Noli Me Tangere and El Filibustirismo

Nationalism in the Novels

Rizal was a cultured man of ideas, a scholar with versatile talents, an intellectual
humanist obsessed with the fact that his people must be liberated from their oppressive
ignorance and delivered into a conscious awareness of unity and freedom by means of
education.

None of Rizal’s writings has had a more tremendous effect on the Filipino people than
his two novels that courageously criticized Philippine life during the 19 th century – Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibustirismo. These works of fiction expressed the theme of Philippine
nationalism in a most profound and dramatic manner to arouse the latent spirits of a frustrated
people. And though Rizal aimed his message to the people of his own generation, the novels
remain the most potent inspiration for national unity today. They are considered “the greatest
Philippine social documents.” And in official recognition of the “gospels of Philippine
nationalism,” the Congress of the Philippines passed Republic Act 1425 on 12 June 1956,
making the reading of the two novels compulsory in all the country’s colleges and universities.

The profundity of these two novels has made Rizal known all over the world as the
foremost Asian nationalist. With utmost perspicacity the novels express his concept of love of
country with an innate sense of dedication. Through them he boldly spoke out against unjust
Spanish colonial exploitation and he agitated for political and social reforms. Ironically these
works strongly warned against rebellion against Spain but they triggered off the first nationalist
uprising in Asia. And for his temerity in speaking out his mind, Rizal paid dearly with his life
leaving behind a conscious people aware of what they had to do.

The alert reader today will find the Noli and the Fili two delightful, if somewhat poignant
comedies of manners, not unlike many novels of Victorian England. Running through their
pages is an unforgettable array of Dickensian characters, ranging from true nationalists and
pseudonationalists to pitiful victims of the society’s malaise.

The reader will find the novels irreverent at times and out-spokenly anti-clerical for
fiction of the 19th century, but they were written to present an anarchy of unbridled greed
existing in the country. Rizal was not necessarily anti-religious. But as he trained his guns with
impunity on the Spanish friars whom he felt were responsible for the misery of his countrymen,
he inevitably condemned some procedures and practices of the religion behind which the friars
were shielding themselves.

Rizal’s novels are more meaningfully studied as political satires for his reform
propaganda. With disarming honesty, Rizal wrote to free the human spirit from deterioration as
depicted in the historical situation from 1877 to 1887.
 To the Filipino reader who understands the historical background of the novels, Rizal
traced the delicate portrait of a people faced with social problems and political enigma. Many
of the predicaments presented have contemporary relevance. And the novels provide an
inexhaustible source of inspiration for solutions to current conditions and problems.

Noli Me Tangere literally means “touch me not.” It sketches a wound painful even to the
healer’s touch causing more agony than relief. The concerned healer reveals the actions that a
frustrated society resorts to in the moment of despair. Such despair could force the oppressed
to insurgence, as El Filibustirismo, the sequel, suggests.

Rizal did not advocate revolution. But while he spoke vehemently against it in his novels,
he emphasized that revolution would be the inevitable alternative if no attempt were made by
the Spanish government to introduce social and political reforms and check the injustices
committed against the natives. An enslaved people, Rizal claimed, eventually would revolt
against their oppressors. To the philosopher Rizal, freedom meant liberty, and liberty meant
the free exercise of people’s rights.

With a sensitive pen, Rizal portrayed in his novels the miserable plight of the Filipino
masses in an effort to convince the Spanish authorities that there was an urgent need for
reforms in society, in the government, and in the Catholic Church of the Philippines. He did not
put the blame of society’s malaise entirely on the Spaniards; he felt that the indios had an equal
share of hypocrisy and indifference. Thus, while the novels are sincere denunciations of the
abuses and excesses of authority committed by the friars and the civil administrators, they are
also an honest exposure of the weaknesses and defects of the Filipinos. “There are tyrants
where there are no slaves,” he often said. And he hoped that by presenting an authentic picture
of decadent Philippine society – a picture he ahd largely drawn from his own experiences and
observations - he would awaken a lethargic people to a realization that only through education
of the masses could a strong moral fiber be developed.

To understand Rizal’s purpose in writing the novels, one has only to look at his
dedication of the Noli Me Tangere, which reads thus:

To My Country:

In the catalogue of human ills there is to be found a cancer so malignant that the
least touch inflames it and causes agonizing pains; afflicted with such a cancer, a social
cancer, has your dear image appeared to me, when, for my own heart’s ease or to
compare you with others, I have sought, in the centres of modern civilization, to call you
to mind.

Now desirous of your welfare, which is also ours, and seeking the best cure of
your ills, I shall do with you what was done in ages past with the sick, who were exposed
 on the steps of the temple so that the worshippers, having invoked the god, should each
propose a remedy.

To this end, I shall endeavor to show your condition, faithfully and ruthlessly, I
shall lift a corner of the veil which shrouds the disease, sacrificing to the truth
everything, even self-love for, as your son, your defects and weaknesses are also mine.

The Author

Europe, 1886

The fervor in Rizal’s nationalism is articulated in the dedication of El Filibustirismo:

To the memory of the priests, Don Mariano Gomez, eighty-five, Don Jose Burgos, thirty,
and Don Jacinto Zamora, thirty-five, who were executed on the scaffold of BAgumbayan
on 28 February 1872.

The Church, by refusing to unfrock you, has put in doubt the crime charged against you;
the Government by enshrouding your trial in mystery and pardoning your co-accused
has implied that some mistake was committed when your fate was decided; and the
whole of the Philippines in paying homage to your memory and calling you martyrs
totally rejects your guilt.

As long therefore as it is not clearly shown that you took part in the uprising in Cavite, I
have the right, whether or not you were patriots and whether or not you were seeking
justice and liberty, to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil I am trying to fight.
And while we wait for Spain to clear your names some day, refusing to be a party to
your death, let these pages serve as a belated wreath of withered leaves on your
forgotten graves. Whoever attacks your memory without sufficient proof has your blood
upon his hands.

J. RIZAL

The Plots of the Novels

Noli Me Tangere is the story of Juan Crisostomo Ibarra, scion of a wealthy family, who
returns home to San Diego “where still roam deer and boars” from his seven-year education in
the German section of sophisticated Switzerland. During his absence, his father Don Rafael
Ibarra was imprisoned for the accidental death of a Spanish tax-collector. Don Rafael died in
prison and he was denied a Christian burial by Father Damaso, San Diego’s parish priest,
because he had stopped going to confession long before his death, and was a subscriber to
liberal publications.
 The young Ibarra finds the deplorable conditions in his country virtually unchanged since
he had left for Europe. Inflamed with a desire to educate his people and bring progress to his
hometown, he establishes a school, patterned after the progressive schools he had known in
Europe. His project, though enthusiastically endorsed by the townspeople, is met with
skepticism by the old scholar Tasio who years before had attempted to do the same thing but
he failed. The new parish priest, Father Salvi, also looks at the school disapprovingly for he sees
it as a dangerous threat to his authority over the natives.

During the laying of the school’s cornerstone, an attempt is made on Ibarra’s life but he
is saved by Elias, the mysterious boatman whom he had earlier rescued from death during a
picnic at the lake. The friars constantly harass and persecute Ibarra at San Diego. At one
gathering, the vilification hurled against his dead father almost provoked Ibarra to kill Father
Damaso, but his hand is stayed by his fiancée Maria Clara. He is excommunicated by the friar
and later absolved by the Archbishop.

Finally, a false rebellion is plotted and through forged documents, Ibarra is implicated as
its leader. Unwittingly, his fiancée had lent support to the plotter by providing them with a
specimen of his signature when she was forced to exchange his love letter for some letters
which contained the hidden secret or her paternity.

Ibarra is imprisoned and later rescued once again by Elias who hides him in a banca
covered with zacate and rows him under a barrage of gunfire. Elias is wounded and sacrifices
his life for his beloved friend. Ibarra quietly buries Elias in the woods belonging to his family;
then he flees the country, leaving the impression that he died from the civil guard’s bullets.

The distraught Maria Clara is urged by Father Damaso to marry the Spaniards Alfonso
Linare. She refuses and enters the nunnery of the Poor Clares instead.

El Filibustirismo picks up the threads of the narrative where Noli leaves off, with the
return of Ibarra, under an assumed name Simoun. On board the dingy steamer, Tabo, enroute
to San Diego on the Pasig River, he is the subject of conversations on the lower deck. The
thirteen years away from his country has transformed him into an exotic looking, mysterious
personality. He radiates great influence and he becomes the indispensable consultant and
closest friend of the Governor General.

No one suspects that Simoun, the affluent jeweler, is the fugitive Ibarra. Only Basilio,
son of the demented Sisa of Noli Me Tangere, comes to know the secret. But even Basilio finds
it difficult to reconcile the dreamer and the idealist that once was Ibarra to the shrewed, sly
schemer that is now Simoun.

Now a young man pursuing a medical career, Basilio stumbles on Simoun’s secret on a
Christmas day visit to his mother’s grave in the woods of the Ibarras. Simoun tries to win Basilio
to his side as he explains his plans. He has returned to overthrow the government and avenge
the injustices he has suffered. He would use his wealth and his influence to encourage
corruption in the high circles of government; as a result, he would drive the people to despair
and incite them to revolution. His obsession, the revolution, would primarily become a
fulfilment of his vow of vengeance. The people’s freedom in the process came only as a
secondary purpose.

Twice Simoun attempts to ignite the fires of rebellion but he fails. On the first occasion,
the news of Maria Clara’s death reaches him just as he is about to give the signal for the
coordinated attack on the city. He had planned this revolution so that in the ensuring confusion
he would be able to rescue Maria Clara from the nunnery. But now she is dead. In his
numbness, he forgets that his followers await his signal. Panic ensues and they break out in
disorganized rampage.

His second attempt is thwarted by Isagani, the young poet, who snatches the lamp
Simoun sends as a wedding gift to Isagani’s former sweetheart who marries another suitor. The
lamp contained a homemade bomb which was timed to blow up when all the invited high
officials and friars were seated at the wedding feast. Having been warned by his good friend
Basilio of the impending explosion, Isagani risks his life to save his faithless Paulita. Meanwhile,
a parchment prophesying doom is passed around among the wedding guests and Simoun is
pinpointed as the instigator of the scheme. The signature identifies Simoun as Ibarra.

Simoun flees with his box of jewels. Hunted by the law and wounded, he seeks
sanctuary in the house of a native priest, Father Florentino. To escape his pursuers, he takes
poison and dies in despair.

The Characters

As gospels of Philippine nationalism, Rizal’s novels convey the essence of his nationalism
that was to reverberate in the hearts of his people. He identified this essence in his letters as his
aspiration: to alleviated the sufferings of the masses, to make men worthy, to avenge one day
the many victims of cruelty and injustice, to erect a monument to the native tongue and to
educate his people.

