizal may remind and urge them to
understand the real essence of being a Filipino. Significant historical figures like Rizal help the younger
generation navigate Philippine History and understand why being aware of social issues are important in
the formation of one’s national identity.
The practicality of studying Rizal in this day and age is seen in how Rizal’s experiences and ideologies are
instrumental in grasping the current context of Philippine society. The mandated course on Rizal aids in
developing the critical thinking skills of students. The different challenges and dilemmas that Rizal faced
in his life teaches them to be aware of and not apathetic to the issues happening around them.

And finally, Rizal, then and now, is a worthy role model and a constant inspiration to all Filipinos. In every
aspect of his being, Rizal is worthy to emulate especially in the ideals he held as a nationalist. He was not
only intelligent, he was also humane, creative and innovative. As an inspiration to the Philippine nation,
Rizal will always be a valuable subject inside and outside the classroom in understanding how Philippine
nation came to be.

The Theory of Nationalism

Nationalism – set of systems – political, social, and economic – characterized by the promotion of the
interests of one nation anchored on the aim to achieve and maintain self-governance or total sovereignty.
It holds that a particular nation should govern itself and should be free from external interference.
Another important facet of nationalism is that it is oriented towards developing and maintaining a national
identity based on shared characteristics such as culture, language, race, and religion. It seeks to preserve
and reshape a nation’s culture. The concept of nationalism is essentially modern. While people have
historically been attached to their families, community, and native land, the concept of nationalism only
gained recognition in the late 18th century. The conceptualization of nationalism is a distinctively modern
sense was tied to the political awakening of the lower classes. Nationalist movements have been
invariably populist in outlook and sought to induct lower classes into political life. The five basic elements
of nationalism are culture, history, language, religion, and territory.

Nationalism is best understood by first looking in the term nation. Benedict Anderson, a prominent
historian and political scientist who explored the origins of nationalism, defined the nation as a
fabrication, a bond between people who did not actually exist prior to its own recognition. For him, the
nation “is an imagined community –and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (2006).
Anderson argues that the nation is imagined as a community because regardless of the actual inequalities,
that prevail, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. It is imagined because it
exists in the figment of the people’s collective imagination. According to Anderson, nation-ness is a
cultural artifact that is felt as having existed since time immemorial but is objectively modern as it first
emerged toward the end of the 18th century.

Following this conceptualization by Anderson, the Philippine nation is an imagined community because
one who identifies himself or herself as a Filipino will never meet all the other Filipinos around the world,
yet he/she is convinced that they exist and he/she is related to them. Anderson also presents the concept
of homogenous empty time, borrowed from the ideas of Walter Benjamin, which replaced the idea of
simultaneity-along-time which referred to the medieval conception of time as situating events in the past,
present, and future simultaneously. Homogenous empty time suggests that a nation can be imagined as
a unit, moving through time.

Rizal’s Works and Nationalism

Anderson points out that Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere conjured an imagined community as readers and the
author were familiar to and intimate with each other, with the characters and readers being situated in
the same context of time and space. The novel provided the means of representing the nation as an
imagined community that operated on empty time enabling the reader to be omniscient to see a delimited
society and the actuations of key person in it.

Noli Me Tangere and El Filibustersmo emerged as the founding texts of Philippine Nationalism. These
novels exposed the ills of Spanish colonial government and the evils prevailing in the Philippine Society by
presenting a narrative that contextualizes the country in terms of politics, economy, and culture.

Rizal was able to go against the colonizers and show how literature can be used to arouse people to be
catalyst of social change. In both his novels, Rizal was able to portray the Filipino in different dimensions,
from those who had colonial mentality, to those who willingly fought for the country at all costs.

Through his novels, Rizal emphasized the values of nationalism and loving one’s country. The scathing
national narrative Rizal presented became the inspiration for strengthening the anti-colonial movement.

Section 3

Rizal in the 19th-Century Philippines

The life of a person is shaped by the society that he/she is a part of. Thus, studying and understanding the
life of Jose Rizal, it is necessary to look into the social context where he was situated in – the 19th century
Philippines.

Jose Rizal was born in the 19th century. During this time, Spain’s glory and rule as a colonial power was
already waning. The natives of the Philippines were slowly realizing the need to awaken their national
consciousness. This was sparked by movements against the oppression of the Spanish colonizers.

It was Jose Rizal who first used the word Filipino to refer to the inhabitants of the country, whether they
are of Spanish or Filipino blood. Under the Spanish rule, the native inhabitants were called indios while
inhabitants with Spanish blood (peninsulares, insulares, mestizo) were regarded as Filipinos. He realized
that the people residing in the Philippines should be called one name – Filipino.

