I.

Introduction
This qualitative research is to give background about the two nationalistic book of
Dr. Jose Rizal, El filibusterismo and Noli Me tangere. This will give the reader the
historical background of what had happened during those times of writing and
printing the said books. Also, this will give you the values and significance why do
we really need to study these. This term paper will give us the significance and value
of Rizal’s notable works that gave government the idea to enact a law in studying
Rizal in different schools and universities. Also, having this term paper, this will
explain the vastness of Philippine culture during Spanish Colonialism and what was
Rizal’s contribution to the status of Philippines.
This qualitative research was an attempt to study the extent of applicability of
academic freedom in Philippine education in terms of its concept and development.
The term has been defined as the freedom of the teacher or research worker in higher
institutions of learning to investigate and discuss the problems of his science and to
express his conclusions through publication or in the instructions of the students.
Political or ecclesiastical authorities or administrative officials of the institution are
barred from interfering with this right of the teacher unless the same is contrary to
professional ethics. Academic freedom is exclusively the domain of academic
community. Academic freedom may be viewed from two standpoints such as the
point of view of the educational institution and the point of view of the members of
the academe. The first point of view speaks of the freedom of the institution to
determine the qualification of its teachers, the course of study and admission policies.
From the standpoint of the members of the academe, academic freedom is the
freedom of the teacher or research workers in institutions of higher learning to
investigate and discuss the problems of his science and to express his conclusions
either through publications or in instructions of the students, without interference
from political or ecclesiastical authority, or from administrative officials of the
institution.

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II. Discussion
Nationalistic Novels
A. Noli Me Tangere

1. Background

Noli me tangere (Latin for Touch Me Not) is a novel written by José Rizal,
considered as one of the national heroes of the Philippines, during the colonization
of the country by Spain to expose the inequities of the Spanish Catholic priests and
the ruling government.

Originally written in Spanish, the book is more commonly published and

read in the Philippines in either Filipino or English. Together with its sequel, El
Filibusterismo, the reading of Noli is obligatory for high school students
throughout the archipelago.

José Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and medical doctor, conceived the idea of
writing a novel that would expose the ills of Philippine society after reading
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. He preferred that the prospective
novel express the way Filipino culture was backward, anti-progress, anti-
intellectual, and not conducive to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. He was
then a student of medicine in the Universidad Central de Madrid.

In a reunion of Filipinos at the house of his friend Pedro A. Paterno in

Madrid on 2 of January 1884, Rizal proposed the writing of a novel about the
Philippines written by a group of Filipinos. His proposal was unanimously
approved by the Filipinos present at the party, among who were Pedro, Maximino
Viola and Antonio Paterno, Graciano López Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de
Lete, Julio Llorente and Valentin Ventura. However, this project did not
materialize. The people who agreed to help Rizal with the novel did not write
anything. Initially, the novel was planned to cover and describe all phases of
Filipino life, but almost everybody wanted to write about women. Rizal even saw
his companions spend more time gambling and flirting with Spanish women.

2
Because of this, he pulled out of the plan of co-writing with others and decided to
draft the novel alone.

Noli Me Tangere was Rizal’s first novel. He was 26 at its publication. This
book was historically significant and was instrumental in the establishing of the
Filipino’s sense of national identity. The book indirectly influenced a revolution
although the author, José Rizal, actually advocated for direct representation to the
Spanish government and larger role of the Philippines inside the Spaniard political
affairs. The novel was written in Spanish, the language of the educated at a time
when Filipinos were markedly segregated by diverse native languages and regional
cultures.

According to Professor Eugenio Matibag of Iowa State University on his

studies, the title Noli Me Tangere cites Jesus’ words to Mary Magdalene at the
Resurrection: “Touch me not.” The condition of the country is, like that of the
risen Christ, vulnerable or delicate, but, as [Austin] Coate’s points out, “the title
also reads as a warning against picking up an explosive.”22 Coates continues:
“Noli Me Tangere does not call for independence; but it postulates it, and in a
compelling manner, as the only alternative if there is no reform.”23 The
protagonist of the Noli, Crisóstomo Ibarra, experiences a series of revelations and
confrontations with colonial authorities that convince him that the despotic rule of
the friars must end. Ibarra’s defiant actions thus incur their enmity and bring on a
order for his arrest. The novel illustrates the arrogance and despotism of the
Spanish colonists, and especially the priests, while exploring the bases for a
possible definition of a Philippine national culture. [Jorge]Bocobo adds that the
pages of the Noli “luminously express the national conscience, which rebukes evil,
oppression, avarice, intolerance, inferiority complex and subservience, and exalts
righteousness, patriotism, abnegation, love of freedom, nationalism and civic
virtue.”24

As previously stated, the principal target of the Noli’s as well as the Fili’s
critique is the abuses perpetrated by the friars and Guardia Civil of the Spanish
colony, both of which groups wielded enormous power and influence in the

3
politics of the colony. The unique circumstances of the Philippine frailocracy
require some further elaboration. As detailed by Coates, the Augustinian friars, the
Dominicans and the Franciscans not only controlled religious and intellectual life
in the Philippine villages and cities but also frequently ruled as local magistrates.
Practically every Philippine parish had its Spanish friar curate, one who dominated
administrative tasks that included inspecting taxes and schools, chairing health
boards, overlooking charities, taking censuses through the parish registry, and
issuing the identity cards, cédulas, that every citizen was required to carry under
pain of arrest and forced labor. Apart from their political tasks, the friars were also
privy to information gleaned from the confessional that they used to shameless
advantage. Finally, since education was carried out in the vernacular, the friars
were often the only ones of the village who commanded Spanish, the language of
taxation, commerce and government, a fact that all the more firmly consolidated
power in their hands and in the hands of the Spanish Creole class. It is
understandable, then, that the first revolts against Spanish rule were supported and
sometimes led by secular or native priests against the Dominican, Franciscan and
Jesuit clergy.25

Despite its denunciation of the friars, the Noli’s narrative challenges the
simplistic view of the novel as univocal propagandism by its interweaving of
various plots and varied, often contradictory political statements into one complex,
perhaps overwrought tapestry of Philippine society on the eve of revolution. What
follows is a basic synopsis for those unfamiliar with the novel. The protagonist
Crisóstomo Ibarra has returned after years abroad in Europe to Manila, and
reunites with his childhood love, María Clara. Ibarra then goes to his town of
Tondo, intending to establish a school there. In Tondo he discovers that his
deceased father, once embroiled in a conflict with the town curate, Padre Salví,
and the Spanish alfárez, was possibly killed as a result of that conflict, his corpse
removed from the cemetery and eventually tossed into a lake. Meanwhile, two
boys named Crispín and Basilio are accused by a sacristan of stealing thirty-two
pesos from the church where they work as acolytes. As a consequence, Crispín is
detained and tortured by a sadistic sacristan, Basilio is shot by the Guardia Civil,

4
and the poor boys’ mother, Sisa, goes mad with grief as she wanders the street in
desperate search of her sons. In addition to these outrages, we find out later, that
Padre Salví harbors an uncontrolled passion for María Clara that will lead to the
violation and devastation of Ibarra’s beloved by the immoral curate. At a ground-
breaking ceremony for the new school, the same Padre Salví engineers a failed plot
to kill his rival Ibarra. Ibarra later throws a fiesta at his house, where insults by
Padre Dámaso directed Ibarra’s father impel Ibarra to threaten the priest’s life, an
act for which the protagonist is excommunicated.

Padre Salví creates his own ruse in starting up a false rebellion and making
it appear, through false witnesses, that Ibarra is the instigator. Although Ibarra has
insisted on the virtues of patience in dealing with the Spanish, he soon realizes that
he must flee the Guardia Civil and burn incriminating letters penned by his father.
Through those letters, fellow reformist and outlaw Elías discovers that Ibarra’s
grandfather had caused the downfall of Elías’s grandfather. Elías nearly carries out
his revenge plot to kill Crisóstomo, but—another narrative ruse—he follows
another plot, remaining faithful to Ibarra, even sacrificing his life for Ibarra’s by
drowning in the waters of the Pasig when the authorities close in on them. With
this sacrifice Ibarra takes up where Elías left off. With the law in hot pursuit, Ibarra
bids farewell to María Clara, who reveals during that last encounter that María’s
real father is Padre Dámaso, and that the same father has, using letters that Ibarra
had sent to María, forged letters that implicated the youth in the trial for
insurrection. Now a fugitive from justice, Ibarra becomes, in his own words, a
“true filibustero”.

Ibarra’s conversion is complete. Much earlier, Ibarra had admitted to Tasio,

who says that one must either bow one’s head or let it fall, that he loved both the
Philippines and Spain, and that Christian principle did not require him to humble
oneself or defy the mother country: “amo a España, la patria de mis mayores,
porque, a pesar de todo, Filipinas le debe y le deberá su felicidad y su porvenir”
[“I love Spain, the motherland of my elders, because in spite of everything,
Filipinas owes her and will owe her, her happiness and future." --Elizabeth

5
Medina translation] only after his downfall at the hands of the friars, however,
Ibarra, like the vengeful Elías, will abjure happiness but sustain his identification
with the suffering country. Elías declared:

. . .Es verdad que yo no puedo amar ni ser feliz en mi país, pero puedo
sufrir y morir en él, y acaso por él. . . . ¡Que la desgracia de mi patria sea mi propia
desgracia y puesto que no nos une un noble pensamiento, puesto que no laten
nuestros corazones a un solo nombre, al menos que a mis paisanos me una la
común desventura, al menos que llore yo con ellos nuestros dolores, que un mismo
infortunio oprima nuestros corazones todos! [“It's true that I cannot love or be
happy in my country, but I can suffer and die in it, and perhaps for it -- that is
always something. May the misfortunes of my native land be my own misfortunes
and, although no noble sentiment unites us, although our hearts do not beat to a
single name, at least may the common calamity bind me to my countrymen, at
least may I weep over our sorrows with them, may the same hard fate oppress all
our hearts alike!" – Derbyshire Translation]

Elías’s solidarity in sorrow with his country folk, contradicting Ibarra’s

hispanophilia and seems to prevail throughout the unfolding of the Noli. The
novel’s accumulation of grievances against Spanish misrule takes us along that
detour. Yet Rizal’s narrative, as it catches us up in sympathetic identification with
the cabal of the filibusteros, warns us of the probable futility of insurgency. “Todo
se sabe,” [“The cat is out of the bag” -- Elizabeth Medina translation] reads the
epigraph for Chapter XXXVII of the Fili, and what is known includes the unhappy
outcome of the anti-colonial cause. The narrative is reduced to warning that the
abuse of authority, especially on the part of the friars, has to end if Spain does not
want to lose its dominion in the Philippines. And if she did not live up to her
purported ideals in the islands, Rizal, taking a realistic attitude toward the question
of resistance, preferred a gradual solution to outright rebellion: things would
eventually improve, according to this alternative line of reasoning, and other
nations could possibly intervene or otherwise promote change in the Philippines.26

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 Despite the realist appeal of the Noli, the novel’s text pulls toward a more
self-referential mode on numerous occasions. The action of the plot and subplots is
melodrama, a sort oftremendismo [fearfulness] , as when Elías’s mother is said to
have discovered the severed head of his filibustero brother hanging from a tree, in
a basket .On other occasions, art and artifice themselves are the topics. At one
point the Noli’s narrator observes that “El Filipino gusta del teatro y asiste con
pasión a las representaciones dramáticas” ["The Filipino enjoys theater
enthusiastically attends dramatic presentations." -- Elizabeth Medina translation]
This comment comes on the eve of the town festival, in which thegobernadorcillos
have permitted the town to present not the popularly favored Tagalog drama but
only a Spanish comedia, El príncipe Villardo o los clavos arrancados de la infame
cueva, [spectacle … ‘The Prince Villardo or the Captives Rescued from the
Infamous Cave.’" – Derbyshire Translation] featuring pyrotechnics and magical
illusion. The fireworks prefigure other pyrotechnics about to break out: shortly into
the performance, an explosion attributed to the filibusteros shatters the event.
Another performance, of the operetta Les Cloches de Corneville, with its “gay
chorus of Corneville peasants”, distracts its privileged audience from the
desperation of the Philippine peasantry. Although the epigraph for chapter LIV,
taken from the Dies Irae, states that “Quid quid latet, adparebit / Nil inulfum
remanebit”(Everything that was hidden will be revealed; nothing will go
unpunished), and although characters such as Elías can recite lists of crimes
committed by the Guardia Civil, crimes familiar to Rizal’s Filipino readers, the
entire Noli is also a performance and artifice for their benefit, spectators who will
watch therein the satiric reflection of their own cultural drama and the divergent
plotting of their own national history, leaving them free to draw their own
conclusions.

2. Title

The title is Latin for "Touch me not", and is taken from John 20:17 in the
Bible, where a newly-risen Jesus admonishes a bewildered Mary Magdalene:
"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father."

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 Early English translations of the novel used titles like An Eagle Flight
(1900) and The Social Cancer (1912), disregarding the symbolism of the title, but
the more recent translations were published using the original Latin title. It has
also been noted by the Austro-Hungarian writer Ferdinand Blumentritt that "Noli
me tangere" was a name used by ophthalmologists for cancer of the eyelids; that
as an ophthalmologist himself Rizal was influenced by this fact is suggested in the
novel's dedication, "To My Country".

3. Plot

Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y

Magsalin came back to the Philippines after a seven-year absence. In his honor,
Don Santiago de los Santos, also known as "Captain Tiago", a family friend,
threw a welcome home party, attended by friars and other prominent figures. One
of the guests, Fray Dámaso Verdolagas, the former curate of San Diego, belittled
and slandered Ibarra.

The next day, Ibarra visits his betrothed María Clara, the beautiful
daughter of Captain Tiago and affluent resident of Binondo. Their long-standing
love was clearly manifested in this meeting, and María Clara cannot help but
reread the letters her sweetheart had written her before he went to Europe. Before
Ibarra left for San Diego in time for the town fiesta, Lieutenant Guevara, a Civil
Guard, reveals to him the incidents preceding the death of his father, Don Rafael
Ibarra, a rich hacendero of the town.

According to Guevara, Don Rafael was unjustly accused of being a

heretic, in addition to being a subversive — an allegation brought forth by
Dámaso because of Don Rafael's non-participation in the Sacraments, such as
Confession and Mass. Fr. Dámaso's animosity towards Ibarra's father is
aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael helped out in a fight between a
tax collector and a child, with the former's death being blamed on him, although it
was not deliberate. Suddenly, all those who thought ill of him surfaced with
additional complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter was almost

8
settled, he died of sickness in jail. His remains, formerly interred at the local
cemetery, were removed as per Fray Dámaso's orders a few years past.

Revenge was not in Ibarra's plans, instead he carried through his father's
plan of putting up a school, since he believed education would pave the way to his
country's progress (all throughout the novel, the author refers to both Spain and
the Philippines as two different countries but part of the same nation or family,
with Spain seen as the mother and the Philippines as the daughter). During the
inauguration of the school, Ibarra would have been killed in a sabotage had Elías
— a mysterious man who had warned Ibarra earlier of a plot to assassinate him —
not saved him. Instead the hired killer met an unfortunate incident and died.

