Jose Rizal: Intellectual evolution, not political revolution

There are some Filipinos to this day who do not accept Dr. Jose Rizal as our true national hero.They argue that those who fought on the battlefields against the Spaniards and then against the Americans were indisputably more worthwhile to be hailed as heroes.  They fail to understand the merits of Rizal’s intention -- to lead the country towards mental evolution through education, not stir up the raw emotions of the people and spur them to raise their machetes; thereby risking their precious lives in exchange for some nebulous and desultory political independence.

Nevertheless, the following sums up Dr. Jose Rizal’s character to the very end, and his vision for the overall well-being of his fellowmen and country -- as profiled by Margarita Ventinella-Hamada:

An Open Letter to the Author of Rizal, Josephine and the Jesuits

From: Margarita Ventenilla-Hamada

Dear Dr. R.M. Bernardo,

      I just finished reading your book, and I’d like to express my sincere appreciation for the time, money and energy you spent in rescuing Jose Rizal from the accepted and damaging lie that he retracted before his execution.  That it had to be you  a non-historian to do so, does not speak well at all of our historians.

      I never believed the lie about his retraction, even before I got hold of your book (Volume II).  I did not need the evidences you had fortuitously stumbled upon to convince me that Rizal did not retract, as he truly did not. What made me so sure he never retracted? A thorough re-reading of his works.  Nobody who can see and write so brilliantly and fearlessly about the evils of religion as he had done will take back what he said just like that. How can a highly spiritual person like him suddenly reduce himself to a mere sectarianist? A roaring lion or tiger cannot be reduced to a mewling kitten overnight. The retraction fiction is a fine example of priestcraft that boomeranged on these hounds of heaven as Leon Ma. Guerrero called them.  It confirmed everything that Rizal had written about religious villainy/chicanery and Filipino gullibility.

      However, hand in hand with my pleasure over your success in rescuing him from being the self-betrayer that the lie on his retraction portrayed him to be, is my dismay over your failure to see another lie about him:  that he was a bloody subversive/separatist. It bothers me that you have accepted this lie about him, without thinking the worse of Rizal, in the process. By proudly tagging on him the epithets subversive”and separatist”many times in your book, you have cooperated with most of our historians in diminishing this great man that you proudly rank amongst the world’s greatest. This is tantamount to putting back on him the label “self-betrayer” that your book intends to remove from his distinguished persona.

      Rizal’s Noli & Fili and his Ultimo Adios are not only anti-religion.  They are also anti-rebellion.  Kindly re-read them. Both religion and rebellion are evil because priests and rebels use love for God/love for country as excuse to murder their fellowmen. He could not be against religion and not be against rebellion, too. Indeed, how could Rizal whose high level of maturity that sets him apart from Filipinos then and now subscribe to either one of these evil kid stuff? How could someone who so valued human life and who devoted his whole life to uplift the Filipinos’ dignity suddenly advocate a revolution that will send these people he loved  to their untimely deaths without even the slightest prospect of winning?

       May I respectfully direct your attention to the 7th stanza’s last two lines of the Adios that you yourself had translated:

                       Yet if a bird on high descends to pose on my cross,

                       Allow the songbird to intone its canticles of peace.

      Now, will you please tell me how an advocate of an armed revolution that you suppose Rizal to be can wax poetic on PEACE in the same breath?

      His Ultimo Adios describes the rebels as “delirious others offering their lives, not doubting, not counting cost.” (Stanza 2)  The word he used,  “delirious” is hardly what someone who believes in their cause would use. It is derogatory. It paints them as “sick”.  His phrase, not doubting, not counting the cost” means that the rebels are reckless and gullible. Again, it is derogatory.  This description tallies with how he depicted Ibarra/Simoun and the men he instigated to take up arms in the Fili.  They were an unenlightened, unthinking, reckless mob whose leader, Ibarra/Simoun lets them down twice because of personal, not nationalistic motivations, and they in blind fury turn on him to kill him but he escapes and kills himself after  Father Florentino makes him see himself as the reckless fool that he is.

      In the same stanza cited above, he continues:

                          The places matter not: cypress, laurel or lily fields,

                          Scaffolding or open plain, combat or cruel martyrdom,

                         They are made the same if for it country and home ask.

       But did our home and country ask for it?  Rizal himself said that what our country asks for is the freedom to get enlightened so we can pursue human rights, through reforms, not independence via an armed revolution. Independence, he said will do us little good without the moral basis for it. Before pursuing independence, he said, let us educate ourselves first so we will deserve it when, after we have become mentally, emotionally and morally healthy and strong, it automatically comes to us without our having to shed blood for it.

      But because of the rebels delirium, Rizal, the advocate of peace must die, as he wrote in his Adios’ 3rd stanza. He became a casualty, among thousands of others, of this unenlightened recklessness he could not stop. He got run over by it. But he doesn’t mind dying, he says, in the 5th stanza, if his death will propel the country’s evolution:

                       Salud! Ah, how beautiful is dying propelling your flight,

                       Dying giving you life.

……

       It was the execution of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora (which was a result of the reckless Cavite mutiny, the false testimony of Saldua- a Filipino, and the disunity of the Cavite mutineers) that sparked in the 11-year old Rizal’s mind the realization that the Filipinos lack of enlightenment and national consciousness are the true cause of our sufferings. So now, Rizal hopes that his execution under similar circumstances would spark the same realization in his countrymen’s minds. This paradigm shift will usher self-renewal and evolution. Wouldn’t his death indeed be beautiful to have sparked this evolution, the twin of freedom?

      The Adios explicitly says in its 4th stanza that he has dreamed since his youth to deliver his country from suffering, to see his countrymen without tears, anxieties and without shame.  Nowhere in this poem does he say that political independence via an armed uprising was his idea of deliverance. Look at us now, 103 years after he penned that misunderstood poem: We are politically independent (courtesy of the guilt-ridden Americans, not the Katipunan that killed Rizal), yes, but, are we happy?  Have our anxieties, tears and shame disappeared from our brows, eyes and visage? You’ll agree that they have not. Shame on us until now. Time has proved all Rizal’s statements about the futility of independence correct.

      Rizal never wrote the words “Kill for your country’s independence!” in his Adios.  On the contrary, his about-to-depart soul cried for  Salud!” (Stanza 5)—meaning, Health! Life, not death!  He wishes health for his country that he had portrayed in his novels as deliriously sick with social cancer that only an evolution of the mind, not an armed revolution, can cure. He could easily have inserted the words, “Independence! Death to tyrants!, but he did not, because in his own words, an armed revolution is not just foolish and premature, it is criminal” and will only end in wholesale death and destruction. In different words, he said that the independence the separatists were ostensibly fighting for will not solve our problems if we remained as believers, not doubters, and  if we lack national consciousness. And may I repeat, he was right, as the present reality tells us.

