Timothy James J.

Peliña BS Architecture – 3-A

Final Examination

Topic 1: What theme among Rizal's writings remains relevant until today?

Rizal has been known as the National Hero of the Philippines and his writings made such a
huge impact and contribution to what has Philippines has become today. His themes include social
injustices, education, inequality, and other social issues that has become rampant during the Spanish
occupation. I think one of the most relevant themes today among Rizal’s writing is about social
injustices – specifically the discrimination among lower status people.

Firstly, the abuses of Roman Catholic clergy - this is one of the social injustices that was
tackled by Jose Rizal in his writings. Today, the abuses are evident with some of our government
officials. They use their power to take over situations they can benefit from or to gain advantage of
situations where the victims will be left with no power but to surrender. A concrete example for this
is how some of the Drug War operations happened during the previous term of presidency.

Secondly, the mistreatment of Filipinos in their own land. Philippines is still a third-world
country and one of the reasons is corruption. Filipinos have been mistreated, tricked, and sugar-
coated by government officials even since. Most Filipinos are gullible, and this is taken advantage by
the higher ups which is evident before up until now.

Another social injustice that still occurs to this day is the inequal opportunity for everyone in
education. Though education systems improved in the Philippines through the years, we cannot
ignore the facts that there are still a lot of youth not having the opportunity to have education -
especially those in the who are experiencing poverty. They cannot afford education since all they
think and need to do is to survive their everyday struggles.

Almost, if not all, every writing of Rizal is still relevant up to these days. That's why he
became our National Hero. His works were thought-provoking and had a lot of essence to contribute
to the minds of our generation and the future.
Timothy James J. Peliña BS Architecture – 3-A

Final Project

At this point, I am going to interview the 35-year-old Jose Rizal in his jail - the day before his
execution - at Fort Santiago, Intramuros.

Here are the three questions I will ask him:

If he was given a chance to escape this prison, would he do it and why or why not?

If there’s one person he would like to talk to before the day of his execution, who is it and
what would be his message?

Does he think he lived a purposeful and good life?

I want to ask these questions to him since I am curious if Rizal lived a life with no regrets at
the age of 35 and if he was aware of his impact to the Filipinos through his writings since he was not
able to see the fruit of his labors.