Rizal: The greatest Malayan who ever lived

Today is the 164th birth anniversary of Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda. If Dr. Rizal were alive today, he would certainly be active on social media, he would have strong opinions about the last elections, about impeachment, and, of course, about the case of former president Duterte in The Hague.

Dr. Rizal was a polymath, a person who has multiple areas of knowledge and expertise. Many considered him a genius or a human being imbued with extraordinary intellectual power. In fact, former senate president Dr. Camilo Osias called him a versatile genius. It was written that his precocity since his early boyhood evolved into versatility in his adulthood. Gifted with an extraordinary sense of curiosity and an insatiable inquisitiveness, he mastered a lot of skills, talents and competencies.

Dr. Rizal was an actor, architect, agriculturist, ambassador of goodwill, animal lover, anthropologist, archeologist, ascetic. He was a book lover, botanist, businessman, cartographer, chess player, citizen of the world, commentator, conchologist, dramatist, economist, educator, essayist, and ethnologist. Rizal was also a farmer, father of community schools, fencer, folklorist, and a Freemason abroad. He was also a geographer, grammarian, historian, horticulturist, humorist, ichthyologist (collector of 38 varieties of fish) and inventor. He invented a cigarette lighter he called sulpakan.

Rizal was also a japanophile, a lover and practitioner of Japanese skills, culture and language. He was a journalist, a judoka, one who practiced and taught the Japanese martial arts and sport called Jigoro Kano. He was also a laboratory worker, a linguist who spoke 22 languages, including Tagalog, Ilocano, Bisayan, Subanon, Spanish, Latin, Greek, English, French, German, Arabic, Malay, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Dutch, Catalan, Italian, Chinese, Japanese. Portuguese, Swedish and Russian.

He was a lover of truth. His novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo were exposes on the lies by which the Spaniards brainwashed the minds of the Filipinos.  Rizal was also a musician, mythologist, nationalist, newspaperman, novelist, ophthalmologist, orientalist, painter, pharmacologist, philologist, philosopher, physical culturist, physician, plant lover, poet, politician, polyglot speaking and writing no less than 22 languages. He was also a proofreader, propagandist, public relations man, reformer, researcher, revolutionist, and rhetorician.

He was also a romantic. He loved many women: Segunda Katigbak, Leonor Valenzuela, Leonor Rivera, Consuelo Ortega, O-Sei San, Gertude Beckette, Nelly Boustead, Suzanne Jacoby, and Josephine Bracken. Rizal was a rural reconstruction worker and he did it in Dapitan in 1894. He transformed the rural village into a little paradise. He was also a sanitary engineer, a scientist, a sculptor, a sharp shooter who was an expert in using guns. He was also a sinologist for he studied Chinese culture, history, arts and language.

Rizal was also a sociologist, and a sodalist who loved to join fraternities and associations. He was a sportsman, a tourist who travelled to more than 30 countries. He was a translator, a traveler and a TB expert, a universalist, writer, youth leader and zoologist. There is no other Filipino, no other Asian who is a polymath, a polyglot and a genius who was able to do even one third of all the things that Rizal did.

Dr. Jose Rizal was born on June 19, 1861 and died on December 30, 1896. He was only 35 when he died. Had he lived longer, I am sure he could have written ten more novels and he could have become president of the Philippines. And he could have left children and grandchildren.  Just like Jesus Christ who died in his early thirties, Rizal left too soon, leaving the whole nation orphaned of such a great man.

If Dr. Jose Rizal were alive today, he would have volumes to lecture to the senators and the congressmen on the art and science of impeachment. It is very hard to find another Rizal in this century or even forever, He is the only true "sui generis."