After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon which Fr. Dámaso gate-
crashed. The friar again insulted Ibarra, who ignored the priest's insolence, but
when the latter slandered the memory of his dead father, he was no longer able to
restrain himself and lunged at Dámaso, prepared to stab him. Consequently,
Dámaso excommunicated Ibarra for assaulting a cleric, taking this opportunity to
persuade the already-hesitant Tiago to forbid his daughter from marrying Ibarra.
The friar instead wanted María Clara to marry Alfonso Linares de Espadaña, a
Peninsular who just arrived from Spain.

With the help of the Governor-General, Ibarra's excommunication was

lifted and the Archbishop of Manila decided to receive him into the Church once
again.

A revolt happened soon after, and both Spanish colonial officials and
friars implicated Ibarra as its mastermind. Thus, he was arrested and detained,
later disdained by those who had become his friends.

Meanwhile, in Capitan Tiago's residence, a party was being held to

announce the upcoming wedding of María Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help
of Elías, took this opportunity to escape from prison. Before leaving, Ibarra spoke
to María Clara and accused her of betraying him, thinking she gave the letter he
wrote her to the jury. María Clara explained that she would never conspire against

9
him, but that she was forced to surrender Ibarra's letter to Father Salví, in
exchange for the letters written by her mother, Doña Pia, even before she, María
Clara, was born.

María Clara, thinking Ibarra had been killed in the shooting incident, was
greatly overcome with grief. Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she
asked Dámaso to confine her to a nunnery. Dámaso reluctantly agreed when she
threatened to take her own life, demanding, "The nunnery or death!"
Unbeknownst to her, Ibarra was still alive and able to escape, as it was Elías who
had taken the shots.

It was Christmas Eve when Elías woke up, fatally wounded, in the forest
where he had instructed Ibarra to meet him. Instead, Elías found the altar boy
Basilio cradling his already-dead mother, Sisa. The woman had lost her mind after
learning that Basilio and her other son, Crispín, were chased out of the convento
by the sacristan mayor on suspicions of stealing two gold pieces.

Elías, convinced he would die soon, instructs Basilio to build a funeral

pyre and cremate his and Sisa's corpses. He tells Basilio that, if nobody reaches
the place, he was to return later and dig as he would find gold. Elías then tells the
boy to take the gold and use it to get an education. In his dying breath, he
instructed Basilio to continue dreaming about freedom for his motherland with the
words:

“ I shall die without seeing the dawn break upon my homeland. You, who
shall see it, salute it! Do not forget those who have fallen during the night. ”

Elías died thereafter.

In the epilogue, it was explained that Tiago became addicted to opium and
was seen to frequent the opium house in Binondo. María Clara became a nun and
Salví, who had lusted after her from the beginning of the novel, regularly, used
her to save his carnal desires. One stormy evening, a beautiful yet insane woman
was seen on the roof of the nunnery, crying and cursing the heavens for the fate it

10
 had handed her. While the woman was never identified by name, the novel
insinuates that it was María Clara.

4. Publication History

Rizal finished the novel in December 1886. At first, according to one of

Rizal's biographers, Rizal feared the novel might not be printed, and that it would
remain unread. He was struggling with financial constraints at the time and
thought it would be hard to pursue printing the novel.

Financial aid came from a friend named Máximo Viola; this helped him
print the book at Berliner Buchdruckerei-Aktiengesellschaft in Berlin. Rizal was
initially hesitant, but Viola insisted and ended up lending Rizal ₱300 for 2,000
copies. The printing was finished earlier than the estimated five months. Viola
arrived in Berlin in December 1886, and by March 21, 1887, Rizal had sent a
copy of the novel to his friend, Blumentritt.

According to Hanne Badijiles on her studies about Jose Rizal, When Rizal
read Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel on the abuse of black
slaves in America, he thought that a novel should be written about the abuses that
Philippine natives were suffering at the hands of the Spanish friars. He proposed
to his Filipino friends in Madrid in 1884 that they collaborate in writing a novel
on the Philippines. This group of friends included his hosts, the Paternos (Pedro,
Maximo, and Antonio), and Graciano Lopez Jaena. Although the others approved
of the idea of writing on Philippine life, they all wanted to write about women
rather than about national problems and in any case preferred to gamble and flirt
than to write. Rizal then decided he would have written the entire book himself.

Rizal began work on the Noli while still in Madrid, Spain. Of the
remainder, most was written in Paris, France. He finished the book in Berlin,
Germany. Vicente Blasco Ibañez, a well-known writer and political activist,
volunteered to be the proofreader and consultant.

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 When he was finishing the book in December 1886, Rizal was penniless
and despaired of ever publishing it. The novel might never have seen print had it
not been for the support of his wealthy friend, Maximo Viola, who came to visit
him in Berlin. Rizal gratefully presented him with the galley proofs of Noli on 29
March 1887.

5. Reaction and Legacy

This novel and its sequel, El filibusterismo (nicknamed El fili), were

banned in Spanish Philippines because of their portrayal of corruption and abuse
by the colonial government and the Catholic Church. Copies of the book were
nevertheless smuggled in and hidden, and when Rizal returned to the Philippines
after completing medical studies, he quickly ran afoul of the local government. A
few days after his arrival, Rizal was summoned to Malacañang Palace by
Governor-General Emilio Terrero, who told him of the charge that Noli me
tangere contained subversive elements. After a discussion, Terrero was appeased
but still unable to offer resistance to pressure from the Church against the book.
The persecution can be discerned from Rizal's letter to Leitmeritz:

“ My book made a lot of noise; everywhere, I am asked about it. They

wanted to anathematize me ['to excommunicate me'] because of it... I am
considered a German spy, an agent of Bismarck; they say I am a Protestant, a
freemason, a sorcerer, a damned soul and evil. It is whispered that I want to draw
plans, that I have a foreign passport and that I wander through the streets by
night... ”

Rizal was exiled to Dapitan in Mindanao, and then later arrested for
"inciting rebellion" based largely on his writings. Rizal was executed by firing
squad at the Luneta outside Manila's walls on December 30, 1896 at the age of
thirty-five, at the park that now bears his name.

6. Influence on Filipino Nationalism

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 Rizal depicted nationality by emphasizing the positive qualities of
Filipinos: the devotion of a Filipina and her influence on a man's life, the deep
sense of gratitude, and the solid common sense of the Filipinos under the Spanish
regime.

The work was instrumental in creating a unified Filipino national identity

and consciousness, as many natives previously identified with their respective
regions. It lampooned, caricatured and exposed various elements in colonial
society. Two characters in particular have become classics in Filipino culture:
María Clara, who has become a personification of the ideal Filipina woman,
loving and unwavering in her loyalty to her spouse; and the priest Father Dámaso,
who reflects the covert fathering of illegitimate children by members of the
Spanish clergy.

The book indirectly influenced the Philippine Revolution of independence

from Spain, even though Rizal actually advocated direct representation to the
Spanish government and an overall larger role for the Philippines within Spain's
political affairs. In 1956, Congress passed Republic Act 1425, more popularly
known as the Rizal Law, which requires all levels in Philippine schools to teach
the novel as part of their curriculum. Noli me tangere is being taught to third year
secondary school students, while its sequel El filibusterism is being taught for
fourth year secondary school students. The novels are incorporated to their study
and survey of Philippine literature. Both of Rizal's novels were initially banned
from strict Catholic educational institutions given its negative portrayal of the
Church, but this taboo has been largely superseded as religious schools conformed
to the Rizal Law.

7. Major Characters

 Crisóstomo Ibarra

Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin commonly referred to the novel as

Ibarra or Crisóstomo, is the novel's protagonist. The mestizo (mixed-race) son of

13
Filipino businessman Don Rafael Ibarra, he studied in Europe for seven years.
Ibarra is also María Clara's fiancé.

Several sources claim that Ibarra is also Rizal's reflection: both studied in
Europe and both persons believe in the same ideas. Upon his return, Ibarra
requested the local government of San Diego to construct a public school to
promote education in the town.

Is a young ilustrado who has been studying in Europe for 7 years

according to the wishes of his father, Influenced by his father, his studies and his
observations of other countries, he has developed patriotic and progressive ideas
which he wishes to put into action in his country. (RIZAL)

 María Clara

María Clara de los Santos y Alba, commonly referred to as María Clara, is

Ibarra's fiancée and the most beautiful and widely celebrated girl in San Diego.
She was raised by Capitan Tiago de los Santos, San Diego's cabeza de barangay
(town head), and his cousin, Isabel. In the later parts of the novel, she was
revealed to be an illegitimate daughter of Father Dámaso, the comer curate of the
town, and Doña Pía Alba, Capitan Tiago's wife, who had died giving birth to
María Clara.

At the novel's end, a heartbroken yet resolved María Clara entered the
Beaterio de Santa Clara (a nunnery) after learning the truth of her parentage and
mistakenly believing her lover Crisóstomo to have been killed. In the epilogue,
Rizal stated that it is unknown if María Clara is still living within the walls of the
convent or she is already dead.

is Ibarra’s faithful, pure and modest sweetheart. She is the portrait of an

ideal woman. (LEONOR RIVERA)

 Capitan Tiago

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 Don Santiago de los Santos, known by his nickname Tiago and political
title Capitan Tiago is a Filipino businessman and the cabeza de barangay
(barangay head) of the town of San Diego. He is also known as the father of
María Clara.

In the novel, it is said that Capitan Tiago is the richest man in the region of
Binondo and he possessed real properties in Pampanga and Laguna de Bay. He is
also said to be a good Catholic, a friend of the Spanish government and thus was
considered a Spaniard by the colonial elite. Capitan Tiago never attended school,
so he became the domestic helper of a Dominican friar who gave him an informal
education. He later married Pía Alba from Santa Cruz.

he accepts Maria Clara as his own daughter. (CAPT. HILARIO SUNICO)

 Padre Dámaso

Dámaso Verdolagas, or Padre Dámaso is a Franciscan friar and the former

parish curate of San Diego. He is notorious for speaking with harsh words,
highhandedness, and his cruelty during his ministry in the town. An enemy of
Crisóstomo's father, Don Rafael Ibarra, Dámaso is revealed to be María Clara's
biological father. Later, he and María Clara had bitter arguments whether she
would marry Alfonso Linares de Espadaña (which he preferred) or to enter the
nunnery (her desperate alternative). At the end of the novel, he is again reassigned
to a distant town and later found dead in his bed.

was once a good friend of Ibarra’s father. He was, until the start of the
novel, the domineering and condescending curate of San Diego, where the
property of the Ibarra family is located, and continues to be a powerful figure in
San Diego. He was the biological father of Maria Clara, as he takes advantage of
Donya Pia, mother of Maria Clara and wife of Capitan Tiago. (DOMINEERING
FRIARS DURING RIZAL DAYS)

 Elías

15
 Elías is Ibarra's mysterious friend and ally. Elías made his first appearance
as a pilot during a picnic of Ibarra and María Clara and her friends. He wants to
revolutionize the country and to be freed from Spanish oppression.

The 50th chapter of the novel explores the past of Elías and history of his
family. In the past, Ibarra's great-grandfather condemned Elías' grandfather of
burning a warehouse which led to misfortune for Elías' family. His father was
refused the hand of his mother as her family had discovered his past and lineage.
In the long run, Elías and his twin sister were raised by their maternal grandfather.
When they were teenagers, their distant relatives called them hijos de bastardo
(illegitimate children). One day, his sister disappeared which led him to search for
her. His search led him into different places, and finally, he became a fugitive and
subversive.

a common laborer whose family has suffered much, dreams of revolution.

(RIZAL)

 Pilosopo Tacio

Filosofo Tacio, known by his Totalized name Pilosopo Tasyo, is another

major character in the story. Seeking for reforms from the government, he
expresses his ideals in paper written in a cryptographic alphabet similar from
hieroglyphs and Coptic figures hoping "that the future generations may be able to
decipher it" and realized the abuse and oppression done by the conquerors.

His full name is only known as Don Anastasio. The educated inhabitants
of San Diego labeled him as Filosofo Tacio (Tacio the Sage) while others called
him as Tacio el Loco (Tacio the Insane) due to his exceptional talent for
reasoning.

is an old man who received an excellent education in his youth but was
persuaded into discontinuing hi studies, which he was told would lead hi away
from his faith. (PACIANO)

 Doña Victorina

16
 Doña Victorina de los Reyes de Espadaña, commonly known as Doña
Victorina, is an ambitious Filipina who classifies herself as Spanish and mimics
Spanish ladies by putting on heavy make-up. The novel narrates Doña Victorina's
younger days: she had lots of admirers, but she spurned them all because none of
them were Spaniards. Later on, she met and married Don Tiburcio de Espadaña,
an official of the customs bureau ten years her junior. However, their marriage is
childless.

Her husband assumes the title of medical "doctor" even though he never
attended medical school; using fake documents and certificates, Tiburcio illegally
practices medicine. Tiburcio's usage of the title Dr. consequently makes Victorina
assume the title Dra. (Doctora, female doctor). Apparently, she uses the whole
name Doña Victorina de los Reyes de Espadaña, with double due to emphasize
her marriage surname. She seems to feel that this awkward titling makes her more
"sophisticated."

is a native woman who had strong hallucinations of being a superior

Castilian and looks down on her own people as inferior beings (DONYA
AGUSTINA MEDEL)

 Sisa, Crispín and Basilio

Sisa, Crispín, and Basilio represent a Filipino family persecuted by the Spanish
authorities:

• Narcisa or Sisa is the deranged mother of Basilio and Crispín. Described

as beautiful and young, although she loves her children very much, she cannot
protect them from the beatings of her husband, Pedro.

is the mother of Crispin and Basilio. (SUFFERING MOTHERLAND)

• Crispín is Sisa's 7-year-old son. An altar boy, he was unjustly accused of

stealing money from the church. After failing to force Crispín to return the money
he allegedly stole, Father Salví and the head sacristan killed him. It is not directly

17
stated that he was killed, but a dream of Basilio's suggests that Crispín died during
his encounter with Padre Salvi and his minion.

brother of Basilio who dies at the hands of the sacristan mayor and Padre
Salvi. (ONE OF THE CRISOSTOMO SIBLINGS OF HAGONOY)

• Basilio is Sisa's 10-year-old son. An acolyte tasked with ring the church's
bells for the Angelus; he faced the dread of losing his younger brother and the
descent of his mother into insanity. At the end of the novel, a dying Elías
requested Basilio to cremate him and Sisa in the woods in exchange for a chest of
gold located nearby. He will later play a major role in El filibusterismo.

Due to their tragic but endearing story, these characters are often parodied
in modern Filipino popular culture.

brother of Crispin and son of Sisa and Pedro. Last person to see Elias
alive. (ONE OF THE CRISOSTOMO SIBLINGS OF HAGONOY)

• Salomé - Elías' sweetheart. She lived in a little house by the lake, and
though Elías would like to marry her, he tells her that it would do her or their
children no good to be related to a fugitive like himself. In the original publication
of Noli, the chapter that explores the identity of Elías and Salomé was omitted,
classifying her as a total non-existing character. This chapter, entitled Elías y
Salomé was probably the 25th chapter of the novel. However, recent editions and
translations of Noli provide the inclusion of this chapter, either on the appendix or
renamed as Chapter X (Ex).

