Seeking Jose Rizal and Pilosopong Tasio in our times

What tribute could be more fitting to our national hero on his 148th birth anniversary this June 19 than to revisit one of his favorite characters in Noli Me Tangere?

Though considered a fool by many for his “unorthodox ideas and odd behavior,” Tasio or Don Anastasio remains the wittiest character in Rizal’s first novel.

In Noli’s Chapter 14, Tasio castigated the supremacy of superstitions over science during the Spanish colonization, which frustrated his efforts to institute scientific reforms: “…I have suggested to every mayor this town has had in the last ten years the purchase of a lightning-rod, but everybody laughs it off, and would rather spend the money on fireworks and bell-pealing. You yourself went even further; the very day after I made a suggestion to you, you commissioned a Chinese foundry to cast a bell for St. Barbara, who is supposed to be our patroness in storms, although it has been scientifically established that it is dangerous to ring bells in stormy weather...”

Tasio’s words against bureaucratic stupidity remains relevant in a time of recent absurdities such as a non-existing 40-km railroad (the still unfinished North Rail Project) that costs $400 million, the P728-million fertilizer fund which was used to acquire foliar (orchids) fertilizer for distribution in rice-producing districts and non-agricultural areas, a one billion-dollar mining contract given to a Chinese company despite constitutional barriers against foreign exploitation of the country’s national resources…

In Chapter 25 of Noli Me Tangere’s first edition, Tasio condemned the malleability of the Philippine government then as it is today: “The Government you say!....sees nothing, hears nothing...The government does not plan a better future; it is only an arm...it allows itself to be dragged from failure to failure, it becomes a shadow, loses its identity, and, weak and incapable, entrusts everything to selfish interests...” The puppet show remains almost the same: though instead of friars, recent administrations have greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians and exploitative foreign powers as their masters.

Tasio’s remarks explain why traditional political leaders in the Philippines think that granting foreigners the right to fully own land and business and exploit our natural resources – through Charter change – will solve poverty. They reject debt renegotiation, land reform, industrialization and other alternatives offered by modern-day Tasios. Businessmen and foreign lobbyists replace what Tasio call as a “discarded puppet,” the exiting administration, in a farce now called as “elections.” Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s denunciation of “a government still beholden to oligarchs” mirrors Tasio’s musings.     

Tasio tells us why the people remains submissive despite all the evil things they hear, see and experience: “The government is intimidated with threats...and the people cowed with the Government’s armed forces...The people do not complain because they have no choice; they do not move because they are in a stupor...” Rizal thus emphasized that economic and political hegemony is solidified through the force of guns.

Nevertheless, hope springs eternal. Rizal’s wise old man speaks of the certain redemption of the Filipino people from all kinds of tyranny: “When the light of day reveals the monstrous creatures of the night, the reaction will be terrifying. All the forces stifled for centuries, the poisons distilled drop by drop, all the repressed emotions, will come to light in a great explosion. Who shall then settle the accounts…presented from time to time in those revolutions that history records in bloodstained pages?” 

Tasio, ever the realist dreamer, acknowledges the possibility that despite good intentions and zealous toils, the movement for change may still fail, one way or another, but such failure is only temporary for the dawn of a new day will certainly come: “In any case, something would have been gained. The cornerstone would have been laid, the seed would have been sown. After the tempest some grain might perhaps sprout, survive the catastrophe, save the species from annihilation, and serve as grain seed for the children of the perished sower...” 

In the original Chapter 29 of Noli Me Tangere, asked by his good friend, the vice mayor, why he remains “gloomier than ever” while others celebrate the feast day with gusto, Tasio rebuked official lavishness in the face of the people’s poverty saying: “Having a good time doesn’t mean making fools of ourselves! It’s the same senseless orgy every year. And all for what? Throwing away all the money when there is so much misery and need!...The orgy, the bacchanal, serves to drown out the general lamentation.” With Tasio’s commentary, it is easy to understand why governments of poor countries want to maintain an aura of happiness, a façade of festiveness, amidst sprawling hunger and poverty – that is, to create a bogus sense of progress (ramdam KUNO ang kaunlaran), so as to minimize the possibility of the people rising up against government inaction.  

Rizal wants every Filipino to emulate Tasio however poetic, ideal and improbable his good character seems to be. He expects that through his portrayal of Tasio and other good characters, Filipinos would realize that they’re capable of transforming, or at least perceiving the realities about themselves and their country. More than one hundred years since Tasio appeared in Rizal’s narrative, the Philippines still lurk in the dark night of poverty, autocracy, corruption and foreign hegemony, with few modern-day Tasios and Rizals to carry on the struggle for freedom till the coming of the dawn.

DAVID MICHAEL SAN JUAN teaches Filipino at Colegio San Agustin-Makati.