For One of the Most Inspiring Woman I Got to Know

This entry is about a Young Blood article way back in 2003 about one of the most thought-provoking professors I had. 

I remember quiet fondly the folly I committed at the very first meeting of our PI 100 class. Professor Fernandez kept mumbling away about actors-turned-politicians and a certain irritating female actress who is the younger sister of a higher seated state official.  After the first gruelling hour, she still hasn't introduced herself to the class. I mustered every strength in my body to raise my hand and ask, 'Ma'am, sino po pala kayo?'. She was bewildered with my question.  Only now that I was able to scratch the bare surface of Rizal and the ideas he espoused did I know really get to know this wonderful woman. After our first class, I google-d her and found this article:

Learning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
July 19, 2003, p.9

After four years in the university, I came out convinced that the hardest part about learning is not dragging yourself to school (although this could be a problem if you have a class at 7 a.m.), or dealing with anxiety while cramming for exams (I got the hang of it to the point that it became an exhilarating experience to finish a test). It is not even writing those long papers in a hurry, for it led to the discovery that beating deadlines actually stimulates my creative juices.

The most difficult part was accepting the reality that no matter how much studying you do, no matter how much Glutaphos you take or coffee you drink, you can never know everything.

I was a junior journalism student when I met Prof. Albina Fernandez. She fit my image of a woman who had aged gracefully, garbed in her color-coordinated clothes, shoes and bags. Her long black hair, streaked with some gray strands, was always neatly tied in a bun.

Monday and Thursday afternoons, I literally had to drag my feet way up the fourth floor of the decrepit Palma Hill at the University of the Philippines in Diliman for my required Rizal course, a.k.a. Philippine Institutions 100 or PI 100. For those who consider it as another course to flunk, “PI” also stands for that vulgar Filipino cuss word.

Our first few meetings with Professor Fernandez were a big disappointment for me. I would often sneer behind her back because I was hoping we could talk more about Rizal instead of gossiping about some dumb actor who got elected into a high government post. Unlike others who detested this general education course, I had looked forward to studying Rizal. At the tender age of 12, I had vowed to marry a man like him if I could not have the real thing.

With that kind of passion for our national hero, one can just imagine my disappointment when instead of talking about Rizal, our teacher kept discussing superstructures and Hegel and Feuerbach. She explained that she wanted to focus on how Rizal turned out to be the man he was and not the number of women he had seduced.

Too bad, I thought, then I won’t be able to show off my knowledge about some intriguing aspects of his life. I instantly hated our professor’s guts. She knew too much and expected us to know as much too. She never missed the opportunity to make us sound silly every time we answered her questions.

But as the semester wore on, I started to look forward to our discussions. She constantly reminded us not to pretend to know something when in fact we only heard a fraction of it, or worse, to get involved in issues of which we have very little understanding. The university was teeming with people like this. They talked about Karl Marx and even quoted him, when in fact they hadn’t even read the “Communist Manifesto.” Outside the campus we knew a handful of leaders and politicians who presented the same false facade of knowing everything. And look where they brought us.

I used to think that a great teacher was someone who could make me understand new ideas. Professor Femandez fit that description but what made her even more exceptional was her uncanny ability to make us appreciate learning. She instilled in us the need to rise above idiocy, to wash away traces of (and I am quoting her now) “below sea-level consciousness.”

“The greatest tragedy in this world is that you are dead without you knowing it,” she often told us. The fact is that we go through life blaming other people for our failures, for remaining poor and for all the crises we face. And for some of us, ignorance is a trouble-free attitude.

A year after graduation, as I join the throng of twen undergoing our own crises and disappointments, the drive to learn and make a difference has remained, despite the not-so-pleasant working condition and the unreasonably small pay I am getting. I stubbornly insist on working in the media, continuing to believe in the nobility of the profession.

No matter how idealistic and na?ve it seems, I still dream of the day when we will be able to take control of our lives; when all of us will be able to choose sensibly whom to believe and what to believe in; when believing in a single truth will not be as important as accepting the difference in others.

School started again last June amid typhoons, a SARS scare and the perennial problem of having a tight budget. Knowledge isn’t free, especially in our country. One has to buy books and pay thousands of pesos for a semester of study at a good university even if it is state-owned like UP.

Perhaps more than anything else, the question of whether our schools and teachers instill the right attitude toward learning is worth serious pondering.

==============
Myla Hayo Torres, 21, works at the news desk of a television network. She stays up nights monitoring the news and sleeps during daytime.

More interesting stories to come.

