JOSE RIZAL AND THE PHILIPPINE NATIONALISM: BAYANI AND KABAYANIHAN

BAYANI AT KABAYANIHAN

The word “Bayani” or hero in Filipino is someone who saves somebody’s lives. However, this
word carries a deeper context wherein only those people who are willing to suffer and sacrifice
themselves for the good of the country are worthy enough to be called as such. Being called a hero
requires a greater act of bravery.
Dr. Jose P. Rizal was a man of intellectual power and artistic talent whom Filipinos honor as their
national hero (Szczepanski, 2019). Rizal is not only admired for possessing intellectual brilliance but also
for taking a stand and resisting the Spanish colonial government. While his death sparked a revolution to
overthrow the tyranny, Rizal will always be remembered for his compassion towards the Filipino people
and the country. Another remarkable hero that we all know is Andres Bonifacio. The Kataas-taasang,
Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or KKK played a huge role in the revolt of the
Filipinos against the Spaniards. In the center of that revolution was its founder, Supremo Andres
Bonifacio. Furthermore, according to Vallejo Jr., (2010), Filipinos also remember General Antonio Luna
as a brilliant, brave soldier and tactician of the second phase of the Revolution and the proverbial
hothead but never as the excellent scientist. He has no epitaph but perhaps his words before leaving
exile in Europe for Manila are apt: “I will fight and offer my life, my small knowledge and science for the
liberation of the Motherland.”
What does it take to be a hero? The heroism in real life does not require someone to sacrifice
his or her life to be called a bayani. The people that we set up as heroes are people that generally go
above and beyond in terms of the call of duty; they do things that are extraordinary. The act of heroism
is debatable to some people however, for any hero; it's enough just knowing they helped someone else.
That's what makes them a true hero.

DR. JOSE P. RIZAL

José Protacio Rizal Mercado Y Alonso Realonda was born on June 19, 1861 to Francisco Mercado
and Teodora Alonzo in the town of Calamba in the province of Laguna. He had nine sisters and one
brother. At the early age of three, the future political leader had already learned the English alphabet.
And, by the age of five, he could already read and write (Valdeavilla, 2018).
Rizal had been very vocal against the Spanish government, but in a peaceful and progressive
manner. For him, “the pen was mightier than the sword.” And through his writings, he exposed the
corruption and wrongdoings of government officials as well as the Spanish friars. While in Barcelona,
Rizal contributed essays, poems, allegories, and editorials to the Spanish newspaper, La Solidaridad.
Most of his writings, both in his essays and editorials, centered on individual rights and freedom,
specifically for the Filipino people. As part of his reforms, he even called for the inclusion of the
Philippines to become a province of Spain. But, among his best works, two novels stood out from the
rest – Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Reign of the Greed). In both novels,
Rizal harshly criticized the Spanish colonial rule in the country and exposed the ills of Philippine society
at the time. And because he wrote about the injustices and brutalities of the Spaniards in the country,
the authorities banned Filipinos from reading the controversial books. Yet they were not able to ban it
completely.
Days before his execution, Rizal bid farewell to his motherland and countrymen through one of
his final letters, entitled Mi último adiós or My Last Farewell. Dr. José Rizal was executed on the morning
of December 30, 1896, in what was then called Bagumbayan (now referred to as Luneta). Upon hearing
the command to shoot him, he faced the squad and uttered in his final breath: “Consummatum est” (It is
finished). According to historical accounts, only one bullet ended the life of the Filipino martyr and hero.
The Americans decided for him being a national hero at their time in the country. It is said that
the Americans, Civil Governor William Howard Taft, chose Jose Rizal to be the national hero as a
strategy. Rizal didn't want bloody revolution in his time. So they wanted him to be a "good example" to
the Filipinos so that the people will not revolt against the Americans. Rizal became a National Hero
because he passed the criteria by being a National Hero during the American period. 

Adding that, Rizal passed the Criteria for National Heroes:

1. Heroes are those who have a concept of nation and thereafter aspire and struggle for the nation’s
freedom. In reality, however, a revolution has no end. Revolutions are only the beginning. One cannot
aspire to be free only to sink back into bondage.

2. Heroes are those who define and contribute to a system or life of freedom and order for a nation.
Freedom without order will only lead to anarchy. Therefore, heroes are those who make the nation’s
constitution and laws. To the latter, constitutions are only the beginning; for it is the people living under
the constitution that truly constitute a nation.

3. Heroes are those who contribute to the quality of life and destiny of a nation. (As defined by Dr.
Onofre D. Corpuz)

Additional Criteria for Heroes:

1. A hero is part of the people’s expression. But the process of a people’s internalization of a hero’s life
and works takes time, with the youth forming a part of the internalization.

2. A hero thinks of the future, especially the future generations.

3. The choice of a hero involves not only the recounting of an episode or events in history, but of the
entire process that made this particular person a hero.

PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION

According to Kennedy, (2019), Progressive education  is a reaction to the traditional style of
teaching. It's a pedagogical movement that values experience over learning facts at the expense of
understanding what is being taught. When you examine the teaching styles and curriculum of the 19th
century, you understand why certain educators decided that there had to be a better way.