      After exhorting his readers to pray for grieving mothers, widows, orphans and prisoners that the armed revolution had produced, he exhorts us in stanza 9, to pray for yourself for REDEMPTION” not for political independence.  Self-redemption means to finally grow up and be strong, to think, and not to believe, to live with dignity and not with fear, unlike the weak, immature characters he showed in his novels who, lacking in self-realization, became their own selves’ executioners. Please read Rizal’s novels again.  Then you will see what I saw: that Filipinos used the Spaniards and/or allowed the Spaniards to use them to kill their fellow-Filipinos. His novels were prophetic because he did not invent his characters.  They were the people he actually saw, lived amongst and interacted with. They were as real as the Filipinos in the Katipunan who killed one another instead of their proclaimed enemy, the Spaniards.  They were as real as the 30,000 Filipinos who helped Polavieja rout the Katipunan instead of the other way around. They were the prototypes of Pedro A. Paterno and Emilio Aguinaldo who sold the revolution to the enemy for P800,000.00.  Rizal himself was maliciously implicated by bloodthirsty Filipinos, who, by dint of our historians’ astigmatism have been passed off to us as heroes for us to emulate: Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, Pio Valenzuela, and Antonio Luna. They, not the Spaniards, were his real executioners. What is galling is that we were and still are told that they are heroes when in truth and in fact, they are no different from criminals that ought to be hanged. And now, you have ranked Rizal among them, by saying he is a subversive and separatist.

      His beloved country, he says in his Adios, is his “agony of agonies” (stanza 13) because it is a country of tyrants and slaves who use religion and false ideologies on patriotism to kill and enslave themselves. Please note that the tyrants in his novels were not just the Spaniards but the Filipinos: Lucas, who gathered men for an uprising and tagged Ibarra as the leader, the bystanders who pelted their innocent kababayans with stones as they were marched off to jail, the chief sacristan who stole Fray Salvi’s gold coins and beat Crispin to death, after accusing him of the theft, Consolacion, who flogged Sisa for a whim, the servants of Fathers Salvi and Camorra who shoved Sisa down the stairs and who beat and pushed old Selo when they inquired about the deaths of Crispin and Juli, the convict who whipped fellow-Filipino convicts, the  soldier who flogged Filipino suspects, the insurgents who wounded Ibarra/Simoun (their false deliverer), the yellowish man who tried to murder Ibarra during the laying of the cornerstone of his schoolhouse, Capitan Tiago and Victorina who hated themselves for being Filipino, Patrocinio who was willing to impoverish herself just to beat her kababayan and rival in their vulgar display of religious obsequiousness, the friar’s  lackey whom the friars used to usurp the land Tales had cleared and cultivated, the  court employees and clerks who mercilessly fleeced Tales when he sued the friars, the tulisanes who kidnapped their fellow-Filipinos for ransom, and many more.

       Rizal’s perception that we are tyrants and slaves holds true up to now.  We still brutalize one another here and abroad, long after the white colonists had left our shores because we did not listen to him when he repeatedly said, “With or without Spain we will be the same if not worse.””  We refused to heed his plea for evolution, not revolution.  We recklessly chased after political independence which is a loaded gun in our immature hands, instead of self-redemption through education.  Being a sick society, we could not tell education from certification, freedom from political independence,  patriots from delirious zealots, heroes from criminals, friends from foes, spirituality from religion.  We still could not tell treasure from trinket as we keep celebrating this trinket called independence while we trash the technology or treasure that will finally give us the evolution and thence the freedom Rizal had so yearned for.  So we still suffer at the hands of our own leaders, our own policemen and our own kababayans in spite of the fact that we already have independence and diplomas.

      Please do not dismiss Rizal’s final statement that he was never a traitor to Spain as another lie that the friars had concocted.  Have you forgotten that he volunteered his services as medical officer to the Spanish army in Cuba? This means that he loved Spain just as he loved the Philippines. Just before he was marched out to be shot, he wrote a letter to Blumentritt, his confidante, telling him, “I am innocent of the crime of rebellion.””  At the point of death, do you think he would lie to his dearest friend? Then, he expressed this statement most dramatically and most eloquently again, when he twisted his body to face the firing squad so he won’t die the way of traitors who are shot at the back. This information did not come from the friars who fabricated the lie about his retraction.  It came from an impartial source Andre Bellesort, a French journalist who learned about it from an eyewitness at Rizal’s public execution. Through body language, Rizal announced to the public that he wasn’t a traitor to Spain, that he never inspired the revolution, and that he never was its leader.

       Rizal wasn’t a traitor to Spain because he saw her not as our enemy but as our mother to whose civilization he owed his enlightenment.  Our enemy, Rizal said, is OURSELVES.  The chilling circumstances behind his tragic, unnecessary death, orchestrated by his unenlightened countrymen and the religious, plus the present-day scenario in his beloved Philippines prove that his marksmanship is excellent.

       Finally, let me quote from his Adios to vindicate him once and for all from the misconception that he had inspired and encouraged the uprising:

                    Clean note I’ll ever be, a vibrant tune in your ears,

                    In aroma light-rays colors, rumor, song or lament,

                    Constant I’ll be repeating the essentials of my faith.

         Clean note.  That means innocent, not guilty. Constant.  That means steadfast, unchanging, unwavering. He therefore could not have preached so earnestly against an armed revolution and then wavered, and changed his mind and endorsed it in the end, as your book declares. His faith is different from the rebels and the priests’. Their faith kills. Religion prohibits free thought and the exercise of reason, thereby killing human dignity. It therefore kills progress and freedom borne of this dignity. It even kills free-thinkers like Rizal, literally.  Zealots display their false patriotism in wars and revolutions. So the faith of these rebels, these zealots, kills. Rizal’s faith does not kill. His faith is in reason, which comes from God, in its full culturing and full exercise, not in tenets/beliefs and delirious recklessness. Thus he wrote in the 13th  stanza :

                   I  go where there are no slaves, oppressors, executioners,

                   Where faith does not kill, where he who reigns is God.

      And so, let’s believe Rizal, for goodness’ sake!  He died as a spiritually developed person, not a repentant believer, and he wasn’t and was never a bloody separatist!  Tyranny and Slavery, Religion and Wars go together, just as Spirituality and Self-realization/Evolution go together. They are the two ends of the same stick and so they always come in pairs. If Rizal retracted, he belongs to religion, and it follows that he also advocates an armed revolution.  But your book clearly exonerated him from belonging to the dark world of religion, so why say he was a subversive? He was not a religionist, but a highly evolved person, who knew what true spirituality is all about and practiced its morality well. He died clean, with nobody’s blood in his hands, and constant to his sterling principles to the end.

