What happened to me last week? I was so overtaken by the holiday spirit that I forgot to write about Jose Rizal. After all, I am the great-granddaughter of his sister, Maria, so I can claim blood relationship. Also I decided earlier to do my best to keep him beloved and alive.
I remember when I was a little girl being awakened while it was still dark, dressed in itchy organdy and brought to the Luneta to watch people lay flowers at the foot of the Rizal monument. I wondered then — why are they putting flowers for the dead there? I tried to ask my mother but was shushed. I hated the event. My dress was itchy. I wanted to go home.
That was the point of view of a little great-grandniece of the national hero. I did not know him. Later, as I grew up, I was told he was my great-granduncle but with no accompanying family stories. I did not care. Those were the days of my hated history tests. Then, I grew up and grew old and my love of country became very real to me. I asked my family for Rizal stories, got a few good ones from my aunt, the nun. Then, finally approaching 1996, I did some serious reading on Jose Rizal’s life. I read Austin Coates’ biography, finished the book on a Saturday morning. Tears flowed copiously from my eyes. Rizal was a great man and we did not even know him.
Did his parents turn him into a great man? No, his older brother Paciano did. Paciano was an activist, a follower of Padre Burgos of the GomBurZa, another execution staged by the Spanish friars, who were feeling insecure. They had been here more than 300 years. The Filipinos were beginning to find their voice and sense their power. These three priests were Filipinos. After the execution, a disturbed Paciano returned home. Perhaps he was weeping. He must have been terribly upset to see his mentor die that way. His father forbade him to talk about Padre Burgos or Cavite in the house. Imagine, all that pain and desperation and no one to talk to about it! He must have sat long nights thinking about what to do. He turned to his younger brother. Paciano was 18 then and Jose was around 8. That is the fraternal bond, unstated, that became one of the cornerstones of our history.
Paciano enrolled the boy Jose at the Ateneo, using the surname Rizal. There are many theories about where the name came from. I can only venture that it was chosen because it was not Spanish. For the longest time only Jose carried it. Paciano decided when Jose should leave for Europe and kept him alive there. There Jose did all his writing, until finally Noli Me Tangere awakened Filipinos, until ownership of the Philippines moved from Spain to America.
But for a moment there we thought it would move from Spanish hands into ours. The timing of the Philippine Revolution was awkward. It coincided with the time when America and Spain were fighting for world power. Finally, our revolution was overshadowed by the Treaty of Paris, where America bought us from Spain. But that was the large global view. The smaller local view was we had a revolution. We thought we were going to win. We declared our independence but after exercising much betrayal and much bloodshed — Rizal’s, Bonifacio’s, Jacinto’s and hundreds of thousands of others — we Filipinos lost to the Americans.
Does Rizal deserve to be named the national hero? Some people think it should be Bonifacio. But wait, Jose Rizal was the first Asian nationalist who spoke openly against the colonizers. He was read by Rabindanath Tagore, an Indian poet, then contemplating writing against their British colonizers. He was admired more in Asia than in his own country. He was what we call a Renaissance man, well schooled, with developed left and right brains. I think he really should be held up to the youth as an example of what man can become if he believes in doing everything excellently. For me, that’s what makes him a hero. If you read his biography, you will fight to keep him the national hero.
Remember that, young ones, you who have never once asked about Jose Rizal, who seem to feel that he is a creature of my imagination, that I just like being related to him. No. It is not my fault that I am. I was born into his family. My daughters’ blood has more history than mine. My daughters have as their great-grandmother Gregoria de Jesus, Bonifacio’s widow, who married Julio Nakpil and gave birth to many children, among them their grandmother, Josefina Nakpil. My daughters are related to Bonifacio’s widow and Jose Rizal through their DNA.
One day, I hope they will awaken to that, not to make them feel superior but to make them learn that history must be kept alive. It is their job to try to keep it alive.
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