Nichole Nazarene Gandol September 26, 2022

BCA Readings in Philippine History

I just watched a documentary exploring about Rizal’s time in the University of

Santo Tomas – one of the oldest schools in the Philippines. We start of with our narrator
Sandra Aguinaldo going through a box containing old records back in Rizal’s time.
These records contain Rizal’s grades back when he was studying medicine in UST and
here, we are able to evaluate his performance.
The records show that Rizal does not always get very high grades and just like
everyone, also struggled in certain areas like in his subject General Pathology where he
only got an approvado which means ‘passing’ or a 3.00 grade. However, he also
excelled in certain areas like in the subject Therapeutics Medical Matter and Art of
Prescribing where he got a sobrasaliente meaning ‘excellent’ or a 1.00 grade in today’s
time. Despite struggling in some subjects, he was still an excellent student, getting six
sobrasalientes during his time there. According to the old archivist Fidel Villarroel, Rizal
may have both high and low grades, he was still able to catch up with his peers if we
compare their grades.
We are then showed other records by Professor Regalado Trato Jose who is the
current archivist of the UST archives. It is a common belief that Jose Rizal was
prejudiced during his time in UST for being Filipino, however Professor Jose believes
otherwise. According to the records, the prepatory course and the 1 st year of the
medicine course were put in the same class or lecture which was uncommon at the
time. Only four in his year were allowed in which other than Rizal, there was also
another Filipino named Carlos Gatmaitan who was there.
As a student, I felt a sense of relief and gladness when I found out that Rizal
does not always have the best grades. It humanized him and reminded me that despite
being considered smart, he still struggled. Rizal was painted as someone who was
perfect, someone who didn’t seem to struggle in his studies, and someone who has
achieved great excellence. People would rave how well he did during his academia
days and what he was able to create later on. And while I agree that he is an excellent
man and has contributed greatly to the Philippines, it is also important to remember that
he is still a human – someone who struggles and make mistakes. It is often forgotten
the amount of work, the blood, sweat and tears that Rizal did in order to get as far as he
did which is unfortunate.
Parents and teachers also tend to forget about this when it comes to us students
where we may have showed some form of excellence in the past but it does not mean
that we will show the same level of excellence in everything we do. Just like Rizal, we
all have our own strengths and weaknesses – subjects that we are good at and subjects
where we don’t excel as much. Even in areas where we do greatly, the amount of work
that goes behind the scenes is immense. Not always do things come naturally and
many skills are learned through copious amounts of training and studying. We do not
need to be great in every single thing, or in every single subject in order to perform well
academically. Even Rizal got a 3.00 grade once. No one is perfect, not us and certainly
not even our great national hero, Jose Rizal.