      We can only achieve Rizal’s dream of a healthy”society if we see religion and armed revolution as he saw them: as foils to enlightenment –which is the only means towards a mature, hence progressive, free society. I hope the upcoming third volume of your book will help enable our countrymen to see this so that your noble goal of plucking Rizal from the pit of ignominy he has been consigned to by our illustrious historians these past 103 years will be achieved one hundred, not just fifty percent.

      I hope, too that you will get to read my book, Swatting the Spanish Flies, which aims to remove Rizal from the stinking ranks of bloody separatists. These separatists pursued the independence they don’t deserve from an unenlightened, therefore false, sense of patriotism and failed. But we got independence due to the guilt-ridden Americans, which has hurt us more than helped us rise above our problems.  My book discusses these matters. It will come out, hopefully on Rizal’s death anniversary this year.

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About Margarita Ventenilla-Hamada:

I am an ardent admirer of Margarita Ventenilla-Hamada's accomplishments as both writer and author, as well as the founder and directress of Harvent Schools in Pangasinan.  She is, I truly believe, amongst our country's intrepid non-conformists much like Dr. Jose Rizal.

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Suggested reads:

Philippine Daily Inquirer:  No race for grades in this school

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 Newspaper articles and essays by Margarita Ventinella-Hamada as featured on this blog:

On Jose Rizal

Dr. Jose Rizal: A true national hero

Recapturing Heaven

Magical Mind

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ABC Wednesday

Please note:

I very much appreciate my articles and photos appearing on fellow bloggers' sites, popular broadsheets, and local broadcast news segments, but I would appreciate even more a request for permission first.

Thank you!

Jose Rizal: A true national hero

Nation marks Rizal’s martyrdom

By MARGARITA VENTENILLA-HAMADA

After the Philippines was bought by the United States from Spain in 1898, the Americans made a startling, albeit pleasant discovery: a brilliant man of letters who happened to be a physician named Jose Rizal had been executed two years earlier by the Spaniards. Although sedition was the reason given for his execution, our new overlords quickly learned from his voluminous writings that what he strove for was a far greater cause than mere national independence. He was a devotee of freedom — the very ideal upon which their constitution is based and out of which a nation where human rights ruled, emerged.

Rizal’s and our then colonial masters’ vision and ideals of freedom were wrung from a very mature psyche. Their idea of freedom demanded an enlightened citizenry as basic condition for self-governance. Enlightenment, they knew, bestows dignity on human beings. No abuse could be possibly wrought upon an individual with dignity, nor upon a society made up of these individuals. To Rizal and the Americans, a society of enlightened, dignified people is a peaceful, hence progressive one. Rizal’s intense exposure to a very sophisticated intellectual milieu through his readings and travel enabled him to tell Freedom from Independence, and he shared his mature views of what love for country is, to his countrymen fearlessly. His writings, especially his two-volume novel, gave the Filipino people a clear mirror of their psyche’s urgent need for rehabilitation, so that enlightened, they will choose freedom— human rights even under a mature, therefore benevolent, though foreign-ruled government, and not just national independence. He urged them to read and think, showing them that the way to freedom is through revolution of the mind, and not through armed revolutions which lead only to independence, not true freedom.

But the polished mirror he fashioned, held up by the Americans, stung their eyes, preventing them to see his message, and so they went on to fight and kill for independence, unsuccessfully. The Americans, our new overlords, gave us what Rizal had pleaded for, in vain, from the Spaniards — human rights under a benevolent government for almost fifty years, until our leaders’ blind clamor for independence made them give it to us in 1946. Thus our independence removed us from the protective mantle of a strong, benevolent government and shoved us into the ranks of other new independent states not yet strong to resist mutual exploitation by her own leaders and citizenry and by more seasoned nations. Ironically, it is through our independence that we would finally be able to see the wisdom of Rizal in not choosing it for us. It is through the miseries inflicted on us by our independence that we would finally get to see and appreciate Rizal’s kind of nationalism, and hopefully learn from it so we can steer our country forward toward self-renewal.

Rizal kept saying that a people without enlightenment, without dignity, will abuse one another even under their own independent government; that mutual abuse is what characterizes a sick society — a society that cannot achieve peace and progress no matter how many times it changes its leaders, either through peaceful rallies or through violent coup d’ etats.

The core of Rizal’s nationalism is love for fellow-beings, not love for the Filipino proletariat alone. Rizal’s nationalism targets the immature, evil psyche as its enemy, not the immature, evil people (the imperialists and the elite) as its enemy. Rizal’s nationalism is based on the whole of reality, not on fragments of reality. He saw wickedness in both master and slave, in both the rich and the poor, not just in the rich. Rizal’s nationalism is open to anything that could give his countrymen human rights — the basis for peace and progress — assimilation into a mature, foreign government included. It is not focused on just one — independence or separation from any foreign government no matter how benevolent. Rizal’s nationalism recommends a change from immature, defective thinking to mature, sensible thinking via enlightenment or revolution of the mind. He did not recommend a change of defective government systems or defective leaders via revolutions, rallies or strikes. Rizal’s nationalism made him a man of courage who was not afraid to die for the cause of freedom, peace and progress, yet who will never kill nor inspire others to kill for mere political independence at the cost of freedom, peace and progress.

Rizal’s nationalism was engendered and nurtured by classics written in international languages, that he devoured. His love for his native tongue did not make him embrace it to the exclusion of the richer, more powerful languages outside his own. Hence, his mind, open and resilient, got nourished by the immortal thoughts and insights of great thinkers. He therefore saw what his colleagues could not see — that separation from Spain will leave us open to new invaders; that it will cast us from the pan of colonial bondage into the fire of an independent na tion’s internal strifes and power struggles which sabotage its own people’s human rights and their chance to live in peace and prosperity.

Had Rizal’s nationalism rubbed off on our past leaders and historians, would we be weeping now for an entire generation of university students of the 60’s and 70’s who threw themselves into the flames of political activism after metabolizing the rhetoric of a nationalism different from that of Rizal’s? Would we be weeping bitter tears for the 43,000 young cadres who joined the fight to change our government system and its leaders and who were killed by their own comrades in a wave of paranoia that swept through their movement? The EDSA Revolutions, the coup d’ etats, the Oakwood mutiny, the bloody strikes at Hacienda Luisita now serve to show us how the immature psyche creates mutual abuse and exploitation among people of an independent nation. The Filipino ‘diaspora,’ though sweet-lemonised by Patricia Evangelista in her internationally acclaimed speech is a loud statement about the economic woes of our independent nation. Our loved ones have to work abroad, especially in countries whose citizens chose to be assimilated by a foreign government — Hawaii, Guam, Alaska. We have become modern-day wandering Jews, although our nation is no longer a colony of a foreign power, all because Rizal’s nationalism was not plumbed deep enough.


