Should the better hero be Rizal or Bonifacio?
Tomorrow, we celebrate the 155th anniversary of the birth of Gat Andres C. Bonifacio. Many of our millinneals today do not really know who was that Great Hero of the working class from Tondo.
When we were in college, we used to love debating whether the Philippine national hero should be Bonifacio instead of Dr. Jose P. Rizal. Bonifacio’s life was all suffering, pain, anguish and ignominy, while Rizal’s was all romances, arts, travels, applause for his exploits and admiration from the people. Bonifacio was an orphan and a peasant who had to work hard to feed his many brothers and sisters with manual labor. Rizal was showered with love by a doting mother, Dona Teodora Aloso who taught him the fundamentals. He had a very devoted father, hardworking and a very good provider. Rizal was adored by his elder brother Paciano who opted not to study but to work hard in the farm and send money to Rizal in Europe. Rizal.s many sisters loved him and nurtured him. Bonifacio was the sole breadwinner who never tasted any form of luxury.
The well-dressed and well-protected and nurtured Jose Rizal studied in Letran, the exclusive school in Manila where the sons and daughters of high military and civil officials, hacienderos and encomienderos were sent to be well-cultured and well-bred. He studied in the elite Catholic institution in Ateneo, where the Jesuits taught him philosophy, politics, psychology, geography and many other fields in humanities, sciences and arts. He studied in UST and became a doctor and a surgeon. Bonifacio was taught the basics writing, reading and arithmetic by his maternal aunt. He was too poor to afford formal education but on his own, he was a well-read young man. Rizal traveled to Spain, Germany, France, Italy and England. He became a well-traveled gentleman. Bonifacio was an ill-clad obrero who never got out of what is now Metro Manila and southern Tagalog.
Rizal was a lover of women. He had many romantic entanglements, from his own cousin, Leonor Rivera to Josephine Bracken. There were many in between, like Nelly Boustead from Europe and Osie-san from Japan. Bonifacio married Monica Palomar who died very young without any child. He then married, Gregoria de Jesus or Ka’ Oriang, a rich 29-year-old widow from a wealthy landed family from Caloocan. But Andres was rejected by Ka Oriang’s family because he was poor and unlettered. Rizal had a very beautiful life while Bonifacio’s story was all misfortune, rejection and struggles from poverty and social injustice. There could not have been a more distinctive contrast. This was dramatized by Rizal himself when he was portrayed as the ilustrado, Crisostomo Ibarra, while Bonifacio was the rebel Elias in Noli and Fili.
Rizal was all oratory, poetry, painting, fencing and writing, talking and thinking. Bonifacio was all action, without much discernment and planning. He walked from Tondo to Cavite and travelled the jungles of Montalban and Ternate, Cavite. Rizal was always riding a calesa or on a horse from Calamba to Binondo or Intramuros. Rizal was well-dressed like a gentleman from Europe complete with coat and tie and a European hat that gave him an urbane and metropolitan. Bonifacio was wearing old camisa chino, stained and soiled from toil and hard manual labor. Rizal was the perfect picture of an elitist son of the upper class. Bonifacio was the peasant boy who had to struggle to survive.
I was tempted to say that Bonifacio should be our national hero because his story is more reflective of the painful struggles of our people. But Bonifacio himself confessed that he was inspired to do what he did by the writings of Rizal. To me now, both should be declared our national heroes on equal footing. If Rizal had the Bonifacio’s passion for action, and had Bonifacio been gifted with the wisdom of Rizal, and if the two had lived a hundred years before 1898, we would not have been oppressed by Spain for 377 years.
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