JOSE RIZAL AND THE PHILIPPINE NATIONALISM:

BAYANI AND KABAYANIHAN

 
 BAYANI AT KABAYANIHAN
 The word “Bayani” or hero in Filipino is someone who saves somebody’s lives.
However, this word carries a deeper context wherein only those people who
are willing to suffer and sacrifice themselves for the good of the country are
worthy enough to be called as such. Being called a hero requires a greater act
of bravery.
 Dr. Jose P. Rizal was a man of intellectual power and artistic talent whom
Filipinos honor as their national hero (Szczepanski, 2019). Rizal is not only
admired for possessing intellectual brilliance but also for taking a stand and
resisting the Spanish colonial government. While his death sparked a
revolution to overthrow the tyranny, Rizal will always be remembered for his
compassion towards the Filipino people and the country. Another remarkable
hero that we all know is Andres Bonifacio. The Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-
galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or KKK played a huge role in the
revolt of the Filipinos against the Spaniards. In the center of that revolution
was its founder, Supremo Andres Bonifacio.
 Furthermore, according to Vallejo Jr., (2010), Filipinos also remember
General Antonio Luna as a brilliant, brave soldier and tactician of the
second phase of the Revolution and the proverbial hothead but never as
the excellent scientist. He has no epitaph but perhaps his words before
leaving exile in Europe for Manila are apt: “I will fight and offer my life,
my small knowledge and science for the liberation of the Motherland.”
 What does it take to be a hero? The heroism in real life does not require
someone to sacrifice his or her life to be called a bayani. The people that
we set up as heroes are people that generally go above and beyond in
terms of the call of duty, they do things that are extraordinary. The act of
heroism is debatable to some people however, for any hero, it's enough
just knowing they helped someone else. That's what makes them a true
hero.
 DR. JOSE P. RIZAL

 José Protasio Rizal Mercado Y Alonso Realonda was born on June 19, 1861 to
Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonzo in the town of Calamba in the province of
Laguna. He had nine sisters and one brother. At the early age of three, the
future political leader had already learned the English alphabet. And, by the age
of five, he could already read and write (Valdeavilla, 2018).
 Rizal had been very vocal against the Spanish government, but in a peaceful and
progressive manner. For him, “the pen was mightier than the sword.” And
through his writings, he exposed the corruption and wrongdoings of government
officials as well as the Spanish friars. While in Barcelona, Rizal contributed
essays, poems, allegories, and editorials to the Spanish newspaper, La
Solidaridad. Most of his writings, both in his essays and editorials, centered on
individual rights and freedom, specifically for the Filipino people.
 As part of his reforms, he even called for the inclusion of the Philippines to
become a province of Spain. But, among his best works, two novels stood
out from the rest – Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo
(The Reign of the Greed). In both novels, Rizal harshly criticized the
Spanish colonial rule in the country and exposed the ills of Philippine
society at the time. And because he wrote about the injustices and
brutalities of the Spaniards in the country, the authorities banned Filipinos
from reading the controversial books. Yet they were not able to ban it
completely
 Days before his execution, Rizal bid farewell to his motherland and countrymen through one
of his final letters, entitled Mi último adiós or My Last Farewell. Dr. José Rizal was
executed on the morning of December 30, 1896, in what was then called Bagumbayan (now
referred to as Luneta). Upon hearing the command to shoot him, he faced the squad and
uttered in his final breath: “Consummatum est” (It is finished). According to 
historical accounts, only one bullet ended the life of the Filipino martyr and hero.
 The Americans decided for him being a national hero at their time in the country. It is said
that the Americans, Civil Governor William Howard Taft, chose Jose Rizal to be the national
hero as a strategy. Rizal didn't want bloody revolution in his time. So they wanted him to be
a "good example" to the Filipinos so that the people will not revolt against the Americans.
Rizal became a National Hero because he passed the criteria by being a National Hero
during the American period. 
 Adding that, Rizal passed the Criteria for National Heroes:

1. Heroes are those who have a concept of nation and thereafter aspire and struggle
for the nation’s freedom. In reality, however, a revolution has no end. Revolutions
are only the beginning. One cannot aspire to be free only to sink back into bondage.

2. Heroes are those who define and contribute to a system or life of freedom and
order for a nation. Freedom without order will only lead to anarchy. Therefore,
heroes are those who make the nation’s constitution and laws. To the latter,
constitutions are only the beginning, for it is the people living under the constitution
that truly constitute a nation.

3. Heroes are those who contribute to the quality of life and destiny of a nation. (As
defined by Dr. Onofre D. Corpuz)
 Additional Criteria for Heroes:

1. A hero is part of the people’s expression. But the process of a people’s

internalization of a hero’s life and works takes time, with the youth forming
a part of the internalization.