Published by Manila Bulletin

December 30, 2004

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I very much appreciate my articles and photos appearing on fellow bloggers' sites, popular broadsheets, and local broadcast news segments, but I would appreciate even more a request for permission first.

Thank you!

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Erap: Victim of circumstance?

Former President Joseph Estrada admitted during an interview with Cheche Lazaro on ABS-CBN last week, that his chief legal counsel, Estilito Mendoza, was partly responsible for his 2001 ouster for being too “legalistic” during the impeachment trial. 

Mendoza fought against the opening of the second envelope because it was not included in the charges against the former president.  “I wanted the second envelope opened because I didn’t want the people to think that we were covering up something. But Mendoza, who is very legalistic, said that it was against the rule of law. Being the chief legal counsel, he prevailed,” Estrada said.

Former senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., who was also interviewed by Lazaro, said he was able to talk to Estrada two weeks after the walkout of prosecutors and after the Senate had decided to open the second envelope.  During their talk, Erap asked the former senator what was in the second envelope.  “I told him there was nothing there and he asked me, you mean I lost the presidency because of that and I said yes,” Pimentel said.

Now whether that may be all true or not, as far as Erap's final dethronement is concerned, it is worth taking another look at EDSA Dos, the impetus that provided Gloria Arroyo the justification to grab the presidential seat.  Thus, I'd like to share the following excerpt from Margarita Ventenilla Hamada’s letter to Dr. R. Bernardo – entitled: Envious, Not Righteous Anger – page 81, Transcending Rizal:

            Anyway, regarding your-sum-up of EDSA Dos being the Filipinos’ most mature shining act as a national community” – as it was propelled by “the right to know the truth,” are you sure it was purely this intellectual ideal that really created EDSA Dos? I have my suspicions that 95% of those people at EDSA were merely anti-Erap, not anti-evil, and that envy, more than quest for truth, was the propelling force behind that display that so awed you. 

            I still think Pinoys can’t change their spots overnight.  Rizal’s brilliant observations about their apathy and timidity towards evil when confronted with it still holds true now.  So what galvanized the people to gather at EDSA is the same force that had galvanized EDSA Uno.  It is the same force that killed Romania’s Ceaucescus by firing squad.  It is the same force that sent France’s Queen Marie Antoinette to the guillotine: ENVY.

            The long-starving French were driven to homicidal fury at Marie Antoinette’s diamond necklace which costs millions of francs, and it wasn’t even true that she bought it.  The report that Mrs. Ceaucescu wore shoes the heels of which were of pure gold was the straw that broke the backs of the impoverished Romanians. Imelda’s beauty which her fabulous jewelry and gowns emphasized with vengeance, their noveau riche lifestyle, the international celebrities whose company they kept, fueled EDSA Uno. 

           And how could Erap escape the envious indignation of the Pinoys after they learned of Laarni’s Boracay-like mansion, the P20,000 tips she gave her beautician, her P11 M ring?  His eight other beautiful mistresses, their mansions and businesses?  His billion-peso bank accounts under false names? 

          Marie Antoinette, the Ceaucescus, the Marcoses, and now Erap have one thing in common: their having too much where everybody has to struggle for so little or for nothing.

            During EDSA Uno, the anti-Marcos frontliners were not anti-evil, because they were later accused to be just as evil and corrupt as the man they ousted.  Enrile, Ramos, Honasan, Sin, Butz and Tessie A. Oreta, Miriam D. Santiago – they were merely anti-Marcos.  All they ever wanted was lynch one enviable man.  If the zeal they used in ousting Marcos and his kith and kin was directed against evil and corruption instead, EDSA Dos need not have happened.  Now who are the frontliners at EDSA Dos?  Chavit Singson, Gloria Arroyo, Joey Lina, Nora Aunor, Angelo Reyes, Kiko Pangilinan, Ralph Recto, Raul Roco, Serge Osmena, Franklin Drillon under the leadership of bribe-taking Cardinal Sin.  Do you see these people as heroes/patriots or just politicians?  Remember, men do not conspire against the stuff they are made of.

            EDSA Dos was not really a rally against evil or truth.  It was more for a chance at experiencing that flush of power that comes from lynching someone who has so much more than you can ever hope to get in life yourself.  To politicians, it was an opportunity to grab that same power Erap enjoyed and taste the goodies he enjoyed, too – not for truth and justice, which they merely used as slogans behind which they could hide their real motives.

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TRANSCENDING RIZAL by Margarita Ventinilla Hamada

Collected articles, letters and speeches on the controversial Jose Rizal and on the even more controversial cure she offers for the social ills she saw

Giraffe Books – 2005

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Related link:


Margarita Ventinilla Hamada on Jose Rizal


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Footnote:

Envy (also called invidiousness) is best defined as a resentful emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another's (perceived) superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it."

Envy can also derive from a sense of low self-esteem that results from an upward social comparison threatening a person's self image: another person has something that the envier considers to be important to have. If the other person is perceived to be similar to the envier, the aroused envy will be particularly intense, because it signals to the envier that it just as well could have been he or she who had the desired object.

Bertrand Russell said envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. It is a universal aspect of human nature because not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his envy, but also wishes to inflict misfortune on others. Although envy is generally seen as something negative, Russell also believed that envy was a driving force behind the movement towards democracy and must be endured to achieve a more just social system.   However, psychologists have recently suggested that there may be two types of envy: malicious envy and benign envy - benign envy being proposed as a type of positive motivational force.

Source: Wikipedia

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Please note:

I very much appreciate my articles and photos appearing on fellow bloggers' sites, popular broadsheets, and local broadcast news segments, but I would appreciate even more a request for permission first.

Thank you!

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Margarita Ventenilla-Hamada on Jose Rizal

One of the country's incisive writers whom I have tremendous admiration for is Margarita Ventenilla-Hamada, author of "Swatting the Spanish Flies," a critical commentary on Philippine history.  She is also an educator, having founded Harvent Schools in Dagupan City and Lingayen, Pangasinan.  

She had sent me a copy of her reaction to Manuel F. Almario's article published by the Philippine Inquirer on its front page, December 31, 2011 edition.  She had also requested that I share it with my readers.  Herewith her response:

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Will the real Jose Rizal please stand up?

               (Deconstructing Almario’s fiction of Rizal as a rebel-hero)

                                    By Margarita Ventenilla-Hamada

Nationalists and ideologies

            There are three kinds of nationalists.  For want of a better term, I shall classify them as A, B, or C.  The ‘A’ nationalists can tell gold (freedom or human rights) from the gold-plated trinket (political independence).  They buy the gold because they know the intricacies of the market well enough to profit, and not lose from their investment.

