MODULE 1

INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE: REPUBLIC ACT 1425

AN ACT TO INCLUDE IN THE CURRICULA OF ALL PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND
UNIVERSITIES COURSES ON THE LIFE, WORKS AND WRITINGS OF JOSE RIZAL, PARTICULARLY HIS
NOVELS NOLI ME TANGERE AND EL FILIBUSTERISMO, AUTHORIZING THE PRINTING AND
DISTRIBUTION THEREOF, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

WHEREAS, today, more than any other period of our history, there is a need for a re-dedication to the ideals of freedom
and nationalism for which our heroes lived and died;

WHEREAS, it is meet that in honoring them, particularly the national hero and patriot, Jose Rizal, we remember with
special fondness and devotion their lives and works that have shaped the national character;

WHEREAS, the life, works and writing of Jose Rizal, particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, are a
constant and inspiring source of patriotism with which the minds of the youth, especially during their formative and
decisive years in school, should be suffused;

WHEREAS, all educational institutions are under the supervision of, and subject to regulation by the State, and all schools
are enjoined to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic conscience and to teach the duties of citizenship; Now,
therefore,

MODULE I: INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE: REPUBLIC ACT 1425

The Life and Works of Jose Rizal [LWR]1 as stated in our course description is a mandated course subject, meaning a law
requires usto take it. It is not like a minor course but part of General Education courses along with Understanding the Self,
Readings in Philippine History, The Contemporary World, Mathematics in the Modern World, Purposive Communication,
Art Appreciation, Science, Technology and Society, and Ethics. Since it is mandated, all students are required to take LWR
course. To see other provisions why should study LWR course, we should read and analyze the Republic Act 1425 but first
understand the context why and how the said law was crafted.
Florentino A. Iniego,Jr.’s Ang Ikalawang Paglilitis kay Jose Rizal: Ang Pagpapasá ng Batas Republika 1425 and
Jose B. Laurel’s The Trials of the Rizal Bill.

SUMMARY:

 The 1950’s was a decade of various forces in history. These were the time when agrarian reform was initiated; and the
Huk or Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan was suppressed, and the Anti-Subversion Law was passed in order
suppressed the Communist and other leftist movements. Furthermore, the United States of America and Central
Intelligence Agency, and a supporter of the latter controlled President Magsaysay, hence Bell Trade Act and Laurel-
Langley Agreement were passed thus granting U.S. citizens and corporations rights to Philippine natural resources
equal to those Philippine citizens.

 Along with the above precedent, according to Sen. Recto, “there is a need for the nation to rededicate itself to the
ideals of freedom and nationalism for which our heroes lived and died remembering with special fondness and
devotion to Rizal and his writings. With these writings the national character and have become a constant and
inspiring source of patriotism for our youth.” This was one of the reasons of filing of the Bill.

 As stated in Rizal Law, no one is exempted not to take LWR course subject even if it is in public or private schools,
colleges, and universities. However, one is exempted not to read the unexpurgated text for religious reason. In
addition, with the former, that is the same reason why we took Rizal course even in basic education i.e. the study of
the novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo in high school.

 The RA 1425 emphasizes Sec. 927 of Revised Administrative Code, which states, “No teacher or other persons
engaged in any public school whether maintained from (insular) national, provincial, or municipal fund, shall teach
or criticize the doctrine of any church, religious sector, or denomination, or shall attempt to influence the pupils for
or against any church or religious sect.” However, nothing in Rizal Law shall be construed as amendment or
repealing the said Section.
 The constructing of Rizal Bill into RA 1425 was a confluence of politics, religion, and history.

Rizal and the Crafting of Rizal’s Bill: A Time Chart

June 1887 December 3 April 1956 19 April 1956 9 May 1956 17 May 1956 12 June 1956
1861 1896

Jose The Spain’s The trial Senators Congressman The The Senate (23 in President Ramon
Rizal Comision and Claro M. Jacobo S. actual favor and 1 absent) Magsaysay signed the
was permanente de execution Recto and Gonzalesfiled delibera and the House of RA 1425 or
born censura (Board of Rizal Jose P. House Bill tion of Representatives “An Act to Include in the
of Censorship) Laurel, Sr. 5561 using the bill Curricula of All Public
declared Rizal’s filed Senate SB was and
Bill 438 or held.
“An Act to
Make Noli

