READING #3

LOVE AND RESPECT FOR PARENTS

Nobody is more devoted and faithful to us, more sensitive to our needs, more generous to our failings
than pour parents. And the pages of history are radiant with the memories of filial devotion.

Rizal’s return to the Philippines in 1892 was motivated chiefly by his love for his parents and his
family whom he did not wish to be persecuted on his account. He knew that he was courting death by
placing himself at the mercy of the Spanish government in the islands. But he wanted to save his
relatives, especially his aged mother, the humiliation and the suffering. His letter to his “Beloved
parents, brothers, and sisters, and friends,” dated Hong Kong on June 20, 1892, is incomparable in its
tender regard and solitude for his loved ones, particularly his parents. He said:

“The affection that I have ever professed for you suggests this step, and time alone can tell whether
or not it is jurisdiction. Their outcome decides things by results, but whether that be unfavorable, it
may always said that duty urges me, so I die in consequence, it will not matter.

“I realize how much suffering I have caused you, but I do not regret what I have done. Rather, if I have
begun all over again, I should do exactly as I have done, for it was my plain duty. Gladly do I expose
myself to peril, not as any expiation of misdeeds (for this matter I believe myself guiltless of any), but
to complete my work and offer in myself of what I have always preached.

“A man ought to die for duty and his principle. I hold fast to very idea which I have advanced
as to the condition and future of our country, and shall willingly die for it, and even more
willingly to secure for you justice and peace.

“It is with joy, then, that I risk life to save so many innocent persons – so many nieces and nephews,
so many children of friends, and children, too, of others who are not even friends - who are
suffering from my account. What am I? A single man practically without a family, and sufficiently
undeceived as to life. I have had many disappointments and the future before me is gloomy, and will
be gloomy if it is not brightened by the dawn of a better day for my country. On the other hand,
there are many, filled with hope and ambition, which perhaps might all be happy if I were dead, and
I trust that my enemies will then be satisfied and stop persecuting so many quite innocent people. To
a certain extent their hatred is justifiable as to myself, but not as to my parents and relatives.

“Should fate go against me, you will understand that I shall die happy in the thought that my
death will end you troubles. Return to our country and may you be happy in it.
 “Until the last moment of my life I shall be thinking of you and wishing you good fortune and
happiness.

Dr. Jose P. Rizal

“… Nobody can say how he shall die, but everybody must decide how and for what he shall
live.”

In his farewell to his countrymen written on the same day, he said:” I cannot live knowing that
many suffer unjust persecution on my account. I cannot live seeing my brothers and sisters and their
numerous families persecuted like criminals. I prefer to face death and gladly give up my life to deliver
so many innocent people from this unjust persecution.” Previously when he was informed of their
vicissitudes he had written his parents saying: “I deeply regret your misfortunes at Kalamba: but I
admire you for not making any complaint. If it were possible for me take upon myself all the pains, all
the losses, and leave you all the joys and the gain. God knows how gladly I would do it.” And in letter
dated June 21, 1892, he addressed himself to Eulogio Despujol, then Governor General of the Philippine
islands: “It is a long time now that my aged parents, my relatives, friends and even persons unknown
to me have been cruelly persecuted on my account, according to them. I now present myself to
confront this persecution, to answer charges that it may be desired to prefer against me, in order to
put an end to that question, so bitter to these innocent persons and sad to Your Excellency’s
government which ought to be known for its justice.”

Apolinario Mabini
“ … Seek thy country’s happiness above thine own.”

Mabini offered the following testimonial of his mother’s love for him and the affectionate regard
in which he held her:
“Thereafter my poor mother begun to work with true zeal in order to defray the cost of my
studies. When I began my high school, led away by the example of my companions, it occurred
to me to ask my parents for some nice clothes for Christmas. In order to gratify me, my mother
sold all the coffee she had harvested in the barrio of Papaya (Lipa) and she herself , brought
me all the money, so that I might buy what I liked best. That display of abnegation and
affection moved me so that I desisted from my desire to buy a costly suit, because it seemed
to me that money, she was giving me her very life-blood. In fact overworked brought her to
the grave soon afterwards.

“Perhaps, because I have lived away from the family since childhood on account of my studies,
I was dearly loved by my parents and by my maternal grandmother. My grandfather died a
year ahead my mother, when I happened to be with my family, for the vacation, and from her
sickbed she would remind them again and again not to forget to attend to me and to take
care of my food. My mother always seemed to send away for my studies with a calm face, but
one day, when I just gone home from Manila for my vacation, I knew from an aunt that my
 mother had wept much because I had thoughtlessly told her that it was the same to me to live
near my family or away from it. When, shortly before she died, she saw her eight children
whom she was about to leave in poverty, she begun to cry; but she was reassured when I
promised to watch over my brothers and sisters. She likewise wept when I summoned then
from Bawan to her bedside during the last day of her life.

“Dearest Mother: in the midst of my misfortunes, your memory is not painful to me, because
I am comforted by the thought that Fate has spared you the sorrow of witnessing them. But,
should good fortune come to me unexpectedly, perhaps I would complain against Fate for not
having allowed you to enjoy it with me.”

His dedication of his La Revolution Filipina to his mother touches the heart and purifies the
emotions by its pathos and nobility:

DEAREST MOTHER: While still a child I told you that I wanted to study, to please you above
everything else because your golden dream was to have your son a priest; to be a minister of
God was to you the greatest honor to which a man could aspire in this world.

“Because you were too poor to afford my education, you wore yourself out to with work for
me, heeding neither sun nor rain, until you contracted the illness which carried you off.

“ Fate has not destined me to become a priest; nevertheless, convinced as I am that not he
alone is a true minister of God who wears the long robe, but all those who proclaim His glory
by means of good and useful service to the greatest possible number of His creatures. I will
try to be faithful to your wishes while my strength does not give out. Desiring to lay upon your
grave a wreath woven by my own hands, I dedicate this little book to your memory; it is poor
and unworthy of you, but until now it is the best that your son’s unskilled hands have been
able to fashion.”

An instance of filial love was given by little Anita, Marcelo H. del Pilar’s daughter who was just
learning her alphabet. Del Pilar had written to his wife that often he had to pick up cigar stubs from the
sidewalks of Madrid so that he could smoke and thus beguile his hunger; and he once stopped writing
her because had no money to buy stamps. As his wife was also in straits, she turned to Anita who
generously parted with her Easter presents to send them to her father. Anita’s sacrifice brought tears
to her father’s eyes.
Rizal risking death so that his parents might have peace; Mabini’s tender and lifelong devotion
to his mother’s memory; and Anita del Pilar giving up he cherished playthings for her father’s sake: all
this are examples of filial piety. As there is no one to whom we owe so much, in body, in mind and
heart, as our parents , so gratitude binds us to them with ties of love and reverence that should reach
out beyond the grave. After death their memory should be sacred to us; while they live, there are a
thousand and one little things we can do to gladden our parents’ hearts and brighten the few
remaining years of their old age.