Bittersweet endings

Endings are always met with a bittersweet feeling. It is bitter for the whole semester, however long it was, has come to its inevitable close and sweet since much of who and what Rizal embodied became ever so clearer to me. Rizal is much more to his authoring the Noli and Fili. His childhood could not be captured by his mother’s story of the moth and the light nor can it be described in the story his throwing his slipper into the lake when other was already lost. Rizal should not be labeled as a pacifist and more so, an American-sponsored hero, as Renato Constantino called him. He is beyond and much more than what is usually perceived of him. His life journey to educate himself and, along the way, to prove himself among the greatest thinkers of the 19^th century Europe is much more than a conceited plan of travelling and frolicking on foreign soil. His journey was for a greater purpose. It was a burden no ordinary man can handle. His mission encompassed his whole being and was geared towards the ambitious dream of a Philippines for the Filipinos, a country where liberty and dignity reside. His genius, as it always has been, is geared towards the liberation of his countrymen. Rizal’s willing sacrifice in the hands of the Spanish authorities was the ultimate testament of his nationalism and undying love for his motherland. His sacrifices and hardships played part in his grand scheme to make a true pasyon of his short life. Until his last breath, Rizal held on to his cherished beliefs,  a belief he carried for the rest of his life, a belief so strong that the Spanish colonizers had no other option but to execute him. The Filipinos, like any other peoples in the world, deserve liberty, rights, and dignity.

As the Philippine Institution 100 class comes to a close, I cannot help but feel cheated. Professor Fernandez was right that this course should be offered in two semesters for a semester could not sufficiently imbibe in a student all of Rizal’s ideals and aspirations for the country. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have this opportunity to get to know the ideologies behind the man. As I step out of the comforts of the university, I know that I carry with me a great duty. Like the ever illustrious Rizal, I am tasked to make a difference in society and join the march of the Filipino people towards their historic goal of enlightenment and freedom. Thank you, Professor Albina Peczon Fernandez. Now, I know who I was, who I am, and who I ought to be. (03/22/2011)

On Rizal, Solidarity, and Nationalism

What kind of nationalism does the Philippines need for it to truly liberate itself?

Like any logical and methodical physician, one has to make the proper diagnosis before one would prescribe a remedy one deems fit. Rizal made sure he was well-equipped to make an apt diagnosis of the conditions of his countrymen under the rule of the Spanish authorities. He travelled and studied on foreign lands to know what lies beyond the seas of our archipelago. Rizal was very much curious if dignity and respect was also scarce in the other parts of the world as it is in the Philippines. The truth became more apparent to him that men from foreign lands enjoyed their inalienable rights as well as their liberties elsewhere. It is in his education and travels that did he fully see the growing social cancer in his country. Like any true son of the country, Rizal was too stubborn to turn a blind eye to the injustice being committed to his countrymen. Like any true Filipino physician, he had a responsibility to expose his society’s social cancer and prescribe the proper treatment. He committed his life’s efforts in addressing the cure for the social dilemma that besets Philippine society.

Little has changed from the Philippines that Rizal knew to that of the present. It is still located at a strategically location that connects the East with the West. Its island still attracts different colonizers into its shores. Philippine society is still as personalistic and diffused as before. The idea of a collective society still eludes us. The colonial mentality is still as persistent as it was during a century ago. Filipinos still cannot trust their being Filipinos and, in the same manner, everything foreign is still thought to be superior that any of its local counterpart. What mostly changed are the country’s demographics, economy, and governance. A century after our national independence, the population has grown to a hundred million and is still in a high-gear growth. Our national economy mainly thrives through the export man-power services and extractive industries. History books always gloss over the fact that Marcos was the one to develop the national bourgeoisie class that he hoped would compete head-on against the blue-eyed blonde capitalists in our foreign-dominated economy during that time. (03/17/2011)

Unus Instar Omnium

Why should Rizal be considered the father of Philippine nationalism?

Today’s lecture mainly revolved around answering this very enigmatic thought. Rizal’s ideas on nationalism and the long process of nation-building revealed much of his adherence to liberal thinking. Much importance is given to the collectivity and its role in raising enlightened individuals. Solidarity must reside in the hearts of every individual who wishes to attain freedom. It is only inside the national community that a person can realize oneself. Professor Fernandez likened the critical role of the collectivity to nationhood to that of the Japanese culture. The Japanese is a testament that through the community, any calamity can be overcome. They exemplified the duty-conscious citizens. In the end, their sense of collectivity is what saved them from further destruction and chaos from the recent massive earthquake and its subsequent tsunami. It is interesting to note that Rizal himself was very much fascinated with the Japanese solidarity. He noted in his 1886 trip to Japan that the Japanese ethics found privilege inside the collecitivity. Aside from his fascination in Japanese theatre and arts, he also admired the Japanese discipline. In contrast with the duties-conscious Japanese, Filipinos are characterized by being duties-blind but rights-conscious. In the mindset of the most Filipinos, the government owes the citizen. It is in this skewed thinking that enables the Filipinos to neglect their duties to society and, instead, focus on availing their rights from the State.

