Martyr or Traitor?

 Martyr or Traitor

By Rajeane S. Responde

            The standard of living rely on its people who depends upon what they have learned from the past, the events of the past that has a connection with the creation of the present time that is a foundation of the future.

The Philippine revolution became the bridge through the freedom of our country; it governed the people to the achievement of Philippine Independence. By the revolution, people were united and were pursued to fight for freedom, but the acknowledgement is only given to its leaders as they turn to be the principal hero of their people. It is very confusing how Dr. Jose Rizal became our national hero despite of his refusal to unite with the national revolution. Rizal opened the eyes of his fellow men with his novels and by awakening Filipino consciousness; many people were pursued to be a part of the revolution and are willing to sacrifice even their lives just to achieve freedom from the abusive and brutal Spaniards, but instead of supporting Bonifacio (father of Revolution) and his people, he became as the greatest barrier and threat when he tried to hinder in the movement against the Spaniards since he believe that it is impossible for the Filipinos to win.

Rizal is definitely a traitor for betraying his people who struggled a lot just to attain freedom, if he succeeded to stop the revolt, there would be no such thing as we called the Philippine Revolution which is the beginning of the people’s way to gain independence that we are enjoying until now.  He became heroic trough his writings, but he never put his words into action, he did not have the courage, he was afraid and do not believe in the capability of his people, he always wanted to protect his name, his name that brought him to enjoy the luxurious living being an illustrado (a person who belong in the middle structure of Spanish government before), and even studying and living in abroad, that an ordinary Filipino during that time would never afford. He is mainly a representation of a person who came from means and of great privilege who yet spend 35 years visiting affluent countries, while the native Filipinos called Indos (lowest structure of Spanish government) suffer in the hands of the cruel Spaniards.

Until the present time, the name Jose Rizal is venerated by people with his monuments all over the country, his image in one peso coin and even celebrated December 30 as a day to commemorate him, being the most popular hero and known martyr of this country then overlaps by his towering statues the revolution. His life is mandated to be studied by students’ even children in elementary as a part of their knowledge in their growth as required by law. The country’s educators were the primary culprits of this belief, they wanted to indoctrinate the students the traits, values, attitude and everything Rizal was, they push them to bow in his altar and make them believe on his exaggerated perfections at the same time over-shadowing his errors and misconducts.

Considering Rizal as the national hero means level the heroes of our country and making Rizal as supreme, the top most acknowledged hero and the one with the greatest authority. As people focus on Rizal, other hero is disregarded and is not appreciated. The taught us the manner of ranking the dead heroes of our history from the greatest to the least appreciated ones, the practice taught by the Americans and still live out in this day and age, competition among individual to be considered as the best, aim for power, discrimination and inequality. The other criteria given by the Americans to choose Rizal as our national hero now seems to be just an alibi to cover up their main purpose, for the Filipinos’ to inherit the legacy of Rizal, a person who never advocated independence, who would not build up rebellion against the government and only seeks for justice still under the rule of the colonizers unlike other disapproved heroes like Bonifacio who wanted sovereignty. The Americans somehow became unfaithful as they betray us when they made Filipinos trust their purpose of promoting prosperity in our country which later turned into bitterness revealing its real goal to just colonize and attain benefits from us.

In the present time, is seen that we still acquire the American culture, we learn to be so much attached with them that instead of nurturing our own culture we have grown depending on their refinement and considered them as the most powerful nation. The American sponsored hero Jose Rizal has a common purpose as that of that sponsoring country which is to influence our country with European nations: life and culture, languages and customs, industries and business and laws. (Jose Rizal, Martyr and National Hero pp.39)

Rizal taught us to accept as a fact that without them (colonizers) it is absolutely impossible for us to reach the success of life, we adopted other nation’s ways of living and brought us to the world where the honor is within them and made us bury own pride and civilization. Comparable with the Spaniards, they trained us to accustom their language which must be learned and put aside. Nowadays, this malpractice is still applied in the Philippines, with the knowledge that if an individual could not speak or understand English language (international language), that person can be considered as of low profile and an uneducated one. Although speaking English is a way to communicate and be understood by foreigners its bad effects to our society has been a real great damage to promote nationalism.

The failure of Rizal is that he sought us to inherit foreign country’s culture; he wanted us to be invaded by them and rely on them. If he did not suffer a dramatic death in Dapitan, what act could have emphasized his worth? A great change would probably be encounter. Even without him freedom of our country could still be attained through the joint force of our heroes of the past that has long been unnoticed as of the supremacy of Rizal.

From the evidences shown, it is proven how our national hero emphasized the way of being an internationalist. The foremost source of problems here in our country is mostly made by those people who still reckon in the application of history as an effective way of improving life.

How about promoting change and formulating new techniques to improve living? People agreed with the desire of the foreign countries to colonize us and control our government and economy with their potentialities of development together with the influential power of our national hero that dictates us, we tend to follow rather than trying to develop our country through our own capabilities and method.

The proper understanding of the history has something to do with our present time; the goal should probably be for the welfare of the people. Rizal’s life is mainly accustomed with Spanish traits and culture, the system of his family as they adopt the way they dress and make living, so far from the life of the native Filipinos’.

People are dependent with the colonizers in the past as well as it is today, we must strive for independence because it’s also a way of promoting sense of nationalism which is somehow missing in the hearts and minds of our generation. The understanding of unity among nations as a key to unity and successful living becomes a misconception of Filipinos as they become so abusive dependent to it. Rizal advocated equality because he wanted his people to be just like what the Spaniards are, he looked at his people just like how Spaniards look into our fellow men, so down and debilitated, pointing out discrimination to Filipinos and praise to the Spaniards.

China is now on its peak of being like the Spaniards of yesterday who wanted to colonize us, strenuously and with great speed of business expansionism throughout the Philippines and even yearning to own some portion of our land. If we apply in this instances the ways Rizal did in the past, would it lead to positive or negative results? Would we allow the colonizers to lead and slave our people for the reason that they know more, has the greater capability to provide means for economic growth for they are richer or should we just strive from our own effort?

Today people of our country especially the youth has already the capability to speak and express their sentiments , our fellow men turn out to be victorious in throughout the world, a great slap on the face of the colonizers of the past who discriminates us. Now, we stand out like what the revolution and the Katipunan intended, to show the world the Filipino consciousness, confidence, braveness, intelligence, power and independence, a change has been made and difference in life was greatly observed. How much more if Filipinos build unity to promote change for betterment of life?

To promote a sense of Nationalism, we must stand with our own effort, learn to nourish what we have, nurture our land with unity of people and not depending on others, most of all, to start the change and advancement of ourselves for a prosperous life.