In Noli and Fili, the essence of Rizal’s nationalism is best understood through a study of
the characters. Through their dialogue and actuations, in their ideas and ideals, or in the lack of
these are seen Rizal’s range of vision, his concept of love of country, his appeal for reforms, his
attitude towards the friars, and his views on the weaknesses of the Filipinos. The characters are
the Spaniards and the Filipinos whom Rizal praise, or condemned with compassion.

Ibarra-Simoun. The main protagonist in the Noli is Juan Crisostomo Ibarra y

Magsalin, first shown as a well-mannered young man recently arrived sometime in the
1880s from his studies and travels in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Spain. His
maternal surname symbolizes the “translated” Filipino. His paternity goes back to the
 Pelayos and Elcanos of Northern Spain. Al Elcano was companion to Magellan. His
grandfather was a taciturn Basque, Don Saturnino, a conqueror of the soil; his father
was the well-loved Don Rafael, who was fascinated by the native camisa and indigenous
culture while subscribing to Madrid publications, and who venerates the likeness of the
“executed priest” (Fr. Jose A. Burgos). These forebears have provided Ibarra with “his
more than average height, the impression of youth and of health, equally developed in
mind and body, [with] slight traces of Spanish blood, beautifully bronzed and somewhat
rosy in the cheeks (Noli, p 13).”

Upon his return to the Philippines, Ibarra is easily the talk of the town.

Indeed one of the most serious newspaper in Manila had devoted to Ibarra a front-page
article entitled ‘Imitate Him!’; lavishing advice on him and not a few praises. It had
called him the cultured youth and wealthy businessman; two lines below that ‘the
distinguished philanthropist’; in the next paragraph, ‘the pupil of Minerva who went to
the motherland to greet the true home of the arts and sciences’; a little farther on, ‘The
Filipino Spaniard’, and so forth. (Noli, p 169)

The long-ignored respectability of the father is remembered; Don Rafael is publicly

acknowledged as “one of the most honorable and honest men in the Philippines” (Noli, p 14).
Even the friars, such as Father Sybila, are willing to accede some credit: “The young Ibarra is
sensible enough; he doesn’t seem stupid; I think he is all right (Noli, p 49).” Indeed Ibarra is
gracious and respectful but sensitive and quick to strike at anyone who would malign the good
name of his dead father. In the course of time he becomes a harassed young man whose
ambitious projects fail one by one.

In the Fili, Ibarra reappears as Simoun, an influential jeweler. His contrasting appearance
is an ingenious disguise. He is tall, lean, sinewy and very deeply tanned:

Who dressed in the English fashion and wore a pith helmet. His most striking
gesture was his long hair, completely white, which set off a black goatee so sparse that
it suggested he was a half-breed. To protect himself from the sun, he always wore a pair
of huge dark glasses that covered his eyes and part of his cheeks completely, giving him
the appearance of a man who was either blind or suffered from some defect in his
eyesight. (Fili, p 6)

Having the reputation of being the “adviser and true author of all the acts of His
Excellency the Governor-General (Fili, p 3),” he is sarcastically referred to as the “Brown
Cardinal” or “His Black Eminence” by the natives who compared him to that influential
Capuchin adviser of the notorious Cardinal Richelieu. Ibarra is no longer the educator but a
corruptor bet on the collapse of Castillian sovereignty. People recognize his carriage and his
Escolta residence, but doubt whether he is half-English or half-Latin-American.

Elias. Ibarra’s mysterious friend Elias appears in an almost deux ex machina fashion
every time Ibarra is in trouble. His robust appearance is marred by great sad eyes and a stern
mouth, long, unkempt black hair that falls to his strong neck, and a coarse dark shirt that
reveals powerful sinewy arms.

Although regarded as an outlaw, Elias is no ordinary renegade. His family misfortunes

had forced him to brigandry. Elias’ grandfather had been a bookkeeper in the employ of Don
Pedro Eibarramendia. When a fire razed the district where Don Pedro lived, the bookkeeper
was blamed. He was publicly flogged and dragged through the streets by a horse, in effect
“executed” through total ostracism and humiliation. His wife, in despair for the family’s needs,
turned to prostitution. The husband hanged himself and widow, accused of causing the
hanging, left the town with her two children.

In time, the older son Balat had become a dreaded tulisan while the younger brother
stayed in the woods with their mother. Balat eventually got caught and his body was quartered.
His trunk was buried, his limbs were exhibited in different towns, and his head was forcibly
hung at the entrance to his mother’s hut. Seeing this gory piece, the mother died on the spot.

The younger brother then fled to Tayabas to start a new life but misfortune followed
him all the way. He soon fell in love with the daughter of a wealthy man, but before they could
marry, his lineage. The woman, however, gave birth to the twins, Elias and his sister, and died
soon after. Their father was tortured in prison and left for dead.

The children were then raised by their wealthy grandfather who sent them to good
schools leaving them a large legacy. In a dispute, a disgruntled relative uncovered their past and
they were forced to leave town with an old, devoted servant who turned out to be their real
father. The father soon died in misery. Soon, Elias’ sister, bereft of her betrothed, disappeared;
she was found dead with a dagger pierced on her breast. Elias feeling abandoned and desolate
became an outlaw. As such he could freely comb the hills and towns in search of the
descendants of the man who caused his family misfortunes.

Tasio. The spirit of nationalism is also reflected in Don Anastacio, the scholar. Tasio is
the fool to the majority who are apathetic to his unorthodox ideas and bizarre behavior.
Because he had brain, his mother decided that his security lay in the priesthood and not in an
academic career. He gave up his studies for love but was widowed and orphaned in less than a
year. To avoid self-pity, idleness and the temptations of the cockpit, he concentrated on his
books. He became so engrossed in his hieroglyphics and other intellectual pursuits that he
neglected his estates and was completely ruined.
 Once he had planned to open a school, but failed because so many factors worked
against him. In the story, he reacts coldly to Ibarra’s own plans for a town school, but offered
true sympathy and sensible advice. Upon Ibarra’s arrest and imprisonment, Tasio’s efforts to
testify to Ibarra’s innocence prove futile. His long walk to town compounded by his excitement
and anger at the obvious conspiracy against Ibarra exhausts him. He is found dead at the foot of
the stairs of his house.

Maria Clara. Ibarra’s fiancée is Maria Clara de los Santos, daughter of Doña Pia Alba de
los Santos and Father Damaso. Don Santiago, Doña Pia’s husband, had always regarded her as
his child. She was a Caucasian beauty with a classic profile. Her hair was fair and her nose was
well-shaped. She had a winsome mouth with cheerful dimples, white onion-fine skin, and “her
mother’s eyes, large, black, shadowed by long lashes, gay sparkling when she was at play,
thoughtful and deep otherwise (Noli, p 37).”

Her mother’s death of puerperal fever evoked endless sympathy for the orphan. She
became everybody’s darling and she responded with all graciousness. She became the object of
paternal affection and concern of her baptismal godfather, Father Damaso.

Maria Clara provided continuity and motivation in the story. She is Ibarra’s inspiration in
the planning and execution of his projects in two novels. The odyssey of her locket used by Rizal
as literary device to link incidents in the development of the plot. The locket a gift from Capitan
Tiago is tenderly given away to a leper. Much later, in the Fili, the locket is given to Basilio by
the leper as payment for medical treatment. Basilio lovingly offers to his sweetheart Juli, who
hesitantly allows her father Matanglawin (Cabesang Tales) to use it as payment to Simoun for
arms and ammunitions. Simoun is quietly overjoyed at obtaining the locket as a memento of
lost love.

Father Damaso Verdolagas. The former parish priest of San Diego, a Franciscan, is easily
the antihero in Noli. His verbosity is matched only by his arresting manner. “His classic features,
penetrating look, heavy jaws, and herculean build, gave him the appearance of a Roman
partrician in disguise (Noli, p 5).” His voice was rough and his humor, “like that of a man who
never held his tongue and who thinks that what he says s dogma and beyond and question.”

He is depicted as an uncouth, bigoted, power-mad ingrate, the personification of

depraved evil among the friars. He had been in the country for 23 years and served as curate of
San Diego for 20 years. There he had come to know most of the townspeople intimately. He
exploited them apparently for the interest of his Church and Kin, but actually for his own
personal gain and convenience.

He had no respect for any authority except his religious superior. He denounced the
Madrid misters as “mad.” He was a renegade Carlist during the reign of King Alfonso. He
dominated his associates and caused fear due to his irritating innuendoes, downright
indignities, and utter disregard of people’s feelings. His manners were brusque thus failing to
cultivate the trust and confidence of his parishioners.
 But his toughness was mellowed when he sought the welfare of Maria Clara. His love
and concern for his daughter seemed to be the only good in this Franciscan priest.

The Undesirables. These are the characters that portray the pervading social cancer in
the novels of Rizal. The most harmless looking among them erodes society with their base
intentions and nobody takes them seriously. The pretentious Chinese half-breed Don Santiago
de los Santos leads this group. He is an entertaining character and it is equally challenging to
uncover, beneath the naughty sarcasm, the cancers for which his type is responsible.

“He was short and rotund, thanks to an abundance of fat that, according to his
friends, was a sign of heavenly favour and, to his enemies, came from battening on the
poor… his face wore a habitually amiable expression… there was no lack of brains in his
skull, which in outward appearance was small and round. And covered with ebony-black
hair cut long in front and very short in the back. His eyes, small but not at all almond-
shaped, never betrayed emotion… he would have been quite justified in believing and
passing himself off for a handsome man if his mouth had not been distorted by the
abuse of tobacco and betel-nut …. Nevertheless, that bad habit had not impaired the
whiteness of his own teeth and two other furnished by the dentist at twelve pesos each
(Noli, p 28).

Capitan Tiago was one of the richest property-owners in Binondo, Pampanga, and the
lakeside town of San Diego. He had come to his fortune and social title by marrying Doña Pia
Alba, a prominent good-looking mestizo who was very astute in the sugar, coffee and indigo
business as well as in the management of farm lands in San Diego. Capitan Tiago would
patronize new ideas but would not dare to accept them without prior approval of the religious
or civil authorities.

“Santiago does not consider himself a native,” Father Damaso remarks about him. For
Capitan Tiago tries to imitate the Europeans in dress and in manners. “He would put on a frock
coat and top-hat to go to the cockpit, the market, religious processions, the humblest Chinese
store.” Aligning himself with the Spaniards, he would exploit the natives.” His subordinates
considered him a martinet and a tyrant; the poor thought him ruthless, cruel, and ready to
profit from all their miseries (Noli, p 34).”