            The ‘B’ nationalists, on the other hand, cannot tell one from the other.  Neither do they have the panache of a seasoned trader.  So, they get easily conned to invest in trinkets whose glitter feeds their illusion that they have a treasure in their hands.

            The ‘C’ nationalists are not nationalists at all.  Pseudos, they prey on the ‘B’ nationalists’ penchant for glitter and build their fortune selling them their trinkets, which they claim cost them their lives mining, smelting and designing them.  The ‘B’ nationalists glorify these quacks as heroes for such sacrifice and look askance at the ‘A’ nationalists whose keen eyes they do not have and whose safe way of acquiring their gold through reputable shops is, to them, cowardly, not heroic. 

            These buyers of trinkets—the B nationalists, snigger at the class A nationalists—the ‘mere reformers’  and men of peace like Jose Rizal whose revolution is not a violent, bloody one; whose weapon is the pen and not the sword; whose battlefield is the psyche of both tyrant and slave; whose ideology is liberty, not political independence.

Coward or Hero?

            Manuel F. Almario wrote an article extolling Jose Rizal, not as a reformer and man of peace but as the opposite— a man “generally acknowledged as the inspiration, if not instigator of national independence and unity”---in order to redeem him in the eyes of his fellow B nationalists.  In his article, “Rizal: ‘Amboy’ or home-made hero?” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 31 December 2011, front page), he ran rough shod over historical facts, twisting them to justify, and even peddle his dangerous trinket—political independence to an as yet unprepared people, and its very criminal means of getting it: armed revolution.  He offered as support for his arguments, thrice altered hearsay, instead of authentic primary sources.  He also deliberately disregarded historical data and the words of Rizal himself to better be able to foist his conclusion on his readers as the correct one.

La Solidaridad

            For instance, he states that Rizal was the founder of La Solidaridad, (which, in his opinion, was subversive) although Rizal himself said he was not, in the following words:

(The La Solidaridad) was founded by Marcelo H. del Pilar and was always edited by him…when I wanted to criticize the actions of La Solidaridad, Marcelo H. del Pilar was against it…This proves that the political (policy) of the paper was never under my direction.  (Rizal’s rebuttal of the statements of the thirteen affiants against him in his trial).

Almario also concludes that the La Solidaridad “propagandists” (led by Rizal) who asked for equal status and rights as the citizens of Spain and representation in the Spanish Cortes were “revolutionary” because, he writes, “when a slave demands to be equal to his master, it is a revolution.”  Does Almario’s position as spokesperson for the Movement for Truth in History give him the license to make sweeping, unsupported conclusions such as this?

The Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo

            Almario also sweeps aside what Rizal himself had said about his purpose in writing the Fili and gives the impression that he knows Rizal’s purpose better than Rizal himself by saying :  “Rizal took a leave from the newspaper (La Solidaridad) to devote his time to writing a novel (El Filibusterismo) that would more dramatically denounce the tyranny of the Spanish regime, and thus arouse the fury and igniting the latent nationalism of the Filipinos into the conflagration of revolution.”  Not at all!  The Fili is a sequel to the Noli, whose purpose, wrote Rizal to his critic, Barrantes, was not to incite a revolution, but to effect the Filipinos’ mental and moral evolution.  Let us read Rizal’s own words;

     Yes, I have depicted the social sores of ‘my homeland’;  in it are ‘pessimism and darkness’ and it is because I see much infamy in my country; there the wretched equal in number the imbeciles.  I confess that I found a keen delight in bringing out so much shame and blushes, but in doing the painting with the blood of my heart, I wanted to correct them and save the others. (Reply to Barrantes’ criticism of the Noli, 15 Feb 1890, La Solidaridad).

Its sequel, the Fili, wrote Rizal, is a study of subversion, to make his readers see “the structure of its skeleton”, not an enticement for it: “If the sight should lead our Country and its Government to reflexion, (Note: not subversion!) we shall be happy no matter how our boldness may be censured...” (Dedication page, El Filibusterismo, Europe, 1891).  Then Rizal ends the Fili with the following paragraph:

He (Father Florentino) then hurled “the steel chest which contained Simoun’s fabulous treasure “ into the sea and prayed: “When men should need you for a purpose holy and sublime, God will know how to raise you from the bottom of the seas.  Until then, you will do no evil there, you will not thwart justice or incite greed.

Does this sound like an enticement to subversion?  Rizal made it so clear that revolution is evil because it thwarts justice and incites greed.  Yet Almario, who is hell-bent in ‘redeeming’ Rizal by ‘elevating’ him as a terrorist to fit his idea of a true hero gives us another impetuous insight: “Ibarra morphs into the terrorist/revolutionary/separatist Simoun.  A tight parallel could be drawn between the real life of Rizal and the fictional life of Ibarra turned Simoun.”

            But Rizal says he is not Ibarra/Simuon! He said so in his letter to Barrantes which was published in the La Solidaridad:  “I myself, ‘the man’, the Ibarra of Your Excellency (I know not why, for I am neither rich nor a mestizo, nor an orphan, nor do the qualities of Ibarra coincide with mine.) – (La Solidaridad, 15 Ferbruary 1890).  On a later date, Rizal says: “That was my purpose in depicting the dark character of Simuon so that it might be realized that the members of the La Solidaridad are not subversive.” –(letter to M.H. del Pilar 23 May 1892).

Rizal’s essays

            Next, Almario holds up the warnings on revolution contained in Rizal’s essay, The Philippines, a Century Hence and in a proclamation Rizal addressed to Our Dear Mother Country Spain as proofs that Rizal had preached revolution.  Had Almario made preliminary studies first, he would not have missed what Rizal said about these ‘warnings’.  This is what Rizal said about them:  “I have also believed that, if Spain systematically denied democratic rights to the Philippines, there would be insurrections and so I have said in my writings, deploring any such eventuality, but not hoping for it.”  - (Memorandum for My Defense 12 December 1896)

            Almario must not dismiss this Memorandum as a desperate, out-of-character attempt of Rizal to get himself off the hook, as he, Almario has just done, for Rizal’s aversion to revolutions was patently consistent and clear from the beginning of his writing career.  Let’s take a look at how he described revolutions years before he was accused as the instigator of the Katipunan:  In an article he contributed to the La Solidaridad, “The Truth for All”, 31 May, 1889, he warned the Spanish government in the Philippines:

If you continue the system of banishments, imprisonments and sudden assaults for nothing, if you will punish the people for your own faults, you will make them desperate, you take away from them the horror of revolutions and disturbances, you harden them and excite them to fight.

