RZL110/OL165

Peeking Through Rizal’s Life and Works

Concept Paper

Group 2
Submitted to: Ma’am Josephine Tuliao

Renz Angelo Aguirre Kurt Aidan Manalo

Carlos Miguel Balderosa Manasseh Jericho Niro
Jurich Reuben Celeste Paul Miguel Reonal
John Ronald Custodio Juniel Rodas
Angelo James Dejan Katrina Francesca Soo
Roseville Jeanne Evangelista
I. Introduction
Since the early years of education, history already plays a part in

developing the youths. It helps them understand, mature, and be inspired by the

actions of the past generation. As the Rizals’ bill becomes instantiated with the

aim to promote nationalism and arguably patriotism, it becomes imperative for

the people to know, especially those studying Rizals’ life and work, to have such

material that summarizes and piques their interest.

In the modern age to which constant distractions are always in loose,

something that is constantly in use, especially with an interesting way of

delivering, should be taken advantage of to make the people stay in constant

focus. In this paper, the group explores and makes use of video format,

simulating documentaries that aims to make it understandable not only for

college students, but also for the youths.

II. Presentation

The presentation consists of different parts simulating documentaries with

a mixture of different video categories that turns the video to be more appealing

to college students. As we all know, documentaries, even though a very

informative one, can sometimes become very boring, especially if the delivery or

the visuals doesn’t really show anything interesting; sometimes, in a way that

focuses mainly on talking or maybe visualization that doesn’t really pique the
 people’s interest. However, with the current technologies nowadays and the

speciality of different people, it becomes apparent that this kind of genre or

category is now getting better day by day and we aim to take advantage of it.

That’s why the group planned to make it interesting, by showing good visuals

plus good narration, and some sort of inferred interaction that keeps the attention

of the audiences to both the contents and the visuals.

The presentation consists of different parts pertaining to the start of Rizal's

life (especially those that are the most relevant) until the creation of Rizals’ Bill. It

is done in short bursts, at least what the group calls it; aiming to give enough

information to both make it interesting and informative to trigger their own

curiosity to research and understand more.

As the group are aware of the consequences of a documentary type

video, mainly on how it can be very tiresome to watch; the group accepted the

risk as part of its advantages. Mainly its accessibility (due to how much time a

student have) and how easy it is to share information; especially since it also has

visual representation.

III. Background

The Surge of Mestizos

It was evident throughout history that the Philippines and China already

had some sort of connection. The Chinese were already involved with the

Philippines’ economic and social affairs long before 1859 (Wickberg, 2000).

There was direct contact between the two countries during the Sung, and the
Ming period of China. The resources and location in the Philippines made the

country an outstanding place for trade. Wickberg (2000) that because of the

arrival of the Spanish conquerors in the Philippines in the 1960’s, which meant

new opportunities for China. The most prominent of these opportunities is what

we call the Galleon Trade. This so-called trade brought various goods from

China, like porcelain, silk, ivory, spices, and myriad other exotic goods in

exchange for New World Silver (Hecht, 2022). As the years passed by, the

Philippines developed three major economic systems, which are the Western

economic system, that focuses on foreign products. The Chinese economic

system focuses on maritime trading between China and the Philippines and

artisanry. The Native economic system, on the other hand, focuses on local

orientations and concerns (Wickberg, 2000).

Although the Chinese who settled in the islands before the Spanish

colonization had intermarried with native women, the emergence of the Chinese

Mestizo as a legally distinct class began only with the Spanish colonial regime.

However, removing legal restrictions on Chinese economic activity and the

competition of new Chinese immigrants drove many mestizos out of the

commercial sector in the mid-nineteenth century. As a result, many Chinese

mestizos invested in land, particularly in Central Luzon. The Chinese mestizos in

the Philippines possessed a unique combination of cultural characteristics.

Lovers of ostentation, ardent devotees of Spanish Catholicism, seemed almost

more Spanish than the Spanish and Catholic than the Catholics.
 Delving deeper into the roots of Rizal, it is notable to add that he, himself,

is a Chinese mestizo. Through this, Rizal’s works depicted the perspective of a

mestizo. In the novels he wrote, the hierarchy and the divide of classes were

explicitly shown. And without a doubt, the Spaniards were at the top. Being a

mestizo added the unique perspective of that minority and how they were

treated at the time. Filipinos who read Rizal’s novels know that Chinese

mestizos were treated indifferently. It all depends on how a Spaniard sees them.

The fact that mestizos were the result of the Spaniards’ way of encouraging the

Catholic beliefs through the intermarriage of Chinese and indias caused a

particular division of where the mestizos stood in society. With Rizal’s novels,

the world got to see how heavily discriminated against both indios and mestizos

in that time. Even though Rizal’s a mestizo, his love and dedication to the

Philippines are what truly made him a Filipino Hero.