Was he feared or laughed at? “It is true that his debtors welcomed him with orchestras,
gave banquets in his honour, and showered him with gifts. The best fruit will always be found
on his table, when a deer or wild pig was caught, he was given a quarter; if he admired a
debtor’s horse, it was in his stables half an hour late. But people at him behind his back and
called him Sacristan Tiago (Noli p. 55).”

About his religiosity, “Capitan Tiago had never addressed himself to God in his prayers,
not even in his greatest difficulties; he was rich, and he let his money pray for him (Noli, p 29).”
 His materialism is such that he considers Maria Clara’s loss of a sweetheart secondary
only to his loss of money. Forced to break his daughter’s engagement to Ibarra, he thinks of his
money, too:

“Calm yourself, my child, I am more unfortunate than you and I am not crying.
You can find another fiancé, a better one, but I, I am losing fifty thousand pesos! (Noli, p
229).”

He is always eager to please the authorities who consider him “full of the best will in the
world, peaceful, obsequious, obedient, and generous with gifts.”

Capitan Tiago was a happy man, as happy as a man with a little brain could be in
those parts; he was rich, he was at peace with God, with the Government, and with men
(Noli, p 29).”

When this peace is later threatened, Capitan Tiago withdraws to that haven of opium. In
the Fili, this addiction causes his death.

The other undesirables are the Espadañas. Doña Victorina is another native who tries to
act more Spanish than the Spaniards. She is almost illiterate and unintelligent. She speaks little
Spanish, but nonetheless she considers herself superior to most people because of her
pretenses to Spanish affinity. She claims to be 32 years at 45, and disdains her many Filipino
suitors for a Spanish husband.

At the time of the story in the Noli, she is married to Don Tiburcio de Espadaña – a late
marriage, to be sure, but to a Spaniard nevertheless. She has grown to be “ more than blowsy;
she was over blown.” Her hair had dwindled down to a bun the size of an onion, her face was
furrowed with wrinkles, her teeth were falling; she had to squint to see some distance away.
She is a pretentious and domineering shrew, and holds her husband in control by threatening
to tear out his false teeth and leave him a horrible sight for days if he would not grant her
wishes.

The husband is a lame and bald man who stutters and sprays saliva when he talks. A native of
Extrmadura, Spain, he had come to the Philippines as a customs official, but aside from getting
seasick and breaking a leg during his trip, he had the ill fortune of finding his dismissal papers
waiting for him upon his arrival. Jobless and hungry, he felt that a marriage to Dona Victorina
would alleviate his woes. In the Noli, through his wife’s machinations, he passes for a Doctor of
Medicine who treats only patients” of quality.” His only qualifications were his work experience
as an attendant in the hospital of San Carlos in Madrid and his citizenship.

In the Fili, Don Tiburcio is the Philippine Ulysses, hopping from town to town, with his
Calypso in pince-nez Doña Victorina in hot pursuit. He finds refuge at the offshore residence of
Father Florentino, she finds distraction in her niece Paulita Gomez’s suitor Juanito Pelaez. The
reader parodies of the Filipino without identity, the Spaniards without dignity; apparently
harmless creatures, yet for their huge number they actually magnify the insincerity and
absurdity of Philippines society.

The Supporting Characters. Other symptoms of the social cancer are indicated among
the victims of poverty and ignorance. These are Sisa, driven by her sufferings to insanity, and
her sons, ten-year-old Basilio who survives the family travails and pursues a medical career in
the Fili, supporting himself through servitude to and vigilance over the opium addict Capitan
Tiago, and seven-year-old Crispin, who becomes a fatal target of the blows of the parish
caretaker.

The victims of injustice are equally pathetic figures. Cabesang Tales is driven to outlaw
by circumstances that reveal the roots of agrarian malaise in the country. His son, Tano, “so
good, so honest!” is conscripted into military service in the Carolines where he is so alienated
and confused by physical and moral distress that he comes home in a state of shock. He did not
recognize the dumb old man who is his own grandfather Selo, whom he shoots in a clash with
some “bandits.”
Tano’s sister Juli, beloved of Basilio, is the innocent and hardworking rustic who sacrifices her
honor and her life for her family and beloved.

The nameless and countless defeatists are typified by the fanatic Tertiary sisters, Rura,
Sipa and Juana whose examples prefigure the “spit level” Christianity of Contemporary Filipinos
– “perfect” Christians in name alone. A frivolous sense of values is displayed by Paulita Gomez,
niece of Dona Victorina and sweetheart of Isagani, who marries the more affluent Juanito
Pelaez. Another character common even today is Senor Pasta whose pertenses to learning have
made him voluble in evasive argument.

The misdirected zeal of the unholy friars has definitely aggravated the social cancer.
Along with Father Damaso in interfering with the public welfare are Father Bernardo Salvi,
ecclesiastical governor of the archdiocese and incumbent curate of San Diego, and Fathers
Hernando de la Sybila and Camorra.

The idealists and dreamers must excise the cancer before they succumb to their own
deterioration and hopelessness. The Dominican Father Fernandez lends a fair ear to his
students; he is Isagani’s classical exception to the majority of uncaring, illogical friar-teachers.
Isagani, nephew of Father Florentino and young poet trained at the Ateneo, is a symbol of the
liberated Filipino youth whose unselfish devotion urges him to save the faithless Paulita. He
aborts Simoun’s master conspiracy to blow up the Spanish hierarchy at the wedding party.

Rizal's ultimate spokesman in the Fili is Father Florentino. He os a distinguished native

priest whose serious countenance evinced the "tranquility of a soul strengthened by study and
meditation and perhaps tested by intimate moral sufferings" (Fili, p 17). He is Rizal's portrait of
the ideal shepherd of God's flock.
 The delicate and noble delineation of characters is the strongest literary asset of the
novels. Replying to the torrent of comments, suggestions and queries that was unleashed by
the Noli, Rizal said:

I am not enraged with all the Spaniards. In my work there are noble honorable
Spaniards. . . There are also bad Indio's, worse even than various Spaniards. My
adversaries would like me to portray the Peninsular Spaniards like angels and the
Filipinos like stupid men, without drawing distinctions. This is not only folly but also an
imitation of Spanish writers, and I do not do this. There are persons who enjoy
grumbling or backbiting but they are resentful when they hear the truth.

This motley array of characteristics treated humorously or satirically at times, portray

the causes and the symptoms and the cure of the social cancer itself. The suffering of the
people, the constraints in the school and judicial systems, the misdirected concern and ill-
defined roles of the military, civil, and religious authorities and the multifarious concepts and
manifestations of nationalism, are depicted in these great works of art.

Expressions of Nationalism Among the Characters. The spirit of nationalism that

pervades in the novels is expressed in the impassioned dialogue of the principal protagonists.
At other times it is implied by the veiled comments and actuations of the sensitive characters
whose ignorance of Rizal sought to eradicate.

In the early part of the Noli, the principal character Ibarra elucidates Rizal's political
sentiment that Spain and the Philippines were two parts of one nation and that loyalty to one
was loyalty to the other. One was patria grande, the other was patria chica; today this is
recognized as nationalism and regionalism.

Ibarra states in a toast that is reminiscent of Rizal's brindis speech of 1884, "Gentlemen,
in spite of everything, I give you Spain and the Philippines. "( Noli, p 19)

This sentiment for one's country is based on the knowledge of the country's tradition
and culture. Thus, Ibarra explained to a young Spaniard at the bienvenida party:

Before visiting any of those countries i would try to study its history, its Exodus,
so to speak, and after that I found everything understandable. I saw that in all cases the
prosperity or unhappiness of nations is in direct proportion to their liberties and their
problems, and by that token, to the sacrifices or selfishness of their ancestors." ( Noli,
pp 18-19)

Later as he reflects on the country's ills and the possibility of rebellion, he says:

'No, in spite of everything, my country comes first - first the Philippines,

daughter of Spain - first Mother Spain. What was destined, what was unavoidable,
cannot stain the honour of the Motherland." (Noli, p 47)
 And later, he again says to Tasio:

"Is my love of country incompatible with love for Spain? . . . I love my country,
the Philippines, because I owe her my life and happiness, and because every man should
love his country. I love Spain, the country of my forefathers, because, after all, the
Philippines owe and will owe to Spain both happiness and future." (Noli, p 159)

Conversing with the Governor General, Ibarra honestly declares:

"Sir, my greatest desire is the happiness of my country, a happiness which I

would wish to be due to the Motherland and to the efforts of my fellow citizens, one
united to the others with eternal ties of common ideals and common interests. What I
ask can only be given by the Government after many years of continuous work and the
correct measures of reform." ( Noli, p237)

However, the disillusioned Ibarra turned Simoun in the Fili looks forward to the
separation of the Philippines from Spain and urges Basilio to work for a free nation:

"... So they refuse to integrate you into the Spanish nation. So much the better!
Take the lead in forming your own individuality, try to lay the foundations of the Filipino
nation. They give you no hopes. All the better! Hope only in yourselves and your own
efforts. They deny you representation in the Spanish parliament. Good for you! Even if
you were able to elect representatives of your choosing, what could you do there but be
drowned among the many voices, yet sanction by your presence the abuses and wrongs
which may be afterwards committed? The less rights they recognize in you the more
right you will have later to shake off their yoke and return evil for evil. If they refuse to
teach you their language, then cultivate your own. Make it more widely known, keep
alive our native culture for our people, and instead of aspiring to be mere province,
aspire to be a nation, develop an independent, not a colonial mentality, so that in
neither rights nor customs nor language the Spaniard may ever feel at home here, or
ever be looked upon by our people as a fellow citizen, but rather, always as an invader,
a foreigner, and sooner or later you shall be free." (Fili, pp 51-52)

In Simoun , Rizal provides a philosophy of patriotism:

"However perfect humanity may become, patriotism will always be a virtue in

oppressed peoples because it will always mean the love of justice, freedom and self-
respect ... A man is great not because he goes ahead of his generation, which in any case
impossible, but because he guesses what it wants. The intellect may think that geniuses
are ahead of their time, but they only appear so to those who look at them from afar or
who mistake the rearguard for a whole generation ." (Fili, p 53)
 Elias' enkindled love for country is shown in his sympathy for the poor and the
oppressed who are the victims of Spanish repression in the islands. He is the people's
spokesman as he outlines to Ibarra the abuses committed on them by the friars and the civil
authorities. And the pleads with the young man in whom he sees qualities of leadership to use
his influence to seek reforms. In vain does he convince Ibarra of the imperativeness of the
reforms to prevent the suffering masses from rising up in arms.

