By Conrado de Quiros
ACTIVISTS three decades ago felt that Rizal's ascendance to the pantheon of the world's greatest people was foisted on the Filipinos by the American colonial government that wasn't particularly eager to stoke the fires of unrest.
Rizal was safe, Bonifacio was not. Rizal's rebellion was acceptable: He was ilustrado and he rejected armed struggle. Bonifacio's was not: He was plebeian and advocated the violent overthrow of colonial rule.
The American colonial government's motives notwithstanding--true enough, they preferred Rizal to Bonifacio for the most reactionary reasons--Rizal richly deserves to be national hero. Bonifacio does too. Why can't we have two national heroes standing side by side. There's political or moral impediment to it. And it would make for a powerful--and accurate--statement about the history of this country.
The case for Rizal is easy to see. There's no way you can knock the guy down from his pedestal. His accomplishments plant him there more firmly than glue. The fact that he turned his back on Bonifacio's project--dramatized in the musical play ''1896'' by his scorning Bonifacio's emissaries--doesn't make him any less revolutionary than Bonifacio.
Rizal's whole life was revolutionary in the extreme, his very being was subversive in the extreme. He represented the one thing the Spaniards hated, and feared, most--a proud and capable indio.
Extraordinary indio
The sway of colonialism, as Rizal and Bonifacio knew then, and as Franz Fanon would later articulate for the wretched of the earth, didn't just depend on armory, it depended on psychology. It didn't just depend on the indios being awed by the Spaniards' military superiority, it depended on their being awed by the Spaniards' apparent mental superiority.
As it turned out, Rizal wasn't just a capable indio, he was a most extraordinary one. He wasn't just as good as any Spaniard, he was better. From where the Spaniards stood, that made him a walking subversive.
Each time Rizal tried to excel--and he did so routinely, writing, painting, treating the sick, philosophizing, loving, becoming the first true-blue Malay Renaissance man--he did not merely raise himself, he swung at the foundations of Spanish rule. And it's not as though Rizal himself was oblivious to the significance of what he was doing.
The core of his writing was protest. The core of his writing was affirmation of the Filipino. In a period that produced exceptional satirists--Marcelo del Pilar and Lopez Jaena were past masters at it--Rizal stood heads and shoulders above everyone.
Whether he was apologizing for the Filipinos' ''bad habit'' of taking a bath everyday, which he said naturally assailed the fine nostrils of Spaniards who were used to smelling perfume, or directly assailing Fray Damaso for his incontinence, he was in his element. How the friars must have bristled at the contumely!
The first Filipino
But he wasn't just saying no to oppression, he was also saying yes to enlightenment. He was saying yes to a Filipino race that could be free and prosperous and wise.
The ''first Filipino,'' Leon Ma. Guerrero called him, and in the deepest sense, that is true. No one better represented the best that the Filipino could be. No one better saw what the Filipino was and could be. Rizal didn't just write about how things were in his time. He wrote about the past and future. He wrote of the Philippines before the coming of the Spaniards, based on the writings of Retana, and he wrote about the Philippines a century from where he was, based on his grasp of events. No one had a keener sense of Philippine history, no one had a keener sense of Filipino identity.
''Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa pinaroroonan.'' That's what he always preached. Those who cannot see where they came from will never get to where they are going. He wasn't just one to preach, he was one to do as he preached.
He also said a people who did not have their own language smelled like stale fish. But that's another story.
If all this isn't revolutionary--even by today's standards--I don't know what is. It is certainly so according to a more ''postmodernist'' view of life and the world, a view that says a revolution isn't just about taking over a state, or grabbing power, it is also about empowering the people, it is also about making the people realize their destiny is in their hands. By that understanding of revolution, Rizal was as revolutionary, if not more so, than anyone who took arms against tyranny. He did not merely help to raze one, he gave a vision of the magnificent edifice that could rise in its place.
Unprepared revolution
Indeed, looking back, you wonder if he wasn't right to caution against an ''unprepared'' revolution, the unpreparedness having far less to do with lack of arms than with lack of temperance. The way revolutions have gone in this country, with their tragic excesses, it seems more like water thrown at a raging fire than a party spoiler.
And, well, the guy was the original ''serve the people'' person. Probably more remarkable than that Rizal was a certifiable genius was that he put that genius to work for his country.
Juan Flavier, who has given up trying to convince UP medicine graduates to spend time in the barrio, should positively shed tears of joy at Rizal's sojourn in Dapitan. How many geniuses will allow themselves to end up in a Dapitan? Multinational companies seem preferable. Well, many geniuses of the First Quarter Storm did end up in the 1970s version of Dapitan, which were Camps Aguinaldo and Bonifacio. But that's another story.
There is no greater love for country than giving up one's life for it. Rizal didn't say that, Bonifacio did. But no matter. He did better. He did it.
If that finally doesn't make for a national hero, what does?
