Rizal’s Role in Nation Building

*The noble mission pf Rizal is to alleviate the sufferings of his equal and avenging the victims of injustices and cruelties was
the cornerstone of his program to dignify men.
*Rizal sounds the call for individual regeneration with the following guiding principles:
1. man’s dignity is precious,
2. Respect for human rights is a must,
3. Every individual has a duty to love God,
4. Rizal emphasized the importance of man’s conscience and should not be sacrificed for glory,
5. Love of country is a national ideal,
6. Man should strive to attain the value of unity.

*Rizal insisted that education is the only instrument for social progress and took the following steps to improve the
education of the Filipino people:
1. He pleaded the government to take steps to improve the
Education of the filipino people.
2. He advanced all possible arguments in favor of the Filipinos need for education,
, 3. He appealed that filipino education is not contrary to Spain’s aim at Christianizing the Filipinos, and
4. He enriched his studies to abroad to see how education could bring social progress.

*For Rizal, the people’s welfare is the concern of governments. The following were his readings and observations regarding
colonial governments:

1. Colonies never understand their subject thus a colonizing country must know her colony,
2. The welfare of the country is suppressed for the interest of the state,
3. Failure to use prudence and tact in dealing with the people, and
4. Ruler’s lack of concern for the govern.

*With Rizal’s Nationalistic mission, he asked for the following reforms intended to instill in the minds of the Filipinos
courage, fortitude, perseverance, self abnegation and a broader outlook in life:

1. Greater attention, better education, better government employees, one or two representatives, and greater security to our persons
and properties,
2. He asked the following in his Noli: radical reforms in the armed forces, in the priesthood, administration of justice, paternal
treatment from the government, respect for man’s dignity,
More security for the individuals, less force in the armed forces, fewer
priviledges for the civil guards who so easily abuse what they have.

*In his El fili, Rizal expounded the following reforms:

1.freedom of the press and representation in the Spanish Cortez,

2. Secularization of the Parishes,
3. reforms in all branches of the administration,
4.encouragement of education and removing friar interference in it, 5. Higher
salaries for the deserving,
6. opportunity for appointment in the government,
7. Improvement of the moral tone of the administration,
8. creation of school of arts and trade in provincial capital of more than
16,000 people and freedom of religion.
Rizal’s Revolutionary Ideas
1. Rizal suggested that revolution will end the acts of tyrannical rule and the misery
of many setting up a new group of young , active and vigorous leaders to work out
the new destiny of the society.
2. All ideas about revolution are anchored on the proposition that All changes must
be effected in the political, economic, religious, social and intellectual spheres.
3. The use of force to accomplish a change should only as a last resort.
4. He believed that peaceful means is the best approach in seeking reforms.
Rizal’s Moral legacies for our Daily Life
1. love of God
2. purity and idealism
3. noble conduct
4. love of fellow men
5. Love of parents
6. Charity
7. Love of country
8. Courage
9. will power
10. honesty
11. devotion to truth
12. self sacrifice
13. fortitude
14. serenity
15. self control
16. initiative
17. tolerance
18. prudence
19. obedience
20. Courtesy and politeness
21. Thrift
22. Gratitude
23. Love for justice
24 living by example
Rizal’s Educational Legacies for today’s society
-Education was Rizal’s obsession for his people
-Right to Education is enshrined in the historic universal Declaration of Human Rights to
which the Philippines is one of the 48 original signatories.
* Rizal’s ideas on Education in Relation to the Role of the Government
1. Rizal asked the government to solve the problems on education
2. Rizal believed that the school is the basis of society
3. Rizal wished the education of the masses
4. Rizal batted for primary education
5. Rizal advocated vocational education
6. Rizal believed in the usefulness of science
7. Rizal believed in academic freedom.
8. Rizal emphasized the great importance of personal discipline.
9. Rizal pointed to the need of fulfilling our duties
10. Rizal’s ardent love of country exemplified the provision of the new
constitution on teaching love of country.
11. Rizal believed in man’s duty to respect the rights of others
12. Rizal would stimulate arts and letters
13. Rizal believed in an education that meets the demand of modern times.
14. Rizal championed the rights of teachers to a better pay
15. Rizal practiced a work oriented type of education
The Intellectual Legacies of Rizal
1. Poems
My Last Farewell
by Jose Rizal

Farewell, dear Fatherland, clime of the sun caress'd

Pearl of the Orient seas, our Eden lost!,
Gladly now I go to give thee this faded life's best,
And were it brighter, fresher, or more blest
Still would I give it thee, nor count the cost.
On the field of battle, 'mid the frenzy of fight,
Others have given their lives, without doubt or heed;
The place matters not-cypress or laurel or lily white,
Scaffold or open plain, combat or martyrdom's plight,
T is ever the same, to serve our home and country's need.

I die just when I see the dawn break,

Through the gloom of night, to herald the day;
And if color is lacking my blood thou shalt take,
Pour'd out at need for thy dear sake
To dye with its crimson the waking ray.

My dreams, when life first opened to me,

My dreams, when the hopes of youth beat high,
Were to see thy lov'd face, O gem of the Orient sea
From gloom and grief, from care and sorrow free;
No blush on thy brow, no tear in thine eye.