Towards the end of the Noli, as both he and Ibarra are being hunted by the authorities,
Ibarra invites Elias to leave the country. Elias refuses and insists:

"Impossible. It is true that I cannot live or be happy in my country but I can suffer
and die in it, and perhaps for it; that is something. Let the misfortunes of my country be
my own, and since our people are not all united by a noble ideal, since our hearts do not
beat faster to the same name, at least our common unhappiness may unite me with
them. I shall weep with them over our sorrows, and let the same misfortunes oppress all
our hearts." (Noli, p 386)

When the embittered Ibarra vows to return to incite revolution, Elias counsels by
reminding Ibarra of his former words:

"I would tell you to think well about what are you going to do. You are going to
start a war, for you have money and brains, and will easily find many helping hands;
unfortunately many are discontented. But in this fight which you propose to start, the
defenseless and the innocent will suffer most. The same sentiments which a month ago
led me to ask you for reforms, lead me now to ask you to reflect further. Our country
does not think of independence from the Motherland; she asks nothing more than a
small measure of liberty, of justice, and of love. The discontented, the criminal and the
desperate will follow you, but the people will stand apart. I would not follow you myself;
I would never resort to these extreme measures while I could see some hope in man."
(Noli, pp 388-89)

Isagani, on the other hand, nurses a sentimental desire to die for his country:

Ah, he too would like to die, to become nothing, to leave his country a glorious
name, to die for her, defending her against foreign invaders, and let the sun afterwards
shine on his dead body, an immovable sentinel on the rocks of the sea! (Fili, pp 195-96)

Contrasted to this patriotic fervor is Senor Pasta's reply to Isagani when the young poet
asked the lawyer to work for the student's cause on the question of the Academy for the
Spanish language:

"O yes, I yielded to no one in my love of country and in my progressive ideas, but
. . . I cannot commit myself. I do not know whether o or not you realize my position; it is
 very delicate . . . I have many interests . . . I must act within the limits of strict
prudence . . . It would be most embarrassing. (Fili, p 116)

Tasio, disgusted with the failure of his projects and futility of overcoming the obstacles
to progress, cynically advises Ibarra to be resigned to things as they are:

"Why shouldn't we do as that weak stem loaded with roses and buds? The wind
blows and shakes it and it blows down as if to hide its precious burden. If the stem were
to stay straight it would break, and wind would scatter the flowers, and the buds would
die unopened. But the wind passes on, and then the stem straightens up again, proud of
its treasure. Who will blame it for having bowed necessity? . . . To fight alone against the
world is not courage but foolhardiness." (Noli, pp 160-61)

Regarded as a fool by people who did not understand his progressive ideas, Tasio
withdraws into his ivory tower. In spite of his frustrations, he looks forward to a bright future
for his country where ignorance shall have been replace by liberal and noble ideas from Europe,
and his country would encourage economic and technological development.

Decadence in the Social Order. Rizal's concept of nationalism is not only expressed
explicitly in the patriotic dialogue of the characters, but also largely reflected in the portrayal of
a Philippine society that needed social reforms.

The town of San Diego was typically rural, inhabited by petty, petulant people. "In San
Diego no less than in Rome, there were continuous quarrels, for each authority wanted to be
the sole master and found the other superfluous. (Noli, p 56) The mayor's office" had cost him
five thousand pesos and many humiliations, although, considering the income, it was cheap at
that." (Noli, p 55)

The dingy steamer, Tabo, that sluggishly plies the Pasig River in the Fili

Was typical of the country, something like a triumph over progress, a steamship that
was not quite a steamship, changeless, defective but an undisputable fact, which, when
it wanted to look modern, was perfectly happy with a new coat of paint. No doubt the
ship was genuinely Filipino! With a little good will, it could even be taken for the Ship of
State itself built under the supervision of Most Reverent and Illustrious personages. (Fili,
p 1)

The placement of the steamer’s passengers suggests the positions of the oppressed and
the oppressors in a colonial hierarchy. It also reveals the kind of discrimination that Rizal knew
so well in his college days. Accordingly,

below decks could be seen brown faces and black hair; natives, Chinese, half-breeds,
jammed in among baggage and cargo, while above them on the upper deck, under the
awning that protected them from the sun, and handful of passengers dressed in
 European style, friars and officials, were seated in comfortable armchairs, smoking huge
cigars and admiring the view, without taking the slightest notice of the efforts of the
skipper and the crew to negotiate the difficulties of the passage. (Fili, p 2)

The abuses of these “upper deck passengers” are exposed by Rizal as the true “social
cancer.” As a consequence, people had lost their self-respect. They are berated by Don Filipo:
“Sacrifice your self-esteem for a good cause. You sacrificed it before for a bad one, and you
ruined everything,” he reminds them, referring to a community project. (Noli, p 113)

But the social cancer is conditioned by foreign factors of which the local authorities
wash their hands. “It’s plain to see,” smirks Father Damaso “ever since the Suez Canal was
opened, we have been corrupted. Before, when we had to go round the Cape (of Good Hope),
we didn’t get so many souls here, nor did so many go abroad to lose their souls.” (Noli, page
220)

Whatever the cause of source to the cancer, indolence was always pointed to be at its
root. A young Spaniard inquires:

“Are the natives really born lazy? Or was that foreigner traveller right who said
that we Spaniards use this change of laziness to excuse our own, as well as to explain
the lack of progress and policy in our colonies? He was, of course, speaking of other
colonies of ours, but I think the inhabitants there belong to the same race as these
people.”

Simoun satirically remarks:

“Beer is a good thing. I have heard Father Camorra say that the lack of energy in
this country is due to the fact that its inhabitants drink so much water.” (Fili, page 15)

“The trouble is not that there are bandits in the mountains and in uninhabited places,”
Simoun continues (page 76). “The trouble lies with bandits in the towns and cities,” cynically
alluding to both religious and civil authorities, whether peninsular or local in origin, who
viciously exploited the natives. Decadence pervaded in the morass of bias and in the misguided
innate virtue of family practices and values.

These are shown in Capitana Tinay’s parody of Rizal’s mother Teodora Alonso. Tinay
announces, “I shall tell my son to give up his studies. They say wise men die on the gallows.”
(Noli page 25)

Ibarra pinpoints the parochial view of the people as an urgent reason for further
education. In his letter to Maria Clara, he quoted his father’s legacy:

“You must learn something about life in order to serve your country. But you
cannot learn it here; if you stay with me, under my care, sharing my worries from day to
 day, you will never be able to take in a long view. And when I’m gone, you will be like
the plant described by our poet Baltazar, grown in water, withering the moment it is not
tended, shrivelled by a touch of sun.” (Noli, page 42)

With the fragile Sisa, it was simply a matter of ignoring the problem until it resolved
itself. Thus, did she close her hut and stoke the handful of coals in the kitchen stove. “Thus does
man cover up with the ashes of outward indifference the burning emotions of his soul lest they
be extinguished by careless exposure “to one’s fellow.” (Noli, page 85)

Ibarra laments the presence of bad officials, abetted by inert people:

“There are officials who are useless, even bad, if you will, but there are also good
ones, and, if the latter can do nothing, it is because they are faced with an inert mass,
the people, who take scant interest in the matters which concern them. However, I did
not come here to argue with you on this point; I came to ask your advice. You say I
should my head before grotesque idols.” (Noli, page 159)

As Simoun, he is irked by the absence of initiative. To Basilio, he remonstrates:

“Resignation is not always a virtue; it is a crime when it encourages oppression. There are no
tyrants where there are no slaves. Man is by nature so evil that he always abuses his powers
when he is not resisted.” (Fili, page 54) Exasperated by Basilio’s non-involvement, Simoun
chides: “Don’t you realize that a life which is not dedicated to a great idea is useless? It is a
pebble lost in the field, when it should form part of some building.” (Fili, page 52)

The Abuses of the Religious Authorities

Rizal further depicts the corruption of the clergy in the characters of Father Damaso,
Salvi, Sibyla and Camorra. The friar was generally regarded as “the chief moral, political, and
civil authority in the town, supported by his order, feared by the government, high, powerful,
consulted, listened to, believed and obeyed always by all” (Noli, page 98) As such, he
demanded privileges and enjoyed priorities over high government officials whose tenures of
office he could control. As expected, his respect for civil authority depended on its convenience
to his whims. “The highest civil official in the Philippines was, in the opinion of the priests, much
inferior to the convent cook.” (Noli, page 16) Tasio noted this to Ibarra: “The lowest lay-brother
is more powerful than the Government with all its soldiers” (Noli, page 156)

The priest made the civil officials fear them. They controlled the acts of the ignorant
natives and threatened indios’ heads with excommunication for the slightest sign of disrespect
and disobedience. In this sermon delivered on the feast of San Diego one sees the utmost
trepidation:

“Listen to what the Holy Councils say. When a native meets a priest on the
street, he shall bend his head and offer his neck so that the Father may lean on it; if the
 priest and the native are both on horseback, then the native shall stop, and shall take off
his hat reverently; and finally if the native is on a horseback and the priest is on foot, the
native shall get off his horse and will not remount until the priest tells him to be off, or
has gone out of sight. That is what the Holy Councils say and whoever does not obey
shall be excommunicated. (Noli, page 199)

Father Damaso regarded the indios with contempt. He called them lazy, vicious, and
ungrateful even when he was royally entertained at their homes. He despised their aspirations
for enlightenment;

“You know what the native’s like. Let him learn a few letter and he passes
himself off as a doctor. All these chaps go off to Europe without having learned to wipe
their noses.” (Noli, page 220)

He orders the schoolmaster of San Diego to stop teaching to his pupils “Don’t go around
in borrowed clothes. Use your own native tongue. Don’t go spoiling Spanish; it’s not for you.”
(Noli, page 98)

This opposition to the education of the masses is supported by many of his colleagues.
Father Salvi secretly tries to foil Ibarra’s school project, and Fathers Irene, Sibyla, and Camorra,
argue strongly against the students’ petition for the establishment of the academy for the
Spanish language. One says’

“But the natives should now know Spanish, don’t you realize that? When the do.
They start arguing with us and they have no business arguing, all they should do is pray
and obey, they have no business interpreting laws and books.” (Noli, page 82)

This biased attitude causes Isagani’s grievances which he tells Father Fernandez. He
accuses the friars of
“Curtailing the pursuit of knowledge . . . stiffing al fervor and enthusiasm for it,
and implanting in us outmoded ideas, discredited theories and false principles
incompatible with progress.” (Fili, page 219)

The friars, who could easily encourage the latent abilities of the native, insulted and
exploited him. They made him think that religion was a matter of observing external rituals,
mouthing devotional prayers without understanding them, and rendering strict obedience to
the friars. They made him believe that salvation could be obtained through a generous
donation to the Church, paying for a large number of masses or candles lighted at the shrine of
a particular saint. Thus, Captain Tiago made his gold pray for him and completed with Doña
Patrocinio on the display of religious fervor and generosity.

