Dr. Jose Rizal and Spain

It is not only Japanese history textbooks that should be written to tell the whole truth, but Philippine history textbooks as well. What’s the use of referring to Philippines 2000 when we still teach our youngsters to dislike Spain, America and Japan as our former colonizers?

Only a united brotherhood can make this world safe again for our children. This PEACE is the prerequisite before we can see progress at the turn of the century.

In general, people today have grown relatively close to one another. We see daily each other’s foolishness and wisdom on television together with the rediscovery of nature, medicine and new ailments. Past to present histories of war and peace are frequently reviewed in the media. If we carefully select good TV programs, our insular and narrow insights can broaden and make us comprehend that our lives are linked around this earth.

The politics of Spain

Our hero Dr. Jose Rizal lived in Spain from September 1882 to October 1885. This was the period of industrial revolution in Spain where the bourgeoisie in Basque and Catalonia regions were gaining wealth. While busy sponsoring cultural art centers, they were very concerned with the strong labor movement with radicalized trade unions which rapidly developed. Anarchists were met by government atrocities.

This happened after 50 years of unrest, which included the Carlist wars in 1833-1839, a bitter dispute over the legality of royal inheritance through the female line. King Ferdinand’s daughter, Isabella (1833-1868), a frivolous monarch, had a troubled reign.

The radical unrest was surely felt among the university students in Madrid, particularly Jose Rizal, then an avid scholar who took up several courses simultaneously within the student quarters of Madrid, most of which are centered in what tourists know as “old Madrid”. The Faculta de Medicina was in Calle Amor de Jesus. He did his Pilosophia y Letra in the Universidad Central de Madrid (now the railway station, Estacion de Atocha). He did Arts at the Ateneo de Madrid. Today, the Plaza Hotel stands on the site of this former Fine Arts school. Hanging in the lobby is a very large painting of the most illustrious students of Arts during this period. Dr. Jose Rizal is one of them.

A walk with Rizal

“A Walk with Rizal” is a historical tour of one hour, put together by our ambassador to Spain in 1996, Isabel Caro Wilson with Eve Fleisher Diago. Accompanied by Don Pepe Rodriguez (now the director of Instituto Cervantes, Manila) in 1997 during the IPI Congress, Max and I followed the footsteps of Rizal. The tour focuses around the university site (then Calle Bernardo) and Dr. Rizal’s pisos or pension houses where students rent rooms with private families. The student quarters of Madrid were within the perimeters of the still existing Gran Via, the Paseo del Prado, the famous museum complex, the Atocha Railway Station (where the old Universidad Central de Madrid was located) and Plaza Mayor. All the small intersecting roads from Plaza Mayor to Puerto del Sol down to Plaza de las Cortez and Calle de la Magdalena are studded with tavernas.

I can picture Rizal, for one reason or another, changing his boarding houses several times during three years, usually dependent on his allowances from his brother Paciano or the availability of roommates with whom he could relate well or study harmoniously within the residence.

I recalled that I changed residence as a scholar in Perugia, Italy, two times within one year. My first padrona was rather parsimonious about electrical expenses that she would not allow me to study beyond 10 p.m. or take a hot bath more than twice a week. I also had to take 15-minute bus ride to go to my school up town. My second padrona lived in a four storey palazzo beside the Cathedral and the Teatro Morlachi. Lunch was available in the nearby university mensa. Daily, after my language classes in the Universita per Gli Stranieri, I could walk down to my Montessori Teacher training school, 10 minutes away at Via Abruzzo.

Rizal celebrates Luna and Hidalgo’s awards at Hotel Ingles

Rizal first lived in Calle San Miguel, now known as the Gran Via. After a few months he transferred to Calle Baño to board with other colleagues. By this time, Juan Luan and Pedro Paterno Hidalgo had won first and second prize at the Exposicion Internacional de Bellas Artes. Visiting the still existing Hotel Ingles, where the Filipinos celebrated these grand awards, easily stir up one’s imagination in picturing Jose Rizal deliver the speech of praise and congratulations to the two prominent Filipino artists.

I picked the latest 1997 tarifa de precios of the three-star Hotel Ingles to find out that a single room with bath costs 7,500 pesetas while double room with bath rates 10,500 pesetas. Breakfast is 550 pesetas and private parking is available for 1,200 pesetas ($1=116 pesetas). A few steps down, is the famous bar for tapas, Los Gabrielos. With its colorful Sevillano tiles, it is considered the Sistine Chapel among the Madrileño tavernas. Scenes of Don Quixote, bulls and bullfighters, vineyards of Jerez as well as the mythological goddess Leda and the swan illustrate the walls and bar panels. This was one of the favorite meeting places of Dr. Rizal. The last two places where Jose Rizal lived before he left for Paris and Berlin were Calle Sedaceros.

Rizal mastered the art of eating standing up

Tapas, the snack-like assortment of appetizers, is taken standing up by small Spanish bars, where one nibbles the hot fricasees of snails, tripe, shrimp in garlic, fried chorizos or meatballs. Cold morsels include fresh anchovies in vinegar or sardines marinated in escabeche. Chatos, small glasses of white, red or rose wine accompany these before lunch of before dinner repast.

As a student, “Pepe” Rizal made the succession of bars or the chatos circuits with his intellectual friends including las chicas de alterne which designates the young ladies also found in the circuit.

The tapas bars are open after seven in the evening before the late ten o’clock dinner, which the Spaniards are accustomed. During Rizal’s student days, the slices of ham, bacon or sausage covered the tall narrow chato glasses of wine offered free. The cover of tapas preserved the bouquet of the wine. I am certain that when his brother Paciano could not send his allowance on time, the tapas circuit made up our hero’s dinner.

It is very informal. The enjoyable thing is the slow, quiet walk of the group from one tavern to the next, drinking Fino and Manzanilla with Sevillana olive, a small slice of good ham or potato omelette. Is it possible to have a truly serious discussion while drinking unos chatos and taking some tapas? For “Pepe,” this must have been, since he not only discussed but wrote his series of “La Solidaridad” articles in the tapas bar of Viva Madrid on Calle Atocha.

Rizal’s global appreciation of languages

Quoting Rizal out of context is a serious mistake. Many Filipinos therefore think that when Dr. Rizal said, “Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay masahol pa sa malansang isda” (He who belittles the mother tongue is worse than a rotten fish), he was rejecting foreign languages in exclusive preference to Filipino. But for him, all languages are tools to understand better the customs and culture of other countries.

Rizal planned to visit other European countries to study the people’s way of life and adopt ideas and programs that would benefit his countrymen. Before he went to Paris, he studied French well enough to speak and write French with the same facility and ease that he had with Spanish. He studied Hebrew to enable him to interpret the Bible in its original text and be better prepared to defend any controversial religious issues that Noli Me Tangere might arouse. While an assistant at Dr. Becker’s clinic, Rizal could speak only a smattering of German but in three months of diligent study and practice, he spoke the language with ease. His knowledge of German enabled him to understand the works of German writers practically about the Philippines.

What we need are more Rizals

Business people and politicians talk frequently about the need for the Philippines to become more competitive in the international economy of the next century.

It is unrealistic to believe that our economy can consistently take off without significantly improving our school system. What we are looking for are educated “entrepreneurs”, men and women who are risk-takers, who are prepared to put in place their own innovative and daring programs.

What we need are more Rizals who would commit themselves to real change in nation-building.