Rizal as Religion, Constantino as

Dogma
RIZAL AS RELIGION, CONSTANTINO AS
DOGMA

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"Those who profess to favor freedom

and yet deprecate agitation
are men who want crops without
plowing up the ground;
they want rain without thunder and
lightning.
They want the ocean without the
awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one
or it may be a physical one
or it may be both moral and physical
but it must be a struggle.
Power concedes nothing without a
demand
It never did, and never will." – Frederick
Douglass, American Abolitionist,Lecturer, Author and Slave, 1817-1895)
(quoted in Fr.Salgado’s Philippine Economy: History and Analysis, 1985)

Two years ago, I posted Rizal as Religion, a review

by Prof. Roland G. Simbulan (YONIP) written about the
book "A Nation Aborted," authored byProf. Floro
Quibuyen. Note that I entitled the book review as "Rizal:
Reformist or Revolutionary?

Late last month, Prof. Quibuyen came across the above

posting and emailed to request for the sake of fairness that I
post his response "Constantino as Dogma" which I frankly
was not aware of; thus this posting.

Personally, although History is not my profession, I have a

very deep interest in it. History drives me to backpack a lot
especially to Western Europe; which has influenced to a
degree our "modernized" or westernized way of thinking, and
the large relevance to our Spanish cultural heritage that
includes some of our (acquired) native Filipino customs,
values and Christian religiosity - for good or bad.

I have not researched yet as much as I want about Jose

Rizal though I think and believe that per definition he
was not truly a revolutionary; though he was a great
reformist who wrote to expose the abuses of the Spanish
rulers and religious friars in the homeland. I think and believe
that the likes of Andres Bonifacio are truly revolutionary;
and Apolinario Mabini was more of a
revolutionary/nationalistic thinker than Rizal.

[Mabini, the "brains of the Katipunan/Revolution", urged his

fellow Filipinos not to give aid to either the Spanish or the
Americans; but to capture as much of the islands as possible
so that the Americans -who were sure to be victors- would
become convinced that here we have a strong and
organized people that know how to defend their honor." Of
course, our disunity, which was exhibited right from the
beginning of the Katipunan doomed the national
independence movement.
Back in 1987, Joseph B. Smith in his very personal
story/book "Portrait of a Cold Warrior," -Second
Thoughts of A Top CIA Agent , narrated (page 275) a
conversation he had with then Ambassador Bohlen whereby
the latter said:..."I want to tell you something I don't want you to let
Recto know. Do you realize that the selection of Rizal as national hero for
the Filipinos was (William Howard)Taft's doing?"

Taft quickly decided that it would be extremely useful for the Filipinos to
have a national hero of their revolution against the Spanish in order to
channel their feelings and focus their resentment backward on Spain. But
he told his advisers that he wanted it to be someone who really wasn't so
much a revolutionary that, if his life were examined too closely or his works
read too carefully, this could cause us any trouble. He chose Rizal as the
man who fit his model."

I do not doubt the veracity of Smith's story.

But today the bottom line is: it is time to and way

overdue that we emulate all of our heroes -then and
now, to decide and act with the nationalisticneeds of our
present (and future) time.

Bert

"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make
it fall." - Che Guevara

*****************************************

Constantino as Dogma: Reply to Simbulan's "Rizal as

Religion"

- Floro Quibuyen
 I had expected a critical but carefulreading of my book from a reviewer.

But it seems that, for Prof. Roland Simbulan, to review a book, one does not

have to read it in its entirety. I get this impression from the question he raises

Was Rizala revolutionary, Why did he condemn the revolution…? Was

there a retraction by Rizal before the execution? These are questions the
book tries to argue favorably and positively for Rizal.

But the issue of retraction was the one issue that my book never

addressed.