Many of the friars were sadly deficient in spiritual leadership. Despite the vow of
chastity, they had immoral liaisons with native women who, either through threat or gentle
persuasion had accede to their carnal desires. Maria Clara is a product of such liaison and Juli is
a victim of Father Camorra’s lewd designs. In utter shame, she jumps from the second-floor
window of the convent to her death.

The friars were guilty of bribery and corruption. In the Fili, Father Camorra asked
Captain Basilio for a gift of a pair of lady’s earrings; otherwise the parish priest’s unfavorable
report would cause the Captain’s great harm. “These earrings were compulsory gifts” (Fili, page
38) and the students gave Father Irene a pair of chestnut horses to gain approval of their
petition.

The friars also enriched themselves not only by exhorting excessive fees for Church
services (200 pesos for Father Damaso’s sermon on the feast of San Diego), but also by unjust
acquisition of landed estates. The religion orders would stake claims on certain on certain
parcels of land and rent them out to tenants. Very often, the property was already owned by
some natives who would vainly protest this illegal occupancy.

On the eve of their first harvest, a religious Order which owned the lands in the
neighboring town had claimed ownership of the newly acquired fields, alleging that they were
within the limits of its property, and to establish its claim immediately attempted to put up
boundary markers. The administrator of the religious Order’s estate, however, let it be
understood that out of pity he would allow Tales the enjoyment of the land of an annual rental,
a mere trifle, a matter of 20 or 30 pesos. (Fili, page 24-25)

Not wishing to anger the powerful friars, the peace-loving Tales gave in. After a year, for
one reason or another, the friar landlords raised the rental to P50.00. The rental increased
annually from then on and when it reached to P200.00, Cabesang Tales grumbled in protest.
The friar administrator threatened that if Tales would not pay, then another tenant would take
over. Thinking that the friar was not serious Tales refused to pay and he brought the case to
court and dared to “battle against a most powerful Religious Order before which Justice
lowered her head and judges dropped their scales and surrendered their swords.” After a long
period of litigation, the case was decided against Tales. An appeal to the higher court proved
futile, and the poor man turned to the eventual life of an outlaw.

In a letter to Felix Resurrection Hidalgo, Rizal showed his vehemence to friar hypocrisy:

I have replied to the insults that for so many centuries have been heaped upon
us and our country. I have described the social conditions, the life there, and our
beliefs, our hopes, our desires, our complaints our sorrows. I have unmasked
hypocrisy that under the clock of religion impoverished and brutalized us. I have
distinguished the true religion from the false, from the superstitious, from that
which capitalizes on the holy word in order to extract money, in order to make
us believe in absurdities of which Catholicism would blush if it would know them.
I have lifted the curtain in order to show what is behind the glittering words of
our government. I have told our complaints, our defects, our vices, and our
culpable and cowardly complacency with the miseries over there in the
 Philippines. Whenever I have virtue, I have proclaimed it and rendered homage
to it… The incidents are all true and they happened!

Corruption in the Civil Government. The civil government perpetuated anomalies with
its own defective organization which was largely dependent on the authority of the friars and
with the appointment of the weak officials who had no training at all in government
administration. As Tasio succinctly points out,

“The Government itself sees nothing, and decides nothing except what the
parish priest or the head of the religious Order makes it see, hear, and decide. It is
convinced that it rests on them alone; that it stands because they support it; that it lives
because they allow it to live; and that the day they are gone, it will fall like discarded
puppet. It is only an arm, the convent is the head. (Noli, p 157)

Isagani lament this situation to Senor Pasta:

“Governments have been made for the good of peoples, and to fulfill their
purposes properly, they must follow the wishes of the citizens who best know what they need.”
(Fili, p 117)

But the Governor General clarifies to Ibarra the over-centralized and under systemized
policy:

“Here, we old soldiers must do everything and be everything: King, Ministers of

State, of War, of the Interior, of Economic Development, of Justice, and all that. What is
worse, we must consult the home government on every point, and that distant
government, according to circumstances, approves our proposal, sometimes without
knowing anything about them. And we Spaniards say: jack of all trades, master of none!
Furthermore, we come, usually knowing little about the country, and leave it just when
we are getting to know it… We in the Government do not lack good intentions, but we
are compelled to make use of the eyes and arms of others, whom we usually do not
know, and who perhaps, instead of serving the interest of the country, only serve their
own. That is not our fault but that of circumstances.” (Noli, p 236)

Regarding the presence of corrupt officials in the government, the concerned Lieutenant
Guevarra tells Ibarra:

“The continual changes in the administration, demoralization in high places,

favoritism, combined with the cheaper fares and shorter trip out here since the Suez
Canal was opened, are to blame for everything; the worst elements of the Peninsula
come here, and if a good man comes, he is soon corrupted by the present condition of
the country.” (Noli, p 22)
 The majority of peninsular Spaniards sent to the Philippines resembled Tiburcio de
Espadana, the Customs official in the Noli who could not even speak Spanish correctly. Laid off
by the government that found him incompetent, he staves off hunger by marrying a wealthy
indio and naively allows himself to be called a Doctor of Medicine even though he knew nothing
about the profession.

The corrupt Governor General in the Fili bribed his way into his appointment using
Simoun’s money. His excessive lack of administrative ability is shown in his dependence on
Simoun, whose Machiavellian design and ridiculous decisions distorted his sense of values. He
pays more attention to trivial matters than to the pressing needs of the country. He tolerates
gambling as it would enrich government coffers, and, consequently, his own pocket. Although it
is prohibited to encourage the cultivation of poppy in the colony, he allows opium-smoking
because it “gives the government, without any work at all, a yearly revenue of more than four
hundred and fifty thousand pesos.” (Noli, p 236)

The civil government ignored the basic needs of the people. It discouraged freedom of
the press. It entrusted the matter of educating the natives to the friars who discouraged the
learning of the natives. It often showed a maladministration of justice, with decision constantly
tipped to favor the Spaniards, as in the case of Cabesang Tales, or favored the party that gave
“gifts” to the judges. It also exploited the natives through conscript labor and increased taxes.

The Civil Guard. One of the government agencies, the guardia civil, particularly stands
out in its cruel treatment of the natives. Rizal's novels describe the illegal searches and planned
robberies committed by the guards in the guise of law enforcement, as well as the terrible
tortures suffered by the people.

Answering Ibarra's assertion that the guardia civil is a necessary institution for security
of the towns, Elias gives proof of its rampant abuses:

"It paralyses communication because everybody is afraid of being harassed for

petty causes. It is concerned with appearance rather than with fundamentals --one of
the first symptoms of incapacity. A man is tied and beaten up because he has forgotten
his identity card, no matter if he is a decent person with good reputation. The officers
think it is their duty to exact a salute, willing or unwilling, even at night, and they are
imitated in this by their subordinates, who use it as an excuse-- although an excuse is
never lacking--to manhandle and fleece the peasants. The sanctity of the home does not
exist for them; not long ago they entered a house in Kalamba through the window and
beat up a peaceful inhabitant to whom their commanding officer owed money and
favours. There is no security for the individual: when they want their barracks or their
houses cleaned, they go out and seize anyone who does not resist and make him work
the whole day." (Noli, p 309)
 Elias observes that the guardia civil lorded over the towns for fifteen years, yet outlaws
abounded, robberies continued and the perpetuators were never caught. Crime existed and
real culprits went about freely, while the peaceful inhabitants cringed in terror.

"Ask any honest citizen if he looks upon the constabulary (guardia civil) as a good thing,
as a means of protection furnished by the Government and not as an imposition, a despotism
whose excesses are more harmful than the depredations of the outlaws... One cannot even
protest against the imposition of the forces of laws and order." (Noli, pp 308-309)

The Defective Educational System. Another deplorable aspect of the colonial

government was the poor administration and ineffective supervision of the educational system
in the country.

The importance of the school system was acknowledged. At the laying of the
cornerstone of Ibarra's school, the governor proclaimed:

"Residents of Sand Diego, we have the honour to preside over a ceremony

whose importance you will understand without our telling you. This is the foundation of
a school, and the school is the foundation of society, the book on which is written the
future of nations. Show us the schoosl of a nation and we shall tell you what kind of a
nation it is." (Noli, p 205)

Ibarra complemented:

"I want my country's good, that is why I am building the schoohouse, but I seek it
through education, through progress. We cannot find our way without the light of
knowledge." (Noli, p 320)

The town situation was pitiful. In San Diego, before Ibarra return, there was no school
building. The school master in the Noli had to use a portion of the “ground floor of the parish
house, beside the carriage of the parish priest" as a schoolroom. Under these circumstances,
not much learning was accomplished, to the delight of Father Damaso. The schoolmaster was
limited by the curriculum prescribed by the parish priest and cautioned against teaching the
pupils Spanish language. Added to his difficulties was the prejudice against educating the
people. Out of 200 children listed, only 25 came to class regularly. (Noli, p 96) The teacher
denounces this desperate condition to Ibarra:

"In our present circumstances education will be never be possible without the
most powerful help, first, because the young have no inducement or encouragement to
study, and secondly, because even if they had, they would be stifled by poverty and
other needs more pressing than education. They say that Germany even the son of the
peasant spends eight years in the village school. Here, who would spend half that time
where there is so little to be gained from it? They learn to read and write, they
 memorize passages, whole books, in Spanish, without understanding a single word--how
does school do any good to our village boys?"

"A poor school teacher does not fight single-handed against prejudices, against
certain influences. I would need, above all, a schoolhouse, a place to teach in; now I
must do so on the goundfloor of the parish house, beside the carriage of the parish
priest." (Noli, p 96)

Teachers had no prestige:

"The children lose their respect for their teacher when they see him badly used,
and unable to assert his rights. If the teacher is to be listened to, if his authority is to be
beyond question, he needs prestige, a good name, moral authority, a certain freedom."
(Noli, p 96)

Teachers were downgraded:

“Neither learning nor zeal are expected from a schoolmaster; only resignation,
self-abasement, and passivity.” (Noli, p 08)

At the college level, it was a farce. A very discouraging atmosphere is shown in the
physics class described in the Fili. The schoolroom was bare except for an impressive for an
mahogany framed blackboard. Whatever laboratory equipment the school had locked away in a
glass cabinet for students “to gaze at but not touch.” It would be brought out from time to time
for display. No laboratory experiments were conducted and class recitation was often a farce.
Why go to school?

