Malabuyoc, Marlou Mico R.

29 January 2016

PI 10 U1 6R

My Perception of Dr. Jose Rizal

From the fiction book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, there was a moment where the
antagonist (the Charlemagne) showed up in the balcony where the pope usually appears and then
everyone in St. Peters Square started chanting his name. It was later then explained that for a brief
moment, even though he was not a candidate, the Charlemagne was actually elected as Pope.
As a confession, I am one of those Filipinos that, at the very least, know Dr. Jose Rizal is our
national hero. What I dont know is that there really wasnt any official declaration by our national
government that he is indeed our national hero. But maybe, we really dont need to; like the Charlemagne,
we accept him as our national hero from the long list of heroes who fought during those days where we
are occupied by one country after another.
I used the word accept since, we just dont learn that Rizal is our national hero just because but,
it was justified to us since we were young. I cant remember how many times we went over the Spanish
era during elementary school and learned Dr. Rizals life and once more during high school. In my
understanding, I accepted him as our national hero because he showed that violence isnt always the
solution. Rizal wants us Filipinos to pick our battles; whats the point of fighting an unwinnable fight? He
showed that sometimes, a pen is sharper than a sword or hurts more than a bullet. He showed how
intelligence can be used as strength.
Nevertheless, Dr. Jose Rizal was still human (Guerrero, 1963). From his literary works Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo, it showed how much of a human he is. We do believe that Rizal sees
himself as Crisostomo Ibarra in Noli Me Tangere that sees there is still hope for the Filipino people to
achieve peace without violence anymore; and then he sees himself as Simoun in El Filibusterismo who
wants nothing but to create chaos and revenge to the Spanish Government. This is probably character
development not only for Crisostomo Ibarra but also for Dr. Jose Rizal himself.
Sadly, aside from being human, all of us tend to forget these lessons from his life. We kept on
repeating the mistakes our ancestors committed which led to Dr. Jose Rizal sacrificing his life for the
country.

References:
Brown, D. (2000). Angels and Demons. New York, USA: Pocket Books
Guerrero, L. M. (1963). The First Filipino: A Biography of Jose Rizal. Available from
http://www.xeniaeditrice.it/firstfilipinoocrpdf.pdf