PAGUIO, Anthony Justin N. Nov.

14, 2021
Y35 GERIZAL

Bayaning 3rd World: Reaction Paper

History is an interesting concept that has always piqued my curiosity. I have this habit
where I love exploring the world of the past because I want to discover the origins of it all.
Recently, I have come across with a dilemma of the concept of history because I tried to look
from an event or a person’s “history” from a different perspective. All I saw was how easily
history can be manipulated to the likings of the media. With this. I came up with an initial
conclusion that history is all but a list of fabricated “lies” we tell ourselves. What I mean by
“lies” are the tales that blur the lines of fact and fiction. Why do I share this sentiment? It is
because history is often told at one or two sides of the story, but never really the whole picture.
In the end, history will never be accurately portrayed by anyone else or any other event that
preceded unless ALL the first-hand or primary sources of such occasion/s are made available to
contribute their experiences. “History is not just what-happened-in-the-past, but a complex
intersection of truths, bias and hopes” (History and What-Really-Happened, n.d.).

Bayaning Third World does not shy away from its satire humor with how history is being
handled. It is a mockumentary in which it portrays the perspective of the writers in creating a
fulfilling historical piece to be viewed by the masses. The two content creators of the film
unravel their journey by going through such lengths to interview the most influential people in
Jose Rizal’s controversial life to gain a bit of perspective of who the man truly is and collect facts
that may help the writers in achieving the film they want to produce. The writer’s block of the
creators of the film was not alleviated in the duration of the film as they just uncovered mystery
after mystery even after interviewing the crucial individuals that were a part of Rizal’s life. Did
he really retract everything that he had said or written against the government/Catholic Church?
Was Josephine an inspiration to Rizal, a distraction, or an intel for the friars to ruin his image
even further? In the end, it was revealed that this “Jose Rizal” was just another figment of their
imagination; no other individuals know who the man really is but himself. Rizal never intended
to be the “bayani” of his country, maybe he was just an honest man with honest thoughts to share
in his pieces.

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 At the beginning of the film wherein it showed aspects of how Rizal is perceived by the
public, more specifically him being viewed as a saint-like figure to be worshipped by many, it
gave me the gist of the direction that the creators of the film wanted to get its point across. The
constant struggle and questioning of the creators as to how they want Rizal to be perceived in
their own movie because the grey areas in his life were never truly resolved in which it made
them hesitant to release a film about the national hero, hence leading to the various interviews
that the filmmakers conducted. Up until this very day, Rizal’s retraction controversy had never
been laid to rest by the public, nor Fr. Balaguer’s claims of Rizal’s confession and the
aforementioned controversies were really ever settled.

According to Uckung (2012), Rizal’s retraction “original” document was never open to
the public and only its reproductions, which caused to surface multiple allegations of documents
being the “original” one after it had been made available for public viewing on May 13, 1935.
This caused suspicions on all the parties involved to reach a definitive conclusion due to jarring
claims and evidence of the forgery such as Bracken’s autobiography in which it was said to be
poorly forged. Uckung said to put this way past questioning the retraction issue and much like
Trinidad’s message in the film: it is an “insult” to someone that has been long dead to
continuously seek answers of a man’s controversial past and let him rest. Deceiving the masses
and ruining one’s public image just adds fuel to the fire. All of this is truly confusing as to how
facts are easily manipulated and have overflown in our world. This is one of the main themes of
the movie besides the history and personal life of our national hero, which is the authenticity of
history. Can we really trust historians and such documents available to conclude someone or an
event’s history? We will never truly know until we unravel all the accounts that had been a part
of the occurrences in the past.

In the end, I have not only gained appreciation for Philippine history but as well as its
films. It is a well-produced and a thought-provoking film that had me constantly thinking as to
how I should perceive Rizal from now on, having heard of the past through personas that he had
put on with his family and peers. His creations were a blessing for our nation as it strengthened

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 our nationalism and opened the door for freedom, but needless to say he was also a human being
and is also prone to faults and errors in life. It does not make him less of a hero, but it is
reassuring that he is as vulnerable as us. We will never truly know the man behind the pen since
we have this preconceived notion of who he is written in numerous tales and historical accounts,
and that is completely fine since we all have perceptions of other individuals in our lives.
Perception is truly a wonderful yet a haunting thing. May he be viewed as a hero, anti-hero, or a
villain by someone, I will always consider Jose Rizal as a person that wanted to live in peace
with his works but incidentally became a hero due to his strong convictions against Friars and the
Catholic Church.

References:

History and what-really-happened. USU 1320: History and Civilization. (n.d.). Retrieved
November 23, 2021, from
http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/01HIST.htm.

Uckung, P. J. V. (2012, September 19). The Rizal retraction and other cases. National Historical
Commission of the Philippines. Retrieved November 23, 2021, from
https://nhcp.gov.ph/the-rizal-retraction-and-other-cases/.

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