RIOT, Rizal In Our Time

2006-09-17T11:33:00.000+08:00

The Fili off the press

Apt image from Monceau who captions it ‘Book press relief with owl’ (flickr.com/); I like it because it looks sufficiently ancient. On 18 September 1891, Rizal writes from Ghent that he is sending Jose Ma Basa 2 copies of his 2^nd book El Filibusterismo, one for their friend Sixto Lopez, both of them in the Philippines.

If by the following mail I receive passage money, I will sail on 4 October and will arrive there on the 4^th or 5^th of November, bringing with me some 800 copies. It is fitting then for you there to read these two volumes without much noise in order that they may not be able to prevent the entry of the remainder into Manila.

In the collection of letters printed as the book Rizal Correspondence With Fellow Reformers (National Historical Institute, 1992), there is no other letter previous to this one (page 595) dated September. Nothwithstanding, if I were Rizal, I would have sent the first copy to my friend Blumentritt; I would surmise he did that the day before, on 17 September, which I would further surmise was the day the book came off the press. If you were the author of a second book, a radical book at that, you would want to send a copy to your family and your best friend at once, wouldn’t you? I would.

2006-08-05T13:25:00.000+08:00

In search of reason,
in defense of the faith

Image from T.P.O. which he captions 'In search of reason' (flickr.com/). Text from Gregorio F Zaide’s Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings (Manila, National Book Store, 2003: 216-217), these lines about Rizal’s own defense of himself:

When Lt Taviel de Andrade took his seat, the court asked Rizal whether he had anything to say. Rizal then read a supplement to his defense which he wrote in his prison cell. In his supplementary defense he further proved his innocence by twelve points:

1. He could not be guilty of rebellion, for he advised Dr Pio Valenzuela in Dapitan not to rise in revolution.

2. He did not correspond with the radical, revolutionary elements.

3. The revolutionists used his name without his knowledge. If he were guilty he could have escaped in Singapore.

4. If he had a hand in the revolution, he could have escaped in a Moro vinta and would not have built a home, a hospital, and bought lands in Dapitan.

5. If he were the chief of the revolution, why was he not consulted by the revolutionists?

6. It was true he wrote the by-laws of the Liga Filipina, but this is only a civic association – not a revolutionary society.

7. The Liga Filipina did not live long, for after the first meeting he was banished to Dapitan and it died out.

8. If the Liga was reorganized nine months later, he did not know about it.

9. The Liga did not serve the purpose of the revolutionists, otherwise they would not have supplanted it with the Katipunan.

10. If it were true that there were some bitter comments in Rizal’s letters, it was because they were written in 1890 when his family was being persecuted, being dispossessed of houses, warehouses, lands, etc and his brother and all brothers-in-law were deported.

11. His life in Dapitan had been exemplary as the politico-military commanders and missionary priests could attest.

12. It was not true that the revolution was inspired by his one speech at the house of Doroteo Ongjunco, as alleged by witnesses whom he would like to confront. His friends knew his opposition to armed rebellion. Why did the Katipunan send an emissary to Dapitan who was unknown to him? Because those who knew him were aware that he would never sanction any violent movement.

I’m sorry to say this, but if I were the military court, I could easily refute all the arguments of Rizal except perhaps one or two.

1. He could have openly advised Valenzuela against the revolution but secretly supported it.

2. That he did not correspond with the radicals did not mean that he did not support them.

3. He could claim that the radicals used his name without his knowledge, but where’s the proof? No proof that he could have escaped in Singapore either.

4. No proof either that he could have escaped in a Moro vinta. The home and hospital he built, the lands he bought in Dapitan do not prove anything – they could only be camouflage of his true intentions.

5. No proof that that he was not consulted by the revolutionists.

6. The Liga Filipina could have been a front.

7. The Liga Filipina died after Rizal was banished to Dapitan. Granted.

8. No proof that he did not know that the Liga was reorganized nine months later.

9. In fact, the Liga served the purpose of the radicals – it was a front.

10. There is no excuse for bad words in oral or written form.

11. That his life in Dapitan had been exemplary could just be to hide his true intentions.

12. Point well-taken. Those who knew him were aware that he would never sanction the taking up of arms – at that time.

2 out of 12 and you’re out!

Actually, the problem was not that Rizal argued poorly (assuming that his lawyer argued well) – but that he argued at all. This was a military court all right, but all the odds were against him. Did Rizal feel that logic would sway those gentlemen to his side? He did. It was his high regard for the intelligence of the human race. Surely, they would do him justice?

That was his big mistake. If I were Rizal, if I knew that my life was at stake any which way, I would not have argued. Instead of appealing to reason, I would have appealed to faith.

This was the best time! Rizal studied his Bible very well; he would have known and should have done a St Paul the size of a king. We go to the book of Acts 25-26, inclusive verses. Paul had been captured and had appealed that he stand trial before the tribunal of Caesar:

I am standing before the tribunal of Caesar and this is where I should be tried. I have done the Jews no wrong, as you very well know. If I am guilty of committing any capital crime, I do not ask to be spared the death penalty. But if there is no substance to the accusations these persons bring against me, no one has a right to surrender me to them. I appeal to Caesar.