• Enjolras – The leader of Les Amis de l'ABC (Friends of the ABC) in the
Paris uprising. He was passionately committed to republican principles and the
idea of progress. He and Grantaire are executed by the National Guards after the
barricade falls.

8. Other Characters

18
 There are a number of secondary and minor characters in Noli me tangere.
Items indicated inside the parenthesis are the standard Filipinization of the
Spanish names in the novel.

• Padre Hernándo de la Sibyla – a Dominican friar. He is

described as short and has fair skin. He is instructed by an old priest in his order
to watch Crisóstomo Ibarra.

• Padre Bernardo Salví – the successor of Padre Dámaso as the

Franciscan curate of San Diego, and who secretly lusts after María Clara. He is
described to be very thin and sickly. It is also hinted that his surname, "Salvi" is
the shorter form of "Salvi" ("salvation"), or "Salvi" is short for "salvaje"
("savage", "wild") hinting at the fact that he is willing to kill an innocent child,
Crispín, who he accused of stealing money worth 2 onzas.

is the new parish priest of San Diego, who lusts Maria Clara. (FR.
ANTONIO PIERNAVIEJA)

• El Alférez (Alperes) – the unnamed chief of the Guardia Civil and

husband of Doña Consolación. He is the sworn enemy of the priests in the town's
power struggle.

• Doña Consolación – wife of the Alférez, nicknamed as la musa de

los guardias civiles (The muse of the Civil Guard) or la Alféreza. She was a
former laundrywoman who passes herself as a peninsular, and is best remembered
for her abusive treatment of Sisa.

• Don Tiburcio de Espadaña – A Spanish quack doctor who is

weak and submissive to his pretentious wife, Doña Victorina.

• Teniente Guevara - a close friend of Don Rafael Ibarra. He

reveals to Crisóstomo how Don Rafael Ibarra's death came about.

• Alfonso Linares – A distant nephew of Tiburcio de Espadaña, the

would-be fiancé of María Clara. Although he presented himself as a practitioner

19
of law, it was later revealed that he is, like Don Tiburcio, a fraud. He later died
from medications Don Tiburcio had given him.

• Tía Isabel - Capitan Tiago's cousin, who helped raise María Clara
and served as a surrogate mother figure.

• Governor General (Gobernador Heneral) – Unnamed in the

novel, he is the most powerful colonial official in the Philippines. He harbors
great disdain for the friars and corrupt officials, and sympathizes with Ibarra.

• Don Filipo Lino – vice mayor of the town of San Diego, leader of
the liberals.

• Padre Manuel Martín - he is the linguist curate of a nearby town

who delivers the sermon during San Diego's fiesta.

• Don Rafael Ibarra - the deceased father of Crisóstomo Ibarra.

Though he was the richest man in San Diego, he was also the most virtuous and
generous.

• Dona Pía Alba - wife of Capitan Tiago and mother of María

Clara, she had died giving birth to her daughter. In reality, she was raped by Padre
Dámaso.

Non-recurring characters

These characters were as mentioned in the novel, appeared once,

mentioned many times or have no major contribution to the storyline.

• Don Pedro Ibarramendia - the great-grandfather of Crisóstomo

Ibarra who came from the Basque region of Spain, and whose descendants
abbreviated their surname toIbarra. He started the misfortunes of Elías' family. He
died of unknown reasons, but was seen as a decaying corpse on a Balete tree.

20
 • Don Saturnino Ibarra - the son of Don Pedro, father of Don
Rafael and grandfather of Crisóstomo Ibarra. He was the one who developed the
town of San Diego. He was described as a cruel man but was very clever.

• Sinang - Maria Clara's petite, cheerful, and lively friend. Because

Crisóstomo Ibarra offered half of the school he was building to Sinang, he gained
Capitan Basilio's support.

• Andeng - Maria Clara's childhood friend. She is like a sister to

Maria Clara since they shared the same wet nurse. She has a clear, cheerful look
and a reputation for being a good cook. Her name is a diminutive of the name
"Miranda" with the Tagalog participle "ng".

• Iday, Neneng and Victoria - Maria Clara's other friends.

• Capitan Basilio - Sinang's father, leader of the conservatives.

• Pedro – the abusive husband of Sisa who loves cockfighting.

• Tandáng Pablo – the leader of the tulisanes (bandits), whose

family was destroyed because of the Spaniards.

• El hombre Amarillo (Taong Madilaw, "The yellow man") - one

of Ibarra's would-be assassins. He is not named in the novel, and only described
as such. In the novel, he carved the cornerstone for Ibarra's school. Instead of
killing Ibarra, he was killed by his cornerstone.

• Lucas - the brother of the Taong Madilaw. He planned a

revolution against the government with Ibarra as the leader after he was turned
down by Ibarra. He was said to have a scar on his left cheek. He would later be
killed by the Sacristan Mayor.

• Bruno and Tarsilo – a pair of brothers whose father was killed by

the Spaniards.

21
 • Ñor Juan (Ñol Juan) - appointed as foreman of the school to be
built by Ibarra

• Capitana Tika (Rustica) - Sinang's mother and wife of Capitan

Basilio.

• Albino - a former seminarian who joined the picnic with Ibarra

and María Clara. He was later captured during the revolution.

• Capitana María Elena - a nationalist woman who defends Ibarra

of the memory of his father.

• Capitan Tinong and Capitan Valentín - other known people

from the town of San Diego.

• Sacristan Mayor - the unnamed church functionary who governs

the altar boys and later murdered Crispín.

B. El Filibusterismo
1. Background

El Filibusterismo (lit. Spanish for "The Filibustering.), also known by its

English alternate title The Reign of Greed,is the second novel written
by Philippine national hero José Rizal. It is the sequel to Noli me tangere and, like
the first book, was written in Spanish. It was first published in 1891 in Ghent,
Belgium.

The novel's dark theme departs dramatically from the previous novel's
hopeful and romantic atmosphere, signifying the character Ibarra's resort to
solving his country's issues through violent means, after his previous attempt at
reforming the country's system have made no effect and seemed impossible with
the attitudes of the Spaniards towards the Filipinos. The novel, along with its
predecessor, was banned in some parts of the Philippines as a result of their
portrayals of the Spanish government's abuse and corruption. These novels along
with Rizal's involvement in organizations that aim to address and reform the

22
Spanish system and its issues led to Rizal's exile to Dapitan and
eventual execution. Both the novel and its predecessor, along with Rizal's last
poem, are now considered Rizal's literary masterpieces.

Both of Rizal's novels had a profound effect on Philippine society in terms

of views about national identity, the Catholic faith and its influence on Filipino's
choice, and the government's issues of corruption, abuse, and discrimination, and
on a larger scale, the issues related to the effect of colonization on people's lives
and the cause for independence. These novels later on indirectly became the
inspiration to start the Philippine Revolution.

Throughout the Philippines, the reading of both the novel and its
predecessor is now mandatory for high school students throughout the
archipelago, although it is now read using English, Filipino, and the Philippines'
regional languages.

El Filibusterismo, as a sequel to Noli Me Tangere, continues the Noli’s

plot but also contains what is in effect a met fictional. Met fiction is a type of
fiction in which the writer intentionally makes the reader aware that the reader is,
indeed, reading fiction and not lost in the illusion that that the fiction is a reality.
It is often self-reflective and uses irony. The Spanish writer Cervantes’ novel
Don Quixote, which was beloved by Rizal, is such an example. In modern times
it is often found in postmodern fiction. Rereading with commentary of the first
novel. Crisóstomo Ibarra reappears in the Fili intending to lead the revolt that he
promised to foment in the Noli. As expressed in his dedication to the Fili, Rizal
had in mind the Cavite Revolt of 1872 and the execution, in the same year, of the
three priests accused of leading it. To these priests he dedicated the novel.
Mahajani notes the manner in which the Fili plots a three-stage nationalist
response to Spanish colonialism: from “multi-faceted passive nationalism through
organizational nationalism into a militant revolutionary nationalism” . Despite its
nationalist “thesis,” however, the Fili elaborates not so much a militant stance as a
critical revolutionism by a series of narrative deviations and disfigurations, most
notably in the transformation of the complacent and reformist Ibarra into the

23
sinister anarchist Simoun. As a key character in the novel—it has no real
protagonist as did the Noli—Simoun serves as a strange model of the filibusteroas
untimely subversive.

Turning to the text of El Filibusterismo, one can spot the first of a number
of ruses on the dedicatory page, which addresses both “The Philippine people and
the Spanish Government.” Speaking to two addressees, the novel has no single
message, but several strongly formulated messages, some mutually contradictory.
One inferable message is the familiar one, telling the Spanish Government that it
had better institute reforms. Such reforms would include educational
improvements, such as the founding of a Spanish language academy, or the
reform of meaningless scholasticism at the University of Santo Tomas; the
elimination of government and ecclesiastical corruption; the suppression of the
widespread concubinage practiced by the friars; the interdiction of brutality and
imprisonment without due process by the Guardia Civil. As the exemplar of the
anti-colonial terrorist, Simoun plots death for the oppressors. Now disguised as a
mestizo jewelry merchant, Ibarra-Simoun has become close with the Governor-
General and other officials of the colonial government. He has scoffed in public at
the utopia of progress, but, he later reveals to Basilio, he has nonetheless returned
to the Philippines in order to ignite the conflagration that would restore freedom
and dignity to his people. With revenge in his heart, his strategy is to subvert
authority by a ruse and a program: he seeks out evildoers and helps them to do
even more harm; and he seeks out the poor and stirs them up to insurrection.28
Simoun tells Basilio, “Ahora he vuelto para destruir ese sistema, precipitar su
corrupción, empujarle al abismo á que corre insensato, aun cuando tuvies e que
emplear oleadas de lágrimas y sangre...” [“Now I have returned to destroy that
system, to precipitate in its downfall, to hurl it into the abyss toward which it is
senselessly rushing, even though I may have to shed oceans of tears and blood.” –
Derbyshire translation]

Part Nietzsche [Fredrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher

(1844 – 1900) who contended that the traditional, Christian values had lost their
power over individuals and, moreover such values as gentleness made a weak
24
people. He espoused a philosophy of a overman or superman who would be
creative, and secure, affirming life in all its aspects including pain creating a new
“master morality” liberated from all values except those he deems valid.] and part
Bakunin [Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1814-1876) was a famous Russian
anarchist], the agent provocateur strives to regenerate his country by subversion
and outright terrorism. Coates rightly remarks, “There is a demoniac quality about
Simoun” and refers to the oft-commented humor of the Fili as “sinister” . Before
the complacent Basilio, Simoun calls the acquiescent Filipinos “Pueblo sin
carácter, nación sin libertad,” [“A people without character, a nation without
liberty” -- Derbyshire Translation] adding that, “todo en vosotros será prestado
hasta los mismos defectos” [everything you have will be borrowed, even your
very defects.” – Derbyshire Translation] . Domination could also mean the
eventual imposition of Spanish language itself, to the suppression of native
languages such as Tagalog, and this imposition constitutes a loss of identity and
original thought. At any rate, the Spanish administrators and especially the friars
are reluctant to teach it or to open up a Castillian academy. By resisting, however,
and by “delineating” their own character, the Filipinos would “fundar los
cimientos de la patria filipina” [“lay the foundations of the Philippine
Motherland! – Elizabeth Medina translation.”].

After this nationalist denunciation, another string of abuses on the part of

the friars and the Guardia Civil makes the Fili a strong echo of theNoli. And yet a
different theory of representation, a divergent poetics governs the construction of
the sequel. The ideological tensions of the narrative point to its own
contradictoriness—and to a powerful ambivalence on the question of revolution.
Coates reads the Fili as a novel that bears an irresistible urge to revolution, while
promising nothing from it. For Simoun fails, everything fails, as everything must,
Rizal believed, that is founded on hate. The novel thus achieves a dual purpose; it
is both an incitement to revolution and a dire warning against it, an exact
summing-up, in fact, of his views on revolution, which because they were
completely realistic contained the element of ambivalence. He now saw no
alternative to revolution; everything else had been tried. But he could not see how

25
a revolution could succeed. El Filibusterismo is not an appeal. It is a morality, a
profound description of the mentality and climate of revolt, with all the urgency
of its demands, and with all its shortcomings in their fulfillment. It is a statement
of the facts, having stated which; once again he leaves it to others to draw
conclusions, and to time to take its course. But to Spain it was a last and terrible
warning.

Even as a “morality” and not an “appeal,” I would add, the Fili maintains a
violent dualism in its own polemical structure. As Padre Florentino admonishes
Simoun, the country must deserve nationhood, even die for it, if it truly desires it,
yet the country is not yet ready for such a sacrifice. Prior to Coates’s perceptive
reading, Rizal’s friend Apolinario Mabini also interpreted the novel as a double
message directed both at Spain—urging that it listen to the Filipinos’ call for
justice lest they demand a separation—and at the Philippines, urging that it not
allow hatred to cause more suffering and bloodshed.

Surprisingly, although consistent with his enigmatic nature, Simoun

disappears for a good eleven chapters (XX-XXXI), reappearing only to be falsely
accused, in Chapter XXXII, of producing subversive posters that have cropped up
throughout the city (244). In the end, unfortunately for Simoun’s plans, the
nitroglycerine bomb intended to destroy the life of the Captain General and a
good portion of the Manila aristocracy is hurled out the window by the former
fiancé of a young woman who would have been killed in the blast. The rebellion
is quickly put down. Frustrating conventional expectations of narrative teleology,
the Fili does not reach its promised end.

One understands, in reading the Fili after theNoli, that Simoun was
motivated not so much by patriotic zeal as by his resentment against the friars and
colonial governors responsible for imprisoning his beloved María Clara. Simoun,
his idealism shattered by events he experienced as Ibarra, succeeds in dissembling
his dark intent under the fantastical disguise of a mestizo or mulatto jeweler. The
false lead takes off in the narrative and takes on a life of its own in the scene
concerned with Simoun’s sale of jewels to the local aristocrats. The lyrical

26
descriptions of Simoun’s jewels seem to serve no narrative function other than
that of reinforcing their owner’s assumed identity and displaying a lyrical
exquisiteness more commonly associated with the modernismo of Latin America.

