Rizal: A phenomenal boy

To honor our national hero Jose Rizal on his 150th birth anniversary on June 19, I am reprinting the following essay from my book “Turning Back the Pages” which was recently launched at the Instituto Cervantes’ Salon de Actos.

Fancy a nine-year old boy imposing on himself a routine so rigid, the average adult would find it extremely difficult to follow. Rizal was such a boy.

When he was in Biñan studying Latin  yes, at nine years!  his daily program was amazingly regular and methodical for a boy of his age. He would hear mass at four o’clock in the morning  if there was mass at that unholy hour  or study in his room if mass was said later. From mass, he would come home for breakfast, go to class, come home at ten, rest, eat his lunch, study again, be off to school at 2:30 and come home at five. He would then play for a short period, study his lessons, make sketches and then take his supper.

It was a rare day that Rizal veered from this schedule, and yet most boys would have nothing in their minds except the thought of eating or playing. But already at nine, Rizal had realized the value of time. Already he had come to believe earnestly that time wasted was time irretrievably lost. Rizal as a child was too precocious to enjoy much.

It was as though Rizal had an uncanny awareness that he had not long to live, for in childhood and early adolescence, he tried his hand at a considerable number of serious things. At eight, he had composed his first poem, and had by that time a smattering of Latin and Spanish. At nine, he was taking painting and drawing lessons, and showing promise.

He entered the Ateneo when he was 11 and here again he showed that he was as versatile as he was methodical: he mastered Greek and fencing with equal facility. He continued to paint and to draw. He started his first lessons in sculpture and to his poems he added a short-story (leyenda) and a dialogue.

As though being versatile and methodical were not enough, Rizal had to excel in almost anything he did.

His diligence was born of a deep sense of duty and also of a sense of obligation toward his parents, heightened by what his education was costing them and by the disgrace and injustice they were suffering under the Spanish authorities. To illustrate: Rizal’s mother was in prison during his period of study at the Ateneo. She was there on false charges and kept in solitary confinement. The news of her impending release had elated Rizal so much that he began to win prize after prize in the quarterly examinations. This was in his third year at the Ateneo. On another occasion, close to the end of the school year, he won five medals and these, more than anything else, made him happy because, as he said . . . “with them I could repay my father somewhat for his sacrifices.”

The picture of Rizal as a student would not be complete without mention of his scientific and independent turn of mind. Though reared as a Catholic, he had a freer, less hampered mind than most of his colleagues. The why and the wherefore of things were a constant challenge to him. Although he had the imagination of a poet, he had the detachment of a scientist.

It was this rational nature, manifested even during his student days in his interest in physics, philosophy and the natural sciences, that caused him to ask the why and the wherefore of Spanish tyranny and domination in the Philippines. Because of this faculty of reasoning things out to the logical end, he concluded that he had a part to play to bring about the cessation of his countrymen’s sufferings.

Rizal Day in Madrid

Mes Filipino (Filipino Month) this June will be marked by the Philippine Embassy in Madrid with a celebration of the 113th anniversary of Philippine independence, the 150th birth anniversary of Rizal, and Phil-Spanish Friendship Day.

Visual artist-columnist Marivic Rufino will open her 16th solo exhibit “Romanza” in Madrid’s Museo Nacional de Antropologia on June 9. In “Romanza”, Rufino goes beyond watercolor, acrylic, mixed media for expression. “Romanza” is also the title of a poetry book which was launched in 2009 with Rufino’s art works matched by the poetry of National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario as translated by Marne Kilates. There will be a reading of selected poems from the book on opening day of the exhibit. It will run until June 30.