One went to school, they argued not to study or learn but to complete the
prescribed course, and, if they could memorize the textbook, nothing more could be
asked of them and they would be sure to pass on to the next grade. (Fili, p 42)

One went class not to learn but to avoid the mark (for absence), there was
nothing else to the class except to recite the lessons by heart, to read the textbook, and
at most to answer one or two questions, abstract, profound, misleading, enigmatic;
there was never lacking, it is true, the usual little homily on humanity, submission and
respect for the religious, (Fili, p 92).

The professor invariably required his students to recite the day’s assignment by
heart and word for word. The human phonographs went to work, some well, others
helped by friendly promptings. Whoever accomplished a flawless recitation gains a good
mark; whoever made three mistakes, a zero.
 Basilio passed his oral examination by “answering the only question they asked him like
a machine, without pausing for breath, and the examining board approved his performance
amid great laughter.” (Fili, p 42)

The college teachers were very often insulting; they even stooped to make fun of the
students’ names. And all the students felt at the end of the session that

each one of them had lost one more hour of his life and with it a measure of his
dignity and self-respect, an hour which, on the hand, had added to the discouragement,
resentment, and aversion to study in his heart.

For just like the two hundred and thirty-four [students in Physics class],
thousands before them had wasted their time and, if matters were not set right, so
would others still to come, to be brutalized, to have their dignity outrage and their
youthful enthusiasms turned into indolence and hatred, like waves on a polluted beach
that one after the other accumulate the garbage upon it. (Fili, p 103)

A few hopefully kept their optimism. Basilio joined the science enthusiast’s bandwagon:
“It is the goal of the most cultured nations.” (Fili, p 52) Señor Pasta singled out the
responsibility of students: “He who wants to learn, learns and learns well.” (Fili, p 120)

The Plight of the Filipinos. Eight million Filipinos had become the victims of human
indignities. Rizal did not spare them from censure. He sympathized with their sufferings, yet he
felt that the people’s indifference had made them inert. His sensitive pen reminded the people
that these follies and misfortunes were caused by a colonial subservience that had to stop; the
moral cast of his thoughts demanded a renewal of strength and a recourse of change.

There was abject misery among the poor: “Sugar prices were low, the rice harvest had
been lost, half the work animals had died, rentals and taxes were rising no one knew why or
what for, while more and more abuses by the Constabulary discouraged merrymaking in the
towns.” (Fili, p 37) The people were continuously exploited and harassed by the authorities
such as the despondent Sisa, whose sons are falsely accused of stealing the parish priest’s
money. The younger of the two, Crispin, is beaten to death by the sacristan mayor. The family
of Cabesang Tales suffered poverty and oppression andis driven to outlawry as Sisa becomes
insane.

It was futile to complain against the excesses of authority. Day after day they were
reminded that they had no right to question authority – they born to serve, they were fit only
to be ruled, and therefore, they were not supposed to complain. The most effective constraint
was the threat of filibusterismo, or subversion, the serious charge for a non-conformist attitude
of mind, “as an overt attempt to overthrow an established order of society.” (Fili, p XIV)

Simoun decribes the depredations of the natives to Father Florentino thus:

 “Ah, if you had seen what I have: unfortunate wretches suffering unspeakable
tortures for crimes they never committed, the murders done to conceal the crimes or
blunders of others, pitiful fathers of families torn from their homes to work uselessly on
highways that crumbled the next morning and which seemed to be built to bury their
families in misery – endure, work, it is the will of God!” (Fili, p 296)

Rizal did not wholly blame the religious and civil authorities for their sordid state of
affairs. The people themselves, by their timidity, fear and cowardice had shackled their minds
and debased their souls. They gradually allowed the Spaniards to enslave them. The Governor
General observed;

“Ah, if these people weren’t so stupid, they’d take the measure of these
Reverences! But every people deserves its fate, and let us do what everybody else
does.” (Noli, pp 51-52)

Don Filipo impatiently admits that the friars are always right “because we always start
by admitting they are right.” (Noli, pp 223-224) The Mayor concludes, “The friars are rich and
united; we are divided and poor.”

The burning need to unite and clamor for emancipation from the malaise of the country
was unheeded by the people. Many had grown callous through suffering and had learned by
experience that it was dangerous to go against the Establishment. Tasio advised Ibarra, “To
fight alone against the world is not courage but foolhardiness.” (Noli, p 161). Taking “prudence”
as synonymous to “fear,” they chose to be silent and left things as they were.

One such character is Señor Pasta who preferred security in office to a risky involvement
in the agitation for civil rights. Another is Basilio who would rather have the simple, uneventful
life of a country doctor than fight for his right.

Simoun berates him that resignation becomes a crime when it breeds tyrants and slaves.
Still failing to arouse Basilio’s interest in his schemes, Simoun bitterly rationalizes:

“When somebody is dead it is useless to try to wake him up. Twenty years of
uninterrupted slavery, of systematic humiliation, of constant prostration, can make a
soul so hunch-backed that it will take more than a day to straighten it up. Children
inherit from their fathers their ways of thought, good or bad. Long live then your ideas
of a happy life, long live the dreams of the slave who only asks for a rag with which to
wrap his chains so they won’t make so much noise or bruise his skin. Your ambition is a
cozy little home, a woman of your own and a handful of rice. Behold the model
Filipino!” (Fili, pp 54 – 55)

Tasion had earlier dampened Ibarra’s idealism with brutal frankness.

 “The reforms which come from above are annulled below by the vices of all, by,
for example, the get-rich-quick madness, and the ignorance of the people who let
everything pass. Abuses cannot be corrected by royal decree if zealous authorities do
not watch over its execution, and while freedom of speech against the excesses of petty
tyrants is not granted.” (Noli, p 158)

Rizal criticized the unspoken embarrassment of the natives for their own ancestry so
that the search for a national identity was a superficial imitation of European manners and
mode of dressing. Capitan Tiago, who “does not think of himself as a native,” and Doña
Victorina de Espadaña personify this colonial mentality.

The Filipinos’ gullible obedience and surrender of individual rights abetted rather than
curtailed the abuses of the friars. The Tertiary Sisters and the members of the Municipal Board
of San Diego, particularly the mayor, are examples of this subservience to the friars’ whims.

This distorted sense of values is shown in the general attitude towards gambling and
fiestas. The cockpit was a most frequented place, but people shied away from the schools. In an
effort to compete with the neighboring towns in the celebration of the feat of the patron saint,
the people of San Diego spent money lavishly, even if this meant continued poverty. Speaking
through Tasio, Rizal criticized this extravagance thus:

“Having a good time doesn’t mean making fools of ourselves. It’s the same
senseless orgy every year. And all for what? Throwing away all that money when there
is so much misery and need! But of course! I understand. The orgy, the bacchanal,
serves to drown out the general lamentation.” (Noli, p 183)

Tasio also scorns the increasing apathy of society towards the country’s need for
improvement. Sinking into pessimism shortly before his death, he admits to his good friend Don
Filipo:

“You are right; our young people think only of love affairs and pleasures; they
spend more time and effort on seducing and dishonouring a girl than on planning the
good of their country; our women are so devoted to the care of God’s house and
household that they neglect their own; our men are energetic only in the pursuit of vice
and heroic only in dishonouring themselves. Childhood awakens in meaningless routine;
youth lives its best years without an ideal; and maturity, sterile maturity, serves no
other purpose than to corrupt by its example.” (Noli, p 334)

The people despaired, and turned to hatred and crime. Father Florentino clarifies this
degeneration to Simoun:
“The glory of saving a country cannot be given to one who has contributed to its
ruin. Yu believed that what crime and iniquity had stained and deformed, more crime
and more iniquity could cleanse and redeem. This was error. Hate only creates
 monsters; crime, criminals; only love can work wonders, only virtue can redeem. If our
country is some day to be free, it will not be through vice and crime, it will not be
through corruption of its sons, some deceived, others bribed; redemption presupposes
virtue; virtue, sacrifice, and sacrifice, love!” (Fili, p 295)

The Urgency of Needed Reforms

Eventually the people would rise from their lethargy, Tasio predicts. In a conversation
with Ibarra, Tasio says:

“The people do not complain because they have no voice; they do not move
because they are in stupor; and you say that they do not suffer because you have not
seen how their hearts bleed. But some day you will see and hear! Then woe unto those
who draw their strength from ignorance and fanaticism, who take their pleasure in
fraud, and who work under cover of night, confident that all are asleep! When the light
of day reveals the monstrous creatures of the night, the reaction will be terrifying. All
the forces stifled for centuries, the poison distilled drop by drop, all repressed emotions,
will come to light in a great explosion.” (Noli, pp 157 – 158)

The same prediction is made by a ranking official who courted his own dismal cy
criticizing the Spanish administration in the islands. To the Governor General, he reasons out:

“It is because I love Spain that I am speaking now and I do not care how much it
displeases you. I do not want her to be accused in time to come of having been a
stepmother of nations, a bloodsucker of peoples, a despot over a handful of islands,
because that would be a terrible mockery of the noble purposes of our ancient kings.
How do we fulfill their sacred will and testament? They promised these islands
protection and justice and we make game of lives and liberties of their inhabitants; they
promised civilization, and we begrudge it, fearing that the natives may aspire to a full
life; they promised light, and we blindfold the natives so they may not witness our
excesses; they promised to teach virtue, and we foment vice: and instead of peace,
prosperity and justice, there is distress; commerce withers away and the masses lose
their faith. Let us put ourselves in the place of the Filipinos and ask ourselves what we
would do. Ah, in your silence I read their right to rebel and, if things do not get better,
some day they will rebel, and in truth justice will be on their side as well as the
sympathies of all honest men, of all the patriots of the world.” (Fili, pp 250 – 251)

All this agitation point to the urgency for immediate social and political reforms.
Through the delineation of characters, Rizal expounded on what he expected from Spain and he
aroused a moral sensitiveness in his beloved people.
 Immediate reform, Rizal said, would have to start from the Spaniards. The colonial
philosophy would have to be redefined, as Father Fernandez suggested to Father Syvila:

“I say, then, why not take this opportunity, when they are still ignorant, to
change our policies completely, to place those policies on a solid and permanent
foundation, say, that of justice, instead of ignorance? There is nothing like being fair; I
have always told my brethren that, although they do not want to believe me. The
natives, like any young people, idolize justice; they even ask to be punished when they
are at fault, but by the same token they are exasperated by being punished when they
do not deserve it. Is what they want reasonable and fair? Then let us give it to them; let
us give them all the schools they want, they will soon tire of them, youth is lazy and only
our opposition makes them active. The bonds of prestige, Father Sybila, are very much
worn out; let us make ready other bonds, say, the bonds of gratitude.” (Fili, p 83)

The old Dominican superior concurred, admitting urgency for change:

“Attacks wake us ups; we discover our weaknesses, and we can improve

ourselves. Exaggerated praises only fool us, lull us to sleep, while making us ridiculous,
then we shall fall as we fell in Europe.” (Noli, p 50)

Speaking for the masses, Elias pleads that the Spaniards institute “radical reforms in the
armed forces, in the clergy, in the administration of justice, that is to say, a more paternal
approach from the Government.” (Noli, p 307)

When Ibarra asks, “Reforms? In what sense?” Elias answers: “For example, more respect
for human dignity, greater security for the individual, less strength in the armed forces, less
privileges for an organization which so easily abuses them.” (Noli, p 307)

Elias definitely asks for the abolition of the guardia civil. But this cannot be done since
the government needed “a body of men with that unlimited power and authority which it
needs to make itself respected,” then

“we should consider well to whom we give such unlimited power placed in
human hands of ignorant and willful men, without moral training, without proven
honesty, is a weapon placed in the hands of a madman let loose in an unarmed crowd. I
admit, and I want to believe like you [Ibarra], that the Government needs this strong
right arm, but it should choose it well from among the most worthy, and since it prefers
to confer authority on itself rather than receive it from the people, let it at least show
that it knows how to do so.” (Noli, p 311)

Elias also proposed reforms in the administration of justice. Much change was necessary
about a system that upheld rental for untitled lands and arbitrary increase of rent accompanied
by the threat of expulsion if the tenant did not comply with the landlord’s demands. This was a
system that encouraged the inordinate corruption of court officials and showed partiality in the
settlement of cases. The tragic families of Elias and Cabesang Tales and Sisa were such victims.