Another striking instance of deceptive artifice occurred earlier in the Fili,

in episode in which a “speaking head” appears in a magic act at the Kiapó Fair.
Through a ventriloquist’s carnival trick, the head, called by the misnomer
“Sphinx,” tells the assembled clergy and townsfolk that his name is Imuthis, and
he tells a tale of ancient history that allegorically strikes home with his listeners.
Says Imuthis, with reference to the Egyptian priests:

En mi patria entonces gobernaban estos; dueños de las dos terceras partes

de las tierras, monopolizadores de la ciencia, sumían al pueblo en la ignorancia y
en la tiranía, lo embrutecían y lo hacían apto para pasar sin repugnancia de una á
otra dominación. Los invasores se valían de ellos y conociendo su utilidad los
protegían y enriquecían, y algunos no solo dependieron de su voluntad sino que se
redujeron á ser sus meros instrumentos. [In my country, at that time, these people
ruled -- the owners of 2/3 of the land, monopolizers of science, they submerged
the people in ignorance and tyranny, they turned them into ignorant brutes and
prepared them to pass without repugnance from one domination to the next. The
invaders used them and, aware of their usefulness, protected and enriched them,
and some {of the invaders} didn't just depend on the will {of the dominated} --
they became reduced to being their mere instruments. -- Elizabeth Medina
translation]]

The priests in the audience understand, with the reader, the implicit
message; the guilt-ridden Padre Salví is “seized by convulsive trembling.” All the
friars in attendance are perturbed, “acaso porque vieran en el fondo alguna
analogía con la actual situación.” [“... possibly because they saw, at bottom, some
sort of analogy with the existing situation." -- Elizabeth Medina translation] The
head goes on to tell a story that resembles that of Ibarra’s escape from death in the
Noli and accuses his own, the “Sphinx’s,” murderer in terms that cause Padre
Salví to swoon . To expose the artifice this time, Rizal curiously provides a long

27
footnote to explain the trick of the table, box and mirrors producing the illusion of
the talking head .Like the narrative of the Fili itself, the carnival spectacle is
unveiled, revealed as a fake, yet one capable of eliciting suppressed feelings and
of indicting colonial authority. Through illusion and fiction announced as such,
the critique of Spanish colonialism is mediated, made indirect, tentative, merely
literary. Like the talking head’s idiosyncratic version of ancient history, an earlier
allegory, told by a coachman to a grown Basilio, retells a legend of liberation:

Los indios de los campos conservan una leyenda de que su rey,

aprisionado y encadenado en la cueva de San Mateo, vendrá un día á libertarles de
la opresión. Cada cien años rompe una de sus cadenas, y ya tiene las manos y el
pié izquierdo libres; solo le queda el derecho . . . .—Cuando se suelte del pié
derecho . . . le daré mis caballos, me pondré a su servicio y me dejaré matar... Él
nos librará de los civiles. [The Indians in the country places preserve the legend
that their king, imprisoned and chained in the cave of San Mateo, will come some
day to free them. Every hundredth year he breaks one of his chains, so that he
now has his hands and his left foot loose—only the right foot remains bound. . .
"When he gets his right foot loose, . . "I'll give him my horses, and offer him my
services even to death, for he'll free us from the Civil Guard." – Derbyshire
translation]

Like the coachman’s story of the enchained giant, nightmares, too, can
perform the allegorical function. In her fitful sleep, Julî dreams of her father’s
bloody fight against the religious corporation that usurped his land; her ex-fiancé
Basilio is “agonizando en el camino, herido de dos balazos, como había visto el
cadáver de aquel vecino, que fué muerto mientras le conducía la Guardia Civil”.
[“dying in the road, pierced by two bullets, just as she had seen the corpse of that
neighbor who had been killed while in the charge of the Civil Guard.” --
Derbyshire translation] This protest is also muted and transformed by the
dreamlike work of art.

As if to provide a counter-weight to the tragic depictions of the Fili, Rizal

allows viewpoints sympathetic with the Spanish colonial entreprise to comment

28
on the Philippine condition. An unidentified “high official” tells the Captain
General that “España para ser grande no tiene necesidad de ser tirana,” [“… to be
great Spain does not have to be a tyrant,” – Derbyshire translation] that she should
honor “los altos principios de moralidad”[“the lofty principles of morality” –
Derbyshire translation] and “inmutable justicia” [“immutable justice!” –
Derbyshire translation] ; furthermore, warns the official, “si las cosas no se
mejoran se sublevarán un día y á fé que la justicia estará de su parte y con ella las
simpatías de todos los hombres honrados, de todos los patriotas del mundo!” [“if
matters do not mend they will rebel some day, and justice will be on their side,
with them will go the sympathy of all honest men, of every patriot in the world!”
– Derbyshire translation] . The Captain General ignores the official’s declarations
and asks him about the arrival of the next mail ship . A second pro-Spanish
character, Padre Florentino, is the one who speaks the last words of El
Filibusterismo. The benign friar hears Simoun’s last confession, then assures the
erstwhile subversive that God “ha hecho abortar uno á uno sus planes,” [“He
(God) has frustrated your plans one by one,” – Derbyshire translation]but that He
has not for all that given up “la causa de la libertad sin la cual no hay justicia
posible”[the cause of liberty, without which no justice is possible." – Derbyshire
translation] . The reader, once misdirected by Simoun’s talk of insurrection, now
is tempted to accept the illusion of closure created by the priest’s conclusion:
redemption will come to the Philippines, not through hate and deception but
through virtue and sacrifice. A theodicy of historical process, not a proclamation
of independence, ends the second and last of Rizal’s novels. Yet this final word is
not necessarily the last word on the novel’s own complex statement.

Another interpretive perspective on the two novels finds its expression in

the words of the old philosopher Tasio. When in the Noli an incredulous Ibarra
asks Tasio, a paleographer by avocation, why he writes “in hieroglyphs,” the old
man answers, “¡Para que no me puedan leer ahora!” ["So that I cannot be read
now." – Derbyshire translation]. Writing in hieroglyphs, he writes for future
generations. Ibarra, too, according to Tasio, has done his part by standing up to
the friars and by attempting to build a school in his native town:

29
 poner la primera piedra, sembrar, después que se desencadene la
tempestad, algún grano acaso germine, sobreviva a la catástrofe, salve la especie
de la destrucción y sirva después de simiente para los hijos del sembrador muerto.
El ejemplo puede alentar a los otros que sólo temen principiar. [“… place the first
stone, sow, and after the storm is unleashed maybe a seed will germinate, survive
the catastrophe, save the species from destruction, and later, serve as a seedling
for the children of the dead sower. The example can encourage the others who
only fear to be the first." -- Elizabeth Medina translation]

Knowing that a viable separatist movement was untenable at the present

juncture, Rizal nonetheless affirmed that a unique Philippine culture had arisen
since Magellan’s “discovery.” Nationhood could be founded on a Filipino
creolism. Local pageants and fiestas described in the Noli and the Fili capture the
feeling of a culture that is unique, and not merely derivative from the Spanish.
Food, dances, flora and music are Filipino. The author creolizes Spanish language
by including regionalisms, Tagalog words and Philippine spellings in dialogue
and narration.

Intercalated stories of the Fili other than the ones already examined here,
while further complicating the narrative’s referential function, contribute to
creating a profile of a folk identity. Legends abound, anticipating the marvelous
realism of some modern Latin American novels: on the sacred rock called
Malapad-na-bató sitting on the banks of the Pasig River, the spirits used to dwell
before bandits or tulisanes lived there; a woman becomes a water spirit when she
casts her silverware into the water; a Chinese man turns a crocodile into a rock by
invoking San Nicolás . In reaction to Simoun’s jesting proposition to raise ducks
on a massive scale so that their action of digging for snails would create a
freshwater lake, Doña Victorina’s snobbish reaction is to say that raising so many
ducks would make too many baloteggs . Not only local culture, but the Spanish
rejection of that culture finds expression that remark.

Rizal thus succeeded in rendering, with strong, clear lines, the

complexities involved in the Philippine colonial situation. His critique of Spanish

30
 misrule and his affirmation of a unique Philippine national identity, not to
mention his considerable literary talent, invite comparison with political
intellectuals in other colonial societies. Cuba’s José Martí, Rizal’s nearly exact
contemporary (1853-1895), comes to mind. In their parallel lives, both Martí and
Rizal sought to vindicate the rights of their compatriots against Spanish
domination. Yet in sharp contrast with Martí, Rizal seemed nearly oblivious to the
threat posed by the United States at this historical moment. Probably due to his
country’s geographical and cultural distance from the future colonial power, Rizal
could only briefly envisage the possibility, in his essay “The Philippines a
Hundred Years Hence,” of an Americanized Philippines, only to dismiss the
possibility immediately, recalling that the U.S., “Because of its libertarian
traditions ... could not be imperialist. It was something contrary to its puritan
morality.” Despite the author’s historical blindness, the multi-voiced, intricately
dialogic nature of Rizal’s narrative discourse serves to strengthen a singular
impression of a critical novel that indeed made a real psychological and political
impact in Philippine cultural life, and yet whose entangled plot structures continue
to invite rereading and reinterpretation. Although Rizal’s satire of Spanish
colonial society in the Philippines, it has given expression to dissatisfactions and
thereby promoted reforms, a “second reading” of the texts opens them up to the
play of an emancipator desire that continues to move the Philippines today.

2. Plot
Thirteen years after leaving the Philippines, Crisostomo Ibarra returns as
Simoun, a rich jeweler sporting a beard and blue-tinted glasses, and a confidant
of the Captain-General. Abandoning his idealism, he becomes a cynical saboteur,
seeking revenge against the Spanish Philippine system responsible for his
misfortunes by plotting a revolution. Simoun insinuates himself into Manila high
society and influences every decision of the Captain-General to mismanage the
country’s affairs so that a revolution will break out. He cynically sides with the
upper classes, encouraging them to commit abuses against the masses to
encourage the latter to revolt against the oppressive Spanish colonial regime.
This time, he does not attempt to fight the authorities through legal means, but

31
through violent revolution using the masses. His two reasons for instigating a
revolution are at first, to rescue María Clara from the convent and second, to get
rid of ills and evils of Philippine society. His true identity is discovered by a now
grown-up Basilio while visiting the grave of his mother, Sisa, as Simoun was
digging near the grave site for his buried treasures. Simoun spares Basilio’s life
and asks him to join in his planned revolution against the government, egging
him on by bringing up the tragic misfortunes of the latter's family. Basilio
declines the offer as he still hopes that the country’s condition will improve.
Basilio, at this point, is a graduating medical student at the Ateneo
Municipal. After the death of his mother, Sisa, and the disappearance of his
younger brother, Crispín, Basilio heeded the advice of the dying boatman, Elías,
and traveled to Manila to study. Basilio was adopted by Captain Tiago after
María Clara entered the convent. With the help of the Ibarra's riches and Captain
Tiago, Basilio was able to go to Colegio de San Juan de Letrán where, at first, he
is frowned upon by his peers and teachers because of his skin color and his
shabby appearance but is able to win their favor after winning a fencing
tournament. Captain Tiago’s confessor, Father Irene is making Captain Tiago’s
health worse by giving him opium even as Basilio tries hard to prevent Captain
Tiago from smoking it. He and other students want to establish a Spanish
language academy so that they can learn to speak and write Spanish despite the
opposition from the Dominican friars of the Universidad de Santo Tomás. With
the help of a reluctant Father Irene as their mediator and Don Custodio’s
decision, the academy is established but this turns bad as they will serve, not as
the teachers but as caretakers of the school. Dejected and defeated, they hold a
mock celebration at a pancitería while a spy for the friars disguised as a poor
man witnesses the proceedings. Basilio, however, was not with them during the
event.
Simoun, for his part, keeps in close contact with the bandit group of
Kabesang Tales, a former cabeza de barangay who suffered misfortunes at the
hands of the friars. Once a farmer owning a prosperous sugarcane plantation and
a cabeza de barangay (barangay head), he was forced to give everything he had

32
owned to the greedy, unscrupulous Spanish friars and the Church. His son, Tano,
who became a civil guard was captured by bandits, his daughter Julî had to work
as a maid to get enough ransom money for his freedom, and his father, Tandang
Selo, suffered a stroke and became mute. Before joining the bandits, Tales took
Simoun’s revolver while Simoun was staying at his house for the night. As
payment, Tales leaves a locket that once belonged to María Clara. To further
strengthen the revolution, Simoun has Quiroga, a Chinese man hoping to be
appointed consul to the Philippines, smuggle weapons into the country using
Quiroga’s bazaar as a front. Simoun wishes to attack during a stage play with all
of his enemies in attendance. He, however, abruptly aborts the attack when he
learns from Basilio that María Clara had died earlier that day in the convent.
A few days after the mock celebration by the students, the people are
agitated when disturbing posters are found displayed around the city. The
authorities accuse the students present at the pancitería of agitation and
disturbing peace and have them arrested. Basilio, although not present at the
mock celebration, is also arrested. Captain Tiago dies after learning of the
incident. But before he dies he signs a will, unknown to him it was forged by
Father Irene. His will originally states that Basilio should inherit all his property
but due to this forgery his property is given in parts, one to Santa Clara, one for
the archbishop, one for the Pope, and one for the religious orders leaving nothing
for Basilio to be inherited. Basilio is left in prison as the other students are
released. A high official tries to intervene for the release of Basilio but the
Captain-General, bearing grudges against the high official, coerces him to tender
his resignation. Julî, Basilio’s girlfriend and the daughter of Kabesang Tales,
tries to ask Father Camorra's help upon the advice of Hermana Bali. The two
travel to the convent but things suddenly turn horrible as Camorra tries to rape
Juli, due to his long-hidden desires for young women. Julî, rather than submit to
the will of the friar, jumps over the balcony to her death. Basilio is soon released
with the help of Simoun.
Basilio, now a changed man, and after hearing about Julî's suicide, finally
joins Simoun’s revolution. Simoun then tells Basilio his plan at the wedding of

33
Paulita Gómez and Juanito, Basilio’s hunch-backed classmate. His plan was to
conceal an explosive which contains nitroglycerin inside a pomegranate-styled
Kerosene lamp that Simoun will give to the newlyweds as a gift during the
wedding reception. The reception will take place at the former home of the late
Captain Tiago, which was now filled with explosives planted by Simoun.
According to Simoun, the lamp will stay lighted for only 20 minutes before it
flickers; if someone attempts to turn the wick, it will explode and kill everyone—
important members of civil society and the Church hierarchy—inside the house.
Basilio has a change of heart and attempts to warn Isagani, his friend and the
former boyfriend of Paulita. Simoun leaves the reception early as planned and
leaves a note behind.
Initially thinking that it was simply a bad joke, Father Salví recognizes the
handwriting and confirms that it was indeed Ibarra’s. As people begin to panic,
the lamp flickers. Father Irene tries to turn the wick up when Isagani, due to his
undying love for Paulita, bursts in the room and throws the lamp into the river,
sabotaging Simoun's plans. He escapes by diving into the river as guards chase
after him. He later regrets his impulsive action because he had contradicted his
own belief that he loved his nation more than Paulita and that the explosion and
revolution could have fulfilled his ideals for Filipino society.
Simoun, now unmasked as the perpetrator of the attempted arson and
failed revolution, becomes a fugitive. Wounded and exhausted after he was shot
by the pursuing Guardia Civil, he seeks shelter at the home of Father Florentino,
Isagani’s uncle, and comes under the care of Doctor Tiburcio de Espadaña, Doña
Victorina's husband, who was also hiding at the house. Simoun takes poison in
order for him not to be captured alive. Before he dies, he reveals his real identity
to Florentino while they exchange thoughts about the failure of his revolution
and why God forsook him, when all he wanted was to avenge the people
important to him that were wronged, such as Elias, Maria Clara and his father,
Don Rafael. Florentino opines that God did not forsake him and that his plans
were not for the greater good but for personal gain. Simoun, finally accepting
Florentino’s explanation, squeezes his hand and dies. Florentino then takes

34
 Simoun’s remaining jewels and throws them into the Pacific Ocean with the
corals hoping that they would not be used by the greedy and that when the time
came that it would be used for the greater good.
3. Characters

• Simoun - Crisostomo Ibarra in disguise, left for dead at the end of

Noli me tangere. Ibarra has resurfaced as the wealthy jeweler, Simoun, sporting a
beard, blue-tinted glasses, and a revolver. Fueled by his mistreatment at the hands
of the Spaniards and his fury at Maria Clara's fate, Simoun secretly plans a
revolution to seek revenge against those who wronged him.

