Malay - Veneration With Understanding PDF

TES
VENERATION WITH UNDERSTANDING

DEN
By ARMANDO J. MALAY
eb. 8, 19

ddress before the Philippine Booklovers Society, F
(A 70, a
t No. 111
P. Marahan St., Pascy City!
Copyright 1969
SUPREME COUNCIL ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS O

F
RIZAL -
(June 19, 1970).
The RIZALIST is a semi-annual publication of the Supreme Council, Order of
the Knights of Rizal. The vie
ws expressed by the individual authors do not
necesarrily represent the policies of the Order. Although the editors are
responsible for the selection of the articles, the opinions, the veracity of the
articles are solely the responsibility of he individual authors.
Articles for the RIZALIST may be addressed to Professor Jorge L. Revilla, Managing
Editor, P. O. Box No. 102, Manila or direct to Room 503, Guido-Ver Building,
España comer Johc son, Sampaloc, Manila.
Rigalist , v. 2, no. I
In one of his bitterest moments during his misunder standing with Ma
rcelo H. del
Pilar, Rizal wrote in a letter: "The wound inflicted by an enemy is painful, but more
pain
ful is the wound inflicted by a
friend."
in his lifetime and even after, Rizal had his share of. enemies, ljke Retana, Feced
or Quiouiap, Barrantes, and the friars. They were foreigners and their hatred of
Rizal, while unfair and scurrilous, nevertheles was understandable. To day, seven
decades after Rizal's execution, it seems that foreigners have stopped putting
down Rizal. Foreigners have realized that if 74 years after his death, the Filipino
people continue to venerate him, then there is no use trying to Lopple him from his
pedestal as the national bero of the
Philippines.
Unfortunately, attempts to downgrade Rizal have not ceased completely. And more
unfortunately, those who would downgrade him and even picture him as a false hero,
are his own countrymen. Paraphrasing Rizal in his remark to Del Pilar, we can truly
say, “The wounds that had been inflicted on him by foreigners were painful, but more
painful are the wounds still being inflicted on his memory by his countrymen."
The main argument of the home-grown detractors of Rizal is thisy Since
Rizal did not lead the Revolution of 1896 - even discouraged and disowned it -- he
could not properly be the national h
ero of the Philippines.
Iwo minor themes have b een put forward by Rizal's , made-in-the Philippines
critics: (1) that Rizal's becoming t he national hero was the result of American
sponsorship, and (2) that Rizal's patriotic works, including the writing of his two novels,
reflected his mestizo o r ilustrado background and were undertaken precisely to
protect the interests of the ilustrado class.
The RIZALIST is published in June and December. Subs cription are 75.00 a
year; foreign countries: $.00: copy P3.00 ( $2,50). Subscription and
other busines correspondence should be addressed to the Managing Editor,
same addreses.
1
Che W
Con ista
true be the
nation
a
because the
nds
Constantino been revolutevolution, itle.