Noli Me Tangere Me Tangere 438’ssame against, 2 abstain, Private Schools,

as “heretical, and El title. and 17 absent) Colleges and
impious, and Filibusterismo passed the Universities Courses
scandalous in Compulsory proposed bill on the Life, Works,
the religious Reading containing and Writings of Jose
order, and Matter in All amendments. Rizal, Particularly his
antipatriotic, Public and Novel Noli Me
subversive of Private Tangere and El
the public Colleges and Filibusterismo,
order, Universities Authorizing the
offensive to and For Other Printing and
the Purposes.” Distribution Thereof,
government and for Other
of Spain and Purposes.”
to its
method of
procedure in
these
islands, in
the political
order.”

MODULE 2
19TH CENTURY PHILIPPINES AS RIZAL’S CONTEXT

The 19th century (1801-1900)

was a century of changes and filled of turning points in our history and identity.

It was this time when nationalist sentiments awakened, a propaganda movement started, a national anti-colonial movement
and revolution ignited, and our independence declared. However, before discussing how the 19th century context affects and
develops Rizal’s character, life, and ideas, we must first briefly discuss our early Philippine history to understand
holistically our past.

In Philippine scholarship, some historians now totally ignored the periodization of our past i.e. pre-colonial (before the
coming of colonizers i.e. the Spaniards), colonial, and post-colonial. Consciously, this periodization only implied that our
history is a product of colonialisms and nothing more. Hence, the portrayal of history is only on the side of who had the
power i.e. the one who is educated, has position in high institutions e.g. church and government, and has economic and
financially capability. In colonial times mostly of the records were written by the friars, missionaries, colonial officials, and
travelers, thus, only their perspectives of history in these Islands were heard, and less, if not nothing, on the Filipinos.

The Filipinos of today are of Austronesians origin. The origin of expansion of Austronesian people were either attributed
from Taiwan or Southeast Asia and South China through seafaring. The said expansion extends up to Madagascar, Easter
Island, and islands in the Pacific hence we could see some similarities of our genes, cultures, and language from their
people. These similarities in culture and language could be seen through boat making, seafaring and sea raiding, pottery
making, tattooing, metallurgy, scripts, beliefs in spirits and the after-life, and many more. Through archaeology, our early
Philippine history flourished thus debunked the ideas of the colonizers that we Filipinos were barbaric, not civilized, and
backward.
The balangays, Manunggul and Maitum Jars and Calatagan pot, political and social structures composed of karadjahan,
kadatuan, babaylan/catalonan, panday, bagani, maharlika and timawa, aliping namamahay/saguguilid/oripun, Laguna
Copperplate Inscription, baybayin and other ethnolinguistic scripts, epics, folklores, and many more provide pieces of
evidence that we had rich culture and past.

We already had contact with the Chinese and other Asian peoples through commerce before the coming of Spaniards.

Muslims had already established Islam in Sulu and Mindanao before the introduction of Christianity in Visayas and Luzon.

The Spaniards conquered us through divide et impera (divide-and-conquer). They utilized colonization through

entrada (military entrance),

reduccion (resettlement through organization and centralization of institutions and
space i.e. Iglesia (church),
mercado (market),
municipio, family houses, with
plaza in the center thus called plaza complex;

Filipinos who were not belong or outside of this plaza complex were considered

tulisanes, insurrectos, remontados (people of the mountain),

barbaric (for sole reason of being not Christian), and other names to be included as “taong-labas”), and \
doctrina (the evangelization and/or teaching of Christianity).

However, the Filipinos were not passive receiver of foreign culture. The Filipinos contract (borrowing Vicente Rafael’s) and
resist through popular movements, revolution, literature, language, plays, and even art in general. We also revolt by other
means if war was compromised. The Filipinos experienced forced labor or we might say slavery but Spaniards said
otherwise and used the former because they removed institutional slavery they perceived happening before their arrival.
Through forced labor churches, bridges, schools, lighthouses, ports, and government institutions were constructed.

The political and social stratification were introduced to justify colonialism. The Gobernador y capitan-general was the
representative of the King of Spain in the Islands, also the commander-in-chief of the army and navy, president of the Real
Audiencia or the Supreme Court, and the vice-real patron who appoints someone over ecclesiastical position. The
Intramuros was the seat of government, religion, and economy. The alcalde mayores headed the provinces, while the
gobernadorcillo was the counterpart of today’s municipal mayor. The cabeza de barangay was then part of kadatuan and
was a tax and contributions collector for the gobernadorcillo. The Filipinos only held the gobernadorcillo and cabeza de
barangay positions.