The Beginning of the end

The events that transpired in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial

period demonstrate how nationalism sparked a movement that freed Filipinos

from the oppression and tyranny of the colonial government. Jose Rizal's ideals

for the country and community trickled down to his passion for writing. This led to

the creation of his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, which are

now considered Filipinos' master narratives. According to Anderson (1991), the

people who read the books, specifically the Filipino natives and those who

identify with them, conjured up an imaginary community, a nation, as they

 resonated with the novel's characters, author, and, ultimately, each other. This

eventually sparked the people's love for their land and fellow Filipinos, which led

to them revolting against the Spaniards.

The Philippines during the time of Rizal was a time of great promise as

multiple world-changing or revolutionary events were compounding on one

another at roughly the same time. At the time Rizal was born, which was in 1861,

it was already at the tail-end of both the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines

and at the aftermath of the Age of Revolutions that intimately defined the

centuries before and preceding it. This meant a lot of things for the young Rizal,

giving him the freedom and opportunity that no Filipino had ever had, even but a

generation before.

Education and Accomplishment

The accomplishments of Jose Rizal are expected to receive much

recognition due to his reputation as a man that fights using his wits and intellect.

Rizal graduated with the highest honors in Ateneo de Manila for his Bachelor of

Arts degree and even pursued higher education in Madrid, Spain. However,

Rizal’s “low” grades during his medical studies at the University of Santo Tomas

misled many researchers to hypothesize that Rizal’s grades were a result of the

discrimination he received during his stay at the university (José, 2011). Rizal

indeed experienced mistreatment during his stay at UST, but his reputation as an

academic achiever remains unchanged. Because even if Rizal did receive

relatively low grades compared to what he received in Ateneo de Manila, he still

 managed to graduate as ranked two among 7 out of his batch and was even

favored with a dispensation that only few students received.

The Continuity
Journalism is one of the propellant of the Philippine revolution. The

campaign in Los Dos Mundos really did take a toll on the government with Lopez

Jaena and Rizal as the main contributors to the articles that attack the

government. It became apparent to them that they should do something about it,

however, it did not stop them. Early in 1884, Filipino activity in Madrid took a new

turn when criticisms against Spain handing the Philippines became widespread.

Numerous Filipinos became active in speeches and writing more newspapers

fighting for the mistreatment of the Spaniards and revealing their misdeeds. At

this point, a lot of things have happened: creating more newspapers, attacking

friar parish priests, how they handle the local, the civil authorities, and other more

that basically motivating people to fight for themselves, not by swords, but pen

and ink.

The Filipino colony, led by Lopez Jaena, signed a protest, calling on the

government to clarify matters. However, La Epoca, a newspaper, replied with

events that says that there are more than twenty in the Philippines who are

perfectly content with the general Jovellar, with the Clergy, and administration; it

did not stop Lopez Jaena, showing the terms in which the Filipino demands for

reform. Shortly after, Rizal entered the list with an article “El Filibusterismo en

Filipinas” with statements in regards with filibusteros which continued as it

became more heated. As time went on, govantes, which was the most active in
 the campaign for the reform, continuously fought with Lopez Jaena and Rizal to

which ended in the writings of the books.

IV. Conclusion

The group decided that the presentation will consist of different parts

discussing different relevant particulars that are mostly found in books and the

reading materials provided to students in the RZL110 course. The project aims to

make use of documentary techniques and design to introduce Rizals’ life and

work to the youths, especially the college students. The presentation shall be

done simulating documentaries aiming to both make it more informative and

interesting avoiding boredom and enforcing attention. This is done by good

editing as well as narration making it more interesting for the youths. It will start

by explaining Rizals’ life (especially the relevant one to how and why the course

was instantiated), how it all started, until the creation of Rizals’ Life and work.
References

Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities. Muni IS (Revised). Verso. Retrieved

2022, from

https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2013/SOC571E/um/Anderson_B_-_Imagined

_Communities.pdf.

José , R. T. (2011). The truth about Rizal’s ‘poor’ grades in UST. Inquirer Lifestyle.

Retrieved July 6, 2022, from

https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/3292/the-truth-about-rizal%E2%80%99s-%E2%8

0%98poor%E2%80%99-grades-in-ust/

Hecht, J. (2022). The Manila Galleon Trade (1565–1815). The Met’s Heilbrunn

Timeline of Art History. https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mgtr/hd_mgtr.htm

Wickberg, E. (2000). The Chinese in Philippine life, 1850-1898. Manila: Ateneo de

Manila University Press.