Mercado, Brian Gerome S. Prof.

Narcisco Cabanilla

BSME 2-3 GEED 10013

2021-05411-MN-0 November 7, 2022

1. Do you think that the passage of the Rizal bills into a law warranted the objectives
that the sponsors conceived in 1956? Explain your answer.

- The Rizal Bill was primarily supported by Senator Claro M. Recto. In Congress, he
tried to be the measure's sponsor. On the other side, the Catholic Church strongly
disagreed. During the 1955 Senate election, Recto was charged with being anti-Catholic
and a communist. The Church continued to oppose the requirement that students read
Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo after Recto's triumph, claiming that doing so
would violate their right to freedom of conscience and religion.

The Catholic Church organized symposiums and encouraged its members to write to
their congressman and senators against the Rizal law. In one of these
symposiums,Fr. Jesus Cavanna claimed that the novels belonged in the past and that
teaching them would mislead the situation in the world now. Catholics have the right to
refuse to read them since doing so would "endanger their salvation," according to radio
pundit Jesus Paredes.

The Catholic Teachers Guild, the Congregation of the Mission, the Knights of
Columbus, and Catholic Action of the Philippines all opposed the law; the Veteranos de
la Revolucion (Spirit of 1896), Alagad ni Rizal, the Freemasons, and the Knights of Rizal
opposed it as well. Only Francisco Soc Rodrigo, Mariano Jes Cuenco, and Decoroso
Rosales voted against a bill that José P. Laurel and Recto jointly authored in the Senate
Committee on Education.

2.Do you think that the objectives were attained thereafter and that their attainment
resonated until the present? Expound your answer.

- Cuenco stated that Rizal "attacked the Church's dogmas, beliefs, and practices; the
notion that Rizal restricted himself to castigating unworthy clergymen and avoided
criticizing, mocking, or casting doubt on Catholic Church dogmas is completely
unnecessary and deceptive." Cuenco also brought up Rizal's denial of purgatory,
asserting that it was not mentioned in the Bible and that neither Moses nor Jesus Christ
made reference to it; Cuenco came to the conclusion that a "majority of the Members of
this Chamber, if not all [including] our good friend, the gentleman from Sulu" believed in
purgatory. Domocao Alonto, a senator from Sulu, attacked Filipinos who proclaimed
Rizal as "their national hero but seemed to despise what he had written," claiming that
the Indonesians used Rizal's books as their Bible during their independence movement;
Pedro López, a senator from Cebu, Cuenco's province, argued in support of the bill that
the independence movement began in Cebu, when Lapu-Lapu fought Ferdinand Mag

Catholic schools outside the Senate threatened to close if the proposal is approved; in
response, Recto said that the schools would be nationalized. Recto dismissed the
threat, claiming that the institutions were too profitable to collapse. Schools dropped the
threat but made a commitment to "punish" Lawmakers who voted in favor of the
legislation in subsequent elections. The expurgated version was put forth as a
compromise; Recto, who had supported the required reading of the unexpurgated
version, declared: "Those who would banish Rizal literature from classrooms would blot
away from our minds the memory of the national hero. This is a struggle against Rizal,
not Recto," he says, adding that since Rizal is no longer alive, they are attempting to
suppress his memory.

A compromise made by Committee on Education chairman Laurel that met the Catholic
Church's reservations was unanimously approved on May 12, 1956. According to the
measure, only college (university) students would have access to unedited versions of
clerically contentious readings like Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo. The statute
was enacted on June 12, 1956, which was Flag Day.