On his part, Rizal could have appealed to General Camilo Garcia de Polavieja, who later showed the heart of a dictator: he led an attempted coup in Spain when that country lost the Spanish-American War in 1898 (Wikipedia). It would have been a drowning man clinging on straw, but Rizal had everything to gain and everything to lose. It would have been a wise gamble: A dictator has a soft heart somewhere and Rizal was an eloquent speaker when he chose to be.

On his part Paul did not appeal to King Agrippa’s reason. He knew better. He appealed to his belief in God. He told the king about what happened on his way to Damascus, his own conversion from killer to healer, from barbarian to Christian, and finally asked the king whether he himself believed in Moses and the prophets.

And to all that, King Agrippa replied: ‘A little more, Paul, and you will make a Christian out of me.’

Did King Agrippa say that sarcastically, or did he actually mean what he said? He meant what he said. He pronounced Paul innocent!

For Rizal to appeal to Polavieja was well worth a try. It was worth a life to try. Sadly, he failed to realize that reason would get him nowhere. He was logical and deadly wrong.

2006-08-02T12:11:00.000+08:00

To Love And To Hold

How much can you love – and hold?

A diary entry that reveals much of Jose Rizal, lover (from Gregorio F Zaide, Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, Manila, National Book Store, 2003: 119):

Japan has pleased me. The beautiful scenery, the flowers, the trees, and the inhabitants – so peaceful, so courteous, and so pleasant. O-Sei-San, Sayonara, Sayonara! I have spent a lovely golden month; I do not know if I can have another one like that in all my life. Love, money, friendship, appreciation, honors – these have not been wanting.

To think that I am leaving this life for the uncertain, the unknown. There I was offered an easy way to live, beloved and esteemed ...

To you I dedicate the final chapter of these memoirs of my youth. No woman, like you, has ever loved me. No woman, like you, has ever sacrificed for me. Like the flower of the chodji that falls from the strem fresh and whole without falling leaves or without withering – with poetry still despite its fall – thus you fell. Neither have you lost your purity nor have the delicate petals of your innocence faded – Sayonara, Sayonara!

You shall never return to know that I have once more thought of you and that your image lives in my memory; and undoubtedly, I am always thinking of you. Your name lives in the sighs of my lips, your image accompanies and animates all my thoughts. When shall I return to pass another divine afternoon like that in the temple of Meguro? When shall the sweet hours I spent with you return? When shall I find them sweeter, more tranquil, more pleasing? You the color of the camellia, its freshness, its elegance ... Ah! Last descendant of a noble family, faithful to an unfortunate vengeance, you are lovely like ... everything has ended! Sayonara, Sayonara!

How much can you love – and withhold?

You and I have been reading about love in the physical sense – and spiritual sense. Rizal was a man; the letter was written in April 1888; he was 27 at that time – he was capable of love, and marriage. And here was happiness being offered on a silver platter: love, money, friendship, appreciation, honors, he says. Enough temptation for a lesser man. But he was not a lesser man. He did not take advantage of all that; he did not make love to O-Sei-San given that she was willing and able: ‘Neither have you lost your purity nor have the delicate petals of your innocence faded.’ He could love, but he could also withhold. My hero!

The very apt image is from JTravassos who captions it 'When a man loves a woman' (flickr.com/.) You can almost feel the attraction as well as the restraint, the tension and the retention, the two becoming one, emphasis on becoming.

Love offered on a silver platter and the lover withholds? Yes. I believe it. I’m no hero, but I did that myself once or twice. If you set your heart to a higher ideal, you can do it. It strikes me now that Rizal was Roman Catholic when it came to all the women he loved!

2006-07-28T04:43:00.000+08:00

Ateneo's favorite son,
an agriculturist?
Image captioned simply 'Agriculture' by MidnightSoleil (flickr.com/), source text by Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, National Bookstore 2003: 27). While he was studying at the University of Santo Tomas, Rizal also studied at the Ateneo In those days, Ateneo offered courses in agriculture, commerce, mechanics and surveying. I don't know why Ateneo forgot agriculture but not his favorite son: when he was in Dapitan, he was both a doctor and an agriculturist, among other things. He planned his North Borneo project with people and agriculture in mind. He could not have gotten away from Calamba to Madrid without agriculture - his father was a rich sugarcane farmer. Now I know why those friars in Calamba in those days bungled their hacienda - they were poor agriculturists! (Or poor farm managers, which makes it worst.) Meanwhile, Ateneo excels, but not in agriculture - why not? Rizal had gold medals in agriculture and topography. I would give each a gold medal to MidnightSoleil and Zaide for their works, their humanity in their works. Now then, I challenge Ateneo to offer BS Agriculture and not copy UP, which has too much science and not enough humanity.