My refutation of Renato Constantino in Chapters 1 and 2 must have been

so disturbing to Simbulan that he had to heap vicious ad hominems against me

and my publisher. In Simbulan's mind, I am guilty of two crimes:

1.The book "had created, or shall we say, added a new religion, to the
already dozens of Rizalistas and cultists in our midst who have 'not
seen nor heard nor spoken evil' about Rizal." "Every positive word or
letter of Rizal as well as documentedtestimonies from his associates
and contemporaries and biographers are harnessed to support the
view that he was after all a consistent revolutionary"--"He presents
testimonies and letters to back this up." Then Simbulan declares,
"Quibuyen asserts that Rizal is indeed a revolutionary theoretician of
the 1896 Revolution, but this kind of Rizalism is in danger of becoming
a cult, if not a religion."

2.Quibuyen "committed a grave sin of omission" by not including the

essay ofKabataang Makabayan and new Communist Party of the
Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison, which "became one of the most
widely read interpretations in the 1960s and the era of the First Quarter
Storm." The essay would have lent support to Quibuyen's postive
views of Rizal "though Sison merely used Rizal and his martyrdom to
show the futility of reformism and to direct it towards the revolutionary
road."
 Simbulan's accusations refer only to the book's first two chapters, which

constitute my critique of the orthodoxy set by Agoncillo and Constantino. What I

did in these two chapters was to point out their historiographic errors and

theoretical flaws, and thus, set the record straight regarding what Rizal actually

did and said. I proceeded by relating all the relevant facts--Rizal's works and

political acts, his correspondence with his countrymen and family, testimonies

and diaries of people who have known him personally--aroundthe trajectory of

Rizal's life-history. Certain key events in this life-history were taken as the

contexts for reading all the relevant texts. Through this critical hermeneutic

method, I clarified Rizal's stand vis-à-vis separatism and the revolution, and

highlighted what Agoncillo and Constantino had obscured, and, thus, exposed

their distortions and misrepresentations of the hisorical record.

Unfortunately, in Simbulan's mind, to refute Constantino and set the

record straight are tantamount to "an extreme adulation" which "does not do

justice to Rizal."

If I harnessed "every postive word or letter of Rizal as well as documented

testimonies…to support the view that he was after all a consistent revolutionary"

(this is a distortion of my argument, as I'll show shortly), what is wrong with this?

Are my documents fake, or my inferences from them dubios? On the contrary,

Simbulan credits me with having produced a "scholarly and well-written treatise"

which "has contributed immensely to the existing Rizaliana scholarship." But how

could a scholarly study contribute, as Simbulan alleges, to the further

mystification of Rizal? Is Simbulan declaring by innuendo that I am guilty of card

stacking, that is, of suppressing contrary evidence. But Simbulan, as reviewer,

has the responsibility to show that this is the case, and not simply insinuate it.

Any reader can see that I have engaged with practically every author who

espouses the orthodoxy, as well with scholars who come up with new

perspectives that, in my view, are not supported by the documentary evidence.

For example, in Chapter 3, I critique Benedict Anderson's new perspective on

Rizal and Philippine nationalism--which Simbulan completely ignores, or perhaps

has not read.

And why should my not citing Jose Ma. Sison constitute a "grave sin"?

What support would I have gotten in citing Sison's very short, undocumented

essay? There is nothing in Sison's essay that Cesar Majul and Leon Ma.

Guerrero had not already said. Nor, more importantly, is there anything in Sison's

essay that contradicts what Agoncillo and Constantino had asserted. In fact,

Sison's essay was largely ignored in favor of Constantino's polemical "Veneration

without Understanding." Even in his latest book, Philippine Economy and

Politics(1998), Sison does not go beyond the orthodoxy that Agoncillo and

Constantino had set:

The best of the reformists, like Jose Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar, were
able to expose and criticize the worst features of colonialism and
feudalism….Upon the frustration of the reformist movement, culminating in
the arrest of Jose Rizal and the suppression of La Liga Filipina, the
Katipunan was established as the political organization of the
revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie to lead the Filipino nation in fighting for
national independence against Spanish colonialism.(Sison, 1998: 71)

Note that Sison takes del Pilar and Rizal to be kindred spirits. I have argued in

Chapter 1 that "there were more profound political/ideological differences

between Rizal and Del Pilar, both ilustrados, than between Rizal and Bonifacio"

(16).

