If Dr. Jose Rizal were alive today

This year, Dr. Jose Rizal would have been 159 years old and this day is the 124th anniversary of his execution. He had a very dramatic life, and for one who died rather early, at age of 35, he accomplished so much, and touched the lives of so many people. Until today, he is being worshipped as God by the Rizalistas in Mount Banahaw in the ranges of Quezon Province.

Rizal wrote two very successful novels, hundreds of poems, essays and songs. He angered thousands of Spaniards by his provocative and pugnacious satires, sarcasms and died of multiple gunshots in a very dramatic execution by musketry. Had he died today, his last moment could be covered by CNN and other global networks. And anything monumental that he would do would become viral in a matter of minutes. He would have won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature or for World Peace. He could be on the cover of Time Magazine a number of times and declared Person of the Year. He could have been invited by President Biden on his oath-taking, and would be declared by ASEAN as the South Asia's answer to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

If Rizal were alive today, he would have had a YouTube channel and multiple accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Viber and all other social media. He would have had a column in Philippines Star and in The FREEMAN. He would have had a TV and a radio program, and he could have given the Tulfo brothers a run for their money. Perhaps, Rizal would have had a long array of libel charges as he loved to irritate the powerful, influential and wealthy people in the mold of Padre Damaso and Capitan Tiago. Rizal is the ultimate renaissance man, greater than Claro M Recto or Carlos P Romulo, or Camilo Osias, Renato Constantino or Napoleon G Rama. He would have been a great dissenter like Ninoy Aquino and Raul Manglapus and a potential presidential timber greater than Quezon, Osmeña, Roxas or Marcos.

If our national hero were here today, we would have already had a vaccine for COVID. He would have advised our president, congressmen, senators, and LGU leaders on the issues of traffic, floods, drugs and corruptions. Rizal would have been in the Senate or in Malacañang and the Philippines could have been respected by the whole world as a progressive, peaceful and modern country of law-abiding and productive people who can stand on their own without having to be spoonfed with ayuda or Pantawid Pamilya government subsidies and charities. Rizal would have exposed those corrupt and lazy members of Congress who are paid too much and do too little. He would have lambasted mayors and congressmen who are too inept, lazy or neglectful that they could not even solve a simple garbage problem.

Rizal would have had ten more NOLIs and ten more FILIs and his Capitan Tiagos would have been replaced by trapos who steal public funds in millions and replaced by drug lords, gambling lords and crime lords and war lords as well. Then Padre Damaso would have been replaced by these false prophets who make a lot of millions out of shouting "Praise The Lord" and who keep on milking the poor of their money with a promise of salvation through envelopes filled with cash donations. Rizal would have denounced men in garments who sexually abuse young boys in the convents and in the bible schools and seminaries. Rizal would have exposed all those who use the bible to become senators and congressmen and use the pulpit for politics, and have given Caesar what is God's and to God what is Caesar's. Rizal would have cursed and libeled the modern scribes and pharisees, the self-righteous.

But then again, Rizal would have either been killed again, and again by the gun-for-hires or been falsely imprisoned for telling the truth in an era governed by liars and thieves and by masked hypocrites. Rizal would have been summarily executed either by the NPA or by the police for exposing the dangerous maladies of the social cancers that still exist today and have never been mitigated since the days of Padre Damaso and Capitan Tiago.

But it is a cleansing process in a dirty world of garbage, filth and hedonism, to have a Rizal once in a while. He reminds us of all our sins and imperfections -- and make us guilty of the too little things we did in too long a time that Rizal did not have.