Regarding the state of the religious orders, Elias claims that the people do not really ask
for their removal “but only for the reforms required by new circumstances and necessities.”
(Noli, p 313) Let the friars pay more attention to their religious mission of teaching the True
Faith rather than encouraging superstition and fanaticism by giving greater importance to
mundane practices. Let them stop enriching themselves at the people’s expense.

The friars should also attend to their obligation “of constantly improving the young
morally and physically, of guiding them to happiness, of creating an honest, prosperous,
intelligent, virtuous, noble and loyal people,” instead of obstructing education, Isagani
admonishes. (Fili, p 218)

There was need for the government to institute reforms in the faulty educational
system. Assigning the educational system to the friars was a blunder:

“When it is a matter of giving a whole people moral sustenance, a matter of

nourishing the youth, a people’s best part, destined to be the whole, the Government
not only does not call for competitive tenders but awards the power precisely to that
organization which presides itself in not wanting education or any form of progress.”
(Fili, p 219)

The government might start by directly assuming the administration and supervision of
the schools, Isagani suggests. It also should redefine the educational goals. What was necessary
was the training of worthy professionals as lawyers and physicians.

There was need for qualified teachers, effective methods of instruction, an enriched
curriculum, adequate educational facilities, and encouragement of students. As Isagani pointed
out to Father Fernandez, “When we have real professors, you shall have real student.” (Fili, p
224)

The schoolmaster in San Diego valued his students and initiated innovations:

“Since it is necessary to have an outward and an inward calm, a serenity in the

spirit, a material and moral tranquility and receptivity for the brain to receive the ideas, I
believe that, before everything else, I should inspire in the children confidence, a sense
of security, and self-respect. Also, I realized that the sight of daily floggings killed the
sense of pity, and stifled that of personal dignity, which moves the world; and with it the
sense of shame, which once lost is difficult to recover. I tried to make study pleasant and
good-humored; I wanted to make the primer not a black book bathed in the tears of
childhood, but a friendly guide to marvelous secrets; I wanted to make the school not a
torture-chamber but a playground of the mind. So I cut down floggings gradually; I took
the rod and the whip home and replaced them with the spurs of competition and self-
 esteem. If a child did not learn his lesson, I blamed it in his lack of effort, never on his
lack of brains. I made the children believe that they had more talent than they really
had, and trying to live up to it they were compelled to study, just as self-confidence
leads to heroism. Any child who was praised before the whole class studied twice as
much the next day.” (Noli, pp 99 – 100)

The town council could include the school in their annual program of projects:

“A fifth part of the money raised could be utilized to award prizes: for instance,
to the best herdsman, farmer, fisherman, and so on. We can organize boat-races on the
river and the lake, run horse-races, put up greased poles, and hold other games in which
the country folk can join … With the remainder of the money we can begin a small
building to serve as a school, for we should not expect God Himself to come down and
build it for us.” (Noli, p 112)

Such encouragement could lead to something laudable, a spiritual, intellectual freedom

and renewal, according to a priest martyr:

“Do not forget that if wisdom is the patrimony of all men, only those of good
heart can inherit it; I have tried to transmit to you what I in turn received from my
teachers, adding to that legacy as much as I was able in handing it on to the next
generation. You must go to countries that are very rich. They come here seeking gold;
you go to their countries in search of the treasures that we lack. But remember all that
glitters is not gold.” (Noli, p 46)

Perceptive Spaniards like Father Fernandez realized the necessity for reforms: first, by
changing the attitude towards the natives, and then advocating the much needed changes for
the advancement and eventual freedom of the masses.

Rizal implies that the natives, on the other hand, should prove that they are worthy of
the reforms. “Money and good-will are not enough,” Tasio stresses to Ibarra, “in our country
abnegation, tenacity, and faith are also required; the field is not for sowing, it is full of weeds.”
(Noli, p 160) They should understand that reform measures would contribute to the common
good and that a sense of social consciousness would prepare them for freedom and happiness.
Circumspection would eradicate corruption:

“The reforms which come from above are annulled below by the vices of all, by,
for example, the get-rich-quick madness, and the ignorance of the people who let
everything pass. Abuses cannot be corrected by royal decrees if zealous authorities do
not watch over its execution, and while freedom of speech against the excesses of petty
tyrants is not granted.” (Tasio to Ibarra, Noli, p 158).
 This preparation would start with the reorientation of the masses’ attitude towards
education. The masses should be taught that education is not only for a few, but for all.
“Freedom is to man what education is in the mind,” says Isagani. (Fili, p 220)

Basilio had envisioned this freedom even as a little boy, when he declared to his mother
Sisa:

“I’m not going to work for the friars anymore . . . I’m going to be a herdsman
instead, I’ll take very good care of the herds, and so I’ll make the owner like me . . . I’ll
pick fruits in the forest . .. I’ll lay traps and snares to catch birds and wild goats, I’ll fish in
the river, and when I’m bigger I’ll go hunting. I could also cut firewood . . . Meantime I’ll
be my own master . .. And since old Tasio says Crispin is very clever, we’ll send him to
Manila to study; I’ll support him by working.” (Noli, p 87)

Building up agricultural manpower was a mean to self-reliance, as Isagani says:

“I see nothing wrong in training these farmers and peasants, in giving them at
least the skills that will enable them to improve themselves and to improve their work,
that will allow them to understand many things which now they do not.” (Fili, p 120)

The enlightened natives would then eradicate superstition, develop a cultured sense of
values, improve their economic lives, make their homes comfortable, and consequently, enjoy
the true happiness they deserve. They would eventually study science and bring about
technological advancement in the country. This could inspire infrastructure programs, like road
planning and development. For instance, Simoun proposed “to dig a canal, straight through
from the lake to Manila, that is to say, to make a new river channel, and close up the old Pasig.
Land will be saved, distances shortened, and mud-banks avoided.” (Fili, p 6)

The masses must develop the idea of human dignity and free themselves from the
fetters of deterioration and greed. Rizal’s belief in the integrity of the Filipinos is a renewal of
strength and an awareness that the Filipino will survive by his very endurance. This is reiterated
by Father Florentino:

“I do say that we must win our freedom by deserving it, by improving the mind
and enhancing the dignity of the individual, loving what is just, what is good, what is
great, to the point of dying for it. When a people reaches these heights, God provides
the weapon, and the idols and the tyrants fall like a house of cards, and freedom shines
in the first dawn. Our misfortunes are our fault, let us blame nobody else for them. If
Spain were to see us less tolerant of tyranny and readier to fight and suffer for our
rights, Spain would be the first to give us freedom because, when the fruit of conception
reaches the time of birth, woe to the mother that tries to strangle it! But as long as the
Filipino people do not have sufficient vigour to proclaim, head held high and chest
bared, their right to a life pf their own in human society and to guarantee it with their
sacrifices, with their very blood; as long as we see our countrymen feel privately
 ashamed, hearing the growl of their rebelling and protesting conscience, while in public
they keep silent and even join the oppressor in mocking the oppressed; as long as we
see them wrapping themselves up in their selfishness and praising with forced smiles
the most despicable acts, begging with their eyes for a share of the booty, why give
them independence? With or without Spain they would be the same, and perhaps,
perhaps worse. What is the use of independence if the slaves of today will be the
tyrants of tomorrow?” (Fili, p 297)

And through Simoun, Rizal advised that the people look beyond their oppression to the
establishment of a sovereign nation. “Take the lead in forming your own individuality, try to lay
the foundations of a Filipino nation . . . and develop an independent, not colonial mentality.”
(Fili, p 51)

As long as a people keeps its own language, it keeps a pledge of liberty, just as a
man is free as long as he can think for himself. Language is a people’s way of thinking.
Fortunately your independence is secure. Human passions watch over it.” (Fili, p 50)

These passions obliterate the individual, for it is only the nation that counts, as Elias
indicated to Basilio: “Nothing will remain of me . . . I die without seeing the sun rise on my
country. You who are to see the dawn, welcome it, and do not forget those who fell during the
night.” (Noli, p 402)

This echoed by Father Florentino:

“Where are the youth who will dedicate their innocence, their idealism, their
enthusiasm, to the good of the country? Where are they who will give generously of
their blood to wash away so much shame, crime and abomination? Pure and
immaculate must the victim before the sacrifice to be acceptable. Where are you, young
men and women, who are to embody in yourselves the life-force that has been drained
from our veins, the pure ideals that have grown stained in our minds, the fiery
enthusiasm that has been quenched in our hearts? We await you, come for we await
you!” (Fili, p 298)

Symbolism in Maria Clara and Sisa

Among the characters of Noli Me Tangere, two women, Maria Clara and Sisa, represent
the enduring sacrifices of Filipino womanhood and the nation itself.

Maria Clara, the main female character of the Noli, is portrayed by Rizal as the fruit of
an illicit love affair between the Spanish Franciscan friar, Father Damaso, and a native woman,
Pia Alba, for six years the childless wife of Capitan Tiago. Why such an origin?
 Because in Rizal’s mind, the unhappy state of the Philippines which Maria Clara
symbolizes was the product of the exploitation of the Spanish rulers and the failure of the
people. In chapter 63 of the Noli, Father Damaso sternly disapproves of the marriage of Ibarra
to Maria Clara. Ibarra symbolized the liberalism that was sweeping the Philippines as a result of
stimulating influences from European sources.

