Ong, Daniel Emerson

I.

Column 4, Seat No. 4

Summary
Some people may deny this but it is becoming more apparent that Dr. Jose
Rizal was the epitome of a real hero. Weve heard so many patriotic stories on
how he changed the fate of our country and our fellow Filipinos.
In comparing the life of our two great Filipinos, Rizal and Bonifacio, lets start
off by comparing their family background. Rizal surely was talented, and was
blessed to be born into a wealthy family. A family who was able to send him
to great schools. Bonifacio, on the other hand, was the less fortunate one, he
was born into a poor family.
The colonization in the Philippines wasnt about how developed the armory
and weapons are, it also depended on psychology. The Spaniards came out to
have a superior intelligence compared to ours but Rizal and a few Filipinos.
And for this particular reason, we were colonized by them.
Rizal patiently waited for years to revolutionize the Philippines and he
achieved this through writing. He didnt write solitary about how things were
in his time but he also wrote things about the past and the future like how we
wrote about the Philippines before the coming of the Spaniards. Our national
hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, enlightened the minds of the Filipinos. He always
reminded us about his profound words like Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa
pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa pinaroroonan and Ang hindi
magmahal sa sariling wika, daig pa ang hayop at malansang isda
In my perspective, the national hero should be the one who impacted us with
his/her greatest influences. With that being said, I believe that Rizal is the
worthy one, since he was the one who influenced Bonifacio to stand up. Rizal
died dramatically and showed and unconditional love for our country.

II.

Highlights
The thing I liked about this article was how Rizal traded his life for the lives of
his fellow Filipinos. I find it very hard to imagine how Philippines is without the
influences of Rizal. For instance when Dr. Jose Rizal sacrificed a very big
opportunity when he graduated medicine in UP where he couldve applied in
a multinational company but he waived his opportunity and end up in Dapitan
to help his fellow Filipinos.

III.

Reaction
The article is a well-written one showing how the writer compared Rizal with
Bonifacio side by side. And for this, we dig deeper on the achievements and
influences made by each of them and decide for ourselves who the national
hero for us. It also reminded us of the sacrifices made by Dr. Jose Rizal to the
Philippines particularly with the Filipinos. We should not forget and always be
thankful for his sacrifices despite him having almost all the options to play

safe and turn his back against the Filipinos but permanently chose to revolve
against the Spaniards without even thinking twice.