Simbulan declares, "This book should have been given the title Rizal the

Revolutionary instead as this is the real contention of this book." He pronounces,

"But Quibuyen is unconvincing." So, this was my double crime--I "[tried] to argue"

that Rizal was a "consistent revolutionary", and yet did not indicate it in the title.

Simbulan cannot but hate anything outside of his dichotomous mind-

set: ifRizal is not revolutionary (in the Leninist sense), then he must be reformist-

assimilationist like Marcelo H. del Pilar; either Rizal is revolutionary and,

therefore, incredibly perfect, or Rizal is not revolutionary and therefore flawed.

This cognitive straight-jacket determines Simbulan's logic: Constantino's

assertion that Rizal condemned the revolution is the correct line, because no

human [read: ilustrado] is perfect. Therefore, if one argues that Rizal is a

revolutionary, he is creating a "a saint to be worshipped, a demigod to be

transformed into a religion." Any evidence not in keeping with this logic is

inadmissible!

But the real problem is that Simbulan has completely distorted and

misrepresented my argument. In fact, right in the Prologue, I said, "Rizal did not

welcome the revolution when it came. Buthe did not condemn his people for

embracing it. In his farewell to his people he linked his martyrdom with their

revolutionary struggle." (5). Not once, but twice did I lay down in the Prologue

Rizal's position on the question of revolution:

For Rizal, the seizure of state power--the quintessential revolutionary goal

from the American and French revolutions to the national liberation
movements of the twentieth century--cannot be the solution, for the simple
reason that the state itself is the problem. (5)

He was convinced that the road to national liberation, to freedom and

justice, was not via the violent seizure of state power--wherein today's
slaves become tomorrow's tyrants--but through local, grass-roots,
community-oriented struggles in civil society. (10)

Unmindful of the nuances of my argument, and unable to counter my

documentary evidence, Simbulan simply repeats the Agoncillo-Constantino line

about Rizal, and raises the very question that I had in fact addressed.
 Simbulan asks, "Why was Rizal willing to serve the Spanish army as a

medical doctor against the Cuban revolutionaries when he was arrested and

sentenced to die?" Note again the distortion. Rizal, as most everyone knows, had

applied to serve as a medical doctor long before he was arrested and sentenced

to die. And he was arrested while on his way to Cuba, and sentenced to die a

few months later. Simbulan ignores my reference, in page 51, of Pio Valenzuela's

recollection of what Rizal confided in him when they met in Dapitan: "[Rizal] said

that his intention in applying for the post of military doctor was to study the war in

a practical way; go the Cuban soldiery if he thought he would find there solutions

which would remedy the bad situation in the Philippines. If he were admitted as a

military doctor in Cuba, he explained, he could return to the Philippines when the

necessity arose."

Instead, Simbulan repeats the Agoncillo-Constantino line, based on Pio

Valenzuela's 1896 prison testimony: "[Rizal] could have escaped when there was

a chance and when the opportunity was offered by the Katipunan. But he instead

told the Katipunan that he had even given his word to his colonial captors that he

would not escape and behave well." But what exactly did Rizal say to

Valenzuela?
 I have devoted 13 pages of Chapter 2 to this question alone (pp. 44-56) by

analysing several documents, in particular "the third and last sworn testimony

given by Valenzuela before a civilian court in 1917, which supports his 1914

memoir." These two sets of testimonies belie Valenzuela's 1896 prison

statements, made under duress, which Valenzuela himself later disavowed.