ACTIVISTS three decades ago felt that Rizal's ascendance to the pantheon of the world's greatest people was foisted on the Filipinos by the American colonial government that wasn't particularly eager to stoke the fires of unrest.
Rizal was safe, Bonifacio was not. Rizal's rebellion was acceptable: He was ilustrado and he rejected armed struggle. Bonifacio's was not: He was plebeian and advocated the violent overthrow of colonial rule.
The American colonial government's motives notwithstanding--true enough, they preferred Rizal to Bonifacio for the most reactionary reasons--Rizal richly deserves to be national hero. Bonifacio does too. Why can't we have two national heroes standing side by side. There's political or moral impediment to it. And it would make for a powerful--and accurate--statement about the history of this country.
The case for Rizal is easy to see. There's no way you can knock the guy down from his pedestal. His accomplishments plant him there more firmly than glue. The fact that he turned his back on Bonifacio's project--dramatized in the musical play ''1896'' by his scorning Bonifacio's emissaries--doesn't make him any less revolutionary than Bonifacio.
Rizal's whole life was revolutionary in the extreme, his very being was subversive in the extreme. He represented the one thing the Spaniards hated, and feared, most--a proud and capable indio.
Extraordinary indio
The sway of colonialism, as Rizal and Bonifacio knew then, and as Franz Fanon would later articulate for the wretched of the earth, didn't just depend on armory, it depended on psychology. It didn't just depend on the indios being awed by the Spaniards' military superiority, it depended on their being awed by the Spaniards' apparent mental superiority.
As it turned out, Rizal wasn't just a capable indio, he was a most extraordinary one. He wasn't just as good as any Spaniard, he was better. From where the Spaniards stood, that made him a walking subversive.
Each time Rizal tried to excel--and he did so routinely, writing, painting, treating the sick, philosophizing, loving, becoming the first true-blue Malay Renaissance man--he did not merely raise himself, he swung at the foundations of Spanish rule. And it's not as though Rizal himself was oblivious to the significance of what he was doing.
The core of his writing was protest. The core of his writing was affirmation of the Filipino. In a period that produced exceptional satirists--Marcelo del Pilar and Lopez Jaena were past masters at it--Rizal stood heads and shoulders above everyone.
Whether he was apologizing for the Filipinos' ''bad habit'' of taking a bath everyday, which he said naturally assailed the fine nostrils of Spaniards who were used to smelling perfume, or directly assailing Fray Damaso for his incontinence, he was in his element. How the friars must have bristled at the contumely!
The first Filipino
But he wasn't just saying no to oppression, he was also saying yes to enlightenment. He was saying yes to a Filipino race that could be free and prosperous and wise.
The ''first Filipino,'' Leon Ma. Guerrero called him, and in the deepest sense, that is true. No one better represented the best that the Filipino could be. No one better saw what the Filipino was and could be. Rizal didn't just write about how things were in his time. He wrote about the past and future. He wrote of the Philippines before the coming of the Spaniards, based on the writings of Retana, and he wrote about the Philippines a century from where he was, based on his grasp of events. No one had a keener sense of Philippine history, no one had a keener sense of Filipino identity.
''Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa pinaroroonan.'' That's what he always preached. Those who cannot see where they came from will never get to where they are going. He wasn't just one to preach, he was one to do as he preached.
He also said a people who did not have their own language smelled like stale fish. But that's another story.
If all this isn't revolutionary--even by today's standards--I don't know what is. It is certainly so according to a more ''postmodernist'' view of life and the world, a view that says a revolution isn't just about taking over a state, or grabbing power, it is also about empowering the people, it is also about making the people realize their destiny is in their hands. By that understanding of revolution, Rizal was as revolutionary, if not more so, than anyone who took arms against tyranny. He did not merely help to raze one, he gave a vision of the magnificent edifice that could rise in its place.
Unprepared revolution
Indeed, looking back, you wonder if he wasn't right to caution against an ''unprepared'' revolution, the unpreparedness having far less to do with lack of arms than with lack of temperance. The way revolutions have gone in this country, with their tragic excesses, it seems more like water thrown at a raging fire than a party spoiler.
And, well, the guy was the original ''serve the people'' person. Probably more remarkable than that Rizal was a certifiable genius was that he put that genius to work for his country.
Juan Flavier, who has given up trying to convince UP medicine graduates to spend time in the barrio, should positively shed tears of joy at Rizal's sojourn in Dapitan. How many geniuses will allow themselves to end up in a Dapitan? Multinational companies seem preferable. Well, many geniuses of the First Quarter Storm did end up in the 1970s version of Dapitan, which were Camps Aguinaldo and Bonifacio. But that's another story.
There is no greater love for country than giving up one's life for it. Rizal didn't say that, Bonifacio did. But no matter. He did better. He did it.
If that finally doesn't make for a national hero, what does?
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