2006-07-26T08:38:00.000+08:00

Rizal's retraction,
26 July 2006
Image by Mia 2447 (flickr.com/); at the top, she writes 'I wish I were a Catholic for a split second' and at the bottom of the photo she continues, ' so I could go to church here.' In December 1896, 110 years ago, the Philippine national hero Jose Rizal had one last chance to become Roman Catholic again - if he would just prepare and/or sign a retraction letter. Did he or didn't he? I have my own answer now, which I shall give you in a little while but, first, let us examine the retraction letter in its fullness. Here it is, from Gregorio F Zaide's Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings (2003: 223):

I declare that I am a Catholic, and in this religion, in which I was born and educated, I wish to live and die.
I retract with all my heart anything in my words, writings, publications and conduct that has been contrary to my character as a child of the Church. I believe and profess what it teaches. I submit to what it demands. I abominate Masonry as an enemy of the Church and as a society prohibited by it.
The Diocesan Prelate, as the superior ecclesiastical authority, may make this manifestation public. I declare this spontaneously, in order to repair any scandal which my acts may have caused and so that God and man may pardon me.
Manila, December 29th, 1896.
Jose Rizal

That is a beautiful piece of writing if you haven't noticed.

Rizal was born a Catholic; he was raised and educated a Catholic; he lived a Catholic until he went to Europe. I have this crazy thought just now: Did Rizal leave abruptly for Europe without saying goodbye except to a few because he wanted out of Roman Catholicism and could not bear to see for himself the hurt in the eyes of his family and friends? I believe it was one big reason for the French leave.

‘I retract with all my heart anything ... that has been contrary to ... the Church.’ One of these things would be his extreme ridicule of Catholic practice – by both priest and parishioner, master and slave, friar and Filipino – in the Philippines from the late 1870s to the late 1880s. And where do you find that ridicule? Right under your nose; even the students know where to look. Read Noli Me Tangere again!

The disrespect was too much. I do not wonder now why the Catholic Church was vehemently against Claro M Recto’s bill that eventually became the Rizal Law. And the Church was right: Having studied the Noli all these years, we have taken for granted that what the Noli paints about Catholicism is all that needs be said about Catholicism: a painting is worth a thousand words; a book is worth a thousand paintings. Why, in 1887 right after the book came out in March, even Rizal’s friends complained that Rizal could have painted the positive side of the natives instead of the negative, which was what everybody else have been painting all along. I would have written Rizal a stinging letter myself!

Oh, I am a Catholic and in this religion in which I was born and educated I wish to live and die. We had religion class in high school; in college, at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, I heard mass fervently if not frequently. But I did not look at the retraction letter like I’m looking at it now like this: a concise, strong, moving, almost literary piece. The cadence, if I understand cadence, is powerful and just right – I cannot but conclude that it is Rizal’s and nobody else.

Rizal retracted because he believed it was right, finally! For his family, for his friends, for himself. I understand he said to one of the priests who accompanied him on his personal death march: ‘My pride was my downfall.’ And at the very end, what did he shout? ‘Consummatum est!’ It is finished! The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fit perfectly.

2006-06-12T23:29:00.000+08:00

Pancit: Good food,
bad mathematics
Pancit is one of the favorite foods of the Filipinos. The pancit, made up of long thin noodles, is of Chinese origin (photo by patriciaofoz in flickr). Jose Rizal is also of Chinese origin, his great-great-grandfather being Domingo Lamco, a native of Chinchew, China's City of Springs (Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, 2003: 5). And Rizal was fond of pancit. When he was staying in Brussels in 1890, he stayed in a modest boarding house with Jose Albert, later with Jose Alejandrino. Alejandro tells the story of Rizal's pancit (146):

In Brussels, we took our meals in a house and Rizal on one occasion suggested that we eat pancit. We were spending so much a day and so we spent one day's appropriations for the purchase of the necessary ingredients. It seems, however, that he commited an error in his calculations this time for we spent more than what we intended to have. In order to remedy the error we were compelled to have pancit for lunch and supper for two days.

When you make a mistake, you have to pay for it.

2006-06-11T17:38:00.000+08:00

Condemned to sunrise
From Barcelona, Rizal writes his family on 23 June 1882, more than a month after he ran away to Europe: At the beginning, the sailing was good. We passed opposite Greece, the Island of Candia; on the 10th, with good weather, we sighted the coast of Italy; the first town we saw was (unreadable) with a very beautiful beach which at the time a train was crossing. Thence the sailing was very pleasant on account of the beauty of the Italian coasts, thickly populated and well cultivated, presenting a picturesque aspect, full of life and poetry. xxx On the same afternoon of the 10t6h we passed through the Strait of Messina with a sea so smooth that we didn't notice a single wave. xxx A city viewed at night with beacons of different colors and electric lights that seemed to wander from one place to another seemed to me a monster with a thousand restless and distrustful eyes. We deferred then for the next day our curiosity. I am condemned to see cities at sunrise which surprise a traveler who sees a pleasant thing suddenly and not gradually.

The photo shown here is from se.inf.ethz.ch/ and simply titled 'Sunrise in Spain.' It is a magnificent view, and so I am surprised that Rizal would prefer not to see a city first at sunrise. He is thinking of studying a city. He is thinking too rationally he allows his logical mind to ignore the beauty of the surprise.

