Rizal's relentless fight against corruption

Today is the 129th anniversary of the martyrdom of Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda. If our national hero were alive today, he would either be a senator in the mold of Bam Aquino or Kiko Pangilinan, or a congressman like Chel Diokno. And he would denounce in the harshest terms all the plunders, corruptions and all forms of shenanigans today.

His “Noli Me Tangere” was a whole political volume of relentless denunciation against the abuses of the governor-generals and their subalterns, as well as the excesses of the Spanish friars and their underlings. His “El Filibusterismo” was an urgent call to rise against the political, social, and economic injustices committed by the colonizers and their local collaborators. Dr. Jose Rizal has never ceased to stand up against the corruption both by the State and the Church.

Rizal's Crisostomo Ibarra was the returning OFW and ilustrado who arrived in his hometown only to discover that his father was murdered and the prime suspects were both Capitan Tiago, who personified the corruption of the government and Padre Damaso who represented the skeletons in the closets of the Church. Both Capitan Tiago and Padre Salvi were not only oppressors of Sisa, Crispin, and Basilio, but also lustful philanderers who sexually molested women at will.

The ironic twist of it all was that Capitan Tiago is supposed to be the father of Maria Clara, Ibarra's love of his life. But actually, the true father was Padre Damaso who had an adulterous relationship with Doña Pia, the wife of Capitan Tiago. That relationship was a figure of speech on how the Church and the government enter into unholy alliances to oppress the poor, the voiceless and the marginalized. It also portrayed how the Church and the State use, abuse and betray each other.

Padre Damaso was portrayed by Dr. Rizal as an arrogant, hypocritical, loud, domineering, and racist exploiter of the natives. Padre Salvi was pictured as cunning, manipulative, scheming, and treacherous, while hiding under the cloak of false piety and self-righteousness. Rizal never condemned the Church itself. But he was relentless in denouncing the greed, the covetousness, the arrogance, the deceit, and the pretentiousness of the Spanish friars. Because of those evil deeds, Rizal became a mason albeit he retracted masonry before his death.

Maria Clara was the subtle symbol of the Philippines itself, dominated by her parents, she was even denied the freedom to marry the man she truly loved. She is like the Philippines, controlled by foreign powers and exploited by aliens and foreign interests and run by corrupt pseudo-leaders. Sisa, Crispin, and Basilio represent the more than 75% of the Filipinos who are poor, less educated, many being homeless, landless, jobless, and hopeless.

Doña Victorina represented the nouveau middle class, whom Cherry Gil called, the desperate, "trying-hard, second-rate copycat", the ostentatious social climber, who is obsessed with that mania to keep up with the Joneses, and who deserve the title "bituing walang ningning". Doña Consolacion is the vulgar, abusive wife of the alferez, who is drunk with borrowed power and influence and flaunts her possessions which are palpably obtained through corruption. She is like a contractor who buys Ferraris and Lamborghinis just because of that umbrella.

If Dr. Rizal were alive today, he would write another novel to expose the budget insertions, the allocables and the non-allocables, the ghost projects and the kickbacks, the family dynasties and the conspiracies in high places. He would portray the characters of Mary Grace Piattos and create scenarios about flood controls and the corruption of public works officials.

Today, as we celebrate the anniversary of our hero's martyrdom, we lament at our poor and abused nation which is now being feasted upon, no longer by Spanish governor-generals and friars, but by his own native indios, who have learned the schemes and machinations of Capitan Tiago and Padres Damaso and Salvi.

Many of us, like Padre Florentino and Pilosopo Tasyo, may die without seeing the dawn of our national salvation.