RIZAL IS NOT A REVOLUTIONARY BUT A REFORMIST

Rizal is branded a mere “reformist” because they have not read his letter to Ferdinand Blumentritt
from Geneva on June 19, 1887, his 26th birthday, that reads: “I assure you that I have no desire to
take part in conspiracies which seem to me very premature and risky. But if the government drives
us to the brink, that is to say, when no other hope remains but seek our destruction in war, when
the Filipinos would prefer to die rather than endure their misery any longer, then I will also become
a partisan of violent means. The choice of peace or destruction is in the hands of Spain, because
it is a clear fact, known to all that we are patient, excessively patient and peaceful, mild, unfeeling,
etc. But everything ends in this life, there is nothing eternal in the world and that refers also to our
patience.”
Rizal’s statement that he had no desire to take part in conspiracies, which to him seemed
“premature and risky,” was an expression of a disagreement over strategy and tactics of how to
steer the revolution. Rizal never liked the tactic used (as he portrayed it) by his character Simoun
in his novel El Filibusterismo, of inciting violence and the insurrectionary/putschist’s persecution
of the people to force them to revolt.
We presume Rizal chose reform over revolution in 1887, by killing off Elias rather than Ibarra. To
make up for this twist in the “Noli,” we have Simoun in “El Filibusterismo” (1891). Simoun incited
violence and the persecution of his people to move them to revolt. He failed—not because Rizal
was against the revolution, but because he reflected on the anger and bitterness in his heart
following the agrarian dispute in Calamba, and realized that one must start with a good intention
to succeed. A poisoned tree cannot produce good fruit. Rizal demanded a pure heart
Moreover, Renato Constantino, in his landmark 1968 essay “Veneration Without Understanding,”
argued that Rizal was against the revolution. Constantino based this view on a document Rizal
issued in December 1896, asking the Katipuneros to lay down their arms and condemning the
violence that was planned without his knowledge and consent. Constantino also argued that Rizal
was an American-sponsored hero, citing without any documentary proof, an alleged Philippine
Commission meeting when the American colonial government chose Rizal as the foremost
national hero because he was non-violent and reformist, unlike Bonifacio or Aguinaldo.
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MICAH ARGUSON