2006-06-11T16:53:00.000+08:00

In Sumatra,
where we
all started?
Look at these women smiling and thinking even as they 'express hope' (text by Don Northup, photo by US Navy Tyler J Clements, pbase.com/). They all look like Filipinas, don't they? Their attitude towards disaster is also Filipina-like; this photo was taken after the devastating tsunami last year (2005). Jose Rizal would not have been surprised. It was he who found 'many similarities between the customs of the Sumatrans and the Filipinos' which had led to the scientific theory (not Rizal's) that the Filipinos had come from Sumatra. He believed not that the ancient Filipinos came from Sumatra but that the Sumatrans and the Filipinos, among others, may have come from the same stock, and have developed a little differently for having been 'exposed to many foreign and powerful factors that have influenced their customs as well as their nature.' Rizal's letter to Blumentritt, 17 April 1890. Lovely people.

2006-06-11T13:42:00.000+08:00

The power of the pen
Here is a quill pen, like that used by writers in the time of Rizal in the 19th century. 'The pen is mightier than the sword' according to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, playwright, and as a writer I find that I agree with Bulwer-Lytton. Rizal himself was not only a playwright; he was also poet, novelist, essayist in languages (German, Spanish, English) other than his own (Tagalog). Gregorio F Zaide writes (Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, 2003: 111): Hounded by powerful enemies, Rizal was forced to go abroad for a second time in February 1888. He was then a full-grown man of 27 years of age, a practising physician, and a recognized man-of-letters. The first time he went abroad in June 1882, he was a mere lad of 21, a youthful student in search of wisdom in the Old World, a romantic idealist with beautiful dreams of emancipating his people from bondage by the magic power of his pen.

And with that, as a writer I find I agree with Zaide too. Except that the pen oftentimes becomes the writer's master and not his tool, his slave. To me, Rizal's writings did not succeed in freeing his people from the bondage of their tribalism. That is Rizal's Unfinished Revolution.

2006-06-10T15:55:00.000+08:00

Close a window, open a door
He didn’t know it, but Rizal was leaving Europe for the last time. He was going home one way or the other. He left Marseilles on 18 October 1891 on board the SS Melbourne. Gregorio F Zaide tells the story (Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, 2003: 174): There were 80 first-class passengers – mostly Europeans, including two Spaniards who were going to Amoy. Rizal was the only Asian among them. xxx Among the passengers were several German ladies who were having their dinner. Rizal was with them on the same table. One of the ladies said in German to her companion: ‘If this man in front of me is a gentleman, he would close the window of the porthole.’ ¶ Hearing her remarks, Rizal rose, close the porthole, and resumed his seat. Then he conversed in fluent German with the surprised German ladies. Since then they treated him with admiration and respect, for they had learned a lesson that a brown-skinned Asian could speak German well and be a cultured gentleman.

When you close someone else’s window, someone will open a door for you.

2006-06-10T14:25:00.000+08:00

It takes two to
give to the poor.
Photo shows a painting of Renato Enriquez with Jose Rizal practicing his art and science of medicine on his mother who was going blind. The mother is rich. Not so the other patients of Rizal in Dapitan, Zamboanga, a thousand kilometers away from home in Calamba, Laguna. Gregorio F Zaide tells a story: Rizal practiced medicine in Dapitan. He had many patients, but most of them were poor, so that he even gave them free medicine. To his friend in Hongkong, Dr Marquez, he wrote: ‘Here the people are so poor that I have even to give medicine gratis.’ He had, however, some rich patients who paid him handsomely for his surgical skill.

Isn’t that robbing the rich to give to the poor? That gives me an idea: One way for the rich to give to the poor is for the rich to give more to their doctors and nurses, but especially their drivers, maids and servants, not to forget to pay their proper income taxes so that our poor government can give more to our teachers and public servants. And do you know who will be blessed? What goes around comes around.

2006-06-10T10:42:00.000+08:00

Wrath of the gods
The little gods in Calamba who came from Europe were mad at the little man from Calamba who was in Europe. It was 1890. It was a terrible time for the Calambeños. More terrible news reached Rizal in Madrid as he was waging a futile fight for justice. From his brother-in-law Silvestre Ubaldo, he received a copy of the ejectment order by the Dominicans against Francisco Rizal his father and other Calamba tenants. From his sister Saturnina, he learned of the deportation of Paciano Rizal, Antonino Lopez, Silvestre Ubaldo, Mateo Elejorde, and Dandoy to Mindoro; these unfortunate deportees were arrested in Calamba and were shipped out of Manila on 6 September 1890. He further learned from Saturnina's letter that their parents had been forcibly ejected from their home and were then living in the house of Narcisa, Antonino's wife. Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, 2003: 154. Photo by Thomas J Wright, cross at St Patrick's Cathedral, Ireland

They were trying to destroy the spirit of Rizal, who had written against them in the subversive book Noli Me Tangere, which was history written with the friars painted in bad spirit. Whom the gods wish to destroy, first they make mad - first they make themselves mad.