The events around the world also contributed to the formation of national consciousness led by Rizal and
other noted ilustrados during the 19th century. Different events contributed to how Rizal’s own national
consciousness was shaped. For one, the Industrial revolution, which refers to the transition to new
manufacturing processes that made use of steam-powered, special-purpose machinery, factories, and
mass production in Europe, had its effects on the Philippine economy. In rural areas, it paved the way for
new agricultural techniques. In the larger cities of the country such as Manila, modern textile implements
were introduced and helped develop the textile industry, benefitting only a limited number of already rich
Filipinos. The Industrial Revolution increased the movement of trade around the world which made
Filipinos of Spanish ancestry wealthier because they had connections to those who handled goods from
one country to another. With newer production methods, Filipino merchants and small-scale industrialists
became prominent in Philippine society, thus forming a new group of influential middle class Filipinos.
Families from this class had the means to provide education for their children. This is why many prominent
figures in the Propaganda Movement, against the colonizers came from the middle class – those who had
the privilege to recognize and condemn the ills of the Spanish colonial government through their
education. Rizal was among them.

By the 19th century, two centuries after the Spaniards first came to the Philippines, the hold of the Catholic
Church in other Spanish colonies was already waning, yet this was not the case in the Philippines. The
Spanish friars, despite the controversies involving them, were crucial in maintaining the Philippine
archipelago as a Spanish colony. The Filipinos turned more and more to the friars for moral and political
guidance as Spanish civil officials in the country became more corrupt and immoral. The friars then
became more influential and powerful because of frailocracy or the rule of friars. The dominance of the
friars in the country prompted Rizal and the propagandists to expose their abuses in forwarding their
power and influence in the Philippines. The growing power of the friars in the 19th century urged the
reformists and nationalist to work harder to let the people know who the real enemies were.

Other significant events in the 19th century that contributed to the formation and the rest of the
Propagandists’ consciousness were the opening of the Suez Canal, the democratic leadership of Governor
General Dela Torre, Governor General Izquerdos’ replacement of Dela Torre, and the Cavite Mutiny.

The Suez Canal was the first infrastructure that paved the way for the importation of books, magazines,
and newspapers with liberal ideas from Europe and America. This was instrumental to the political
awakening of Rizal because he was able to expand his perspective, therefore shaping his nationalist
sensibilities

The leadership of Gov. Gen. Carlos Ma. Dela Torre (1869-1871), gave Rizal, the reformists, and the Filipinos
a forestate of democratic rule. During the leadership of Dela Torre, media censorship became relaxed and
limited secularization of education began. He gave amnesty to rebels including Casimiro Camerino, the
leader of the bandits of Cavite, and established the Guardia Civil.

Dela Torre’s terms and regulations were easily pushed out of view when he was replaced by Gov. Gen.
Rafael Izquierdo (1871-1873) who was exactly the opposite of Dela Torre’s liberal-minded rule. For
Izquierdo, the indios should not be given the same rights and freedoms enjoyed by the Spaniards in the
Philippines. He imposed harsh policies and laws, far from the liberal measures that Dela Torres
implemented. Izquierdo was also responsible for removing the long-standing personal benefits of the
workers under the encomienda system and forced labor exemptions among soldiers. This led to the Cavite
Mutiny on January 20, 1872 that was staged by about 200 military personnel of the San Felipe Arsenal in
Cavite.

The Cavite Mutiny was a failed uprising against the Spaniards, resulting in disarmed, imprisoned, and dead
Filipino soldiers. Those who were suspected to be involved in the mutiny were also arrested and executed.
The Spanish authorities and the friars used the mutiny to implicate the three secular priests – Mariano
Gomez, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, collectively known as Gomburza – and proclaimed that they
were instigators of the said mutiny. The priests were executed by garrote at Bagumbayan on February 15,
1872. This event had a personal impact on Rizal and his family since Burgos was a personal friend of his
brother, Paciano. The martyrdom of the three priests awakened the desire for independence among many
Filipinos. In fact, Rizal dedicated his El Filibusterismo to the three priests.

Rizal’s aim to make the Philippines known as a country of writers and intellectuals was a result of his
firsthand experience of racial discrimination when he was in Spain. Considered as an inferior race, Filipinos
were not given access to public goods and experienced rampant prejudice in government offices, schools,
and in society in general.

A number of economic, social, political, and cultural changes in the country and around world contributed
to the formation of Rizal’s national consciousness and his reformist agenda. This liberal and progressive
ideas of Rizal, together with the other reformists, stirred the national consciousness of natives which
eventually led to the Philippine Revolution of 1896. Rizal’s contribution to the decline of the Spanish rule
in the 19th century is recognized until today.