Rizal injected womanly qualities into the symbol that was Maria Clara. He moulded her
into something like Leonor Rivera, his real life sweetheart. She was the typical, although not the
ideal, Filipino woman. Thus she is shown as a young convent-bred woman, shy and awkward in
spite of her innate charms. At twenty-one, she was immature and unable to form her own
convictions without the approval of her confessor or elders. She lacks the mature intellect and
industry that Rizal praised among the German women who “cared more for the substance of
things than for appearance.” Thus Maria was not Rizal’s ideal woman who would possess not
only the modesty and gentleness of Leonor Rivera but also the intellectual acumen of the
German fraulein.

The distinction between the “typical” and the “ideal” is important in understanding and
interpreting the character and symbolism of Maria Clara. As Rizal characterized her, he exposed
her weaknesses, her lack of courage and sound judgement. At the same time, he enfolded her
in the delicate soft mist of his poetic imagination. He criticized her too, for her blind obedience
to her parents. He treated her with compassion, never with spite and hatred. He loved her in
spite of her short comings, as he loved his country.

Maria Clara was the image of the Philippines with her virtues and consistencies, a
symbol made more human by characteristics of the typical 19th century Filipino.

Sisa is described as another symbolic character.

Sisa was still young; once she must have been pretty and charming. Her eyes,
which like her character, her sons had inherited, were beautiful, deep, and long lashed;
her nose were well proportioned, her pale lips attractively drawn. Her complexion was
what the Tagalogs call kayumangging kaligatan, that is to say, a clear, golden brown. In
spite of her youth, sorrow or perhaps hunger, had made her pale cheeks sunken; and if
her abundant hair; once her greatest glory, was still well groomed, with a so simple
chignon unadorned with pins and combs, it was not out of coquetry but habit. (Noli, p
82)

From this eloquent description, Sisa is the Philippines. Her features are beautiful, but
are made uncomely by later sorrow and suffering. She represents to Motherland, as well as
Rizal’s own mother and all Filipino women.
Sisa knows her sons characteristics intimately, even the way they walked: Basilio, with
strong sure steps; Crispin, with light irregular footfalls. She is highly sensitive, especially to slurs
against her character, as when she was referred to as the “mother of the thieves.”
 She knew she was wretchedly poor, forsaken by all, even by her own husband,
but until now she had treasured her good reputation and looked with pity on the
women, scandalously dressed, who were known to the town as camp followers. Now it
seemed to her that she had fallen even lower than they in human society. (Noli, p 116)

This is the typical Filipino, submissive to all miseries, yet refusing any degradation to
honor!

She was all forgiveness, all heart, and this reaction invited further exploitation. To Sisa,
this was resignation to her fate. But when applied to a people, such an attitude may be an
acceptance of laziness and a selfish disregard for rights and duties.

Sisa in fact is both self-effacing and courageous. She could not assert her essential ideals
but she held on to her martyrdom. Perhaps this is because of acceptance for the fate of her
sons. She wanted to save them from oppression and suffer any humiliation for their sake.

The Response to the Novels. The message conveyed by the novels made Rizal famous
overnight. There was a deluge of both favorable and unfavourable response to his “eye-
openers”. Rizal’s interpretation of the political and social malaise caused the popular feeling of
animosity towards the Spaniards. The idealism and fortitude of Ibarra and Elias, the Maria Clara
type of beauty, the antiheroic friar, the meaning of the cover design—all these features were
acclaimed by his readers.

Their ambivalent message seemed to incite revolution while serving as a grave warning.
It kindled varied reactions among the readers. Within weeks of the publication and distribution
of the Noli, Rizal began receiving tributes from friends in Europe. Commendations came from
such European scholars as Doctors, Adolph B. Meyer, Friedrich Ratzel, Feodor Jagor, and
Ferdinand Bluementritt. The Filipino painter par excellence Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo wrote:

I admire your courage in saying plainly what you think and the inspiration
reflected in your work which makes one feel the palpitation of the heart of a man who
loves his country.

At Rizal’s expression that his mission had ended, Marcelo H. del Pilar retorted:

Rizal has no right yet to die. His name constitutes the purest and most
immaculate standard of sacrosanct aspirations and Plaridel and his men are no other
than mere volunteers who serve under that standard.

From other quarters, too, came words of caution and advice against the author’s return
to the Philippines where, it was believed, he would be imprisoned and eventually put to death
for his brutal frankness against the ruling powers of Spain. Rizal had his own misgivings,
frustrations and negative reactions. He grieve to Ponce:
 In Madrid where I had so many friends among our countrymen, my work not
only did not find support, but was not even permitted to enter, due to the neglect and
strange conduct of others, according to a friend, my only one remaining there it seems. I
don’t mind it personally; I’m sorry for what it signifies: I’m sorry because I see fading out
even our last virtue, which is our unconditional unity when it concerns the welfare of
our country. If we lose that, what will become of us be miserable in everything, what
virtues have we learned—we who came to Europe—what superiority would we have to
our other blind brothers?

In Manila, illustrious country men have tried to blacken my work, and I said to
myself; now that Filipino colony of Madrid, the most patriotic, the most advanced,
behaves that way toward me, I am very sorry, because this is an implied condemnation
of my book by my countrymen, if not something worse, which would be moral
degeneration. Between the two, I would rather be sacrificed.

In the Philippines the Spanish friars reacted to the novels with maddening anger and
alarm. The committee of Dominican Priests from the University of Santo Tomas which the
archbishop assigned to pass judgement on the Noli found it to be heretical, scandalous, and
subversive. The strongest objections were raised by the Augustinian Salvador Font, whose
report was used as the basis for Governor Terrero’s order prohibiting the circulation of the
novel, and Father Jose Rodriguez, prior of Guadalupe, who wrote a pamphlet attacking the Noli.
Simultaneously, in Madrid, Senators Jose Salamanca, Luis Ma Paredes and Fernando Vida
lambasted the book and the author. Newsmen Vicente Barrantes and Wenceslao E. Retana
condemned the presentation of facts. Font was rebutted by Del Pilar, Rodriguez by Father
Vicente Garcia who protested:

In the words or various phrases in his book that I am going to cite, I see his faith
in God and the Christian religion that contradicts all idea of impiety and atheism.

In the Philippines, the effect of the novels on the masses was enthusiastic. Tomas
Arejola testified:

Your moral influence on us is indisputable . . . The tact and persuasiveness of a

Rizal is necessary in order that what we want to do for the common welfare of our
motherland should conform to our desires.

Alejandrino contributed ₱240 through Pedro Serrano Laktaw. Narcisa Rizal Lopez sent
₱400 “from our countrywomen, single, married, and old, who wish to send you more if they
had more money but unfortunately at this time money is scarce.” Another friend, the town
druggist of Kalamba, Mateo Elejorde, informed Rizal of how the people believed in him:

Receive thirty pesos that your friends, in spite of their poverty, send you. You
may use it according to your discretion… Alas! Jose! All the people here ask about you
and pin their hope on you. Even the poorest people of the mountains are asking me
 about your return. It seems that they consider you the second Jesus who will liberate
them from misery… They have a thirst for news and what is happening to you. Send us
also the volume of Noli if available already, and also Solidaridad, and if you have time,
write us frequently, for it is a pleasure for us to know what is happening to you there.

The few copies of the novels that cleared the Customs and reached the bookstores
were sold out. The copies changed hands rapidly, passing around in less than a month from first
hand to third hand at more than twice the original sale price. Even the illiterate natives were
not spared the excitement the novels generated. From the lips of those who read them, the
message was relayed, the context varying, depending on how the plot impressed the reader.
Whichever way this was, the excited retellers inflamed the intelligence of the people who
became more conscious of their plight. For the first time, the Filipinos were seeing themselves
and their problems in a truthful awareness. The people’s perception grasped the message of a
patriotic nationalism that was to become the inspiration for a future blessed with freedom and
happiness.

The ban against the books only served to arouse curiosity rather than discourage their
clandestine circulation. Some readers paid the full price for taking risks; others hesitated. With
the aplomb of the sage Tasio, Rizal resigned himself:

If the present generation does not want to read me because of fear, I shall keep
what I have written for the coming generation, but I continue and will continue working.
What are we going to do? Our countrymen are afraid to spend two or three days in
prison for the sake of enlightenment; perhaps the coming generation may be more
daring. Let us hope.

In due course, a copy of the Fili came into hands of Andres Bonifacio who interpreted
the message as a call to armed uprising. The rest is history and a fight for emancipation.

Rizal had feared that his novels would not be read by his people. But he wrote Ponce
that the Noli had been written for the Filipinos and that it was necessary that they read it. In his
reply to Barrantes, Rizal had explained why: “I ask for reforms so that the little good that there
is may be saved and the bad may be redeemed.” Hence, he determined to learn French
sufficiency to translate his novels for a Gallic audience which, he felt, would be more receptive
to his ideas than his own people. But these fears were allayed. Antonio Ma Regidor predicted:

Every Filipino patriot will read your book with avidity and upon discovering in
every line a voracious idea and every word a fitting advice, he will be inspired and he will
regard your book as the masterpiece of a Filipino and the proof that those who thought
us incapable of producing intellects are mistaken or are lying.

Praises are reiterated by Ponce:

 Your work continues to arouse enthusiasm among our countrymen, with very
few exceptions—exceptions which I cannot understand nor explain, considering that it is
an eminently patriotic work in which you have staked your name, exposing yourself to
the vultures of clericalism, just to prescribe some remedy to the infinite maladies of
which our mother country is complaining. Those who criticize such acts of self-denial
and sacrifice deserve eternal condemnation in the history of our motherland.

You are right in saying that we should be solidly united to ward off all the evils in
our beloved country. Let us work together, every one of us within his own sphere,
toward the same end. Let us have faith.

Ferdinand Bluementritt defined the role of Rizal in his country’s future.

You can become for your people one of those great men who will exert a definite
influence on their spiritual development.

The novels were widely circulated in his time, they survived the Spanish era, and they
have come to be adopted by the Filipinos as the living gospels of Philippine nationalism. They
have been translated into several foreign languages and native dialects, thereby reaching a
greater audience than Rizal ever anticipated. They have been interpreted in play, recorded for
prosperity in motion pictures and scripted for the sophisticated opera.

The readership and acclaim of the novels is much more extensive today. The readers are
also more discerning. They have perceived the novels as a renewal of mind and spirit. Critics
have debated on the social and political influence of the novels, as well as their intellectual and
literary merits.

Rizal’s message is heeded by a grateful Filipino people in a paramount concerted effort

towards progress and self-reliance. Tasio and Isagani's dreams have finally become the reality
of 40 million eager Filipinos.