He used the word, ‘horror’.  Does this not say the opposite of what Almario is trying to prove?

La Liga Filipina

            Almario now turns to La Liga Filipina’s constitution as another proof that Rizal, its founder, is a subversive.  He writes:  “The constitution of the La Liga Filipina was in actuality a separatist document, a virtual declaration of independence.”  After quoting the purposes of the Liga, he declares:  “In effect, Rizal was proposing a separate government.  In the indictment of treason against the Spanish regime, the formation of the Liga was one of the charges against him.”  To this charge, Rizal had countered brilliantly and truthfully:

Let them show the statutes of the Liga and it will be seen that what I was pursuing were union, commercial and industrial development and the like.  That these things---union and money---after years could prepare for a revolution, I don’t have to deny; but they could also prevent all revolutions, because people who live comfortably and have money do not go for adventures. –(“Data for my Defense” 12 December 1896, Fort Santiago)

Two weeks later, Rizal added:

            The Liga  was not an association with harmful purposes and that is proven by the fact they had to abandon it to organize the Katipunan which perhaps was the one that fulfilled their purposes.  For the little that the Liga might have served for the rebellion they would not have abandoned it.  Instead they would have simply modified it, for if, as someone alleges, I’m the chief, out of consideration for me and for the prestige of my name, they would have preserved the name Liga.  For having rejected it, name and all, for creating the Katipunan, clearly proves that neither did they count on me nor did the Liga serve their purposes, for another association is not formed when there is one already established. – (“Additions to my Defense” 26 December 1896, Fort Santiago).

Historical Data

            Then, Almario invents a historical information about the reasons for Rizal’s deportation to Dapitan.  He writes:  “Within three days after the founding of the Liga, Rizal was arrested and exiled to Dapitan.  The authorities correctly apprehended that Rizal had transgressed the bounds of reformism, stepping into the dangerous grounds of revolution.”  Where did Almario get this information about the authorities’ reason in exiling Rizal to Dapitan?  He or his sources must have made it up because according to Leon Ma. Guerrero, the reason Despujol had exiled Rizal was because of the anti papal pamphlets found in the luggage of his sister who arrived with him from HongKong.  Being a devoted papist, Despujol was livid.  Guerrero based his statement on what Rizal had written down in his diary:

            After we had conversed a while he (Despujol) told me that I had brought some proclamations in my baggage;  I denied it.  He asked me to whom the pillows and sleeping mat might belong and I said they were my sister’s. – (Diary entry, 6 July 1892)

Guerrero continues, “He was kept eight days in the Fort.  On the 14^th July he was notified that he would be taken to Dapitan in Mindanaw at 10 o’clock that night.” (Guerrero, “The First Flipino”).

Not having read this entry in Rizal’s diary, or disregarding it if he had, Almario then makes an impetuous conclusion:  “Indeed, his exile was the blow that convinced the followers of Rizal that seeking reforms through peaceful means was pointless.”  Where is his proof of this?  According to some extant letters unearthed, his exile was the opportunity that del Pilar seized upon to organize a separatist club.  With Rizal out in Mindanao, he (del Pilar) can now push for independence through armed revolution—an issue that Rizal had blocked at every opportunity while they were together in Europe.  Del Pilar told his brother-in-law, Deodato Arellano to organize the Katipunan in preparation for an armed revolution for independence.

Hearsay

            Now Almario turns to the aid of hearsay, dignifying Pio Valenzuela’s four different accounts of his meeting with Rizal, in his zeal to reinvent Rizal into his one-dimensional idea of a hero.  But first, let us read Pio Valenzuela’s first account of his meeting with Rizal in Dapitan, as it is more credible, because it is consistent with Rizal’s writings as early as 1884.   Leon Ma. Guerrero tells us in his book, The First Filipino that:

           Bonifacio had at first been reluctant to believe Valenzuela’s report of Rizal’s attitude.  (No, no, no!  A thousand times no!) but, once convinced of its truth, he ‘began to insult Rizal, calling him a coward and other offensive names.’  Bonifacio for his own reasons, had forbidden Valenzuela to reveal Rizal’s disapproval of the Revolution, but he had done so anyway, and many of those who had offered contributions had backed out.

But Almario deliberately and conveniently disregards this more credible report of Pio Valenzuela.  Instead, he chooses to quote the revised versions of Valenzuela’s conversation with Rizal as recorded in his (Valenzuela’s) memoirs which are more compatible with his (Almario’s) purpose but which are so at variance with Rizal’s sentiments about revolutions that they are absolutely comical.  Almario writes:

Rizal and Valenzuela conversed conspiratorially in a shady nook away from Rizal’s house on June 21, 1896…Rizal was elated by the news of the Katipunan’s existence and murmured, ‘ So the seed grows,’ ecstatic that the seed of revolution he had sown was sprouting.

Then he cites the opinion of historian Teodoro A. Agoncillo that upon hearing of the Katipunan from Pio Valenzuela, Rizal

gave no objection to armed revolution but only cautioned that if an insurrection was to be staged, all efforts should be exerted to gather sufficient arms in order to ensure success and avoid unnecessary casualties and sufferings of civilians and insurrectionists.

 It seems that Almario was just too glad to see Agoncillo fall for Pio Valenzuela’s revised version of that meeting with Rizal that he quotes Agoncillo’s opinion:  “It is obvious that Rizal was not against revolution itself but was only against it in the absence of preparation and arms on the part of the rebels.”

            

But Rizal, who is not known to be a flip-flop, wrote down his own account of that meeting with Pio Valenzuela.  This is what he wrote:

            I have always been opposed to rebellion because I was hoping Spain would give us soon liberties (Note: human rights), as I told Pio Valenzuela, because I could see that in order to forestall future events, a very close union between Spain and the Filipino people was necessary.

Since 6 July 1892 I have absolutely not taken up politics until 1 July of this year when, informed by Mr. Pio Valenzuela that an uprising was planned, I advised the opposite, trying to convince him with reasons.  Mr. Pio Valenzuela separated from me seemingly convinced, so much so that instead of taking part later in the rebellion, he presented himself to the authorities for forgiveness.

Mr. Pio Valenzuela came to advise me to put me in safety, for, according to him, it was possible that they would complicate (sic) me.  As I considered myself entirely innocent and I didn’t know the how and the wherefore of the movement (besides I believed I had convinced Mr. Valenzuela), I took no precautions, except that when the Most Excellent Governor General wrote me advising me of my departure for Cuba, I embarked immediately, abandoning all my affairs. – (Data for my Defense  12 December 1896)

In the face of Rizal’s own, unrevised account of that same meeting, it is truly difficult for an objective reader of history to swallow Pio Valenzuela’s many versions, unless he has a very personal agenda to adhere to.

