RIZAL'S RELEVANCE

by Wilhelmina S. Orozco

Today is the birthday of a beautiful love child. Let's call her Pixie. She was born to a singer and a businessman who had a tryst for quite sometime but later on broke up. It turned out, the man really wanted a child whom he could not have with his wife. Pixie grew up to be a very artistic child, her hand capable of sculpting and drawing. Being an artist, she is also fashionable, creating her own combinations of clothes, not really according to fashion. Luckily, her surrogate mother took her up as truly her own child, although now separated from the man, and living with another. Today, Pixie feels fulfilled as an artist, producing works for a company. She suffers not from any form of anguish over her background but in fact has overcome all kinds of fears and anxieties over living alone, and sometimes with a partner.

If our National Hero Jose Rizal were alive today, as it is his birthday too, would he rue the lack of that imprimatur on the relationship between the man and that singer despite the fact that it fulfilled the dream of the former to have a child? Would he decry the break up of the marriage and push for the reconciliation of the couple? Would he admonish Pixie for having a liberal relationship with his boyfriend? No, on all counts. Rizal would say no to all the questions.

Actually, he was a modern man considering the state of Philippine society at the time. Rizal was ahead, having seen another part of the globe in his youthful years in the 19th century. In his travels through Europe, he was able to absorb all the products of the civilizations -- German, French, Spanish, and everything else. And so he experienced everything -- discussing international politics, reading novels, writing poetry, learning fencing, sculpturing, organizing like the La Liga Filipina and many, many more endeavors that made him a compleat man. Rizal also conversed with intellectuals, both men and women. That's why, Josephine Bracken, his wife, was also an intellectual who embraced his political commitment even after his execution at Bagumbayan.

However, in his novels, Rizal was not so advanced in terms of depicting the women of the Philippines. Sisa turned mad. Maria Clara was a meek and unassertive woman to the demands of her parents; Huli jumped from the window to escape from rape; Dona Victorina was dying to look like a Spanish mestisa painting her face with too much cosmetics; and Dona Consolacion, was a termagant characters which were drawn from life.

Yet, despite this apparent lack of more uplifting view of women, I find Rizal more admirable than Bonifacio. Maybe because the world he revolved in was highly fascinating, giving us a broader glimpse of his times, whereas Bonifacio's was confined only to the Philippines. Also his delving on the arts is fascinating showing that he had sensitivity to life. Maybe that is why he also rejected the overtures of the Katipunan for him to join them in the revolution. Despite the violent tendencies of his major characters in his two novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, he still opted for a peaceful transition of the country, from being colonized to being a satellite of Spain hoping that perhaps the latter would give our country freedom to stand side by side with other countries, later on.

Today, Rizal is an abstract fellow to the students in high school and college. He is not considered an idol at all, as their heroes today are animation cartoon figures, rock band singers, and/or movie stars with macho looks. Young men today would rather wear shirts with Che Guevara's face and Bob Marley's.

In the sixties, when we, girls and boys, were studying his novels, Rizal still was quite a figure that we had felt close to. Maybe because his death was just a few decades ago.

But does time really cause people to forget him? Or isn't there something inadequate in the propagation of his thoughts? Or is it because Lapu-Lapu's statue holding a sword, and now standing in Rizal Park is bigger than his, thus miniaturising his noble aims and subverting his peaceful mission then?

Maybe it's time for the Knights of Rizal to take charge and really study how to make Rizal's thoughts and life be more appreciated not only in the classroom or everytime his birthday comes on June 19th, or his death is commemorated on December 30th.

His thoughts should be read in public places in big bold letters. In all the trains of the MRT and LRT, his poems, and or pictures of his sculptures should also be displayed. Then, the KR members should also confront Dick Gordon for having placed the statue of Lapu-lapu there in the park as it is a desecration of Rizal. They should propose to the Department of Tourism to have it transferred instead right there in the middle of Manila Bay to remind everyone that he fought Magellan in the waters of the Visayas, successfully.

Rizal deserves popularization especially at this time. His thoughts are still very relevant and much needed by that female official who did not fulfill her word in front of his statue one December 30th that she would not run again after having deprived the people of truthful elections in 2004.

By the way, Happy Birthday Pixie!

Amorsolo Painting