One life is for all. This was the motto Rizal provided for his writing the constitution of the La Liga Filipina. Even at the early age of 19, Rizal conceptualized in his prize-winning poem To The Filipino Youth the Philippines as a sovereign country for the Filipinos. Dr. Rafael Palma noted that this new inspiration gave Rizal a definite idea that the Philippines is the motherland of the Filipinos, an idea that he would carry with him for the rest of his life. Rizal’s selection as the father of Philippine nationalism is a logical choice since he laid the foundation to what nationalism should be. Immersed with the influences of the 19^th century western political ideologies, Rizal further reasoned that the basis of the Filipinos solidarity should take off from their common abasement to the Spanish colonizers. He also exercised due caution in any ill-prepared revolution; he points out that any revolution from below shall be brutal and bloody, but peaceful and orderly if from above. Until his last breath, Rizal stood for what he believed in: that the Filipinos, like any other race in the world, deserve their share of respect and dignity. True to his words in Mi Ultimo Adios, Rizal faithfully gave his life without doubts, without gloom. (03/15/2011)

Rizal: Knowing the Ideologies behind the Man

Studies relating to Jose Rizal are always ideologically interpolated. Most Rizal-scholars always try to give him unjustified labels. People seldom remember that Rizal and the ideas he entrenched in his being should be properly contextualized in his time, the 19^th century. In doing so, can one only understand the reality of the ideologies Rizal espoused in his struggle to raise part of the veil that hides the evil that had beset Philippine society during that era. Rizal’s journey to Europe was a result of a carefully premeditated steps intended by Rizal to put himself on a level with the best educated persons in Europe so as to show the intellectual capacity of the Filipinos. He wrote his first novel with the whole intention of doing what nobody has dared to do. The Noli described the deplorable social conditions, the life, our beliefs our hopes, our desires, our grievances, our griefs. The Noli not only exposed the hypocrisy under the guise of religion, but also showed the deceit and defects of the Spanish government.

One should remember that all instances depicted in the Noli, as Rizal said in a letter to Bluementritt, are true and based on true events in Rizal’s life. Much of the misfortunes that have befallen Rizal’s family affected him when he returned to Europe in 1891. The Fili showed the injustice of the friars taking over his family’s land, the abuses suffered by his town-mates, and the forceful eviction of farmers from their lands. Restlessness and homesickness would eventually engulf Rizal. He urged his fellow propagandistas that the battle should be fought in the Philippines and no longer in their La Solaridad. Rizal already abandoned any hopes for the assimilation of the Philippines under Spain. His losing faith for any significant progress in reforms eventually fuelled his falling out with Marcelo H. del Pilar; he even said in a letter addressed to del Pilar that the Filipinos are wrong for disliking assimilation from Spain and that Spain should be the one to ask for assimilation from the Philippines. He added that he would decline any offer for a seed of representation for he is no longer interested in assimilation.

In his correspondences with Bluementritt in 1887, Rizal stressed that the reforms he was fighting for were only political tactics and are part only of a longer strategy of separatism. Rizal was also losing hope on a peaceful struggle for liberation and even likened a peaceful struggle to that only of a dream. Rizal must have been a great seer. When he left Hong Kong in 1891, he left his last will and testament that imbibed the spirit of his Amor Patrio. Rizal was well aware of the great perils of his decision to return to the Philippines, but in the end, he knew deep down that the battle should be fought in the country and not in Spain. He knew that where he was going he can no longer back. He knew that his life would be a necessary sacrifice for his life-long battle against the tyranny that had beset his countrymen for three centuries. Such was his dedication to his country that he was willingly submitting himself to persecution. In the end, Rizal eagerly surrendered his sad and gloomy life. (03/10/2011)

Discussion on Anarchism

The last leg of the 19^th century ideologies ended with the discussion of Anarchism in today’s lecture. Springing from the Orthodox-Marxist ideology, Anarchism looks at the conception of man, the State, the Church, and the mechanisms of Social Change at a very different perspective. This ideology believes that man is born good. It also proposes that man’s natural selection is not based on competition but rather on mutual co-operation with nature and other beings. Man also has a natural tendency for obedience on the natural law. Lastly, Anarchism believes that man is not born isolated but, on the contrary, is born a very sociable being. As for the State, the ideology of Anarchism looks down on large and organized institutions. Their aversion to these organizations stems from their belief that nothing good can be expected from institutions that uses compulsion and violence to extract conformity from its constituents. The exercise of compulsion and violence thus results to the destruction of an individual’s God-head or good-naturedness. The existence of the State’s governance over the masses of individuals is in direct contradiction with the Anarchist’s idea on salvation, wherein salvation duly resides inside an individual. It is in this regard that Anarchism adheres for the abolition of the State since the government that represents it is impersonal and is very much detached to the nature of man. Anarchism also has an interesting perspective on the role of history. It states that the hand of the dead past should be forgotten and that the present should not be used as the basis for the future.