that tractor militede thal' weffersonly one or
Mt. Rio
STOR
The main conclusion which lat:er-day detractors would fois: on us is this: Since Rizal,
despite the fact that he is a false hcro, continues to be venerate by Filipino, then that
ration is misplaced and that if his countrymon only "un. d
vene erstood" Rizal's
motivation, they vrould drop him l ike a hot potato. In this short paper, I would like to
develop the op posite theme; that continued voneration of Rizal by the coun try, and
every by the world, is not only deserved but also understood.
Early in his dissertation in Fort Santiago (Rizal Shrine, Intramuros, Manila--.llast
December 30 (1969-0.), Prof. Renato Constantino said: “Al most always,
national heroes of the world have been revolutionary svaders." in other
words, if you do not lead a revolution, your chance of emerging as a
national hero is nil, or very little.
I beg to disagree. Today, if we go by the roster of United Nations membership, there
are about 125 sovereign nations. Out of 125 nations, Mr. Constantino could name
seren Tevo lutionary leaders who, in his opinion, have become national heroes:
Washington of America, Lenin of Russia, Bolivar cf South America (Columbia,
Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama), Su Yat Sen and Mao Tse-tung of China, and Ho
Chi-minh of Vietnam.
Very clearly, a mere seven out of 125 is a very small minority. Yet Mr.
Constantino was very sure that almost always, national heroes of the world have
been revolutionary leaders." If Mr. Constantino's statement is correct. then the
national heroes of major nations like Britain, France. Sweden. Spain, Japan, India,
and many others, would have been re volutionaries. The fact is, a man becomes
a hero. or a na tional hero, not because he leads a revolution --- although I'd say
that happens sometimes - but because he is admired for his achievements and noble
qualities, and considered a model or ideal.
Since Mr. Constantino mentioned seven military leaders, I suppose he would rule out
India's Mahatma Gandhi. Gand hi led no armies, but he did more than all the
military leaders of India put together to achieve nationhood for India. As a matter of
fact, mention of India today evokes memory of Gandhi and vice versa.
On the other hand, Mr. Constantino failed to list Sukamo of Indonesia, If, following
Mr. Constantine's criterion. leadership in a revolution is a prerequisite for the
status of national hero, then Indonesians would automatically regard Sukarno as the
national here of Indonesia, but they don't because some of his actuations have
been placed under a c ioud.
Parenthetically, I question Mr. Constantino's inclusion of George Washington as the
national h ero of the United States of America. True he is called the Father of his
Country b ecause he commanded the American revolutionary army and vias
the first president of his country, but he is on no higher plane than Abraham
Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson, As a matter of fact, in the stone mcmorial at Mt.
Rushmore i n South Dakota, Washington is only one of four presidents, the others
being Lincoln, Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. Even if we concede that
Washington was the greatest revo lutionary or military leader of the U.S., we
must remember t hat Washington did not come from the common people like Andrew
Jackson or Lincoln. As a matter of fact, Washington was of the landed gentry,
owning vast tracts of land and keeping slaves. Now again, one of Mr.
Constantino's "gripes" a
gainst Rizal's being the national hero is that Rizal did
not come from the masses whose aspirations he d id not sympathize with. We
could say the same with regards to Washington, p erhaps even worse (since
Rizal did not hoid slaves like Washington did), vet Washington made Mr.
Constantino's list and Rizal would not (if Mr. Constantino had his w
ay).
The fact is, and I would like to say this over and over: a man becomes
a hero, or a national hero, if he accomplishes some achievement or
achievements that his people admire so much that they would place him in higher
regard than any other man of the country. Now, that achievement might be in
the revolutionary field; (n
ot necessarily revolutionary); it might be in the
field of statesmanship and music, as in the case of Poland's Ignace
Paderewski; and, in the future, it might be in the scientific or economic fields. The
point i s: the field from which a national hero would spring is not limited to the field of
revolution, which is Mr. Constantino's thesis. Maybe -- who knows? --- in some new
African nation, the national hero would be, not the one who liberated the country from
a colonizing master but one who invents a vac cine that would forever banish a
debilitating disease.
My “quarrel” with Mr. C
onstantino simply is this: He set u
p the criterion of
"revolutionary leadership" as the o ne that would govern the choice of a
national hero, and since Rizal did not join the Revolution of 1896 but even
repudiated. it, ergo, he could not qualify. Further: that since Rizal con
tinues to be venerated by his people, despite the shortcoming described by Mr.
Constantino, then our veneration of Rizal as our national hero is misplaced, a
veneration without un derstanding.
(21
(S)
TORCIDA MONSTERS diwattevilowwnientes.
P
ar
pentry better the one can do nothi Rizal Sand