Dream of my life, my living and burning desire,

All hail ! cries the soul that is now to take flight;
All hail ! And sweet it is for thee to expire ;
To die for thy sake, that thou mayst aspire;
And sleep in thy bosom eternity's long night.
If over my grave some day thou seest grow,
In the grassy sod, a humble flower,
Draw it to thy lips and kiss my soul so,
While I may feel on my brow in the cold tomb below
The touch of thy tenderness, thy breath's warm power.

Let the moon beam over me soft and serene,

Let the dawn shed over me its radiant flashes,
Let the wind with sad lament over me keen ;
And if on my cross a bird should be seen,
Let it trill there its hymn of peace to my ashes.
Let the sun draw the vapors up to the sky,
And heavenward in purity bear my tardy protest
Let some kind soul o 'er my untimely fate sigh,
And in the still evening a prayer be lifted on high
From thee, 0 my country, that in God I may rest.

Pray for all those that hapless have died,

For all who have suffered the unmeasur'd pain;
For our mothers that bitterly their woes have cried,
For widows and orphans, for captives by torture tried
And then for thyself that redemption thou mayst gain.

And when the dark night wraps the graveyard around

With only the dead in their vigil to see
Break not my repose or the mystery profound
And perchance thou mayst hear a sad hymn resound
'T is I, O my country, raising a song unto thee.

And even my grave is remembered no more

Unmark'd by never a cross nor a stone
Let the plow sweep through it, the spade turn it o'er
That my ashes may carpet earthly floor,
Before into nothingness at last they are blown.
Then will oblivion bring to me no care
As over thy vales and plains I sweep;
Throbbing and cleansed in thy space and air
With color and light, with song and lament I fare,
Ever repeating the faith that I keep.

My Fatherland ador'd, that sadness to my sorrow lends

Beloved Filipinas, hear now my last good-by!
I give thee all: parents and kindred and friends
For I go where no slave before the oppressor bends,
Where faith can never kill, and God reigns e'er on high!

Farewell to you all, from my soul torn away,

Friends of my childhood in the home dispossessed !
Give thanks that I rest from the wearisome day !
Farewell to thee, too, sweet friend that lightened my way;
Beloved creatures all, farewell! In death there is rest !
2. Essay
3. Novels - Summary of Noli Me Tangere
Narrated in the third-person perspective, the story begins in the Philippines. Captain Tiago, a wealthy socialite, holds a dinner party to welcome Juan
Crisostomo Ibarra back to the Philippines. Ibarra, a native mestizo, has spent the past seven years studying in Europe. During dinner, Ibarra learns his father,
Don Rafael, died recently of unknown causes. Ibarra is berated by Friar Father Damaso for learning abroad what he could have learned at home. Ibarra holds
his tongue and leaves the party to visit his fiancée Maria Clara, Tiago’s daughter. En route, Ibarra chats with Civil Guard Senor Guevara, who explains that
Rafael died in jail after being imprisoned for accidentally killing a tax collector who was abusing a boy in the street. Ibarra travels to his hometown, San
Diego, accompanied by Clara. A large “All Souls Day” festival is held commemorating purgatorial souls, which Ibarra finds immoral due to profiting on
people’s pain. Ibarra finds the increased influence of the Catholic Church troubling. Father Salvi is an example of the corruption, using his religious post to
fine people who don’t attend church.

Ibarra learns from a schoolmaster of Father Damaso’s curricular meddling. Damaso insists on teachers beating children as discipline, and bans teaching
Spanish in favor of the native Philippine language, Tagalog. As alternative, Ibarra plans to build a secular school like the one Rafael always wished for.
Ibarra consults with church and government officials, fully intending to ignore their influence once the school’s built. Ibarra visits the Catholic cemetery and
learns Damaso had Rafael’s body exhumed, which has since been dumped in a lake. During the fiesta, Ibarra and local officials celebrate the opening of the
new school. As Damaso blesses the building with a sermon, the mysterious Elias arrives. Ibarra once saved Elias’s life during a fishing expedition. Elias
informs Ibarra that the others plan to kill Ibarra during the school’s christening. Ibarra disbelieves, but when a large boulder comes rolling at him as Elias
suggested, Elias shoves the man responsible in the way. The man dies, saving Ibarra’s life. The festival continues, but Ibarra is now aware of his foes.
At a dinner celebration held by Ibarra that night, Damaso arrives uninvited and begins insulting the new school, spouting racial insults to Filipinos as
“indios,” and besmirches Rafael’s death. The latter remark prompts Ibarra to attack Damaso, raise a knife to him and tell everyone Damaso exhumed
Rafael’s corpse. Ibarra nearly kills Damaso but Clara stops the blade before it stabs him. Afterwards, Ibarra is excommunicated. Tiago cancels the wedding
of Ibarra and Clara, and betroths his daughter to the Spaniard Linares. The Captain General visits San Diego from Spain, and is begged to punish Ibarra.
Since the General supports Ibarra’s school project, he refuses punishment and lifts the excommunication. Father Salvi hires Lucas, brother of the deceased
man who meant to kill Ibarra with the boulder, to frame Ibarra. Salvi is in love with Clara, and orchestrates an attack on the military barracks that he blames
on Ibarra. Salvi intends to take credit for saving the town from the attack he secretly started.

