Gemma Cruz as inveterate Rizalian

If we were to be asked to choose who would be our favorite writers, we would quickly answer, without any doubt, Gemma Cruz-Araneta and F. Sionil Jose for various reasons. The single thing they share is that they both would send us books they had authored.

Rizal’s True Love is still another of Gemma’s numerous ventures into Rizaliana which has come to be expected of her, being the most available descendant of our National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal.

Dr. George Aseniero, who has lectured extensively about Rizal, writes: “Gemma’s brief essays strike a happy balance between intellectual exposition and engaging conviviality.” Teachers of the Rizal Course will find in the book, he says, an effective medium to conduct class discussions on specific ideas and premises.

Since the 1990s, Gemma has written a bi-weekly column on Philippine history, culture and heritage for The Manila Bulletin. In her foreword to the book, Gemma explains that her column Landscape (or “scenery”) means “paisaje” in Spanish from the root word “pais” or country. She adds that hopefully the Philippines would not degenerate into a mere “paisaje”. On our part, we are disturbed that “paisaje” sounds too much like “pasahe” or passageway or daanan ng mga tao, o ng panahon.

Gemma shares that many have been encouraging her to compile her Landscape columns in book form and it is certainly no surprise that a good number of them contain references to Rizal, his family, his friends, his enemies, his religion, his ideal woman. As usual, the best thing about Gemma’s books is that they are consummately readable, always in large font, always understandable by those in high school without need of consulting a dictionary. We went through her stories in search of difficult-to-understand words and didn’t find too many. We found audacious, querulous, irascible, distraught, pernicious, dichotomy, piquant and tested them on our fourth-year students. Of the seven words, they didn’t know the meaning of only two.

But what was disgraceful was the fact that these same students we tested with Gemma’s introductory question, “Who did Rizal love the most?” also answered Josephine Bracken or Maria Clara. No one answered “Pilipinas” whom he was willing to die for. Perhaps, it is also our fault with too much Facebook and Instagram, too much of teleseryes, and too little understanding of what is actually happening around us.

Back to Rizal’s True Love book, we find that although it contained expanded versions of her Landscape columns, the original versions are much too short for comfort. For instance, that untold story from General Alfredo Lim of the first two days of EDSA deserves a full-blown report. Another is her report of 20,000 un-catalogued Spanish land titles dating back to 1623 in the National Archives. In fact, these are front page stuff. On the other hand, Gemma’s column on Ruby Tuason had just the right coverage and comments.

Among the contents of the book, we have our personal favorites, because they gave us new information. Under the title of Enigmatic Paciano — this was the most recent story published Oct. 22, 2013 — which told of Rizal’s older brother Paciano who went out of his way keeping dangerous information on brother Jose to himself so as not to worry his family. From Writer to Dangerous Organizer dated July 3, 2012, on the other hand, told of Rizal’s founding of La Liga Filipina which sought to unite the Philippines. Those who signed up included Andres Bonifacio and Apolinario Mabini. But the colonial administration banished Rizal to Dapitan, where he astounded everyone by designing a 2-km. water system and other infrastructures, and teaching of out-of-school youth.

Our other favorite stories are Rizal’s Blueprint for the Nation, If Rizal were Alive Today, Legislating Rizal 1 & 2, Unknown to Us, Rizal and Consuelo, Beyond Romance, Memoirs of a Former Enemy, Katipunan Decoded, Thinking Revolution and Of ilustrados and Katipuneros published in Manila Bulletin’s Panorama Magazine in 1992.

(For comments, e-mail us at [email protected] or 0917-8991835. For details on Gemma’s Rizal’s True Love book, call 891-1945.)