Reflections on the Veneration Without Understanding

Rizal should not be the national hero of the Philippines. This was Renato Constantino’s thesis in his 1969 work. He reasons out that though Rizal’s greatness is unquestionable, but his nationalistic interests are doubtful. According to Constantino, Rizal’s repudiation of the revolution has been glossed over in the history books and should therefore constitute as unnationationalist behaviour by the national hero. He further points out that Rizal’s elevation to a national hero was a product of the American intervention. During the American Philippine Commission of the 1900’s, the Commission was in search of a Philippine personality who abhors the idea of revolution and instead, someone who embraces governmental reforms in the form of peaceful means. Rizal fits perfectly this description of passiveness and was elevated to his status of prestige and reverence. This measure assured the American colonizers an unmitigated colonization of the archipelago since the Filipinos would emulate Rizal’s passiveness and be focused on bringing down the Spanish colonizers. Aside from being called an American-sponsored hero, Constantino also labelled Rizal a limited hero. He reasons out that Rizal’s elitist and upper class upbringing has inevitably shaped his ideology and limited his grasp of the social reality that the lower classes face. According to Constantino, it was because of this limitation that consequently fashioned Rizal’s aspiration for the Philippines to formally be recognized as a Spanish province rather than a colony. He treated this as another repudiation of the separatist movement that fuelled that Katipunan revolt.

Constantino’s arguments, at the time and even in the present, are controversial and radical. I very much appreciated the coherency of the flow of today’s discussion for it clarified much of my questions and objections I had on this article. Historians, in their writing of history, should be scrutinized, first, for their agenda in writing and, second, on their sociological background prevalent during their time. By doing so, readers can be critical of a text’s context and really see from what standpoint the arguments of a written piece are coming from. Such was the context of Constantino’s article that one would have to examine his historical backdrop as well as his intention in writing this article. It was written during the first term of President Marcos where political turmoil present in the country was starting to build up. As Professor Fernandez decisively pointed out, it was at this era that American political meddling was at its most active inside the halls of the government.

A new light of Marcos made itself clearer to me. Perhaps Professor Fernandez is right in saying that Marcos had, indeed, all the right reasons to declare martial law during that time. In declaring martial law, it was evident to Marcos that the Philippines should free itself from the clutches of its American colonizers. The country’s national sovereignty was at risk if no precautionary measures were to be undertaken by the present administration. It is because of this epiphany of still an influential American dictates to the Philippine government that Renato Constantino wanted to expose in his writing. He wanted to promote the Filipino consciousness to this truth that we are still under American rule despite our sovereignty as an independent country. However, his exposition came at a costly price and was directed to an undeserving hero, Rizal. In the end, I applaud his intention to raise the Filipino consciousness to the prevailing American colonization, but, like Professor Fernandez, I cannot stand idly by and blindly accept Constantino’s desecration of the country’s rightful national hero. (01/18/2011)