Looking for Jose Rizal

The problem with Jose Rizal is that he is very famous and his face is so familiar. The picture of his bust is on the one-peso coin, even as its value has diminished embarrassingly through the years. Many streets in the Philippine archipelago are named after him, and every town plaza has a park with a corner featuring his statue wearing the familiar overcoat. And here lies the paradox of being so famous, so overexposed—he has become so ordinary that only a few people seem to remember who he really was, what he has done for our country, or why he was killed in Luneta in the first place. A subject on Rizal’s life and works is a required course in college, thanks to the “Rizal Law" in the 1950s. The emphasis of the teaching is on Rizal’s two novels, the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. These works helped inspired the members of the Katipunan to revolt against Spain in 1896, and were banned by the Catholic church from its colegios and universities. Until now, the good fathers and friars, and of course the bishops, are allergic to the name “Padre Damaso." Before the Christmas holidays, I was invited to be one of the chaperons of a group of students from Miriam College for their Kasaysayan field trip. So one Sunday morning, I went looking for the physical traces of our national hero wearing my maroon Rizal t-shirt that had a print of his handsome face and an excerpt from Noli: “I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land. You who have it to see welcome it and forget not those who have fallen during the night." The first stop was Paco Park, a round-shaped cemetery surrounded with high walls of coral stones. It was built outside Intramuros during the Spanish colonial period for the victims of cholera. After he was executed on December 30, 1896, Rizal was buried here in an unmarked grave by the Spanish authorities. It was only in 1898 when the American authorities permitted the family of Rizal to exhume his remains. The family kept the relics for a while until our national hero was interred permanently in the Rizal Monument in the middle of Luneta Park in 1911. The second stop was Fort Santiago and the Light and Sound Museum in Intramuros. This is where Rizal was incarcerated. It is believed that he wrote his famous “Mi Ultimo Adios" in his prison cell in Fort Santiago the night before he was executed. The Light and Sound Museum is a very entertaining retelling of the history of the Republic of the Philippines, beginning with the earliest Filipino found in Palawan’s Tabon Caves and ending with the contemporary period. It also features the important characters in the novels of Rizal. The third stop was the Jose Rizal Shrine in Calamba, the little town where Rizal spent his happy childhood with his big family. The present Rizal House is a replica of the original structure. The house is just beside the rustic Catholic church. A few years ago, the house became controversial when the National Historical Institute painted its exterior green; according to the institute, it is the original color of the house. When I saw it, I did not find the shade of green disturbing at all. In fact it was kind to the eyes, especially when the sun is shining very brightly. The fourth and last stop was the Paciano Mercado House in the poblacion of Los Baños, Laguna. It is a small but beautiful house on the shores of Laguna de Bay, where Rizal’s older brother spent the last days of his life. Among his siblings, Paciano was the one who worked hard so that Rizal could live in Spain and become active in the propaganda movement. Many historians, especially those who are advocating that history should be written from the point of view of the struggles of the ordinary people, often question the “national hero" status of Rizal. They even brand Rizal as an “American-sponsored" hero.

The spot where Rizal was buried in Paco Park. John Iremil E. Teodoro

Indeed Rizal came from the elite, from the ilustrado, the landed and moneyed class in this country that shifts loyalties whenever they need to protect their business interests. They are the ones who supported the Spanish authorities, pledged allegiance to the United States during the American colonization, and became collaborators during the brief Japanese occupation. In spite of his being an ilustrado, however, I believe Rizal has a special place in our hearts as Filipinos because he dared to speak out against the abuses of the Spanish authorities. In the process, his family suffered. He wrote two great novels, as well as many poems and essays, which inspired the Filipino people to revolt against the colonizers. Rizal was killed because of what he had written: the lives and struggles of the ordinary people during his time. He should be venerated for that, but sadly, until today, despite our post-colonial status, writers are still being killed in our country. In fact, our country has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. On the bus from Laguna full of exhausted colegialas, I had a few realizations. One, from time to time we need to visit sacred places where our heroes once lived or died, not just to take pictures for Facebook but to embrace the physicality of the past. We need to be reminded to do our role as citizens of a free republic, and to take care of the gift of independence, knowing that our heroes gave up their lives for this cause. Two, we have to take history seriously if we want to move forward as a people and as a country. And three, we should be grateful that we have our own country today because Rizal and his contemporaries dared to imagine that we can be a free race and to fight for it. We are still not free politically and economically speaking, but we can do something towards this self-determination as Filipinos who are truly sovereign. Looking for Rizal is not an easy thing because this is tantamount to looking for our identity as Filipinos who are proud of our country, the Philippines, in spite of the ugly things happening here today. Looking for Rizal is to love our nation, warts and all. – YA, GMANews.TV J.I.E. TEODORO is an assistant professor of Filipino at Miriam College in Quezon City. He has won several Palanca awards for his works and a National Book Award for creative nonfiction from the Manila Critics Circle and the National Book Development Board. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from De La Salle University-Manila.