Following the siege, Ibarra is arrested as planned. He’s jailed and found guilty based on a vague letter he wrote to Clara. Elias returns and busts Ibarra out of
prison and they escape on a boat. Before fleeing town, Ibarra climbs onto Clara’s patio and bids adieu. Clara explains the she was blackmailed into releasing
the letter which led to Ibarra’s imprisonment. A man told Clara that her real father is Damaso, not Tiago. Clara relinquished the letter in order to keep this a
secret from Tiago and to honor her deceased mother. Clara expresses deep regret for her betrayal and reinforces her undying love for Ibarra. Ibarra and Elias
bid farewell and begin rowing into the night. As they travel, the debate the merits of revolution and whether a change within this system is better than
outright overthrowing it. During their discussion, the men are attacked by another boat. As a distraction, Elias decides to leap off the boat while Ibarra
continues rowing. Elias tells Ibarra to meet him on Christmas Eve in San Diego, where Ibarra’s grandfather is buried with his family fortune. Elias dives into
the water and is chased by the boat until the attackers spot blood in the water and assume Elias is dead.

In San Diego, Clara tells Damaso she cannot marry Linares because she’s not in love with him. Clara cites a newspaper falsely claiming Ibarra’s death as the
reason she no longer wishes to live, and joins a convent as a result. On Christmas Eve, Elias appears in the woods to meet Ibarra, who never shows up. Elias
is wounded and tells the young Basilio that he is about to die. Elias asks Basilio to burn his corpse along with Basilio’s mother’s, Sisa’s, on a pyre. As Elias
looks up to the sky dying, he utters: “I die without seeing dawn’s light shining on my country…You, who will see it, welcome it for me…don’t forget those
who fell during the nighttime.” Ibarra’s fate remains a mystery.
Summary of El Filibusterismo
El Filibusterismo comes with the Crisostomo Ibarra is back and as Simoun. During the period in between the story line of Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo which is 13 years, Ibarra left the Philippines and became a wealthy jeweler. He came back to the
Philippines as Senor Simoun, disguised with a beard. He seems to have long abandoned his once vision of ending the despotism of Spain
with words and peace. He becomes hungry for vengeance for all the misfortune our country has suffered under the tyranny of the
Spaniards. And near the end of the novel, when he discovers that his lover, Maria Clara, died in the convent, he becomes all the more
furious. Simoun is a confidant of the Captain-General. He encourages the government to make bad decisions and to abuse their power so
that it would spark a revolution among the masses. Basilio, now all grown up, is at first reluctant to join in on Simoun’s idea but ends up
being part of the plan. Simoun started planning uprisings and stashed guns in the shop of an ally. At the wedding reception of newlyweds
(the bride being the ex-girlfriend of one of the friends of Basillo—Isagani), Simoun tells Basilio that his plan was to conceal an explosive
which contains nitroglycerin inside a pomegranate-styled Kerosene lamp that Simoun will give to the newlyweds as a gift during the
wedding reception. The reception will take place at the former home of the late Captain Tiago, which was now filled with explosives
planted by Simoun. According to Simoun, the lamp will stay lighted for only 20 minutes before it flickers; if someone attempts to turn the
wick, it will explode and kill everyone—important members of civil society and the Church hierarchy—inside the house. Simoun leaves
the reception early and leaves a note with the words: “Mene Thecel Phares” which means “the future is predetermined” and is generally
implied that a bad event is going to happen. Simoun signed it with his real name “Juan Crisostomo Ibarra”. The people at the reception
were shocked because Ibarra is supposedly dead. One of the priests who knew Ibarra before the ending of Noli Me Tangere confirmed to
the people that it was the writing of Ibarra. The lamp started to dim… Outside the house, Basilio
was about to walk away because he knew the lamp was going to explode anytime soon when he saw
Isagani, the still heart-broken ex-boyfriend of the bride whose reception was still going on in the house of
Capitan Tiago. Isagani said that he just wanted to congratulate the newly-weds. Basilio who then feared for
the safety of his friend told him about the plan of Simoun. Isagani ran to the house. A priest was about to
fix the lamp but once Isagani got in, he found the lamp and threw it out the window into the river outside
the residence. Since the guards were chasing Isagani, he himself jumped out of the window into the river
as well. There was an uprising planned by Simoun during the time of the reception. The band got caught
and confessed that Simoun lead them. Ibarra was now wanted both as himself and as Simoun. Days passed
and a good priest found Simoun walking along the shore, wounded and weak. The noble priest tended to
Simoun while the latter explained that he is Ibarra and that he was greatly saddened and angry due to the
failure of the revolution and that he was questioning God as to why he was the one who is suffering and
not the ones who have forsaken the people of the Philippines. The priest explains that all punishments will
come in due time. Ibarra died as he weakly held the hand of the priest. The latter blessed the former and
threw away all the remaining jewels of Ibarra in the hopes that they may always be used for good.