• Basilio - Son of Sisa and another character from Noli Me Tangere.

He became a servant of Captain Tiyago in exchange for education. In the events
of the book, he is a graduating medical student who befriended Simoun. His
girlfriend is Juli.

• Isagani - Basilio's friend and one of the students who planned to

set up a new school. He is very idealistic and hopes for a better future for the
Philippines. His girlfriend was the rich and beautiful Paulita Gomez, but they
broke up once he was arrested. Despite this, his love for her still endured. He
sabotaged Simoun's plans by removing the lamp that contained explosives and
threw it in the waters.

• Kabesang Tales - Cabeza Telesforo Juan de Dios, a former cabeza

de barangay (barangay head) of Sagpang, a barangay in San Diego's neighboring
town Tiani, who resurfaced as the feared Luzón bandit Matanglawin. He is the
son of Tandang Selo, and father of Juli and Tano.

• Don Custodio - Custodio de Salazar y Sánchez de Monteredondo,

a famous "journalist" who was asked by the students about his decision for the
Academia de Castellano. In reality, he is quite an ordinary fellow who married a
rich woman in order to be a member of Manila's high society.

• Paulita Gómez - The girlfriend of Isagani and the niece of Doña

Victorina, the old Indio who passes herself off as a Peninsular, who is the wife of

35
the quack doctor Tiburcio de Espadaña. In the end, she and Juanito Peláez are
wed, and she dumps Isagani, believing that she will have no future if she marries
him.

• Macaraig - One of Isagani's classmates at the University of Santo

Tomas. He is a rich student and serves as the leader of the students yearning to
build the Academia de Castellano.

• Father Florentino - Isagani's godfather, and a secular priest; was

engaged to be married, but chose to be a priest after being pressured by his
mother, the story hinting at the ambivalence of his decision as he chooses an
assignment to a remote place, living in solitude near the sea. He took in Don
Tiburcio de Espandaña when he was hiding from his wife, Donya Victorina.

• Juli - Juliana de Dios, the girlfriend of Basilio, and the youngest

daughter of Kabesang Tales. To claim her father from the bandits, she had to
work as a maid under the supervision of Hermana Penchang. Eventually, she was
freed but committed suicide after Father Camorra attempted to rape her.

• Juanito Pelaez - A favorite student of the professors. They belong

to the noble Spanish ancestry. After failing in his grades, he became Paulita's new
boyfriend and they eventually wed.

• Doña Victorina - Victorina delos Reyes de Espadaña, known in

Noli Me Tangere as Tiburcio de Espadaña's cruel wife. She is the aunt of Paulita
Gomez, and favors Juanito Pelaez over Isagani. She is searching for her husband,
who has left her and is in hiding. Although of Indio heritage, she considers herself
as one of the Peninsular.

• Father Camorra - The lustful parish priest of Tiani, San Diego's

adjacent town who has longtime desires for young women. He nearly raped Juli
causing the latter to commit suicide.

• Ben-Zayb - The pseudonym of Abraham Ibañez, a journalist who

believes he is the "only" one thinking in the Philippines. Ben-Zayb is an anagram
of Ybanez, an alternate spelling of his name.

36
 • Placido Penitente - A student of the University of Santo Tomas
who was very intelligent and wise but did not want, if not only by his mother's
plea, to pursue his studies. He also controls his temper against Padre Millon, his
physics teacher. During his High School days, he was an honor student hailing
from Batangas.

• Hermana Penchang - Sagpang's rich pusakal (gambler). She

offers Juli to be her maid so the latter can obtain money to free Kabesang Tales.
Disbelieving of Juli and her close friends, she considers herself as an ally of the
friars.

• Tiburcio de Espadaña - Don Tiburcio is Victorina de Espadaña's

lame husband. He is currently in hiding at Father Florentino's.

• Father Írene - Captain Tiago's spiritual adviser. Although

reluctant, he helped the students to establish the Academia de Castellano after
being convinced by giving him a chestnut. The only witness to Captain Tiago's
death, he forged the last will and testament of the latter so Basilio will obtain
nothing from the inheritance.

• Quiroga - A Chinese businessman who dreamed of being a consul

for his country in the Philippines. He hid Simoun's weapons inside his house.

• Don Timoteo Pelaez - Juanito's father. He is a rich businessmen

and arranges a wedding for his son and Paulita. He and Simoun became business
partners.

• Tandang Selo - Father of Kabesang Tales and grandfather of Tano

and Juli. He raised the sick and young Basilio after he left their house in Noli me
tangere. He died in an encounter on the mountains with his son Tales, when he
was killed by a battalion that included his own grandson, Tano.

• Father Fernández - The priest-friend of Isagani. He promised to

Isagani that he and the other priests will give in to the students' demands.

37
 • Sandoval - The vice-leader of Macaraig's gang. A Spanish
classmate of Isagani, he coerces his classmates to lead alongside him the opening
of the Spanish language academy.

• Hermana Báli - Another gambler in Tiani. She became Juli's

mother-figure and counselor; helped to release Kabesang Tales from the hands of
bandits.

• Father Millon - The Physics teacher of the University of Santo

Tomas. He always becomes vindictive with Placido and always taunts him during
class.

• Tadeo - Macaraig's classmate. He, along with the other three

members of their gang, supposedly posted the posters that "thanked" Don
Custodio and Father Irene for the opening of the Academia de Castellano.

• Leeds - An American who holds stage plays starring severed

heads; he is good friends with Simoun.

• Tano - Kabesang Tales's elder son after his older sister, Lucia died
in childhood. He took up the pseudonym "Carolina" after returning from exile in
the Caroline Islands, and became a civil guard. He was among the battalion killed
his grandfather, Selo, who was part of a group of an attacking rebels.

• Pepay - Don Custodio's supposed "girlfriend". A dancer, she is

always agitated of her "boyfriend"'s plans. She seems to be a close friend of
Macaraig.

• Gobernador General - The highest-ranking official in the

Philippines during the Spanish colonial period, this unnamed character pretends
that what he is doing is for the good of the Indios, the local citizens of the
country, but in reality, he prioritizes the needs of his fellow Spaniards living in the
country.

• Father Hernando de la Sibyla - A Dominican friar introduced in

Noli Me Tangere, now the vice-rector of the University of Santo Tomas.

38
 • Pecson - classmate who had no idea on the happenings occurring
around him. He suggested that they held the mock celebration at the panciteria.

• Father Bernardo Salvi- a Former parish priest of San Diego in

Noli Me Tangere, now the director and chaplain of the Santa Clara convent.

• Captain Tiago - Santiago de los Santos, Captain Tiago is Maria

Clara's stepfather and the foster-father to Basilio. His health disintegrates
gradually because of the opium he was forced to smoke. Eventually, he died
because Padre Irene scared him about the revolt of the Filipinos.

4. Historical Background

According to Hanne Badijeles study about Jose Rizal, Rizal began writing
El Filibusterismo in October 1887 while he was in Calamba. In London (1888),
he revised the plot and some chapters. Rizal continued to work on his manuscripts
in Paris. He later moved to Brussels, Belgium where the cost was cheaper and he
would be less likely to be distracted by social events so he could focus on
finishing the book. He finally completed the book on March 29, 1891 in Biarritz,
France. It was published in September of that year in Ghent, partially funded by
Rizal’s friend Valentin Ventura.

Rizal had to define the word filibuster to his German friend Ferdinand
Blumentritt who did not understand his use of word in Noli me Tangere. In a
letter, Rizal explained: “The word filibuster is little known in the Philippines. The
masses do not know it yet. I heard it for the first time in 1872 when the tragic
executions (of Gomburza) took place. I still remember the panic that this word
created. Our father forbade us to utter it, as well as the words Cavite, Burgos (one
of the executed priests), etc. The Manila newspapers and the Spaniards apply this
word to one whom they want to make a revolutionary suspect. The Filipinos
belonging to the educated class fear the reach of the word. It does not have the
meaning of freebooters; it rather means a dangerous patriot who will soon be
hanged or well, a presumptuous man.”

39
 By the end of the 19th century, the word filibuster had acquired the
meaning “subversive” in the Philippines; hence the book is about subversion.

The book is dedicated to the memory of GOMBURZA, three priests who

were accused of being seditious and executed. In his dedication, Rizal
audaciously expresses his conviction that their treatment at the hands of the
Spanish authorities was unjust.

Given the reaction to his first book, Rizal tried to avoid allowing the
second one to fall into the hands of the Spaniards. He had after all written El
filibusterismo not for the Spaniards but for the Filipino people to read. After
distributing the copies of the first edition to his friends in Europe, Rizal
designated most of the remainder to be sent to the Philippines. The books were
first sent to his residence in Hong Kong, to be smuggled to the Philippines by his
friends. Upon shipment, the copies were immediately seized by the authorities,
making it a rare book overnight.

The plot is similar to that of Alexander Dumas pere’s classic The Count of
Monte Cristo. Both narratives revolve around a man’s determination to avenge
him and reclaim his beloved fiancée. The protagonist of each novel disguises his
identity and comes up with an intricate plot of revenge and retribution.

40
 REPUBLIC ACT NO. 1425

AN ACT TO INCLUDE IN THE CURRICULA OF ALL PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES COURSES ON THE LIFE, WORKS
AND WRITINGS OF JOSE RIZAL, PARTICULARLY HIS NOVELS NOLI ME
TANGERE AND EL FILIBUSTERISMO, AUTHORIZING THE PRINTING AND
DISTRIBUTION THEREOF, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

WHEREAS, today, more than any other period of our history, there is a need for a re-dedication
to the ideals of freedom and nationalism for which our heroes lived and died;

WHEREAS, it is meet that in honoring them, particularly the national hero and patriot, Jose
Rizal, we remember with special fondness and devotion their lives and works that have shaped
the national character;

WHEREAS, the life, works and writing of Jose Rizal, particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere
and El Filibusterismo, are a constant and inspiring source of patriotism with which the minds of
the youth, especially during their formative and decisive years in school, should be suffused;

WHEREAS, all educational institutions are under the supervision of, and subject to regulation
by the State, and all schools are enjoined to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic
conscience and to teach the duties of citizenship; Now, therefore,

SECTION 1. Courses on the life, works and writings of Jose Rizal, particularly his novel Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, shall be included in the curricula of all schools, colleges and
universities, public or private: Provided, That in the collegiate courses, the original or
unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo or their English translation
shall be used as basic texts.

The Board of National Education is hereby authorized and directed to adopt forthwith
measures to implement and carry out the provisions of this Section, including the writing and
printing of appropriate primers, readers and textbooks. The Board shall, within sixty (60) days
from the effectively of this Act, promulgate rules and regulations, including those of a

41
disciplinary nature, to carry out and enforce the provisions of this Act. The Board shall
promulgate rules and regulations providing for the exemption of students for reasons of religious
belief stated in a sworn written statement, from the requirement of the provision contained in the
second part of the first paragraph of this section; but not from taking the course provided for in
the first part of said paragraph. Said rules and regulations shall take effect thirty (30) days after
their publication in the Official Gazette.

SECTION 2. It shall be obligatory on all schools, colleges and universities to keep in their
libraries an adequate number of copies of the original and unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo, as well as of Rizal’s other works and biography. The said
unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo or their translations in
English as well as other writings of Rizal shall be included in the list of approved books for
required reading in all public or private schools, colleges and universities.

The Board of National Education shall determine the adequacy of the number of books,
depending upon the enrollment of the school, college or university.

SECTION 3. The Board of National Education shall cause the translation of the Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo, as well as other writings of Jose Rizal into English, Tagalog and
the principal Philippine dialects; cause them to be printed in cheap, popular editions; and cause
them to be distributed, free of charge, to persons desiring to read them, through the Purok
organizations and Barrio Councils throughout the country.

SECTION 4. Nothing in this Act shall be construed as amendment or repealing section nine
hundred twenty-seven of the Administrative Code, prohibiting the discussion of religious
doctrines by public school teachers and other person engaged in any public school.

SECTION 5. The sum of three hundred thousand pesos is hereby authorized to be appropriated
out of any fund not otherwise appropriated in the National Treasury to carry out the purposes of
this Act.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

42
Approved: June 12, 1956

Published in the Official Gazette, Vol. 52, No. 6, p. 2971 in June 1956.

Source: CDAsia

Reiterating the Implementation of Republic Act No. 1425

To: Bureau Directors

Regional Directors

Schools Superintendents

Presidents, State Colleges and Universities

Heads of Private Schools, Colleges and Universities

Vocational School Superintendents/Administrators

The Department of Education, Culture and Sports reiterates the teaching of the life, works and
writings of Jose P. Rizal, specifically Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, as mandated by
Republic Act 1425 entitled “An Act to Include in the Curricula of All Public and Private
Schools, Colleges and Universities, Courses on the Life, Works and Writings of Jose Rizal,
Particularly His Novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, Authorizing the Printing and
Distribution Thereof, and for Other Purposes”.

At the elementary level, Rizal’s virtues/values extolling untarnished love of country must be
taught and followed specifically in the learning areas of Sibika at Kultura in Grades I-III and in
Heograpiya/Kasaysayan/Sibika in Grades IV-VI. Likewise “Noli Me Tangere” and “El
Filibusterismo” are required reading in the third and fourth year high school respectively.

It is hoped that teaching Rizal’s life, shall strengthen nationalism, patriotism, national identity,
love of humanity, respect for human rights and appreciation of the role of national heroes in the
historical development of the country.

43
Immediate and wide dissemination of this Memorandum to all concerned is desired.

Reference: BPS Circular: No. 28, s. 1956

Allotment: 1-2-3-4—(M.O. 1-87)

To be indicated in the Perpetual Index under the following subjects:

Course of Study, COLLEGIATE

Course of Study, ELEMENTARY

Course of Study, SECONDARY

CURRICULUM

LEGISLATION

Background

Republic Act No. 1425, known as the Rizal Law, mandates all educational institutions in
the Philippines to offer courses about José Rizal. The full name of the law is An Act to Include in
the Curricula of All Public and Private Schools, Colleges and Universities Courses On the Life,
Works and Writings of Jose Rizal, Particularly His Novels Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo, Authorizing the Printing and Distribution Thereof, and for Other Purposes. The
measure was strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines due to the anti-
clerical themes in Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

History

Senator Claro M. Recto was the main proponent of the Rizal Bill. He sought to sponsor
the bill at Congress. However, this was met with stiff opposition from the Catholic Church.
During the 1955 Senate election, the church charged Recto with being a communist and an anti-
Catholic. After Recto's election, the Church continued to oppose the bill mandating the reading

44
of Rizal's novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, claiming it would violate freedom of
conscience and religion.