2. A hero thinks of the future, especially the future generations.

3. The choice of a hero involves not only the recounting of an episode or

events in history, but of the entire process that made this particular person
a hero.
PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION
 According to Kennedy, (2019), Progressive education is a reaction to the
traditional style of teaching. It's a pedagogical movement that values
experience over learning facts at the expense of understanding what is
being taught. When you examine the teaching styles and curriculum of
the 19th century, you understand why certain educators decided that
there had to be a better way.
Talisay: the first progressive school in Asia
 Upon his arrival in Dapitan, Rizal lived in the house of the governor and
military commandant, Capt. Ricardo Carnicero, which was just across the
town’s central plaza. He later bought, with Carnicero and another
Spaniard residing in Dipolog, a lottery ticket. This was to prove
fortuitous. Rizal’s lottery ticket won second prize—20,000 pesos—which
was awarded on September 21, 1892, and promptly divided among
themselves by the three men. From his share of 6,200 pesos, Rizal gave
2,000 pesos to his father and 200 pesos to pay his debt to his friend Basa
in Hong Kong.
 With what remained of his lottery earnings, Rizal was able to move to Talisay, a coastal barrio
off the Dapitan poblacion named after the talisay, a large deciduous tree that is usually found
along Philippine seashores. Rizal bought a 16-hectare piece of land. But, as he noted in his
February 8, 1893 letter to his brother-in-law Manuel Hidalgo, there were no talisay trees in
Talisay, so Rizal thought of naming his place Balunò or Baunò, after the large trees that actually
grew there. The first thing he did was to clear the land “to sow rice and corn”. Then he built a
house, a clinic and a school for local boyswho he described as mostly “poor and intelligent.” On
March 7, 1893, he wrote to Hidalgo saying:
 “My house will be finished either tomorrow or after tomorrow. It is very pretty for its price (40
pesos) and it turned out better than what I wanted. My lot cannot be better and I am improving
it every day... I’m sure that if you come, you will be pleased with my property. I have plenty of
land to accommodate at least five families with houses and orchards.”
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
 In addition to being Dapitan’s unofficial or non-governmental public health
provider, Rizal engaged in what we now call “social entrepreneurship”,
perhaps the first Filipino, if not the first Asian, to do so. Social
entrepreneurship is innovative business activity aimed principally at
benefiting and transforming the community in which it is undertaken (with
most of the profit reinvested back into the community).
 Rizal formed Dapitan’s first farmers’ cooperative, the Sociedad de
Agricultores Dapitanos (SAD), where capital was to be provided by “socios
industriales” (industrial partners) and “socios accionistas” (shareholders).
 As stated in the Estatutos de la Sociedad de Agricultores Dapitanos, 1
Enero 1895, the SAD aimed to “improve/promote agricultural products,
obtain better profits for them, provide capital for the purchase of these
goods, and help to the extent possible the harvesters and laborers by
means of a store (co-op) where articles of basic necessity are sold at
moderate prices”. Rizal also engaged in a joint-venture with a certain
Carreon (a Spanish businessman) for the construction and operation of a
lime-burner (for making building mortar), whereby Rizal would provide
capital and Carreon would mobilize and supervise labor whose wages were
to be paid by Rizal; these advances would be deducted from the sale
proceeds of lime, the profit thereof to be equally divided between Rizal
and Carreon.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
 In his four years in Dapitan, Rizal played multiple roles: doctor, social
worker, farmer, social entrepreneur, public works engineer, town planner,
school founder, teacher and scientist. He worked with the people as a civic
volunteer, for he was unwaged and without an official title. Whatever
earnings he made from his social entrepreneurship and from his wealthy
patients went to the upkeep of his household, school and hospital. He took
to his tasks with vigor and vitality—mindful that they were all part of his
pledge to do everything he could for Dapitan. Rizal’s four years there are
unparalled in the history of the Philippines, if not Southeast Asia.
 The model community that Rizal built in Talisay has since been made into a stale museum of
replicas of his house, school and clinic, sitting like fossilized relics on manicured lawns for
the benefit of the uncomprehending tourist. This shrine, which is overseen by the National
Historical Commission (formerly the National Historical Institute) but managed by the local
government, comprises 10 hectares of Rizal’s original 16-hectare property in Talisay. The
other six hectares were gifted by Rizal to his pupil and valet Jose Acopiado in 1896, when he
set off for Manila enroute to Cuba. The Acopiado heirs now occupy some three hectares; the
rest have been taken over by squatters, among them a Rizalista cult. The beach is littered
with the plastic detritus of modern living.
 Many of Rizal’s community projects must have been carried out through a system of
cooperative labor that we now call batarisan. We could likewise imagine that the many
recipients of Rizal’s services as a medical doctor, a secondary school teacher, a community
worker, and organizer/manager of his farm cooperative ‘paid’ or reciprocated by lending
their labor-time to his community projects. Thus, even with minimal financial resources, the
projects were realized by sheer community spirit.
RIZAL AWAKENED THE MIND AND PERSPECTIVE OF FILIPINOS
TOWARDS NATIONALISM
 Rizal’s chief aim was to reform Philippine society, first by uncovering its
ills and second, by awakening the Filipino youth.  His enemies were the
oppressive colonial government, but especially the corrupt elements among
the friars, members of the religious orders that exerted the greatest
influence over the government and thereby held complete sway over the
lives of the Filipinos.
 Rizal knew the best way to awaken the youth and lead them toward right
action was through education, but especially foreign education.  For local
education, being controlled by the friars then kept the Filipinos in the
dark, ignorant of their rights and heritage- and meek in the face of
oppression.  This was partly why he left for Spain in 1882, to continue his
studies there.
 Of his vision for the Filipinos, Rizal wrote his comrade
Mariano Ponce in 1888:  “Let this be our only motto: For the
welfare of the Native Land.  On the day when all Filipinos
should think like him [Del Pilar] and like us, on that day we
shall have fulfilled our arduous mission, which is the
formation of the Filipino nation”.  To Rizal that nation was a
nation free of injustice, oppression and corruption.  May the
Filipinos of today finally begin fulfilling this timeless
challenge of Rizal. (Reyno, 2012)