The First Filipino

On June 19, 2011 Filipinos in the Philippines and abroad kicked off  a year-long celebration of our national hero's sesquicentennial or 150th birthday.  Various government and private agencies, schools, organizations and even foreign entities joined the festivities in honor of Dr. Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado Y Alonso Realonda (whew...no wonder he turned out a great novelist).  There were a lot of symposiums, lectures, bust and statue unveiling, wreath laying, ribbon cutting and even sports activities commemorating the 15th decade of his nativity.  Growing up in the Philippines, we remember having a "Rizal sensory overload". How can you not when everywhere you go there is a reference to him. Noli and Fili subjects in all levels from grade school to college, busts and statues in public schools and parks, the staple elementary class field trip to Luneta Park and ancestral home in Calamba Laguna, 1 Peso coin and 2 Peso paper note, street names and yes, even a peculiar men's hairstyle.

 However as a normal occurence, we tend to take anything or anyone as ubiquitous as Rizal, for granted.  There is a collective tendency for us to keep him aloft a pedestal represented by either a bronze bust or a white washed statue. Silent, cold and yes dead for almost 116 years.  Universally acclaimed and regarded as a hero, patriot, a martyr yet at the same time many of us are still oblivious to his continued relevance.

Rizal has and will always be an enigma. A character who has always been viewed by generations that followed with a combination of awe, worship by the majority and even doubt and suspicion by some. The latter perhaps influenced by the belief that his image and popularity was bolstered up by the colonizing Americans to encourage Filipinos to embrace Rizal's stance on non-violent means of emancipation. While still others as a result of a very wild imagination, thus propagating the 2 urban legends or myths that first, Rizal is the father of Hitler and the second, that he was Jack the Ripper.



Although one can see the similarity with the hair bangs, it is quite impossible that Lolo Pepe sired the anti-Christ since he was nowhere near Germany or Austria the year (or 9 months prior) Hitler was born. While the serial killer angle has more fodder for the imagination given the fact that during the murders, Rizal was in London in May 1888 to January 1889 busy annotating Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. It was also said that the killings stopped in the same year that Rizal left London. It was also believed that the perpetrator has a medical background and familiar with human anatomy as evidenced by how the victims were mutilated. Lastly they have the same initials...J.R. Okay boys and girls let's allow our imagination to run wild for awhile if this makes Rizal a little more interesting to you. Okay stop it...that's enough. As we all know our beloved Lolo Pepe is such a ladies' man that he doesn't need a knife but only his pen and wit to dominate (err..woo) women.

It is important that we study Rizal and learn about the man beneath the bronze sculpture, beyond the white painted bust and sans the overcoat. Heroes are not born as such. They are ordinary men and women who did extraordinary things and made extraordinary choices and sacrifices.  It has been 116 years since he was executed but his admonitions and quotes remain very much relevant to this day. This only means that the ills of society and practices of its members, though may be in a different form (actually some are exactly the same), are still very much present to this day.

 Prof. Ambeth Ocampo endeavors to highlight Rizal's relevance to the present generation and encourages us to get to know the man without the european garb. In his book, Rizal without the overcoat, Prof. Ocampo compels his readers to view Rizal not through a kaleidoscope but with a simple magnifying glass and not be scared to see any imperfections. For it is only through an unadulterated portrayal of Rizal, along with our acceptance of his humanness that we could bring him down from his pedestal and realize that heroes start out as ordinary people like us.

There are alot of modern day heroes around us today. Men and women who chose to be the change they want to see in the world or specifically in the Philippines. People who believe that doing nothing and not being part of a solution is tantamount to being part of the problem. One such modern day hero is Antonio "Tito Tony" Meloto, the founder of Gawad Kalinga. Its goal is to transform lives in the Philippines, one community at a time regardless of religion, ethnic group, dialect or political affiliations. A man Rizal would have been proud to call a "kababayan"..
                            
                                


Mabuhay ang Pilipinas...Mabuhay ang Pilipino.









sources: pics by songbird via flickr, wikinut.com, joserizal/wordpress, neps365.wordpress