2006-06-09T10:57:00.000+08:00

Mario Batali:
Pasta, basta!
Among other things, the Italians are known for their Roman Catholicism and their heavenly pasta, including their paradisiac pasta sauces. I know that. None knows more than me than Mario Batali, the Renaissance man of pasta in New York - he has 3 successful Italian restaurants there; I'm reading 'America's Pasta Pusher' by Julie Scelfo (Newsweek Sept 2002). The photo you see is from vegans Mary & Frank Hoffman (visit them at all-creatures.org); it's a double-boiler pasta pot (lid included), I am told. You are supposed to boil the pasta with the lid OFF, so that the water will NOT boil out between the inner and outer pot.

Enough of that. This piece is not about vegetarians like Mary & Frank and not about cooking pasta but about Batali when he's not in his kitchen, and about my hero Jose Rizal when he is out there in the US of A traveling mostly by train from coast (California) to coast (New York). It’s all mostly business, not pleasure. He saw American prejudice against foreigners, when all the passengers of his ship, the steamer Belgic, were forced to remain aboard ship in quarantine for 1 week on the ground that there was a cholera epidemic in the Far East. After that, all first-class passengers were allowed to disembark, including Rizal; but the Japanese and Chinese passengers were left behind for more days at quarantine. Rizal knew that there was no cholera epidemic in the Far East at that time; along with others, he protested the quarantine, but the American health authorities were not listening to reason but only to themselves. They did not welcome the invaders from other lands.

Not the Americans of today. Now they welcome immigrants, which is actually importing culture that hopefully will enrich their own, including their taste buds.

Julie asks how come the Americans are ‘so interested in Italian culture?’ Mario says:

Italians have made it their business to export Italian culture, from spaghetti, to design, to poster art, to wine and soft drinks. If you open a bar in the US, an Italian coffee company will give you the coffee machine. They’ll give you the coffee cups with the logo; they’ll give you the tray to carry the coffee on. They’re really good at marketing themselves and creating brand recognition.

How about us, Filipinos? We are very good too at exporting our culture, often the positive side, but too many times including the negative side in the culture – and especially via journalism in print, radio, TV and the Internet. All that, from journalists who profess objectivity, who profess to be friends of the people and who are dedicated to truth, beauty and goodness. We are our own worst friends!

Newsweek’s Batali reminds me of Rizal when he was traveling across the United States. On his way back to Europe, from 28 April to 16 May 1888, Rizal traveled from San Francisco to New York (Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal, 2003: 122-126), wanting to see for himself how the other half of the world lives. To be able to tell off friends when he gets back to Spain that he has visited Paradise? He was taking notes. He wanted to learn what he could of the American way of life and think about those parts that could be emulated in the islands. He wanted to learn from a superior race. He did not feel inferior. He wanted to import American ideas like the Americans want to import Italian pasta. Like the Americans in the eyes of Batali, Rizal was not afraid of the globalization of ideas.

I say the way Batali describes how the Italians make business out of their culture outside Italy can be exported to the Philippine Islands. Read his book The E-Myth Revisited (2001), or visit e-myth.com, and you will see that Michael Gerber recognizes it as the McDonald way: franchising. It is more than brand recognition: it is assurance of quality that comes with the brand. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the Filipino’s weakness in marketing lies: keeping faith high with the customer by keeping product quality high. And we don’t need to attend and pass a total quality management course to learn that. In fact, we don’t need marketing – quality will sell itself.

2006-06-07T07:15:00.000+08:00

Arose a rose
Let's practice a little magic; watch as the paper napkin becomes a rose; visit http://bartendermagic.com/rose.htm and see for yourself; this photo is #3 in the sleight-of-hand. The paper that becomes a rose in the hands (fingers) of a bartender intrigues me, as the paper napkin intrigues Jose Rizal (Gregorio F Zaide, 2003, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, National Bookstore, page 97) (with a little editing): On May 25, Rizal and Viola left Vienna on a river boat to see the beautiful sights by the Danube River. As they traveled along the famous river, Rizal observed keenly the river sights - the barges loaded with products, the flowers and plants growing along the river bank, the boats with families living on them, and the quaint villages on the riverside. He particularly noticed that the passengers on the river boat were using paper napkins during the meals, which was a novelty to him. His fellow passenger, Viola, commented that the paper napkins were 'more hygienic and economical than cloth napkins.'

I don't know what Rizal told Viola, but I know what I would have if the time were today: 'Dr Viola, that's speaking the language of the economists. It's a language I don't admire and won't spend my time committing 50 words of it a day to memory assiduously. The paper napkin comes from trees. And so did the Spanish galleons. Now the Spanish friars are gone; now the Spanish galleons are gone - now the trees are going, going, gone! That's your economics.'

2006-06-06T11:40:00.000+08:00

"All within reach"
That is the slogan of the modern city of Ogden, Utah. That is because within the city you can kayak in the water, you can bike all over the land, or you can hike up the mountains. Ogden was one of the stops of Jose Rizal when he visited the United States and travelled from California to New York in 1888, from 28 April to 16 May. The entry to his diary reads: 'Tuesday, May 8. This is a beautiful morning. We stop from place to place. We are near Ogden. I believe with a good system of irrigation, this place could be cultivated. We are the Utah state, the 3rd state we passed over. In approaching Ogden the fields are seen with horses, oxen, and trees. Some small houses are seen from a distance.' - Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings (page 124).