Rizal’s mission in Cuba

            Even Rizal’s intention to volunteer as military doctor in Cuba was fictionized by Pio Valenzuela and his piece of fiction is swallowed hook, line and sinker by Almario:

            “My intention,” Rizal whispered to Pio, “…is to study the war in a practical way, to go through the Cuban soldiery and find something to remedy the bad situation in our country.  Then after a time, I would return to our native land when necessity arises.”

In short, writes Almario, “he (Rizal) was preparing himself for the revolution.”

            Almario would not have swallowed this piece of fiction and made this ludicrous conclusion had he done some serious reading and research.  First, Blanco’s letter of approval of Rizal’s request to be sent to Cuba arrived on 30 July 1896, two weeks after Pio Valenzuela’s departure from Dapitan.  How could he (Valenzuela) have known that Rizal was going to Cuba?  Could Rizal have told him about his trip to Cuba when his application wasn’t approved yet?  The fact is, during Pio Valenzuela’s visit, Rizal had given up is plan to go to Cuba.  Then, suddenly, two weeks after Valenzuela had left Dapitan, Blanco’s approval arrived, and he wrote Blumentritt about the good news some time after:  “I no longer planned to go to Cuba since more than six months had passed since my application, but, fearing that my refusal to go at that time might be attributed to some other cause, I decided to abandon everything and leave immediately.” 

            From Rizal’s letters to his sister, Trinidad and his best friend, Blumentritt, we can surmise why he agreed to take the suggestion of Blumentritt to go to Cuba:  “With regard to your advice on going to Cuba as a doctor, I think it is an excellent idea.  I am writing immediately to the Governor General.” – (Letter to Blumentritt  20 November 1895).  He was tired of his exile and of the relentless efforts of the religious there to re-convert him to Catholicism.  He also felt bad that these same religious refused his request to marry Josephine Bracken unless he retracted his views on religion and the religious:  “I am beginning to feel unwell,” he explained to his sister Trinidad.  “I do not think I can endure much longer the kind of life I lead here: much work, poor food, and not a few troubles.”

            If Rizal had indeed confided his plans to learn the art of war in Cuba to a complete stranger like Pio Valenzuela, why didn’t he do the same—confide to his best friend, Blumentritt?  Almario should have asked this question first before pouncing on Pio Valenzuela’s fictionized memoirs to bolster his preposterous arguments.

            Then again, Almario’s lack of research makes him commit the unconscionable.  He calls Rizal an accomplice  of the insurgents because he writes, “Rizal never betrayed his knowledge of the plot to the authorities…” when in fact, it is on record that Rizal did.  This, Rizal states unequivocally: 

            When later, despite my counsels, the uprising broke out, I offered spontaneously, not only my services, but also my life, and even my name so that they might use them in the way they deem opportune in order to quench the rebellion; for, convinced of the evils that it might bring, I considered myself happy if with any sacrifice, I could forestall so many needless misfortunes.  This is also on record. – (Manifesto to Some Filipinos  15 December 1896)

            Why doesn’t Almario believe Rizal?  Why does he choose to believe Pio Valenzuela, a flip-flopping liar, as Dr. R. M. Bernardo, a Rizal scholar calls him?  Because his purpose is not to tell the truth, as he should do, being the spokesperson of the Movement for Truth in History, but to fit Rizal into his one-dimensional idea of a  B nationalist’s hero—a delirious revolutionary like Andres Bonifacio and an ambitiously cunning Emilio Aguinaldo--- those C nationalists so adored by B nationalists like himself.

Rizal’s Manifesto to Some Filipinos

            But Almario’s repudiation of Rizal’s Manifesto as the best proof of his (Rizal’s) true advocacies, is the most dismaying, yet.  In this Manifesto, Rizal denounced the Katipunan in very strong terms, calling it absurd, fatal, savage, criminal, and a dishonor to Filipinos, and asked the rebels to go home.   So, Almario tells his readers to view it “from the circumstances of its writing.  Not only did he face a death sentence, Rizal must have also been thinking of trying to save his family from further persecution.”  How can Almario say this when Rizal’s Manifesto wasn’t the first article he wrote against armed revolutions for independence?  As early as 1884 and up till a few hours before his execution, he has been denouncing armed revolutions/independence while preaching about the Philippines’ future assimilation with Spain!

The following are excerpts from his articles arranged chronologically:

1884 (June 25) Speech at the Luna-Hidalgo banquet in Madrid:

            …we have all come here to this banquet to join our wishes, in order to give form to the mutual embrace of two races that love one another and like one another, morally, socially and politically united for a period of four centuries so that they may form in the future one single nation in spirit, in their duties, in their views, in their privileges.

1889 (May 31) The Truth for All ( La Solidaridad):

            And we say loyally to the Spanish government:  We shall say what we think, even though many be displeased.  We want to be loyal to the Metropolis and to her high officials.

1890 (February 1) The Philippines a Century Hence (La Solidaridad):

            The Philippines, then, either will remain under Spain but with more rights and freedom, or will declare herself independent after staining herself and the Mother Country with her own blood.  As no one should wish or hope for such an unfortunate rupture of relations which would be bad for all and should only be the last argument in a most desperate case, let us examine the forms of peaceful evolution under which the Islands could remain under the Spanish flag without injuring in the least the rights, interests, or dignity of both countries.

                ........We know that the lack of enlightenment, the pusillanimity, the selfishness of many of our compatriots, and the audacity, the astuteness, and the powerful means at the command of those who want obscurantism to prevail there can convert the reform into an obnoxious instrument.  But we wish to be loyal to the government and we point out to it the road that seems to us best so that its efforts would not come to naught, so that the discontented elements would disappear.  If after such a just as well as necessary measure is implemented, the Filipino people are so foolish and pusillanimous that they would turn against their own interests, then, let them bear the responsibilities and suffer all the consequences.  Every country meets the fate that she deserves, and the government can say that it has fulfilled its duty.

1892 (March 21)  Letter to Governor General Despujol, Hong Kong:

            I consider it my duty not only to respect your administration but also to get, should it be necessary, the adherence to Spain of all the Filipinos.

1892 (June 20) Letter to the Filipinos, Hong Kong:

            Happen what may, I shall die blessing her (the Philippines) and desiring the dawn of her redemption. (Note: not independence!)

1894 (February, no date) Letter to Governor General Blanco, Dapitan

            ….my crime would be for having desired what the Constitution and our laws assign to us, for having wanted our liberty, and I say liberty and not independence because I know very well that people can be independent and a slave at the same time, like many peoples of Asia, and on the contrary, one can be a colony and dependent but equally free and happy as we see in many countries in Oceania.