Neither Agoncillo or Constantino had considered the 1917 document. Thus,

Simbulan does not see fit to consider it either, even if the book he is supposed to

review discusses it at length. Both the 1914 and the 1917 testimonies establish

two points: one, Rizal's support for and counsel to the Katipunan; two, the

Katipunan's unanimous adoption of his counsel.

I again addressed the question of Rizal's refusal to escape on pages 312-

313 (apparently unread by Simbulan):

What [Rizal] tried successfully to prove, by his refusal to escape,

was a moral imperative that the Filipinos must have the courage to do
what was good for the community even in the face of colonial domination.
If his example could be universalized, that is, if every community in the
Philippines followed the Dapitan example, in which ilustrados and the
masses worked together for the well-being of the community, a national
trend towards social transformation would have ensued. If the Calamba
example could inspire every community to resist injustice, not only would it
be more difficult to perpetuate injustice anywhere, it would be easier to
promote the public welfare. If more and more Calambas and Dapitans
could sprout all over the archipelago, a massive movement for social
transformation could emerge. This could bring about the reform of civil
society on a national scale. In such a situation Spain would have no
choice but grant the demands of the people. But if, given such a social
momentum, Spain refuses to budge, the people would be better prepared
to rise up in arms. With a united people and a strengthened civil society, a
revolution would have a better chance of fulfilling its dreams. (312-313)
 Any effort that contributes towards national emancipation is fine--as Rizal

said in his farewell poem, Cadalso o campo abierto, combate o cruel martirio, Lo

mismo es si lo piden la Patria y el hogar. As I wrote in Chapter 2, "Confronted

with the option between revolution and martyrdom, Rizal chose the latter" (62).

Did Rizal's martyrdom further the cause of the revolution? From Mabini's,

Bonifacio's, and the revolutionary masses' perspective, it did. Might things have

turned out better had Rizal led the revolution? Simbulan says that "it is much

easier to speculate." Exactly! That's why, as I wrote in Chapter 9, we can only go

by the effects of Rizal's words and deeds--and these were positive as far as

inspiring both the ilustrados and the masses were concerned. Why should

making these points be tantamount to creating a dangerous Rizal cult?

Simbulan credits me with doing only two things: one, reviewing "almost all

the interpretations of Rizal"; and two, reviving and supporting "the favorable

interpretations about Rizal written by Fr. John Schumacher, Cesar Adib Majul,

Zeus Salazar, Setsuho Ikehata, Igor Podveresky, and Austin Coates." Anyone

who reads my book can see that I was not merely reviving and supporting these

distinquished scholars' interpretations, and that I have in fact built on their

invaluable research to venture into new ground, into unexplored territory.

 Simbulan fails to follow the book'sargument, which is developedalong

three stages. The first three chapters, as I have mentioned, constitute a critique,

which is but a preliminary to the second stage. Here I reconstruct Rizal's project--

the formation of the Filipino nation--and delineate how this project contributed to

the development of a "historic bloc" (Gramsci's term) and the construction of a

grand narrative of redemption which underpinned the revolution. I discuss both

Rizal's ideas--by a detailed analysis of his literary, historical, and political works--

and political initiatives, such as the Liga Filipina, and show how these ideas and

initiatives impacted the so-called Propaganda movement as well as the

Katipunan. This is the core of the book, consisting of five chapters (Chapter 4 to

8).

The third part of the book (chapters 9 and 10) examines--by analyzing vital

documents, some used for the first time--what eventually became of the

nationalist project after Rizal's execution. It explores the two-fold problem of why

the revolution failed, and how American conquest completely undid the

achievements of the 19th century nationalist movement (hence, the book's title, A

Nation Aborted). The last two chapters are crucial in understanding post-colonial

Filipino nationalism.
 Sadly, for someone who believes that the final word on Rizal had already

been said by Renato Constantino and Jose Maria Sison, this whole argument is

irrelevant, or, perhaps, too taxing to follow.