Rizal is thinking agriculture, but only of irrigated farmlands. He wasn't thinking of the un-irrigated, the drylands and of crops that grow on minimum soil moisture, that do not call for irrigation, which is added cost. Horses, trees, oxen - they all suggest a ranch. He didn't like the idea of a ranch either?

2006-06-06T10:20:00.000+08:00

In Hongkong, in Limbo
Shortly after the publication of El Filibusterismo, Rizal left Europe and lived in Hongkong - from November 1891 to June 1892. His reasons for leaving Europe were as follows: (1) Life was unbearable in Europe due to his political differences with MH del Pilar and other Filipinos in Spain; (2) to lead the Propaganda Movement in Hongkong; and (3) to be near his beloved Philippines and family. Before sailing for Hongkong, he told Del Pilar that he could not write anymore for La Solidaridad, that he was retiring from Spain's political arena to preserve unity among the Filipinos in Europe, and that despite their parting of ways he would always have the highest regard for him. Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings (page 173)

Those 'political differences' (Zaide is being kind) were not minor; they had to do with leadership of the Filipino colony, with the direction of the solidaridad (the unity), with the direction of the Solidaridad (the paper). Some Filipinos would not accept Rizal as leader because he did not want any monkey business while they did: drinking, womanizing, gambling. Of the gambling, Juan Luna and Valentin Ventura themselves told Rizal about it in Brussels and urged him to do something. He then wrote a letter to Del Pilar, which means he had not done anything about it either, or could not. When the gamblers learned of the letter, they got mad. (Zaide, pages 147-148)

2006-06-06T09:27:00.000+08:00

Music, Maestro?
Rizal as Musician. Music played an important part in all Filipino reunions in Barcelona, Madrid, paris, and other cities of Europe. The Filipino contemporaries of Rizal could either play an instrument or sing. Especially, in the home of the Pardo de Taveras and in the Luna studio, every reunion was enlivened with the playing or singing of the kundiman and other Philippine melodies. Rizal had no natural aptitude for music, and this he admitted. But he studied music because many of his schoolmates in the Ateneo were taking music lessons. Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings

He learned the solfeggio, piano, flute, and singing. But not the guitar - and he did not sing well. 'If you could hear me sing,' he wrote Enrique Lete, 'you would say you were in Spain because my voice is like the braying of the asses.' That kind of music wasn't part of his genius. He was listening to the music of his heart.

2006-06-06T08:00:00.000+08:00

Angels on earth
The photo is that of Maria Sharapova with the photo-art by Marco, who titles it 'Heavenly' (maria-sharapova.org) - in front of her, before the white line, are the words written forever: 'Angels do exist.' This reminds me of Jose Rizal when he was still studying at the Ateneo, when he wrote the poem 'The Intimate Alliance Between Religion And Good Education' (translation by Leon Ma Guerrero - I'll give you my own translation some other time). Let me quote the first stanza:

As the climbing ivy over lofty elm
Creeps tortuously, together the adornment
Of the verdant plain, embellishing
Each other and together growing.
But should the kindly elm refuse its aid
The ivy would important and friendless wither
So is Education to Religion
By spiritual alliance bound.
Through Religion, Education gains renown, and
Woe to the impious mind blindly spurning
The sapient teachings of Religion, this
Unpolluted fountainhead forsakes.

In his years of self-exile, why did Rizal forsake his Catholic religion? Because the Philippines was a riot of Catholicism - that's what he thought. He equated the theory and practice of the Spanish friars with Roman Catholicism itself. That was mistaking the trees for the forest. And because Europe was a riot of ideas, especially the ideas of Reformation. He left the Philippines because in the first place, he really was a freethinker and he wanted to be free.

2006-06-05T23:05:00.000+08:00

In defense of Rizal

There were 12 points that Lt Taviel De Andrade raised in defense of Rizal at that fateful trial (Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, pages 216-217):

1. He could not be guilty of rebellion, for he advised Dr Pio Valenzuela in Dapitan not to rise in revolution.

2. He did not correspond with the radical, revolutionary elements.

3. The revolutionists used his name without his knowledge. If he were guilty he could have escaped in Singapore.

4. If he had a hand in the revolution, he could have escaped in a Moro vinta and would not have built a home, a hospital, and bought lands in Dapitan.

5. If he were the chief of the revolution, why was he not consulted by the revolutionaries?

6. It was true he wrote the by-laws of the Liga Filipina, but this is only a civic organization – not a revolutionary society.

7. The Liga Filipina did not live long, for after the first meeting he was banished to Dapitan and it died out.

8. If the Liga was reorganized nine months later, he did not know about it.

9. The Liga did not serve the purpose of the revolutionists, otherwise they would not have supplanted it with the Katipunan.

