Module 10:

Jose Rizal and the Philippine

Nationalism:
Bayani and Kabayanihan
Bayanihan at Kabayanihan
 The word “Bayani” or hero in Filipino is
someone who saves somebody’s lives.
However, this word carries a deeper
context wherein only those people who
are willing to suffer and sacrifice
themselves for the good of the country
are worthy enough to be called as such.
Being called a hero requires a greater act
of bravery.
• Dr. Jose P. Rizal was a man of intellectual power and
artistic talent whom Filipinos honor as their national hero.
• Rizal is not only admired for possessing intellectual
brilliance but also for taking a stand and resisting the
Spanish colonial government.
• His death sparked a revolution to overthrow the tyranny,
Rizal will always be remembered for his compassion
towards the Filipino people and the country.
• Another remarkable hero that we all know is Andres
Bonifacio. The Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang
Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or KKK played a huge
role in the revolt of the Filipinos against the Spaniards.
According to Vallejo Jr., (2010), Filipinos also
remember General Antonio Luna as a brilliant,
brave soldier and tactician of the second phase
of the Revolution and the proverbial hothead
but never as the excellent scientist.

“I will fight and offer my life, my

small knowledge and science for the
liberation of the Motherland.”
- General Antonio Luna
 The heroism in real life does not require
someone to sacrifice his or her life to be
called a bayani. The people that we set up as
heroes are people that generally go above
and beyond in terms of the call of duty, they
do things that are extraordinary. The act of
heroism is debatable to some people
however, for any hero, it's enough just
knowing they helped someone else.
DR. JOSE P. RIZAL
 José Protasio Rizal Mercado Y Alonso Realonda
• Born on June 19, 1861
• His parents is Francisco Mercado and
Teodora Alonzo
• In the town of Calamba in the province of
Laguna
• He had nine sisters and one brother.
• At the early age of three, the future
political leader had already learned the
English alphabet. And, by the age of five,
he could already read and write.
• Rizal had been very vocal against the Spanish
government, but in a peaceful and progressive
manner.
• Through his writings, he exposed the
corruption and wrongdoings of government
officials as well as the Spanish friars.
• While in Barcelona, Rizal contributed essays,
poems, allegories, and editorials to the
Spanish newspaper, La Solidaridad.
• Most of his writings, both in his essays and
editorials, centered on individual rights and
freedom, specifically for the Filipino people.
• As part of his reforms, he even called for the
inclusion of the Philippines to become a
province of Spain.
• Among his best works, two novels stood out
from the rest – Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me
Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Reign of the
Greed).
• In both novels, Rizal harshly criticized the
Spanish colonial rule in the country and
exposed the ills of Philippine society at the
time, because he wrote about the injustices
and brutalities of the Spaniards in the country,
the authorities banned Filipinos from reading
the controversial books. Yet they were not able
to ban it completely.
• Days before his execution, Rizal bid farewell
to his motherland and countrymen through
one of his final letters, entitled Mi último
adiós or My Last Farewell.
• Dr. José Rizal was executed on the morning of
December 30, 1896, in what was then called
Bagumbayan (now referred to as Luneta).
• Upon hearing the command to shoot him, he
faced the squad and uttered in his final
breath: “Consummatum est” (It is finished).
According to historical accounts, only one
bullet ended the life of the Filipino martyr and
hero.
• The Americans decided for him being a
national hero at their time in the country. It
is said that the Americans, Civil Governor
William Howard Taft, chose Jose Rizal to be
the national hero as a strategy.
• Rizal didn't want bloody revolution in his
time. So they wanted him to be a "good
example" to the Filipinos so that the people
will not revolt against the Americans.
• Rizal became a National Hero because he
passed the criteria by being a National
Hero during the American period.
Adding that, Rizal passed the Criteria for
National Heroes:
1. Heroes are those who have a concept of
nation and thereafter aspire and struggle for
the nation’s freedom.
2. Heroes are those who define and contribute
to a system or life of freedom and order for a
nation.
3. Heroes are those who contribute to the
quality of life and destiny of a nation.
(As defined by Dr. Onofre D. Corpuz)
Additional Criteria for Heroes:
1. A hero is part of the people’s expression.
But the process of a people’s internalization
of a hero’s life and works takes time, with
the youth forming a part of the
internalization.
2. A hero thinks of the future, especially the
future generations.
3. The choice of a hero involves not only the
recounting of an episode or events in
history, but of the entire process that made
this particular person a hero.
PROGRESSIVE
EDUCATION
According to Kennedy, (2019)
Progressive education is a reaction to the
traditional style of teaching. It's a pedagogical
movement that values experience over
learning facts at the expense of understanding
what is being taught. When you examine the
teaching styles and curriculum of the 19th
century, you understand why certain
educators decided that there had to be a
better way.
Talisay: The First Progressive
School In Asia
• Upon his arrival in Dapitan, Rizal lived in the house of
the governor and military commandant, Capt.
Ricardo Carnicero, which was just across the town’s
central plaza.
• He later bought, with Carnicero and another Spaniard
residing in Dipolog, a lottery ticket.
• Rizal’s lottery ticket won second prize—20,000 pesos
—which was awarded on September 21, 1892, and
promptly divided among themselves by the three
men.
• From his share of 6,200 pesos, Rizal gave 2,000 pesos
to his father and 200 pesos to pay his debt to his
friend Basa in Hong Kong.
• The remained of his lottery earnings, Rizal was able to move
to Talisay, a coastal barrio off the Dapitan poblacion named
after the talisay, a large deciduous tree that is usually found
along Philippine seashores.
• Rizal bought a 16-hectare piece of land. But, as he noted in
his February 8, 1893 letter to his brother-in-law Manuel
Hidalgo, there were no talisay trees in Talisay, so Rizal
thought of naming his place Balunò or Baunò, after the large
trees that actually grew there.
• The first thing he did was to clear the land “to sow rice and
corn”. He built a house, clinic and school for local boys who
he described as mostly “poor and intelligent.”
On March 7, 1893, he wrote to Hidalgo saying:

