I first thought that this article was meant to overthrow Rizal as The National Hero of the Philippines. But I was wrong. The article dealt more about how wrong the Filipinos over-glorified Rizal and how the construction of Rizal as a National Hero is poorly constructed. So, the ultimate question then is this: Did Constantino shift my perspective about Rizal? I feel that the information that I got from the article are additional information about Rizal and how should we treat him. I did not feel that this is an effort to overthrow Rizal because if we think about it, Constantino saved Rizal in some parts of his article.
He even gave an impression that Rizal did nothing wrong about the situation. If there is one thing or person that Constantino would blame, it wouldn’t be The National Hero himself but the social construction that we had. History is nice to write. But it is nicer to rewrite it. For the national revolution is invariably the one period in a nation’s history when the people were most united, most involved, and most decisively active in the fight for freedom. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that almost always the leader of that revolution becomes the principal hero of his people.
This is the primary premise of Constantino to the logic that Rizal should not be hailed as a principal hero: The primary criterion for a principal hero is his or her involvement in a significant national revolution. But I ask the question, is this really the standard? Is the involvement in a national revolution the only criterion for being a national hero? I concede to the fact that a national revolution is really a big thing or even the only way when it comes to a group of people’s fight for liberty and independence. But we must also accept the presence of the multitude of other factors that would make you, if not a national hero, a hero.
In our case, our national hero was not the leader of our Revolution. In fact, he repudiated that Revolution. Here is another argument. Rizal was not part of the revolution. Worse, he repudiated it. Repudiating the importance of a revolution and the revolution itself is almost a double crime for a supposedly universally-valid national hero. And that made Rizal even more invalid. But I ask this question, is the national revolution so important and so vital that repudiating it would make you an invalid hero or a national hero? There are many ways of becoming a hero.
I am no Rizal fan but I take logic into consideration. I can see Rizal’s perspective in this. I believe that he believes that it is indeed important that we have to consider different factors before we do something. Rizal believed that a revolution might not work and we need to go into the grassroots level first by, for example, educating our children. Rizal and The Revolution Because Rizal took no part in that Revolution and in fact he repudiated it, the general regard for our revolution is not as high as it otherwise would be. I agree with Constantino on this one.
I had different history subjects from my grade school and high school years up to my tertiary education years. On all of those years, the role of the revolution e. g. The Katipunan was exemplified. But if I look back on those years, I really didn’t much appreciate the bloody revolution. I felt that there was an outward emphasis on the notion of The-Pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword. True, using our writing skills could be a form of revolution. But the real, tangible revolution can be felt and even actualized in a revolution with armed revolutionists. An American-Sponsored Hero
We have magnified Rizal’s role to such extent that we have lost our sense of proportion and relegated to a subordinate position our great mean and the historic events in which they took part. I totally agree with Constantino. As I have mentioned, throughout my years as a student, Rizal was really the emphasized one. Well, it might be because he is the recognized national hero, but we should not forget our other heroes as well. I can clearly remember my history textbooks back in grade school wherein there are some biographies of different Filipino heroes. All are brief ones, except for one–Rizal’s.
The problem is, in our early curriculum and how teachers teach history, they just bypass other heroes. The lesson becomes trivial and translates to not appreciating that specific figure. Compare it to Rizal, which even our parents idolize him and make us idolize him too. I remember my mom telling me that I should be a Rizal. Rizal never advocated independence, nor did he advocate armed resistance to the government. He urged reform from within by publicity, by public education and appeal to public conscience. They favored a hero who would not run against the grain of American colonial policy.
I really agree with this since it is strongly grounded by some written accounts. But I want also to consider a perspective wherein the glass-is-half-full. The Americans’ motive by doing so falls into two perspectives. The first one is the negative one: They made Rizal as the national hero to make us passive revolutionists, therefore, making their stay a peaceful one. The second one is the positive one: They made Rizal as the national hero because they believe that we need to follow one of his ideals—to educate ourselves first before liberty. Now the question is this, what was the Americans’ real motive?