10. If it were true that there were some bitter comments in Rizal’s letters, it was because they were written in 1890 when his family was being persecuted, being dispossessed of houses, warehouses, lands, etc., and his brother and all brothers-in-law were deported.

11. His life in Dapitan had been exemplary as the politico-military commanders and missionary priests could attest.

12. It was not true that the revolution was inspired by his one speech at the house of Doroteo Ongjunco, as alleged by witnesses whom he would like to confront. His friends knew his opposition to armed rebellion. Why did the Katipunan send an emissary to Dapitan who was unknown to him? Because those who knew him were aware that he would never sanction any violent movement.

We all know the defense didn’t work in Rizal’s favor. If you were the lawyer of Rizal, what would you have pleaded?

I would not have argued like that, because the logic is not very tight; it is quite assailable. His advice to Valenzuela could have been a ruse, a disguise of his true purpose. That he did not correspond with the radicals did not mean he was not one of them. It is not enough merely to deny that the Katipuneros used his name without his knowledge. What if he merely failed to escape in Singapore? What if he could not escape in a Moro vinta but wanted to? The structures he built and the lands he bought could all have been to dissimulate his true intentions. What if the revolutionaries were consulting him in secret, not in the open? What if the Liga Filipina was secretly a subversive organization? What if the Liga appeared to die and then was reborn in the form of the Katipunan? What if his exemplary life in Dapitan was all to camouflage his secret activities? What if he really knew Valenzuela and was merely denying the fact?

Even assuming that Andrade’s logic was acceptable, that the whole defense was believable, arguing logically is assuming that the accusers were thinking right, thinking logically. They were not. I would have pleaded for mercy. And that would have caused a riot.

2006-06-05T22:01:00.000+08:00

Lovers lie
Page 81 of Gregorio F Zaide’s Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, in the chapter summarizing the Noli: The following morning, he visited Maria Clara, his childhood sweetheart. Maria Clara teasingly said that he had forgotten her because the girls in Germany were beautiful. Ibarra replied that he had never forgotten her. This story is part of the Chapter 7, ‘Idyll in an azotea,’ in which Rizal writes when the two lovers meet in private (page 57):

In the beginning they had nothing but nonsensical trivialities, those sweet nothings which are very similar to the vaunting of European nations. They delight and taste like honey to the natives, but they make foreigners laugh or knit their brows.

She, like a sister of Cain, is jealous, and asks her lover: “Did you always think of me? Did you not forget me on so many trips? So many big cities, with so many beautiful women!’
He too, another relative of Cain, knows how to ward off the questions, and is a bit of a fibber on that account: ‘Can I forget you?’ looking enraptured at her large dark eyes. ‘Would I be faithless to a vow, a sacred vow?’

He lies. Notice that he doesn’t say the women of Germany were not beautiful or that no one was interested in him as a lover. Lovers lie. They have been lying for ages. It’s lying that makes the world of love go round. It’s a riot.

2006-06-05T18:41:00.000+08:00

Loving the murderer
Frank C Laubach writes in his biography of Rizal: His consuming life purpose was the secret of his moral courage. Physical courage, it is true, was one of his inherited traits. But that high courage to die loving his murderers, which he at last achieved – that cannot be inherited. It must be forged out in the fires of suffering and temptation. As we read through his life, we can see how the moral sinew and fiber grew year by year as he faced new perils and was forced to make fearful decisions. What about us? We cannot even forgive a lie; we cannot even forgive a hurt. We cannot forgive. Rizal could, and superhumanly. Who among the world’s churches would preach, ‘Love your enemies, forgive those who persecute you?’ The Roman Catholic Church. So? My conclusion is none other than this: Rizal died a Catholic.

2006-06-05T18:01:00.000+08:00

The Filipino nation
In his book Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, Gregorio F Zaide reprints the whole of Esteban De Ocampo’s essay, ‘Who made Jose Rizal our foremost national hero, and why?’ Part of that essay says: Why is Rizal a hero, nay, our foremost national hero? He is our greatest hero because, as a towering figure in the Propaganda Campaign, he took an ‘admirable part’ in that movement which roughly covered the period from 1882 to 1896. If we were asked to pick out a single work by a Filipino writer during this era which, more than any other writing, contributed tremendously to the formation of Filipino nationality, we shall have no hesitation in choosing Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere (Berlin 1887). Ah, Señor De Ocampo, my hero is Jose Rizal, but I wouldn’t say the Noli contributed immensely to the formation of a Filipino nation. Granting your assertion, can you show me where that nation is? What I see is we Filipinos today are like thousands of buttons of different sizes with no common thread running through them. We make a nice bunch of colorful beings, but that is all. To use another metaphor - remember what Lea Salonga said when she won the Laurence Olivier Award for the stage? Please stop all that crabbing. We are more like a thousand crabs in a small basin, trying to pull each other down.