“My house will be finished either tomorrow

or after tomorrow. It is very pretty for its
price (40 pesos) and it turned out better
than what I wanted. My lot cannot be
better and I am improving it every day...
I’m sure that if you come, you will be
pleased with my property. I have plenty of
land to accommodate at least five families
with houses and orchards.”
 SOCIAL
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
• Rizal engaged in what we now call “social
entrepreneurship”, perhaps the first Filipino,
if not the first Asian, to do so.
• Social entrepreneurship is innovative
business activity aimed principally at
benefiting and transforming the community
in which it is undertaken (with most of the
profit reinvested back into the community).
• Rizal formed Dapitan’s first farmers’ cooperative, the
Sociedad de Agricultores Dapitanos (SAD), where capital
was to be provided by “socios industriales” (industrial
partners) and “socios accionistas” (shareholders).
• As stated in the Estatutos de la Sociedad de Agricultores
Dapitanos, 1 Enero 1895, the SAD aimed to
“improve/promote agricultural products, obtain better
profits for them, provide capital for the purchase of
these goods, and help to the extent possible the
harvesters and laborers by means of a store (co-op)
where articles of basic necessity are sold at moderate
prices”.
• Rizal also engaged in a joint-venture with a
certain Carreon (a Spanish businessman) for the
construction and operation of a lime-burner (for
making building mortar), whereby Rizal would
provide capital and Carreon would mobilize and
supervise labor whose wages were to be paid by
Rizal; these advances would be deducted from
the sale proceeds of lime, the profit thereof to be
equally divided between Rizal and Carreon.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
• In his four years in Dapitan, Rizal played multiple roles:
doctor, social worker, farmer, social entrepreneur, public
works engineer, town planner, school founder, teacher
and scientist.
• He worked with the people as a civic volunteer, for he
was unwaged and without an official title. Whatever
earnings he made from his social entrepreneurship and
from his wealthy patients went to the upkeep of his
household, school and hospital.
• He took to his tasks with vigor and vitality—mindful that
they were all part of his pledge to do everything he could
for Dapitan. Rizal’s four years there are unparalled in the
history of the Philippines, if not Southeast Asia.
• The model community that Rizal built in Talisay has
since been made into a stale museum of replicas of
his house, school and clinic, sitting like fossilized
relics on manicured lawns for the benefit of the
uncomprehending tourist. This shrine, which is
overseen by the National Historical Commission
(formerly the National Historical Institute) but
managed by the local government, comprises 10
hectares of Rizal’s original 16-hectare property in
Talisay.
• The other six hectares were gifted by Rizal to his
pupil and valet Jose Acopiado in 1896, when he
set off for Manila enroute to Cuba. The Acopiado
heirs now occupy some three hectares; the rest
have been taken over by squatters, among them
a Rizalista cult. The beach is littered with the
plastic detritus of modern living.
• Many of Rizal’s community projects must have
been carried out through a system of
cooperative labor that we now call batarisan.
• We could likewise imagine that the many
recipients of Rizal’s services as a medical doctor,
a secondary school teacher, a community
worker, and organizer/manager of his farm
cooperative ‘paid’ or reciprocated by lending
their labor-time to his community projects.
• Even with minimal financial resources, the
projects were realized by sheer community
spirit.
RIZAL AWAKENED THE MIND
AND PERSPECTIVE OF
FILIPINOS TOWARDS
NATIONALISM
• Rizal’s chief aim was to reform Philippine
society, first by uncovering its ills and second,
by awakening the Filipino youth.
• His enemies were the oppressive colonial
government, but especially the corrupt
elements among the friars, members of the
religious orders that exerted the greatest
influence over the government and thereby held
complete sway over the lives of the Filipinos.
• Rizal knew the best way to awaken the youth
and lead them toward right action was through
education, but especially foreign education.
• For local education, being controlled by the
friars then kept the Filipinos in the dark, ignorant
of their rights and heritage- and meek in the face
of oppression. This was partly why he left for
Spain in 1882, to continue his studies there.
• His vision for the Filipinos, Rizal wrote his
comrade Mariano Ponce in 1888: “Let this be
our only motto: For the welfare of the Native
Land. On the day when all Filipinos should
think like him [Del Pilar] and like us, on that
day we shall have fulfilled our arduous mission,
which is the formation of the Filipino nation”.
• To Rizal that nation was a nation free of injustice,
oppression and corruption. May the Filipinos of
today finally begin fulfilling this timeless
challenge of Rizal.
GRACIAS POR ESCUCHAR
( THANK YOU FOR
LISTENING)