In the campaign to oppose the Rizal bill, the Catholic Church urged its adherents to write
to their congressmen and senators showing their opposition to the bill; later, it organized
symposiums. In one of these symposiums, Fr. Jesus Cavanna argued that the novels belonged to
the past and that teaching them would misrepresent current conditions. Radio commentator Jesus
Paredes also said that Catholics had the right to refuse to read them as it would "endanger their
salvation".

Groups such as Catholic Action of the Philippines, the Congregation of the Mission,
the Knights of Columbus, and the Catholic Teachers Guild organized opposition to the bill; they
were countered by Veteranos de la Revolucion (Spirit of 1896), Alagad in Rizal, the Freemasons,
and the Knights of Rizal. The Senate Committee on Education sponsored a bill co-written by
both José P. Laurel and Recto, with the only opposition coming from Francisco Soc
Rodrigo, Mariano Jesús Cuenco, and Decoroso Rosales.

The Archbishop of Manila, Rufino Santos, protested in a pastoral letter that Catholic
students would be affected if compulsory reading of the unexpurgated version were pushed
through. Arsenio Lacson, Manila's mayor, who supported the bill, walked out of Mass when the
priest read a circular from the archbishop denouncing the bill.

Rizal, according to Cuenco, "attacks[ed] dogmas, beliefs and practices of the Church.
The assertion that Rizal limited himself to castigating undeserving priests and refrained from
criticizing, ridiculing or putting in doubt dogmas of the Catholic Church, is absolutely gratuitous
and misleading." Cuenco touched on Rizal's denial of the existence of purgatory, as it was not
found in the Bible, and that Moses and Jesus Christ did not mention its existence; Cuenco
concluded that a "majority of the Members of this Chamber, if not all [including] our good
friend, the gentleman from Sulu" believed in purgatory. The senator from Sulu, Domocao
Alonto, attacked Filipinos who proclaimed Rizal as "their national hero but seemed to despise
what he had written", saying that the Indonesians used Rizal's books as their Bible on their
independence movement; Pedro López, who hails from Cebu, Cuenco's province, in his support
for the bill, reasoned out that it was in their province the independence movement started,
when Lapu-Lapu fought Ferdinand Magellan.

45
 Outside the Senate, the Catholic schools threatened to close down if the bill was passed;
Recto countered that if that happened, the schools would be nationalized. Recto did not believe
the threat, stating that the schools were too profitable to be closed. The schools gave up the
threat, but threatened to "punish" legislators in favor of the law in future elections. A
compromise was suggested, to use the expurgated version; Recto, who had supported the
required reading of the unexpurgated version, declared: "The people who would eliminate the
books of Rizal from the schools would blot out from our minds the memory of the national hero.
This is not a fight against Recto but a fight against Rizal", adding that since Rizal is dead, they
are attempting to suppress his memory.

On May 12, 1956, a compromise inserted by Committee on Education chairman Laurel

that accommodated the objections of the Catholic Church was approved unanimously. The bill
specified that only college (university) students would have the option of reading unexpurgated
versions of clerically-contested reading material, such as Noli Me Tángere and El
Filibusterismo. The bill was enacted on June 12, 1956, Flag Day.

Content

The Noli and Fili were required readings for college students.

Section 1 mandated that the students were to read the novels as they were written in
Spanish, although a provision ordered that the Board of National Education create rules on how
these should be applied. The last two sections were focused on making Rizal's works accessible
to the general public: the second section mandated the schools to have "an adequate number" of
copies in their libraries, while the third ordered the board to publish the works in
major Philippine languages.

Aftermath

After the bill was enacted into law, there were no recorded instances of students applying
for exemption from reading the novels, and there is no known procedure for such exemptions. In
1994, President Fidel V. Ramos ordered the Department of Education, Culture and Sports to
fully implement the law as there had been reports that it has still not been fully implemented.

The debate during the enactment of the Rizal Law has been compared to the Responsible
Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012(RH Law) debate in 2011.
46
Akbayan representative Kaka Bag-ao, one of the proponents of the RH bill, said, quoting the
Catholic hierarchy, that "More than 50 years ago, they said the Rizal Law violates the Catholic's
right to conscience and religion, interestingly, the same line of reasoning they use to oppose the
RH bill."

RA 1425 and other Rizal laws

The Rizal Bill became the Republic Act No. 1425, known as the ‘Rizal Law’. The full
name of the law is “An Act to Include in the Curricula of All Public and Private Schools,
Colleges and Universities Courses on the Life, Works and Writings of Jose Rizal, Particularly
His Novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, Authorizing the Printing and Distribution
Thereof, and for Other Purposes.“

The first section of the law concerns mandating the students to read Rizal’s novels. The
last two sections involve making Rizal’s writings accessible to the general public—they require
the schools to have a sufficient number of copies in their libraries and mandate the publication of
the works in major Philippine languages.

Jose P. Laurel, then senator who co-wrote the law, explained that since Jose Rizal was the
founder of the country’s nationalism and had significantly contributed to the current condition of
the nation, it is only right that Filipinos, especially the youth, know about and learn to imbibe the
great ideals for which the hero died. Accordingly, the Rizal Law aims to accomplish the
following goals:

1. To rededicate the lives of youth to the ideals of freedom and nationalism, for which our
heroes lived and died

2. To pay tribute to our national hero for devoting his life and works in shaping the
Filipino character.

3. To gain an inspiring source of patriotism through the study of Rizal’s life, works, and
writings.

So far, no student has yet officially applied for exemption from reading Rizal’s novels.
Correspondingly, former President Fidel V. Ramos in 1994, through Memorandum Order No.
247, directed the Secretary of Education, Culture and Sports and the Chairman of the
47
Commission on Higher Education to fully implement the RA 1425 as there had been reports that
the law had still not been totally carried out. In 1995, CHED Memorandum No. 3 was issued
enforcing strict compliance to Memorandum Order No. 247.

Not known to many, there is another republic act that concerns the national hero.
Republic Act No. 229 is an act prohibiting cockfighting, horse racing, and jai-alai on the thirtieth
day of December of each year and to create a committee to take charge of the proper celebration
of Rizal day in every municipality and chartered city, and for other purposes.

48
ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is
essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars
should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts (including those that are
inconvenient to external political groups or to authorities) without being targeted for repression,
job loss, or imprisonment.

Academic freedom is a contested issue and, therefore, has limitations in practice. In the
United States, for example, according to the widely recognized "1940 Statement on Academic
Freedom and Tenure", teachers should be careful to avoid controversial matter that is unrelated
to the subject. When they speak or write in public, they are free to express their opinions without
fear from institutional censorship or discipline, but they should show restraint and clearly
indicate that they are not speaking for their institution. Academic tenure protects academic
freedom by ensuring that teachers can be fired only for causes such as gross professional
incompetence or behavior that evokes condemnation from the academic community itself.

Historical Background

Although the notion of academic freedom has a long implicit history, the idea was first
clearly formulated in response to the encroachments of the totalitarian state on science and
academia in general for the furtherance of its own goals. For instance, in the Soviet Union,
scientific research was brought under strict political control in the 1930s. A number of research
areas were declared "bourgeois pseudoscience" and forbidden, notably genetics. The trend
toward subjugating science to the interests of the state also had proponents in the West, including
the influential Marxist John Desmond Bernal, who published The Social Function of Science in
1939.

In contrast to this approach, Michael Polanyi argued that a structure of liberty is essential
for the advancement of science – that the freedom to pursue science for its own sake is a
prerequisite for the production of knowledge through peer review and the scientific method.

In 1936, as a consequence of an invitation to give lectures for the Ministry of Heavy

Industry in the USSR, Polanyi met Bukharin, who told him that in socialist societies all scientific

49
research is directed to accord with the needs of the latest five-year plan. Demands in Britain for
centrally planned scientific research led Polanyi, together with John Baker, to found the
influential Society for Freedom in Science. The Society promoted a liberal conception of science
as free enquiry against the instrumental view that science should exist primarily to serve the
needs of society.

In a series of articles, re-published in The Contempt of Freedom (1940) and The Logic of
Liberty (1951), Polanyi claimed that co-operation amongst scientists is analogous to the way in
which agents co-ordinate themselves within a free market. Just as consumers in a free market
determine the value of products, science is a spontaneous order that arises as a consequence of
open debate amongst specialists. Science can therefore only flourish when scientists have the
liberty to pursue truth as an end in itself:

Scientists, freely making their own choice of problems and pursuing them in the light of
their own personal judgment, are in fact co-operating as members of a closely knit organization.

Such self-co-ordination of independent initiatives leads to a joint result which is

unpremeditated by any of those who bring it about.

Any attempt to organize the group ... under a single authority would eliminate their
independent initiatives, and thus reduce their joint effectiveness to that of the single person
directing them from the centre. It would, in effect, paralyze their co-operation.

Rationale

Proponents of academic freedom believe that the freedom of inquiry by students and
faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy. They argue that academic
communities are repeatedly targeted for repression due to their ability to shape and control the
flow of information. When scholars attempt to teach or communicate ideas or facts that are
inconvenient to external political groups or to authorities, they may find themselves targeted for
public vilification, job loss, imprisonment, or even death. For example, in North Africa, a
professor of public health discovered that his country's infant mortality rate was higher than
government figures indicated. He lost his job and was imprisoned.

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 The fate of biology in the Soviet Union is also cited as a reason why society has an
interest in protecting academic freedom. A Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko rejected Western
science – then focused primarily on making advances in theoretical genetics, based on research
with the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) – and proposed a more socially relevant approach to
farming that was based on the collectivist principles of dialectical materialism. (Lysenko called
this "Michurinism", but it is more popularly known today as Lysenkoism.) Lysenko's ideas
proved appealing to the Soviet leadership, in part because of their value as propaganda, and he
was ultimately made director of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Subsequently,
Lysenko directed a purge of scientists who professed "harmful ideas", resulting in the expulsion,
imprisonment, or death of hundreds of Soviet scientists. Lysenko's ideas were then implemented
on collectivized farms in the Soviet Union and China. Famines that resulted partly from
Lysenko's influence are believed to have killed 30 million people in China alone.

AFAF (Academics For Academic Freedom) of the United Kingdom is a campaign for
lecturers, academic staff and researchers who want to make a public statement in favor of free
enquiry and free expression. Their statement of Academic Freedom has two main principles:

that academics, both inside and outside the classroom, have unrestricted liberty to
question and test received wisdom and to put forward controversial and unpopular
opinions, whether or not these are deemed offensive, and

that academic institutions have no right to curb the exercise of this freedom by
members of their staff, or to use it as grounds for disciplinary action or dismissal.

AFAF and those who agree with its principles believe that it is important for academics
to be able not only to express their opinions, but also to put them to scrutiny and to open further
debate. They are against the idea of telling the public Platonic "noble lies" and believe that
people need not be protected from radical views.

Academic freedom for professors

The concept of academic freedom as a right of faculty members is an established part of

most legal systems. Different from the United States, where academic freedom is derived from
the guarantee of free speech under the First Amendment, constitutions of other countries (and

51
particularly of civil law jurisdictions) typically grant a separate right to free learning, teaching,
and research.

In France

Professors at public French universities and researchers in public research laboratories

are expected, as are all civil servants, to behave in a neutral manner and to not favor any
particular political or religious point of view during the course of their duties. However, the
academic freedom of university professors is a fundamental principle recognized by the laws of
the Republic, as defined by the Constitutional Council; furthermore, statute law declares about
higher education that "teachers-researchers (university professors and assistant professors),
researchers and teachers are fully independent and enjoy full freedom of speech in the course of
their research and teaching activities, provided they respect, following university traditions and
the dispositions of this code, principles of tolerance and objectivity". The nomination and
promotion of professors is largely done through a process of peer review rather than through
normal administrative procedures.

In Germany

The German Constitution (German: Grundgesetz) specifically grants academic freedom:

"Art and science, research and teaching are free. Freedom of teaching does not absolve from
loyalty to the constitution" (Art. 5, para. 3). In a tradition reaching back to the 19th century,
jurisdiction has understood this right as one to teach (Lehrfreiheit), studies (Lernfreiheit), and
conduct research (Freiheit der Wissenschaft) freely, although the last concept has sometimes
been taken as a cover term for the first two. Lehrfreiheit embraces the right of professors to
determine the content of their lectures and to publish the results of their research without prior
approval.

Since professors through their Habilitation receive the right to teach (Latin: venia docendi) in a
particular academic field, academic freedom is deemed to cover at least the entirety of this field.
Lernfreiheit means a student's right to determine an individual course of study. Finally, Freiheit
der Wissenschaft permits academic self-governance and grants the university control of its

52
internal affairs. Through the introduction of disciplinary curricula, Lernfreiheit has become a
rather empty concept.

In the Philippines

The 1987 Philippine Constitution states that, "Academic Freedom shall be enjoyed in all
institutions of higher learning." Philippine jurisprudence and courts of law, including the
Philippine Supreme Court tend to reflexively defer to the institutional autonomy of higher
institutions of learning in determining academic decisions with respect to the outcomes of
individual cases filed in the courts regarding the abuse of Academic Freedom by professors,
despite the individual merits or demerits of any cases. A closely watched case was the
controversial case of University of the Philippines at Diliman Sociology Professor Sarah
Raymundo who was not granted tenure due to an appeal by the minority dissenting vote within
the faculty of the Sociology Department. This decision was sustained upon appeal by the
dissenting faculty and Professor Raymundo to the University of the Philippines at Diliman
Chancellor Sergio S. Cao; and though the case was elevated to University of the Philippines
System President Emerlinda R. Roman, Roman denied the appeal which was elevated by
Professor Raymundo to the University's Board of Regents for decision and the BOR granted her
request for tenure. A major bone of contention among the supporters of Professor Raymundo
was not to question the institutional Academic Freedom of the Department in not granting her
tenure, but in asking for transparency in how the Academic Freedom of the department was
exercised, in keeping with traditions within the University of the Philippines in providing a basis
that may be subject to peer review, for Academic decisions made under the mantle of Academic
Freedom.

In South Africa

Section 16 of the 1996 Constitution of South Africa offers specific protection to

academic freedom. However, there have been a large number of scandals around the restriction
of academic freedom at a number of universities with particular concern being expressed at the
situation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

In the United States

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 In the United States, academic freedom is generally taken as the notion of academic
freedom defined by the "1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure",
jointly authored by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the
Association of American Colleges (AAC, now the Association of American Colleges and
Universities). These principles state that "Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in
discussing their subject." The statement also permits institutions to impose "limitations of
academic freedom because of religious or other aims", so long as they are "clearly stated in
writing at the time of the appointment" The Principles have only the character of private
pronouncements, not that of binding law.

The six regional creditors work with American colleges and universities, including
private and religious institutions, to implement this standard. Additionally, the AAUP, which is
not an accrediting body, works with these same institutions. The AAUP does not always agree
with the regional accrediting bodies on the standards of protection of academic freedom and
tenure. The AAUP lists those colleges and universities which it has found to violate these
principles. There is some case law in the United States that teachers are limited in their academic
freedoms.