a
sures
1 submit most energetically that his veneration is not misplaced, is not without
understanding. If Rizal "be trayed" the masses -- which is an inícrence to be logically
derived from Mr. Constantino's dissertation -- then the masses must be s o ignorant or
so misled that 74 years after Rizal's execution, they are still venerating a man w hose
f the ilustrado class, which i s a selfish,
main concern was to protect the interests o
grasping class.
Rizal continues to be venerated with understanding be cause, despite
downgrading by foreigners before World War I II and by critics of his own race
after, the masses continue to a
dmire him for his achievements and noble qualities, and
consider him a model or ideal.
You are all Rizalists and I need not detail here those achievements which to this
day continue to evoke g reat admiration from the masses: his sacrifices i ndeed
giving up his life for his country; his exemplary conduct; and his leaving behind, as
a legacy to his people, of a m
onumental body of writing which to this day is invoked
on every occa sion, even by foreigners. His profound thoughts on patrio tism,
culture, history, sciences; his precepts which light the path even of those w ho would
sneer at him as being irrele vant to our times - in short, the achievements of Rizal in
all the fields he chose, put together, would be more, much more, than w
inning a battle or
starting a revolution. Some body once described Rizal as the nearest approximation of the
"whole man," and I agree. I am not denigrating those who served our country by
starting the revolution or win ning battles; each one has his place in the pantheon of our
heroes. But to reject one ma
n from the place that is right fully his, because he did not believe
that a revolution was the right way t o achieve happiness of his country -- this I cannot
accept. Men and heroes are not like buttons that can be classified as to their size or
color, because they did this or d id not do t hat. Totality o
f achievement s i s a better
izal stands head and shoulders above all others.
criterion, and by this criterion, R
Mr. Constantino said also: "Perhaps I may shock some of you when I say that
Rizal was one of the practicioners of a mendicant policy." And the reason for saying
so? "The fact is that the propagandists, in working for certain reforms, chose Spain as the
arena of their struggle instead of working among their own people, ed
ucating them, helping
them to realize their own condition, and articulating their aspirations."
As far as I can find out, two of the seven men at whose feet Mr. Constantino is
now worshipping also went abroad, but they did so not to isolate themselves from the
masses
of thrir country but to get i deas, t o work for reforms. These are H
, Chiminh, who
worked in Moscow, and Lenin, who went to London (as did Karl M arx). The fact
is, many great men and women got their baptism of fire, as it were, in forsign countries,
but returned home as soon as they thought they were ready. The same was true
for the Filipino propagandists, including Rizal. With the tight censorship and other
repressions obtaining i n the P hilippines, they could not call attention to the
abuses of the rulers here. Besides, some of them wanted to get an education
before they went into the fray. Some of them did go home, among them
Rizal. Del Pilar was also on his way home when death : caught up with him.
Others died of diseases caused by mal nutrition. Again, Mr. Constantino is setting up
another cri terion of his own making: that the national hero must work : among
his own people. I say: not necessarily. If a man could serve his country
better by working from the outside, then more honor to him than the one who elects
to stay in his home country where he virtually can do nothing because of
despotism. “The place matters not ...," Rizal said in his farewell poem.
Remember: Manuel L. Quezon and C laro M. Recto died in foreign lands; so did
Del Pilar, Panganiban, and m
any others. '
Mr. Constantino also complains that, reflecting the in terests of the
o class, Rizal drew the principal characters of his two novels from that
ilustrad
class: Ibarra, Fathers Damaso and Salvi, Maria Clara, etc. There is a difference between
the main character or characters in a novel or a play and those whom the writer or
author would set up as a model for emulation. The "heroes" in Rizal's novels were not
Ibarra, Maria Clara or Fray Damaso and Fray Salvi. In contradistinction, Rizal gave us
ather Florentino, a Filipino priest; Juli and Sisa, and
Elias, a man of the masses, F
many others, who all sprang from the masses. As a matter of fact, Ibarra was
ack to start a revolution simply because he
drawn as a weak person who carne b
wanted to get Maria Clara from the convent. And I do not see by what
stretch of the imagination Fray Damaso and Fray Salvi could be, :, regarded
as anything else but unmitigated villains,
As to the contention that Rizal as the national hero was created by the
Americans, I'd like to say two things: Two years after his execution, Rizal was
already honored by the Philippine revolutionary government when
Aguinaldo de clared December 30, 1898 as a day of mourning.
Second: As early as 1892, when the Katipunan was or ganized, Rizal was
already regarded as a sort of national hero. He was the honorary
president of the Katipunan,
ASURANSIT
those wlation. The fray Paias, a man sisa

and team
(4)
[5]
THE WILHELMSFELD STORY OF JOSE RIZAL
RPIO-MENDEZ Vic e-Pr esident for Researc