Talisay: the First Progressive School in Asia

Upon his arrival in Dapitan, Rizal lived in the house of the governor and military commandant,
Capt. Ricardo Carnicero, which was just across the town’s central plaza. He later bought, with Carnicero
and another Spaniard residing in Dipolog, a lottery ticket. This was to prove fortuitous. Rizal’s lottery
ticket won second prize—20,000 pesos— which was awarded on September 21, 1892, and promptly
divided among themselves by the three men. From his share of 6,200 pesos, Rizal gave 2,000 pesos to
his father and 200 pesos to pay his debt to his friend Basa in Hong Kong.
 With what remained of his lottery earnings, Rizal was able to move to Talisay, a coastal barrio off
the Dapitan poblacion named after the talisay, a large deciduous tree that is usually found along
Philippine seashores. Rizal bought a 16-hectare piece of land. But, as he noted in his February 8, 1893
letter to his brother-in-law Manuel Hidalgo, there were no talisay trees in Talisay, so Rizal thought of
naming his place Balunò or Baunò, after the large trees that actually grew there. The first thing he did
was to clear the land “to sow rice and corn”. Then he built a house, a clinic and a school for local boys
who he described as mostly “poor and intelligent.” On March 7, 1893, he wrote to Hidalgo saying:

“My house will be finished either tomorrow or after tomorrow. It is very pretty for its price (40
pesos) and it turned out better than what I wanted. My lot cannot be better and I am improving it every
day... I’m sure that if you come, you will be pleased with my property. I have plenty of land to
accommodate at least five families with houses and orchards.”

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

In addition to being Dapitan’s unofficial or non-governmental public health provider, Rizal

engaged in what we now call “social entrepreneurship”, perhaps the first Filipino, if not the first Asian,
to do so. Social entrepreneurship is innovative business activity aimed principally at benefiting and
transforming the community in which it is undertaken (with most of the profit reinvested back into the
community).

Rizal formed Dapitan’s first farmers’ cooperative, the Sociedad de Agricultores Dapitanos (SAD),
where capital was to be provided by “socios industriales” (industrial partners) and “socios accionistas”
(shareholders). As stated in the Estatutos de la Sociedad de Agricultores Dapitanos, 1 Enero 1895, the
SAD aimed to “improve/promote agricultural products, obtain better profits for them, provide capital
for the purchase of these goods, and help to the extent possible the harvesters and laborers by means
of a store (co-op) where articles of basic necessity are sold at moderate prices”. Rizal also engaged in a
joint-venture with a certain Carreon (a Spanish businessman) for the construction and operation of a
lime-burner (for making building mortar), whereby Rizal would provide capital and Carreon would
mobilize and supervise labor whose wages were to be paid by Rizal; these advances would be deducted
from the sale proceeds of lime, the profit thereof to be equally divided between Rizal and Carreon.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

In his four years in Dapitan, Rizal played multiple roles: doctor, social worker, farmer, social
entrepreneur, public works engineer, town planner, school founder, teacher and scientist. He worked
with the people as a civic volunteer, for he was unwaged and without an official title. Whatever earnings
he made from his social entrepreneurship and from his wealthy patients went to the upkeep of his
household, school and hospital. He took to his tasks with vigor and vitality—mindful that they were all
part of his pledge to do everything he could for Dapitan. Rizal’s four years there are unparalled in the
history of the Philippines, if not Southeast Asia.

The model community that Rizal built in Talisay has since been made into a stale museum of
replicas of his house, school and clinic, sitting like fossilized relics on manicured lawns for the benefit of
the uncomprehending tourist. This shrine, which is overseen by the National Historical Commission
(formerly the National Historical Institute) but managed by the local government, comprises 10 hectares
of Rizal’s original 16-hectare property in Talisay. The other six hectares were gifted by Rizal to his pupil
and valet Jose Acopiado in 1896, when he set off for Manila reroute to Cuba. The Acopiado heirs now
occupy some three hectares; the rest have been taken over by squatters, among them a Rizalista cult.
The beach is littered with the plastic detritus of modern living.
Many of Rizal’s community projects must have been carried out through a system of
cooperative labor that we now call batarisan. We could likewise imagine that the many recipients of
Rizal’s services as a medical doctor, a secondary school teacher, a community worker, and
organizer/manager of his farm cooperative ‘paid’ or reciprocated by lending their labor-time to his
community projects. Thus, even with minimal financial resources, the projects were realized by sheer
community spirit.

RIZAL AWAKENED THE MIND AND PERSPECTIVE OF FILIPINOS TOWARDS NATIONALISM

Rizal’s chief aim was to reform Philippine society, first by uncovering its ills and second, by awakening
the Filipino youth.  His enemies were the oppressive colonial government, but especially the corrupt
elements among the friars, members of the religious orders that exerted the greatest influence over the
government and thereby held complete sway over the lives of the Filipinos.

Rizal knew the best way to awaken the youth and lead them toward right action was through education,
but especially foreign education.  For local education, being controlled by the friars then kept the
Filipinos in the dark, ignorant of their rights and heritage- and meek in the face of oppression.   This was
partly why he left for Spain in 1882, to continue his studies there.

Of his vision for the Filipinos, Rizal wrote his comrade Mariano Ponce in 1888:  “Let this be our only
motto: For the welfare of the Native Land.  On the day when all Filipinos should think like him [Del Pilar]
and like us, on that day we shall have fulfilled our arduous mission, which is the formation of the Filipino
nation”.  To Rizal that nation was a nation free of injustice, oppression and corruption.  May the Filipinos
of today finally begin fulfilling this timeless challenge of Rizal. (Reyno, 2012)