Is Rizal really a hero?

By: Modesto P. Sa-onoy

The question can be considered irrelevant or ridiculous considering that today the Philippines commemorates the execution of Jose Rizal, the foremost hero, even considered by most as the number one national hero. I used the word “most” because there are nationalists who believe that Andres Bonifacio should be the primary national hero. Some even question whether there is an officially declared national hero.

Today the plaudits will be on Jose Rizal. There is a monument for him in every town and city of the Philippines. Not so with Andres Bonifacio. In many places in the country local governments, and by governmental sloth, the community does not commemorate Bonifacio day although it is a non-working holiday.

The most common understanding of a hero is the person who performed an extraordinary act usually ending in death. Thus, soldiers who die in combat are outright considered heroes. Writers, politicians and other personalities are not so declared. Heroic deeds are usually paid for with one’s life.

The reason for some to question the heroism of Rizal is that he was not really for Philippine independence, rather for continued dependence on Spain as a Spanish province. Spain during Rizal’s time was made up of several kingdoms or provinces that were free but part of the whole. The United States is composed of republics and commonwealths but united in a federation. Each state is free but inter-dependent on agreed grounds.

Rizal’s idea clashed with that of Bonifacio who wanted complete severance. Rizal did not want a painful and antagonistic war against Spain but a gradual maturing until the moment was ripe for Spain to let go of its Pacific colony.

Rizal illustrated his idea when the Philippines could be independent in a metaphor: woe to a woman who refuses to give birth when her time has come. Bonifacio wanted a bloody confrontation that would be too costly for Spain and had no choice but to let go.

I think this sharp difference in their view was due to their personal background. Rizal was comfortably well-off in life. He was well educated here and abroad, mixed with the intelligentsia and had no need to work for his meal for the day. He traveled to Europe which means he had more than enough to live in a secured life. While Rizal complained of racial discrimination and about their lease on the land, his family had enough money far beyond the capacity of most Filipinos.

Bonifacio, on the other hand, had to eke out a living while he and his siblings were growing up. He studied on his own and from those readings of revolutions in other parts of the world, be believed that only through a revolution can the Philippines be free and prosper. He saw no other options. Unlike Rizal, Bonifacio did not belong to the ilustrado class.

Rizal took the road of peaceful revolt through his writings creating in the Filipino a sense of self-worth that Spain should respect. But Spain was not of the same mind – any effort to undermine the government was seditious and punishable by death. Despite Rizal’s effort to appease the Spanish government by offering to serve the government as a physician in Cuba, another Spanish colony, Spain refused and ordered his execution.

In an armed revolt, when the battle ceases the victors and the defeated are clearly identified and the issue is resolved. In a book, the idea survives the execution of the author and even gives more credence and higher worth to the written word as an armed revolution.

Rizal wrote the night before he died, in a way defined his own “battleground”. He wrote in his farewell message: El sitio nada importa” – the place matters not, whether it be in the battlefield or in a house, it is still the same. Indeed, “otros te dan sus vidas sin duda sin pesar”, others have given their lives for their country without doubt or heed.

Heroism, to the mind of Rizal, need not be fighting a war, but also giving one’s life for the country, the manner of death is not important. What matters is that it was given freely.

We tend to classify the overseas Filipino workers as “heroes” but that blanket description is inappropriate because their kind of heroism is measured in terms of the dollars they remitted. Patriotism perhaps but not heroism.