Thought Piece #1: The Infamous Rizal Law

Rizal Law: An attempt to ignite a fire of patriotism inside Filipinos’ hearts. So, 70
years later what changed? Was this implementation a success?
Well technically yes, they managed to drill Jose’s “greatness” into our minds. Just go
anywhere and ask a random Filipino citizen and ask them who Jose Rizal is, and 90 percent
of the time, I’m certain that their answer would be along “our national hero”; “he fought for
our country during the Spanish Colonialism period”. During his speech to support the
implementation of this Law, Former President Jose P. Laurel stated that his belief on Jose
Rizal’s greatness was not just because of his love for the country and the people in it but
because of his magnificent philosophy that can be found on every page of his two novels.
Striking the hearts of his fellow senators, this started the long debate on how this law was to
be implemented. Lawmakers across the country showing interest in the law stating their
thoughts. Some saying we should be forced to read his novels and some saying making it
compulsory would result in the death of catholic churches as the novels heavily antagonized
friars. After years of debate, the Batas Rizal or Republic Act was signed by President
Ramon Magsaysay. With its Section 1 stating:
“Courses on the life, works, and writings of Jose Rizal, particularly his novel Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo, shall be included in the curricula of all schools, colleges and
universities, public or private: Provided, that in the collegiate courses, the original or
unexpurgated editions must be used.”
Going back to the topic, did this Law fulfill its objective of lighting patriotism among
Filipino people? In my eyes. No. Well to some degree, yes. Forcing students to read Jose’s
novels lit a burning desire to protect and serve the country in the hearts of some, but
nowhere near a nation. But then again Former President Jose P. Laurel said that to “for us
to truly grasp Pepe’s greatness, one must be able to comprehend the true meaning behind
his words. So that his words will serve as a torch to guide in the moment of darkness”.
That’s where they failed in my opinion, only a few actually sought the meaning behind his
words for only a few could comprehend them, and everyone else? They couldn’t care less.
They could comprehend the thing in the first place so why care? I’m not saying they couldn’t
speak English, because I know for a fact that people then were more fluent in English due
to American influence but being able to read and speak English is not enough,
comprehension is another thing. Maybe they should have focused more on education
before implementing this Law, the results might have vastly differed. Look at our country
today, even at the college level, Filipino students can’t even write, read and speak in
English decently. A language that is grammatically and virtually similar to Tagalog. This just
shows how to uneducated our people have become. Just look at Facebook, it doesn’t take
much to fool a Filipino Netizen, just look how widespread fake news is. Lacking the simple
skill of being able to discern if something fake even though it obviously is, further shows that
Filipinos have become more gullible and stupid (Well they always were, just look at how
Hen. Luna died). Kids today even barely remember the contents of what they read in Jose’s
Novels if anything, all they remember is the sexual and horrendous acts committed by the
friars. And I stand by my claim that what we needed back then was education and not
patriotism. This country could have been something entirely different if it had more educated
citizens.