The aversion of Anarchism to organized social institutions is also shared with the abhorrence towards the Church or any organized religion. Organized religious institutions are said to suppress and kill an individual’s faculty for reasoning, eventually disabling one’s consciousness along with one’s propensity to access one’s spring of ideas. Like Liberalism, Anarchism greatly values man’s individualism, but, unlike Liberalism, Anarchism believes that the virtue of individualism should not be caged within a social institution and should therefore be allowed to grow outside the constraints of institutions like the State and the Church. Social change is likewise believed to be swift without the existence of large and organized institutions. Perhaps one of the major differences of Anarchism with that of Orthodox-Marxism hinges on general will and an individual’s consciousness. Anarchists believe that the desire of an individual for justice is inherent to one’s own nature. This ideology, in effect, rejects the Proletarian revolution of Marxism and, instead, focuses on the individuality of a being. Alienation is also defined as being aware of what one is and the subsequent feeling that what one is is not what one wants to be.

After all discussions on Conservatism, Liberalism, Orthodox-Marxism, and Anarchism, one should very well ask where Rizal, in all of these ideologies, is. Perhaps, Rizal is in the Conservatives’ aristocracy of the elite class and their emphasis on the collectivism. Or maybe, Rizal is in the Liberals’ thrust for social reform by secular and ethical means. Perhaps, the best means to see Rizal in all of these 19^th century ideologies is to seen him as a Liberal who saw liberation in the light of necessary social reforms staged by intellectuals in the elite class. (03/08/2011)

Reflections on Rizal, Hegel, Marx, and the 19th Century Ideological Spectrum

Professor Fernandez’s Philippine Institutions 100 class has discussed a wide array of topics ranging from the Hegelian thought to the different ideologies of the 19^th century throughout the semester. Her class is quite different from that of the other PI100 classes where they mostly discuss the peripherals regarding Rizal which includes discussions on his life story, his fellow compatriots, and, to some extent, the Katipunan. Whenever I have the chance to catch up with my friends who are also taking up this course in this semester, I never fail to notice the stark difference of how most PI100 classes are conducted with that of hers. And only now that I’m almost done with this course do I fully appreciate the way this course was taught in class. Other PI100 classes would always dwell with the trivial and non-sensical things concerning Rizal. They would almost always discuss his life story, but fail to get to the root of his greatness and that would be the ideologies that he embodied. Throughout the semester, Professor Fernandez unwavering emphasized that Rizal and his writings should always be properly contextualized according to his time and its prevailing ideologies. One should never label Rizal as a Capitalist nor as a Marxist for his era that of a Feudal system. Rizal knew of the Ideological State Apparatuses at work that prevented the Philippine archipelago to develop its factors of production and, consequently retarded our mode of production to Feudalism. Under Feudalism, the ecclesiastical power ruled supreme. The big and organized religious orders or as he called them, the corporations, owned most of the land and also had a considerable political clout they exercised not only on religious matters, but more so often on matters concerning the civil governance of the archipelago. Indeed, the Church trampled any other force during Rizal’s time. The Church was keen on promoting obscurantism among the natives for without any formal education, all hopes of intellectual liberation are squashed. It is from this enslavement of the Filipino minds that Rizal started his grand scheme to liberate his fellow countrymen.

During the course of his academic studies in Europe, Rizal immersed himself with a lot contemporary philosophers and thinkers of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. In this regard, it would then make sense to study the same set of contemporary thinkers and ideas that have likely influenced Rizal. It is only now that I fully realize the beauty of Rizal’s mind. He was a great admirer of Friedrich Hegel and his primacy of thought. Rizal also believed in liberalism's thrust towards rationality and the uplifting of an individual’s consciousness. It was also in this light that he came to realize the oppressing and obscuring ideological stance the Church administered during his time. Though his ideas were mostly liberal, Rizal also recommended the Conservatism’s thrust for the aristocracy of the elite class. He believed that in order for a society to move forward, its chosen civil servants must also be competent and must have the necessary track record to govern people. What made Rizal the greatest Filipino hero is that, though he was born oppressed under the Spanish colonial rule, he chose to liberate himself with education and, in the course of his life; he then shared this passion with the rest of his obscured countrymen. (03/03/2011)