Peninsulares were the term for Spaniards-born in Spain, while insulares for Spaniards-born in the Philippines. Mestizo was
the general term for Spanish-Filipino, Mexican-Filipino, Spanish-Chinese, or Chinese-Filipino. Once, the word Filipino
were exclusively attributed to insulares until Jose Rizal through Jose Burgos conceived Filipino as all inhabitants of the
Philippines with an exemption of peninsulares and other foreigner. Meanwhile, Andres Bonifacio called the native
Filipinos, whether you are belong in any ethnolinguistic groups, Tagalog (or Taga-alog/ilog i.e. people from the river)
because we are part of Katagalugan or the Philippine Islands. Furthermore, the rest is history.
 MODULE 3
RIZAL’S LIFE: FAMILY, CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION

Reading Jose Rizal’s childhood and early life would remind someone that he was first human before becoming a hero. By
humanizing someone, we could see and understand a person’s true emotions, feelings, struggles, conditions, and psyche.
Moreover, all other
Filipinos in their early life experienced and somehow had semblance as Rizal. They played, ventured, wandered, stumbled,
fell down, read, sang, prayed, worked, wrote, fell in love, failed, fought, argued, and discarded before becoming a realist
and an idealist of their actions and their thoughts. That was how Rizal and other heroes started. He became Moy and Pepe
first before becoming a Rizal.

Life History Terms

o Autobiography – a record of your life history written by yourself.
o Biography – a record of someone’s life history written by another person.
o Genealogy – the study of families, family history, and the tracing of lineages.
o Memoir – a personal recollection of earlier experiences.
o Hagiography – a biographical record of mostly known figures in history like saints, religious persons, heroes, and
politicians, which usually depicted and venerated in a flattering and glorifying words and without tainted remarks.

SUMMARY

 Jose Rizal’s family came from prosperous lineages. The then Mercado-Rizal had Japanese, Spanish, Malay, and
Chinese descent. They were businesspersons, gobernadorcillos or municipal mayors, lawyers, and mestizos.

 Moy or Pepe (Rizal’s nickname) was well kept. He had nanny that introduced to him Filipino custom and folklore,
private tutors and uncles that taught him reading, writing, and arithmetic, sports, and body-building.

 Rizal had physical weakness but had great mentalstate.

 Rizal expressed his creative and literary leanings in early childhood that will be developed by his professors,
mentors, and friends.

MODULE 4
RIZAL’S LIFE: HIGHER EDUCATION AND LIFE ABROAD

Rizal’s life in higher education and abroad, for me, was the most important aspects, with the exemption of his death, of his
life history. The reasons are in these periods he introduced, examined, and advocated national and broader contexts and
discourses of
discrimination, identity, assimilation, nationalism, colonialism, ideologies, reforms, arts, women, social stratifications,
struggles, education, independence, and even the myth of laziness in the Philippines, the Malayan world, in Spain and its
colonies, and other countries he had visited. Furthermore, some of these periods in Rizal’s life are what a scholar
Quibuyen’s called as “the radicalization of Rizal.”

Rizal, the Higher Education, and the Life Abroad: A Time Line
1872. The execution of the three Filipino martyrs, the GOMBURZA

1872-1877. Rizal entered and graduated at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila with a degree of Bachiller en Artes, counterpart
of today’s high school. Here he studied languages (Latin, Spanish, Greek, and French), mathematics (arithmetic, algebra,
geometry, and trigonometry), humanities, social sciences, and philosophy (universal geography, universal history, history
of Spain and the Philippines, rhetoric and poetry, and philosophy), and sciences (mineralogy and chemistry, physics,
botany and zoology). His grades in all of these subjects were sobresaliente or excellent.

1877-1878. He studied Philosophy and Letters at the Universidad de Sto. Tomas, and Surveying at Ateneo de Municipal.

1877-1882. He took and finished Medicine at UST. Here he studied physics, chemistry, natural history, anatomy,
dissection, physiology, private and public hygiene, general pathology, therapeutics, surgery, medical pathology, surgical
pathology, and obstetrics.