Academic freedom for colleges and universities

A prominent feature of the English university concept is the freedom to appoint faculty,
set standards and admit students. This ideal may be better described as institutional autonomy
and is distinct from whatever freedom is granted to students and faculty by the institution.[20]

The Supreme Court of the United States said that academic freedom means a university
can "determine for itself on academic grounds:

who may teach,

what may be taught,

how it should be taught, and

who may be admitted to study."

54
 In a 2008 case, a Federal court in Virginia ruled that professors have no academic
freedom; all academic freedom resides with the university or college. In that case, Stronach v.
Virginia State University, a district court judge held "that no constitutional right to academic
freedom exists that would prohibit senior (university) officials from changing a grade given by (a
professor) to one of his students." The court relied on mandatory precedent of the U.S. Supreme
Court case of Sweezy v. New Hampshire and a case from the fourth circuit court of appeals. The
Stronach court also relied on persuasive cases from several circuits of the courts of appeals,
including the first, third, and seventh circuits. That court distinguished the situation when a
university attempts to coerce a professor into changing a grade, which is clearly in violation of
the First Amendment, from when university officials may, in their discretionary authority,
change the grade upon appeal by a student. The Stronach case has gotten significant attention in
the academic community as an important precedent.

Pontifical universities

Pontifical universities around the world such as The Catholic University of America, the
Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome, the Université catholique
de Louvain in Belgium, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru depend for their status as
pontifical universities and for the terms of academic freedom on the Pope through the
Congregation for Catholic Education. The terms of academic freedom at ecclesiastical
institutions of education are outlined in the apostolic constitution Sapientia Christiana,

Relationship to freedom of speech

Academic freedom and free speech rights are not coextensive, although this widely
accepted view has been recently challenged by an "institutionalism" perspective on the First
Amendment. Academic freedom involves more than speech rights; for example, it includes the
right to determine what is taught in the classroom. In practice, academic freedom is protected by
institutional rules and regulations, letters of appointment, faculty handbooks, collective
bargaining agreements, and academic custom.

In the U.S., the freedom of speech is guaranteed by the First Amendment, which states
that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press...." By
extension, the First Amendment applies to all governmental institutions, including public

55
universities. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that academic freedom is a First
Amendment right at public institutions. However, The United States' First Amendment has
generally been held to not apply to private institutions, including religious institutions. These
private institutions may honor freedom of speech and academic freedom at their discretion.

Controversies

Academic freedom is also associated with a movement to introduce intelligent design as

an alternative explanation to evolution in US public schools. Supporters claim that academic
institutions need to fairly represent all possible explanations for the observed biodiversity on
Earth, rather than implying no alternatives to evolutionary theory exist.

Critics of the movement claim intelligent design is religiously motivated pseudoscience

and cannot be allowed into the curriculum of US public schools due to the First Amendment to
the United States Constitution, often citing Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District as legal
precedent. They also reject the allegations of discrimination against proponents of intelligent
design, of which investigation showed no evidence.

A number of "academic freedom bills" have been introduced in state legislatures in the
United States between 2004 and 2008. The bills were based largely upon language drafted by the
Discovery Institute, the hub of the Intelligent Design movement, and derive from language
originally drafted for the Santorum Amendment in the United States Senate. According to the
Wall Street Journal, the common goal of these bills is to expose more students to articles and
videos that undercut evolution, most of which are produced by advocates of intelligent design or
Biblical creationism. The American Association of University Professors has reaffirmed its
opposition to these academic freedom bills, including any portrayal of creationism as a
scientifically credible alternative and any misrepresentation of evolution as scientifically
controversial. As of June 2008, only the Louisiana bill has been successfully passed into law.

The "Academic bill of rights”

Students for Academic Freedom were founded in 2001 by David Horowitz to protect
students from a perceived liberal bias in U.S. colleges and universities. The organization
collected many statements from college students complaining that some of their professors were

56
disregarding their responsibility to keep unrelated controversial material out of their classes and
were instead teaching their subjects from an ideological point of view. In response, the
organization drafted model legislation, called the Academic Bill of Rights, which has been
introduced in several state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives. The Academic
Bill of Rights is based on the Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic
Tenure as published by the American Association of University Professors in 1915, and modified
in 1940 and 1970. According to Students for Academic Freedom, academic freedom is "the
freedom to teach and to learn." They contend that academic freedom promotes "intellectual
diversity" and helps achieve a university's primary goals, i.e., "the pursuit of truth, the discovery
of new knowledge through scholarship and research, the study and reasoned criticism of
intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general development of students to help them
become creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the
transmission of knowledge and learning to a society at large." They feel that, in the past forty
years, the principles as defined in the AAUP Declaration have become something of a dead
letter, and that an entrenched class of tenured radical leftists is blocking all efforts to restore
those principles. In an attempt to override such opposition, the Academic Bill of Rights calls for
state and judicial regulation of colleges. Such regulation would ensure that:

students and faculty will not be favored or disfavored because of their political
views or religious beliefs;

he humanities and social sciences, in particular, will expose their students to a

variety of sources and viewpoints, and not present one viewpoint as certain and settled
truth;

campus publications and invited speakers will not be harassed, abused, or

otherwise obstructed;

academic institutions and professional societies will adopt a neutral attitude in

matters of politics, ideology or religion.

Opponents claim that such a bill would actually restrict academic freedom, by granting
politically motivated legislators and judges the right to shape the nature and focus of scholarly
concerns. According to the American Association of University Professors, the Academic Bill of

57
Rights is, despite its title, an attack on the very concept of academic freedom itself: "A
fundamental premise of academic freedom is that decisions concerning the quality of scholarship
and teaching are to be made by reference to the standards of the academic profession, as
interpreted and applied by the community of scholars who are qualified by expertise and training
to establish such standards." The Academic Bill of Rights directs universities to implement the
principle of neutrality by requiring the appointment of faculty "with a view toward fostering a
plurality of methodologies and perspectives," an approach they claim is problematic because "It
invites diversity to be measured by political standards that diverge from the academic criteria of
the scholarly profession." For example, "no department of political theory ought to be obligated
to establish 'a plurality of methodologies and perspectives' by appointing a professor of Nazi
political philosophy." Concurring, the president of Appalachian Bible College in West Virginia
fears that the Academic Bill of Rights "would inhibit his college's efforts to provide a faith-based
education and would put pressure on the college to hire professors... who espouse views contrary
to those of the institution."

Specific cases

While some controversies of academic freedom are reflected in proposed laws that would
affect large numbers of students through entire regions, many cases involve individual
academicians that express unpopular opinions or share politically unfavorable information.
These individual cases may receive widespread attention and periodically test the limits of, and
support for, academic freedom.

The Bassett Affair at Duke University in North Carolina in the early 20th century was an
important event in the history of academic freedom. In October 1903, Professor John Spencer
Bassett publicly praised Booker T. Washington and drew attention to the racism and white
supremacist behavior of the Democratic party, to the disgust of powerful white Southerners.
Many media reports castigated Bassett, and many major newspapers published opinion pieces
attacking him and demanding his termination. On December 1, 1903, the entire faculty of the
college threatened to resign en masse if the board gave into political pressures and asked Bassett
to resign. President Teddy Roosevelt later praised Bassett for his willingness to express the truth
as he saw it.

58
 In 1929, Experimental Psychology Professor Max Friedrich Meyer and Sociology
Assistant Professor Harmon O. DeGraff were dismissed from their positions at the University of
Missouri for advising student Orval Hobart Mowrer regarding distribution of a questionnaire
which inquired about attitudes towards divorce, "living together", and sex. The university was
subsequently censured by the American Association of University Professors in an early case
regarding academic freedom due a tenured professor.

William Shockley was concerned about relatively high reproductive rates among people
of African descent, because he believed that genetics doomed black people to be intellectually
inferior to white people. He was strongly criticized for this stand, which raised some concerns
about whether criticism of unpopular views of racial differences suppressed academic freedom.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, some public statements made by
some university faculty were criticized. Most prominent among these were these comments
made in January 2005 by University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill. He published an
essay in which he asserted that the attack on the United States, while unjustified, was provoked
by American foreign policy. On news and talk programs, he was criticized for describing the
World Trade Center victims as "little Eichmanns", a reference to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in
Jerusalem. The university fired Churchill in 2007 for research misconduct, and despite initially
winning US $1 in damages from a jury, Churchill ultimately lost his wrongful termination
lawsuit on appeal.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Lawrence Summers, while president of Harvard
University, led a discussion that was intended to identify the reasons why fewer women chose to
study science and mathematics at advanced levels. He suggested that the possibility of intrinsic
gender differences in terms of talent for science and mathematics should be explored. He became
the target of considerable public backlash. His critics were, in turn, accused of attempting to
suppress academic freedom.

The 2006 scandal in which several members of the Duke Lacrosse team were falsely
accused of rape raised serious criticisms against exploitation of academic freedom by the
university and its faculty to press judgment and deny due process to the three players accused.

59
 In 2006 trade union leader and sociologist Fazel Khan was fired from the University of
KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa after taking a leadership role in a strike. In 2008
international concern was also expressed at attempts to discipline two other academics at the
same university – Nithiya Chetty and John van der Berg – for expressing concern about
academic freedom at the university.

J. Michael Bailey wrote a popular science-style book, The Man Who Would Be Queen,
which promotes Ray Blanchard's theory that transwomen are motivated by sexuality, and
dismisses the "woman trapped in a man's body" concept of transsexuality . Blanchard's theory
divides transwomen into two groups (autogynephilics and homosexual transsexuals) according to
their sexual orientation. In an effort to discredit his book, some trans activists filed formal
complaints with Northwestern University accusing Bailey of conducting regulated human
research by talking informally to transwomen without first obtaining written proof of informed
consent. They also filed a complaint with Illinois state regulators, requesting that they investigate
Bailey for practicing psychology without a license. Bailey, who was not licensed to practice
clinical psychology in Illinois, had provided some transwomen with free case evaluation letters,
saying that he believed they were good candidates for sex-reassignment surgery. Regulators
dismissed the complaint. Andrea James, a Los Angeles-based transgender activist, posted
photographs of Bailey's children, taken when they were in middle and elementary school, with
sexually explicit captions that she provided.

Thio Li-ann withdrew from an appointment at New York University School of Law after
controversy erupted about some anti-gay remarks she had made, prompting a discussion of
academic freedom within the law school

In 2009 the University of California at Santa Barbara charged William I. Robinson with
anti-Semitism after he circulated an email to his class containing more than two dozen
photographs of Jewish victims of the Nazis, including those of dead children, juxtaposed with
nearly identical images from the Gaza Strip. It also included an article critical of Israel's
treatment of the Palestinians and a note from Robinson stating "Gaza is Israel's Warsaw -- a vast
concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians," the professor wrote. "We are
witness to a slow-motion process of genocide."., The charges were dropped after a worldwide
campaign against the management of the university.

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 The University of the Philippines at Diliman affair where controversy erupted after
Professor Gerardo A. Agulto of the College of Business Administration was sued by MBA
graduate student Chanda R. Shahani for a nominal amount in damages for failing him several
times in the Strategic Management portion of the Comprehensive Examination. Agulto refused
to give a detailed basis for his grades and instead invoked Academic Freedom while Shahani
argued in court that Academic Freedom could not be invoked without a rational basis in grading
a student.

During the interwar years (cir. 1919-1939) Canadian academics were informally expected
to be apolitical, lest they bring trouble to their respective universities who, at the time, were very
much dependent upon provincial government grants. As well, many Canadian academics of the
time considered their position to be remote from the world of politics and felt they had no place
getting involved in political issues. However, with the increase of socialist activity in Canada
during the Great Depression, due to the rise of social gospel ideology, some left-wing academics
began taking active part in contemporary political issues outside of the university. Thus,
individuals such as Frank H. Underhill at the University of Toronto and other members or
affiliates with the League for Social Reconstruction or the socialist movement in Canada who
held academic positions began to find themselves in precarious positions with their university
employers. Frank H. Underhill, for example, faced criticism from within and without academia
and near expulsion from his university position for his public political comments and his
involvement with the League for Social Reconstruction and the Co-Operative Commonwealth
Federation. According to Michiel Horn this era marked, "…a relaxation of the unwritten controls
under which many Canadian professors had previously worked. The nature of the institutions,
natural caution and professional pre-occupation had before the Depression inhibited the
professoriate. None of these conditions changed quickly, but even at the provincial universities
there were brave souls in the 1930s who claimed, with varying success, the right publicly to
discuss controversial subjects and express opinions about them."

Article at Philippine Star, 7 , 14 , 28 February, March 6, 13, 2008

Academic freedom is widely misunderstood. Many teachers think that, with academic
freedom, they can pretty much say anything they want to say. That is not true at all. Academic

61
freedom is a specifically limited right of certain persons. To get to the real meaning of academic
freedom, we have to return to the original reason for it.

The discussion by John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University, published in 1854,
serves as a good starting point. “A University, taken in its bare idea,” he said, “has this object
and this mission: it contemplates neither moral impression nor mechanical production; it
professes to exercise the mind neither in art nor in duty; its function is intellectual culture.” He
continued, “It educates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and
to grasp it.”

The key word in this passage is truth. Academic freedom exists in order for humanity to
discover the truth. Moreover, academic freedom makes sense only within the larger context of a
university’s search for truth.

Flash forward to the present. In a modern discussion of it, the University of Oxford
declared in March, 2007, that “staff (faculty) have freedom within the law to question and test
received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without
placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges.” There are two key concepts in
this modern formulation: first, faculty members have to stay within the law, and second, they
cannot be fired for expressing new ideas.

The world cannot progress unless there is a group of human beings allowed to question
conventional knowledge without persecution. This freedom to think and to express what they
think is, however, not an absolute right of these human beings, but is limited by what the law
says.

What does the law say?

The most universal of all laws about academic freedom is that of the United Nations
Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. What does the United Nations say?

Article 13 of the 1976 United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights focuses on the right to education. In its 1999 interpretation of that article, the UN
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights distinguishes between individual academic
freedom and institutional academic freedom.

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 The UN Committee’s first provision goes this way: “Members of the academic
community, individually or collectively, are free to pursue, develop and transmit knowledge and
ideas, through research, teaching, study, discussion, documentation, production, creation or
writing. Academic freedom includes the liberty of individuals to express freely opinions about
the institution or system in which they work, to fulfil their functions without discrimination or
fear of repression by the State or any other actor, to participate in professional or representative
academic bodies, and to enjoy all the internationally recognized human rights applicable to other
individuals in the same jurisdiction. The enjoyment of academic freedom carries with it
obligations, such as the duty to respect the academic freedom of others, to ensure the fair
discussion of contrary views, and to treat all without discrimination on any of the prohibited
grounds.”

Since individual academic freedom is a very complex issue, let me devote future entries
to this first provision. Today let me discuss only the second provision, which reads: “The
enjoyment of academic freedom requires the autonomy of institutions of higher education.
Autonomy is that degree of self-governance necessary for effective decision-making by
institutions of higher education in relation to their academic work, standards, management and
related activities. Self-governance, however, must be consistent with systems of public
accountability, especially in respect of funding provided by the State. Given the substantial
public investments made in higher education, an appropriate balance has to be struck between
institutional autonomy and accountability. While there is no single model, institutional
arrangements should be fair, just and equitable, and as transparent and participatory as possible.”