2006-06-05T16:51:00.000+08:00

The Way Rizal Lived
Leon Ma Guerrero wrote in his book The First Filipino in the Preface these words: When I was commissioned by a London publisher to translate his two novels and to provide an introduction, I had perforce to write a brief account of his life. It was then that I discovered that the way he died is not so important as the way he lived, and, since his life was essentially an apostleship, not so important as what he thought and wrote. Ah, Señor, I beg to disagree. I do believe that what Rizal thought and wrote and the way he lived each was as important as the way he died. To give you an example of what he thought: We cannot all be doctors, he wrote his nephew. Someone must plow the soil. And, I may add: Someone must allow the bees to pollinate the flowers. Someone must teach. Someone must write. Someone must read.

2006-06-05T16:18:00.000+08:00

The NOLI as RIOT
The Noli Me Tangere is a huge riot of a historical novel written by a man of small stature from the little town of Calamba in Laguna in the tiny group of islands called the Philippines by the name of Jose Rizal. It is a riot of words demonizing the Spanish friars who had enslaved the heart and soul of the Filipinos for 345 years. It is a riot of emotions riding high and reason running low. It is a riot of Filipinos presenting themselves as cultivated men and women when in fact they are ill-cultured. It is also a riot of Biblical allusions and quotations, showing that the author had studied his Bible well, if not his religion.

2006-06-04T18:51:00.000+08:00

Rizal In Our Time
It is 1882. Jose Rizal leaves secretly for Europe, specifically for Madrid, to study, to develop his full potential as a person, as a genius. He wants to make himself worthy as a Filipino, as a son of his country.

So he studies. Medicine, fencing, shooting. Other cultures, languages, literature: German, French, Latin, Spanish, English. He studies the Protestant and Roman Catholic religions, the literature, including the Bible. He studies two approaches to development of a backward country: Reform or Revolution? You shoot for the heart: To kill or to change it?

He writes the Noli Me Tangere. In this novel of truth and fiction, he is two kinds of warrior. One is the fighter with the sword; so he mocks the friars with his words. Two is the fighter with the word; so he advocates reform through education. The Filipino must be worthy first before he can claim his right to govern, before he can demand his place in history. Otherwise, the Filipino will betray his own country.

In Europe, he continues his writing in the name of peace and reforms. Then, frustrated, he considers Revolution. Later, advised by Ferdinand Blumentritt, his true friend, he realizes that to advocate an armed struggle is to betray one's country. So he vehemently opposes Andres Bonifacio's Katipunan preparing for the Revolution of 1896.

The Revolution proceeds anyway. The Spaniards have him shot at the back, considering him a traitor to Spain, the Soul of the Revolution. (He was, but it was against his wish.) They are the traitors - they betray civilization; they betray peace. They are not worthy of God, of their country. They are afraid of genius.

The seed of genius is within each of us. All we have to do is find it and nurture it, like Rizal did. And if necessary, bleed for it. Are we afraid of genius? Rizal wasn't.

2006-06-04T08:27:00.000+08:00

A different voice in
a different time

Jose Rizal should not be The National Hero; Andres Bonifacio should be. Some people feel that way; they even think that way.

Ah, in relation to that, the mind is a free country, so you are free to think. Stupid or not stupid, that is the question. If you think Rizal is undeserving of such honor, just make sure that you know why you are rejecting Rizal, and that what you know of him is true.

What I know of him are, among others, these two:

(1) Jose Rizal made himself the national hero of his country; nobody else did. He had many chances to escape; even Andres Bonifacio was willing to help him escape from the clutches of the Spaniards. He would not escape. He would not betray even his betrayers. So he faced his accusers, then his executioners, then the early morning sun – and then he was gone. You can call him crazy; I like to call him brave.
(2)
(3) More than 100 years ago, Jose Rizal already proved himself to be the national hero of the Philippines when he was already dead, six years after his death in fact. Those were the days when the Americans called the Filipinos barbarians, savages, pirates. They had the nerve, they who murdered Filipinos in their own country, who had no business (except business) being in these islands in the first place, they who stole the victory of the Filipinos (Katipunan) against the Spaniards (colonizers).
(4)
This is the story: It is 1902, The Philippine Bill is being considered in the US Congress to prepare the Filipinos eventually to govern themselves under the tutelage of the Americans, who should know better. But the American gentlemen of the US Congress are convinced that the Filipinos are not intelligent enough, not civilized enough, not cultured enough. They don’t know any better. Stalemate. Then Henry Cooper, Congressman from Wisconsin, rises to appeal for sobriety, for intellectual honesty, and then proceeds to recite an English translation of Rizal’s untitled last poem, which we like to call ‘Ultimo Adios’ (‘Last Farewell’). Here’s the first stanza of the translation that Cooper readz (author unidentified):

Land I adore, farewell! Thou land of the southern sun’s choosing! Pearl of the Orient seas! Our forfeited Garden of Eden! Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far brighter Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would I give it.

Even without rhyme and meter, it’s beautiful, it’s inspiring, it raises goose pimples. Not surprisingly then, the gentlemen of the US Congress are so moved by the thoughts of a dead man that they pass on 1 July 1902 the Philippine Bill (also called the Cooper Act and rightly so), the first enabling act for this country. That law provides for a bicameral legislature for the islands, the Philippine Assembly.

If that one doesn’t convince you of the greatness of Jose Rizal, nothing will.