By DR. PAZ POLICA h a
nd Development
Centro Escolar University
and according to Katipuneros questioned by S
panish military authorities,
Rizal's picture was hung in their meeting rooms, Veneration of Rizal was a
fact even before his execution To say now that Rizal was a creation of
the Americans berause they did not want the Filipinos to choose
Bonifacio as their national hero, is to fly in the face of facts. Worge, it is to
insult the masses who, if we are to believe the de tractors of Rizal, have
allowed themselves to be duped for so long. .: As a matter of fact,
those who would say that our national hero should be one who comes from
the masses are underestimating the inteligence and the understanding of
the masses. More than some intellectuals in our midst, the masses know that Rizal
lived and died for all of us, not only for an elite class. They know that
Rizal fought for the farmers of Calamba; that he opened a modern school for
i bors in Dapitan; that he gave medical services for free in Dapitan, Calamba and
other places; that he established at cooperative; that he suffered moral
and physical beatings; 1 thai his family and friends suffered much abuse the
masses know as well as feel that these were not done by Rizal simply to
preserve the interests of the ilust rado class. If some of us today do not accept
these truths because Rizal happened to be born to a fairly well-to-do family and
went to the Ateneo and Santo Tomas University and was able to pas his own fare
to Spain and back then I say, you are the ones without understanding. Thank
goodness, you are very, very few.
In a little village called Wilhelmsfeld, resting on a hill in the Odenwald forests in
West Germany, the name Jose Rizal lives today. It will live there for as long as a
plaque remains where it was affixed on a three-story century-old stone house on
January 4, 1960. Today travellers from the Philippines wander from the beaten
path into that remote corner of Germany to look at the dedication carved in gold
letters on the black marble of that plaque, below the em bossed red-white blue
escutcheon of the Philippine Historical Committee, as follows (from its
original German):
JOSE RIZAL
(1861-1896) National He
r o of t h
e P
hilip
pines, w
rote the l ast chapter
s o
f hi
s
nove
l
“Noli Me Tangere" in t
hi s ho
use w
hile a g
u
es
t o
f
llme
Pastor U t i n 1886.
I'
?
A stone's throw from the Protestant church, the house is the official residence of the
Vicar of Wilhelmsfeld. At the time of Rizal, it was occupied by Pastor Karl Ullmer,
whose guest Rizal was and who later became the hero's devoted friend.
How did Rizal happen to wander that way? Who was Pastor Ullmer and how did
our hero come to live in his house?
There appears to be only one Rizal letter postmarked Wilhelmsfeld, June 9, 1886.
It says nothing about the cir cumstances of his coming to the village, and merely
recites his money difficulties and his desire to go back to the Philip pines to help his
family. However, in -one of his letters to Father Pastells, Rizal writes about his almost
daily meetings with a Protestant pastor in the solitudes of Odenwald during the long
summer twilights of (1886. He and the pastor often discussed their respective beliefs
in all calmness and freedom, and both agreed that religion should not make
enemies but
is
(7)

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TES

VENERATION WITH UNDERSTANDING

By ARMANDO J. MALAY

eb. 8, 19

SUPREME COUNCIL ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS O

Constantino been revolutevolution, itle.

pentry better the one can do nothi Rizal Sand

those wlation. The fray Paias, a man sisa

THE WILHELMSFELD STORY OF JOSE RIZAL

RPIO-MENDEZ Vic e-Pr esident for Researc

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VENERATIO​N ​WITH ​UNDERSTANDING

By ​ARMANDO ​J​. ​MALAY

​ e​b​. ​8,​ ​19

SUPREME ​COUNCIL ORDER ​OF ​THE ​KNIGHTS O

Constantino ​been ​revolut​evolution​, ​itle​.

pen​tr​y ​better ​the ​one ​can ​do ​nothi ​Rizal ​San​d

thos​e ​wla​tio​n​. T​he ​fray P​aias, a m​a​n sis​a

THE ​WILHE​LMSFE​L​D STORY ​OF ​JOSE ​RIZAL

​ RPIO​-​MEN​D​EZ ​Vic​ e​-​Pr​ ​esident ​for ​Researc

Potrebbero piacerti anche

VENERATION WITH UNDERSTANDING

By ARMANDO J. MALAY

eb. 8, 19

SUPREME COUNCIL ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS O

Constantino been revolutevolution, itle.

pentry better the one can do nothi Rizal Sand

those wlation. The fray Paias, a man sisa

THE WILHELMSFELD STORY OF JOSE RIZAL

RPIO-MENDEZ Vic e-Pr esident for Researc