Should Rizal Day be moved to June 19?

Should Rizal Day be moved from December 30 to June 19? Not even national leaders have resolved the decades-long debate. There’s no quarrel about objectives; both sides desire wider awareness of Jose Rizal’s life and works. They differ on approaches and practicality.

Advocates of a shift to Rizal’s June 19 birth day raise many points. Like, does not memorializing his December 30 execution by colonists promote defeatism? Would not his kindling of Filipino nationalism be better appreciated if depicted in his tireless organizing of the Propaganda Movement while writing the “Noli” and “Fili”? Does not the sandwiching of Rizal Day between the Christmas-New Year frenzy reduce its relevance?

 Sticklers for December 30 have their own interrogatives. Does not Rizal’s courageous facing of imprisonment and death inspire Filipinos to national sacrifice? Shall we stray from extolling Rizal’s martyrdom – starting with an 1898 decree by President Emilio Aguinaldo two years after the tragedy – just to experiment with a new date? Despite the Christmas distraction, cannot Rizal imaginatively be popularized, along with yearlong teaching in primary school to college?

Those questions and more have been argued in countless classroom and town plaza debates since the 1950s. In 2006 then-National Historical Commission chairman Ambeth Ocampo lobbied Congress to enact the switch to June 19. Two years later the House of Representatives passed such move. But as it was during the Christmas rush, the Senate version was overtaken by other bills. Or was the Senate’s non-passage its way of nixing the date change? In 2011 President Noynoy Aquino ordered a one-time special holiday celebration of June 19, as Rizal’s 150th birthday.

Most Filipinos don’t care whether it’s December 30 or June 19. And it’s not for lack of interest in the national hero. Stories of Rizal invariably stir up wide following, if told in popular ways. Hits were the movies and tele-docus “Buhay at Pag-Ibig ni Dr. Jose Rizal,” starring Eddie del Mar, 1956; “Rizal sa Dapitan,” Albert Martinez, 1997; “Jose Rizal,” Cesar Montano, 1998; “Sisa,” Gardo Versoza, 1999; and “Bayaning 3rd World,” Joel Torre, 2000. (More Filipinos probably learned about the assassination of Gen. Antonio Luna from the 2015 movie than history textbooks.)

Whether in the heat of June or cool of December, Rizal’s story can be told in varied ways. It’s understandable for adolescents to lap up vignettes about Rizal’s love life. Laudable are efforts of academics to incite deeper research on the events that shaped Rizal and which he shaped. Among these were: his political awakening by Kuya Paciano who had witnessed the GomBurZa public execution; his subsequent associations with contemporary patriots Marcelo del Pilar, Mariano Ponce, Pedro Serrano Laktaw, Juan Luna, Isabelo delos Reyes, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and Pio Valenzuela; his exile to Dapitan; the impact of his novels on the emergent Katipunan; and the flurry of the Cry of Pugad Lawin and the Battle of Pinaglabanan that led to his wrongful indictment and sentencing as mastermind. Noteworthy sources: “Rizal in Saga,” by Quijano de Manila, 1996; “The I Stories,” compiled by Prof. Augusto de Viana, 2006.

Pinaglabanan was pivotal in Rizal’s and the nation’s entwined lives, emphasizes historian Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, whose first husband was a descendant of the hero. Andres Bonifacio’s ragtag army of 5,000 was massacred during and in the crackdown after that assault on the Spanish armory in San Juan. For days afterwards Spanish soldiers dragged suspected participants out of huts and bayoneted them in front of their families. Rivers north in San Mateo-Marikina and fields south in Pasig and Makati turned red with blood. So enraged were Filipinos that they rose as one in Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Laguna, Cavite, and Batangas – now represented by the eight rays of the sun in the Philippine flag. The colonial masters had to blame someone for it: Rizal.

Many lesser known events beg popularizing. Like, how did Mama Teodora Alonzo feel while washing Rizal’s exhumed skeletal remains, the arm bones still tied at the back with hemp. Or how Rizal’s visits inspired old and new acquaintances to join the underground that passed around copies of his novels, and later raise arms and money for the fight for freedom. Not to forget, Rizal’s passion for mass education, advancing biology and medicine, and invention of a parlor game called Sibylla recently published by great-grandniece Gemma Cruz Araneta.

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website http://www.philstar.com/author/Jarius%20Bondoc/GOTCHA