1896 (December 12) Data for my Defense:

            Well now, many have interpreted my phrase ‘to have liberties as to have independence’ which are two different things.  A people can be free without being independent and a people can be independent without being free.  I have always desired liberties for the Philippines and I have said so.  Others who testify that I said Independence either have put the cart before the horse or they lie.

                I cannot deny that sometimes rebellious and punishable ideas have crossed my imagination, especially when my family was being persecuted, but afterwards reflection, the reality of facts, the absurdity of the thought, made me recover my senses, because I don’t believe I’m stupid or foolish to want an impossible and senseless thing.

                …separatist ideas are not mine; rather I am their effect.

1896 (December 29, seven hours before his execution) letter to Ferdinand Blumentritt:

My dear brother,

When you receive this letter I shall be dead.  I shall be shot tomorrow at seven o’clock, but I am innocent of the crime of rebellion.

                I am going to die with a clear conscience.

                Farewell, my best, my dearest friend, and never think ill of me!

Rizal’s Adios

            Finally, Almario uses Rizal’s “Adios” to prove, by his own subjective interpretation, that he, (Rizal) applauded the rebels and wished them to succeed in winning independence for his beloved country.  A closer, more objective study of the Adios, however, shows the opposite.  Rizal described the rebels as an unthinking, delirious mob, who know not the consequences of their action, too easily seduced by the C nationalists’ favorite slogan—“for country and home”, a slogan used by terrorists all over the world until now.  He is willing to die, if his death will stop the carnage, and his beloved country will live and find redemption (Note: not independence!), at last.  His death indeed stopped the carnage, albeit for a while, because demoralized by his unjust and cruel death, and tempted by the cash reward offered, the rebels sold the Katipunan to the authorities barely a year later (December 15, 1897), at the Pact of Biak na Bato.  But his country only got political independence 50 years later from another foreign power and not yet the redemption (the people’s mental and moral evolution) he tried so hard to bring about.

Conclusion

            One of the major reasons for the Philippines becoming a third world nation after the USA granted her political independence is:  No other class A nationalist openly took Rizal’s place after his death.

            Our historians and scholars who handled the lessons of our past were and are B and C nationalists.  They extol and continue to extol the trinket called political independence while condemning Rizal’s smarter choice for a still weak people—gold nuggets of civil liberties via assimilation into a first world nation—by denying that he ever chose this for us.  Being what they are—B and C nationalists, they couldn’t see or they deny what they see--the danger of the trinket they preferred---that in the hands of the weak and wicked, this independence becomes a threat to civil liberty (remember Martial Law?) and progress (look at our unemployed, our homeless, our millions of OFWs, our garbage, etc.)  as it has indeed become in the Philippines. I have yet to meet one among our historians/scholars who is focused on bringing about our redemption by examining possible technologies that may effect our moral evolution.

            If our B and C nationalists do not morph into class A nationalists soon, we will forever be producing student activists like the 43,000 cadres of the ‘70s who took up arms against Marcos’ government and died accomplishing nothing. The evil they blamed on Marcos’ government persists up to this day long after he and his government have gone.  Just like how Bonifacio’s Katipuneros and Aguinaldo’s guerillas accomplished nothing, too, not even winning the independence they pretended to pursue.  This is the truth in our history.  The independence granted us by the Americans was not due to any ‘heroic’ efforts of our B and C nationalists but to the Americans’ shrewd realization that they can colonize us more efficiently if we had an independent democratic government.  Through our elections, they can put their ‘chosen’ in top positions and get everything they want, without compromising their noble statutes’ stand against acts of subjugation.  Those “chosen’ who don’t do as they are told are assassinated (Magsaysay) or ignominiously removed (Marcos, Erap) by adverse press their ambassadors sow among the populace who had been molded to be B and C nationalists by our historians.

            We need class A nationalists to give us, in the words of Alejandro Roces, a ‘factual and objective perspective—one that strives for meaningful interpretation of people and events of the dim past,’ not a warped, subjective appraisal of these to support one’s inferior and dangerous ideology.

            Until these class A nationalists come forward, Rizal will remain, long after the sesquicentennial of the year of his birth, the dreamer of unfulfilled dreams of peace and progress (the fruits of redemption) in his beloved Philippines.

(The author is the Founder/Directress of two non-traditional schools, HARVENT SCHOOL in Dagupan City and Lingayen, Pangasinan.  She is the author of 2 books on Rizal, Swatting the Spanish Flies and Transcending Rizal, and books on education and Quantum Physics and skillbooks on the 3 basic academic skills.)

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Related link:

A True Hero


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Addendum:

What JPR Told Bonifacio’s Emissary

     Highly nationalistic PDI contributor Manuel Almario’s long detailed portrait (in PDI, 12/31/ 2011) of our PH top hero’s core-identity  as a “Bonifacian” deep down has got me all stirred up. That astonishing view was fully developed and defended by Professor Quibuyen in his major late 1990s book. My online  book (at cnx.org) on Rizal’s still unappreciated core-teachings clashed with that view of the ascendant highly nationalistic school of PHhistory. No matter how we Filipinos might wish Rizal to have violently fought side-by-side with Bonifacio against the latter’s most hated foe, Spain, the facts of the case say so otherwise. I would endorse here instead PDI columnist Randy David’s portrait of him on December 29 as “the first Filipino modern…[believer of] the power of scientific reason” who valued individual liberties most of all and would not consciously lie in manifestoes and testimonies during his trial, not even to save his neck. Almario thinks otherwise. He forces the facts to fit his highly nationalistic ideology, as we shall see.

      He wrote that Rizal “conversed conspiratorially [with Katipunero Valenzuela]” and “was elated by news of the Katipunan’s existence….gave no objection to armed revolution, but only cautioned … to gather sufficient arms [and brainy well-off members]…” Faced with Rizal’s famous anti-rebellion manifesto, Almario explains it away by saying it was calculated half-truths lacking veracity done for his defense in order to save his life. This revisionist nationalistic reinterpretation of the facts revolves around Valenzuela’s suspiciously flip-flopping recollections decades later. These shockingly contradict his earliest testimonies reporting Rizal’s deeply expressed opposition to the rebellion and use of his name. Upon being heatedly told this, the rightly agitated Valenzuela rushed home from Dapitan to relay it to his fellow topmost rebels. Their resounding silence and secrecy over so important a matter is confirmation as well. More confirmation comes from testimonies around that time by Valenzuela’s own colleagues. More important than anything else, Valenzuela’s earliest relayed report and testimonies were as a whole impliedly confirmed many times by Rizal himself in many of his testimonies, diary entries and letters.

       

By Roberto M. Bernardo, 2/1/2012

rbernardo2@yahoo.com

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Related link:


Erap: Victim of circumstance?


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