1882-1885. Rizal left for Spain. He enrolled in the Universidad Central de Madrid in two courses Medicine, and Philosophy
and Letters; studied painting and sculpture in the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando; took lessons in various
languages. He joined Masonry, gave speech and salute for Luna and Hidalgo, involved in student demonstrations, obtained
Licentiate in Medicine, and passed Doctor of Medicine.

1885-1887. He served as an assistant to famous oculists of Europe, met German scholars and scientists, translated some
works to Tagalog, published Noli Me Tangere, toured with Maximo Viola, and met Blumentritt.

1887-1888. Rizal returned to the Philippines, and helped the Calamba folks in an agrarian trouble.

1888-1892. He travelled and visited Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, and the United States, published the annotation of Morga’s
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, founded three Filipino societies, attended the Paris Exposition of 1889, wrote political and
historical commentaries, published articles in La Solidaridad, and studied orthography of Tagalog language. He had
criticized Filipinos in Madrid, had conflict with Marcelo H. Del Pilar, retired from the Propaganda Movement, and
published El Filibusterismo. Eventually he became an ophthalmic surgeon in Hong Kong, continued the Borneo
Colonization Project, contributed articles to foreign newspapers, and decided to return to the Philippines.

he Filipinos in the Propaganda Movement: Background and Role 3

 Graciano Lopez Jaena.Journalist, orator, writer, and editor of La Solidaridad. Pursued medicalstudies at Europe.
Known for his work Fray Botod. Considered as one of the triumvirates of the Propaganda Movement together with
Rizal and Del Pilar. Born in Iloilo and died at the age of 39.

 Marcelo H. Del Pilar (pseud. Plaridel & Dolores Manapat). Did an anti-friar campaignsin the Philippines(c.f. Diariong
Tagalog, Caiigat Cayo, and Dasalan at Tocsohan), and succeeded G. Lopez Jaena as editor of La Solidaridad. Born in
Bulacan and died at the age of 44.

 Jose Ma. Panganipan (pseud. Jomapa). Studied medicine in Spain. Linguist, essayist, and one of the main
contributors for La Solidaridad. Born in Camarines Norte and died at the age of 37.

 Pedro Paterno. Studied philosophy and theology, and doctorate in law in Salamanca and Madrid, respectively. Wrote
the first Filipino novel and collection of poems in Spanish i.e. Ninay and Sampaguitas, respectively. One of the first
generations of the Propaganda Movement in Europe together with Gregorio Sancianco, lawyer, advocate of
economic reforms in the Philippines, and author of El Progreso de Filipinas. Paterno died at the age of 54 while
Sancianco (b. Malabon) at the age of 45.

 Mariano Ponce (psued. Naning, Kalipulako, Tigbalang). Filipino physician, writer, and founder of La Solidaridad
and Asociacion Hispano Filipino. Known for his Efemerides Filipinas. Born in Bulacan and died at the age of 55.

 Eduardo de Lete. A Philippine-born Spaniard, editor of España en Filipinas,

and member of La Solidaridad.

 Galicano Apacible. A Philippine politician, cousin of Rizal, and co-founder of

La Solidaridad.
 Antonio Luna (psued. Taga-ilog). Studied literature, chemistry, and medicine in the Philippines and Spain.
Contributed to La Solidaridad and known for his Impressions. An expert of military science. Died at the age of 32.

SUMMARY

 Rizal’s reasons of going to Europe may be attributed to personal and beyond personal purposes i.e. to further study
medicine and take up ophthalmology; to join early nationalist cause and propaganda movement in Europe; and to
advocate reforms. Furthermore, to study politics, economy, and culture of other countries, especially of independent
countries and apply those important ideas from them to the Philippines, and to identify tactics, strategies, and other
modes of dissent and resistance that led the colonized become free countries.

 Financial and emotional supports from the Philippines played an important role in order the Propagandists to continue
their cause. oThe Filipino Ilustrados in the Philippines and Europe belonged to various currents that went into
movements and had various modes of acquiring independence of the Philippines from Spain. There were
assimilationist, reformist, propagandist, liberal, anti clerical, anti-friar, modernist, strictly nationalist, and eventually
separatist. Each Ilustrado need not to be categorized under one of the movements, for they sometimes belonged and
shared ideas with other circles.

 The differences with ideas and advocacies among Ilustrados will lead to non-conformities and conflicts.

 Though the propagandist played important roles in Europe, Rizal would come up with the idea that the battlefield will
no longer be in Madrid but in the Philippines.