The second provision is about institutional academic freedom.

It is institutional academic freedom that is enshrined in our own 1987 Constitution.

Section 5 of Article 14 on Education, Science and Technology, Culture and Sports, states clearly
and simply, that “academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher learning.”

It is important to note that our Constitution, following the UN covenant, grants academic
freedom only to institutions of higher learning (that is, colleges and universities), rather than to
all schools, such as elementary or high schools. Since individual academic freedom is a

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consequence of institutional academic freedom, we can immediately see that elementary and
high school teachers and students do not enjoy academic freedom.

What is institutional academic freedom? Our own Supreme Court has defined it: “We
have held time and again that the University has the academic freedom to determine for itself on
academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be
admitted to study.” (G.R. No. 132860, April 3, 2001, University of the Philippines, et al., vs.
Civil Service Commission)

That is what institutional academic freedom is and that is all it is. A university can hire
and fire teachers, can formulate and restrict curricula and syllabi, can specify teaching methods,
and can accept or expel students – all without any interference from any outside entity, not even
government.

Immediately, we see why our Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is regarded by

many, if not most university administrators as misled. Although it was conceived to be
developmental (that means providing universities with opportunities to be world-class), CHED
has often actually been regulatory, something against the Constitution itself.

It is not just a question of leadership, although the current leadership in CHED is

undeniably unlawful. The problems of higher education will not be solved by a mere change of
government managers. It is a question of CHED doing what it is not supposed to do. CHED is
not supposed to infringe on the academic freedom of higher education institutions.

While institutional academic freedom is enshrined in the Constitution, individual

academic freedom is not. Individual teachers have academic freedom only to the extent that it is
given to them by their institutions.

This is clear even from the guidelines of the American Association of University
Professors (AAUP). Says AAUP: “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in
discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching
controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.” Teachers have academic freedom
only within their own disciplines.

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 Adds AAUP: “College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned
profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they
should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the
community imposes special obligations.” In other words, since they are looked up to, teachers
should not make statements that they cannot back up with evidence, as the word “evidence” is
defined in their particular disciplines.

Still from AAUP: “As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the
public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at
all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions
of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.”

Nearer home, our own Court of Appeals has restricted individual academic freedom even
more. Teachers can claim academic freedom only if they follow the regulations of a school. In
Far Eastern University vs. National Labor Relations Commission and Feliza Samaniego (CA-
G.R. SP No. 83614), the Court of Appeals said, “Teachers are given leeway, under the principle
of academic freedom, to conduct their classes according to the manner and form they see fit,
provided they conform to school regulation.”

Illustrative of the many descriptions of academic freedom is the one attributed to former
UP President Vicente G. Sinco, also a delegate to the 1973 Constitutional Convention. Sinco said
that the Constitution “definitely grants the right of academic freedom to the University as an
institution as distinguished from the academic freedom of a university professor.” In short,
universities can claim absolute academic freedom; individual teachers within a university can
claim academic freedom only if they obey the institution.

Certain institutions, such as UP itself, grant practically absolute academic freedom to its
teachers. Other institutions, however, particularly private ones, limit the academic freedom of
their teachers. Teachers in these institutions cannot choose their textbooks, design their own
syllabi different from departmental syllabi, not wear uniforms, not observe teaching or
consultation hours, and whatever else the administrators tell them not to do.

From a management point of view, this view of academic freedom makes perfect sense.
After all, if a particular teacher does not like to follow the regulations of a school, he or she can
always go to another school. This is the same reasoning that is behind the opinion of the

65
Supreme Court about institutional academic freedom. If a student does not like the way a school
is run, he or she can always enroll in another school.

The right to education is not denied any student, nor is freedom of speech denied any
teacher by this limited view of academic freedom. After all, nobody, student or teacher, has the
right to be in any particular institution. There is always some school somewhere (such as UP)
which will allow students or teachers more academic freedom than is allowed in other schools. If
someone will argue that he or she is not intelligent enough to be either a student or a teacher in
UP, then the answer is, tough. In fact, academic freedom is granted only to very few, highly
intelligent individuals.

Faculty members that cry “Academic Freedom” when threatened with dismissal by
school authorities for violating school rules should look at the Supreme Court decision in the
case of the University of the Philippines and Alfredo de Torres vs. Civil Service Commission
(G.R. No. 132860, April 3, 2001).

In that decision, the Court said unequivocally: “We have held time and again that ‘the
University has the academic freedom to determine for itself on academic grounds who may
teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.’ Clearly,
this freedom encompasses the autonomy to choose who should teach and, concomitant therewith,
who should be retained in its rolls of professors and other academic personnel. This Court
declared in Ateneo de Manila University v. Capulong: ‘As corporate entities, educational
institutions of higher learning are inherently endowed with the right to establish their policies,
academic and otherwise, unhampered by external controls or pressure.’”

The school’s administration, then, has the right to hire or fire teachers. Teachers cannot
claim academic freedom as a defense against being fired.

In the United States, someone can be fired just by saying, “You’re fired.” Says Ronald B.
Standler in “Academic Freedom in the USA”: “Untenured professors are at-will employees.
Under the doctrine of at-will employment, an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason,
no reason at all, or even a morally repugnant reason.”

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 Fortunately, because we are a bit more protective of the rights of workers, we need due
process to fire a teacher in the Philippines. Nevertheless, after such due process, a teacher can
still be fired for not following school regulations, even if these regulations are not academic
(such as wearing a uniform, not smoking on campus, or observing office hours).

Our Court of Appeals made this crystal clear: “Academic freedom does not mean that a
faculty member cannot be dismissed.” (25 August 2005, CA-G.R. SP No. 83614, Far Eastern
University vs. National Labor Relations Commission and Feliza Samaniego.)

If this sounds like a brief for school administrators faced with disciplining unruly faculty
members, that is because it is. I am tired of hearing teachers use the term “academic freedom”
every time they feel harassed by administrators.

There are, however, certain teachers that can legitimately claim academic freedom when
they defy school administrators ordering them to teach in a certain way. Such teachers are not
many, but they still constitute a distinct class of intellectuals that have to be exempted from
school rules, not just operational procedures, but even academic policies (such as adhering to a
prescribed syllabus or textbook, or in the case of a sectarian school, teaching according to the
tenets of a particular religion).

These are the intellectuals referred to in Cardinal Newman’s “The Idea of a University.”
They are the think tank of the world. They are the reason the idea of academic freedom was born.

Who are, without any doubt, entitled to academic freedom?

Only tenured professors in a university, who have doctorates, who have published in
peer-reviewed academic journals, and who follow non-academic school policies.

These are the privileged individual scholars entitled to teach whatever they want in
whatever way they want. No school can dictate to them what to teach or how to teach. In a sense,
the academic freedom of a school ends where the academic freedom of these scholars begin.

Unfortunately for the human race, there are very few of these scholars. Not everyone
teaching even in a prestigious university has the qualifications needed to join this elite group.

Why is tenure required? Because non-tenured professors still have not earned the total
respect of their peers in the university. That is why they are non-tenured. The other faculty
members or the administrators of a school do not trust them enough yet to give them the
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assurance that they can stay in the school permanently. They are still under probation. They are
still being judged by their peers.

Why are doctorates required? Because only the doctorate is the final, objective proof that
a scholar has mastered everything that has to be mastered in a field. A doctoral dissertation
includes what is known as a “review of the literature.” This is proof that the scholar has read
everything previously written about his area of specialization. The dissertation advances
knowledge in the field. By writing a doctoral dissertation, the scholar proves that she or he has
done something no one else has done before. She or he has pushed the frontiers of knowledge.

Why is publishing in a peer-reviewed journal required? Because such publication is

objective proof that other scholars in the field, especially those in other universities and in other
countries, respect the professor. Acceptance by peers is crucial in determining whether one
should be allowed to challenge received wisdom. After the dissertation, only publication in a
peer-reviewed journal serves as a gauge of originality and validity of thought.

Why is adherence to non-academic school policies required? I personally do not believe

that academically free professors should follow school policies, because such policies are made
by people that, by definition, are the intellectual inferiors of such professors. But the law is
unfortunately on the side of administrators.

Our Court of Appeals thinks so. In Far Eastern University vs. National Labor Relations
Commission and Feliza Samaniego, the Court said, “Academic freedom affords a faculty
member the right to pursue his studies in his particular specialty. Academic freedom does not
mean that a faculty member cannot be dismissed.” (25 August 2005, CA-G.R. SP No. 83614)

American law is even clearer. Here is a typical decision: “Academic freedom is not a
license for activity at variance with job did not relate procedures and requirements, nor does it
encompass activities which are internally destructive to the proper function of the university or
disruptive to the education process.” [Stastny v. Central Washington University, 647 P.2d 496,
504 (Wash.Ct.App. 1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1071 (1983)]

In fact, American law is even more stringent. Here is another decision: “But we do not
conceive academic freedom to be a license for uncontrolled expression at variance with
established curricular contents and internally destructive of the proper functioning of the

68
institution.” [Clark v. Holmes, 474 F.2d 928, 931 (7thCir. 1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 972
(1973)]

My own opinion is that academic freedom for those individuals satisfying the criteria
cannot be restricted by the institution, except for non-academic matters (such as punctuality,
attendance, submission of grades on time, wearing of uniforms). Inside the classroom,
academically free professors should be able to do whatever they want, as long as it is in the area
of their expertise.

Why? Because that is the whole point of academic freedom. There should be individuals
allowed to think unthinkable thoughts, teach unteachable things, publish unpublishable ideas.
These are the individuals that really are at the cutting edge of knowledge. Without them, the
human race is doomed. Without them, we will stagnate, unable to produce ideas that change the
world.

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III Reconciliation

Jose Rizal's huge role in attaining the nation's freedom led to the establishment of
Republic Act 1425. The Republic Act 1425, commonly known as the Rizal Act, was established
12th of June 1956 by Senator Claro M. Recto. It requires the curricula of private and public
schools, colleges and universities courses to include the life, works and writings of Jose Rizal,
particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. According to the Official
Gazette, the law was made effective on August 16, 1956.

Based on the Philippines’ vibrant history, the Filipinos are well-known throughout the
world with their sense of nationalism. Since the Spanish era until the latest People Power, the
Filipinos had generously expressed their ideals of their own love of freedom of their country.
This certain noble love that we, Filipinos, are proud of should always be remembered and
practiced, and therefore should be taught to the younger generations. For this reason, the
Republic Act 1425, or popularly known as the Rizal Law, was implemented by the State.

The Rizal Law states that all public and private schools, colleges, and universities in the
country must include in their curricula, courses or subject about the life, works and, writings of
Dr. Jose Rizal, particularly the novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. In this law, the
honor of the Filipinos’ nationalism, particularly our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, is met with
special fondness and devotion by the younger generations during their formal education.

The works of Dr. Jose Rizal, especially the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, are
excellent inspiring sources of nationalism or patriotism in which the Filipino youths should also
recognize and put into practice. Since also in school, the minds of these youths are carefully
molded with proper knowledge and discipline. Therefore, in school, the enacted curricula, course
or subject is also a way of teaching the youths of being a good Filipino citizen.

On the other hand, minor occurrences have already violated this law. The use of
the English translation as an alternative medium is already a contrast to the objectives of the law.
The law should also recognize our national language and not the English language but this
implementation may be difficult due to colonial mentality and the recent issue of globalization.
Certain primers, readers, and textbooks that are used in certain public schools with only a few

70
funds for good education had already edited the original texts to different explanations and views
that had led to a confusion or false knowledge to the students. But sad to say, there is not enough
implementation of laws that can control this problem in our poor country.

Many other violations of the law had been done and ignored. Adequate amounts of copies
are not available in public schools due to the massive graft and corruption of some public
officials. Distribution of copies of Rizal’s works that are free of charge to those persons desiring
to read them is not also really available in the Purok organizations and Barrio Councils
throughout the country. I think that a revision of the Rizal Law should be considered or, in a hard
way, the law should be more strictly practiced and penalized so that somehow, or in some way,
appreciation and recognition of the love of country is truly practiced.

All over the world, people study about the lives of those who were responsible for the
founding of their countries and in their countries' independence movements. It is no different in
the Philippines. This is why it is relevant to study the life of Rizal.

By studying the lives of heroes such as Rizal, we are supposed to become more aware of
the ideals that our country is founded upon. We are supposed to become more aware of the
sacrifices (such as Rizal giving his life) that our forefathers made in order that we could have an
independent country. In other words, the study of such heroes is supposed to make us more
patriotic and more appreciative of what we have today. So, studying about Rizal is relevant to a
Filipino because it allows them to become better citizens of their country.

A course on Rizal was designed to familiarize the student with Rizal's role in the
development of the Philippines' progress in political, social, economic and educational aspects. It
includes the hero's youth and parentage, his schooling here and abroad, his travels and their
implications to Philippine progress.

It is important to study the life of Jose Rizal because of his input towards the
independence of Philippines. He chose to fight for his country through knowledge and the power
of letters. He noticed the continued suffering of his countrymen at the hands of the Spaniards and
sought to put an end to this situation. He decided to improve on his personal studies to acquire
knowledge that he would later on pass to his people through novels and poems. His famous
novels the "Noli Me Tangere" and "El Filibusterismo" pointed out the issues that the true citizens

71
of Philippines faced under Spanish rule and the need to take decisive action to liberate them from
oppression. His actions resonated well with that of his countrymen and eventually the people
decided to rise up and defend their rights and freedom.

It is important to study Rizal’s life and his writings including other heroes because the
contribution they give to the country is priceless. We the youth know only the little background
of their lives and works and we are already moved, what about if we dig deeper into this? Of
course we will learn many lessons and inspirations with their works. The love they give for the
country, especially Dr. Rizal, who is the mightiest. The principle of pen is mightier than the
sword.

The wounds made by verbal weapons are won’t be healed easily and creates more
damage to the personality of the tyrant Spaniards that is why he is haunted by them. If all of the
youth also inherit this kind of concern and patriotism for the country, for sure we will have a
nonstop cycle of dignified youths that soon will be leaders.

WHY STUDY RIZAL: BECAUSE IT IS MANDATED BY LAW

The teaching of Jose Rizal’s life, works, and writings is mandated by Republic Act 1425,
otherwise known as the Rizal Law. Senator Jose P. Laurel, the person who sponsored the said
law, said that since Rizal was the founder of Philippine nationalism and has contributed much to
the current standing of this nation, it is only right that the youth as well as all the people in the
country know about and learn to imbibe the great ideals for which he died. The Rizal Law,
enacted in 1956, seeks to accomplish the following goals:

 To rededicate the lives of youth to the ideals of freedom and nationalism,

for which our heroes lived and died
 To pay tribute to our national hero for devoting his life and works in
shaping the Filipino character
 To gain an inspiring source of patriotism through the study of Rizal’s life,
works, and writings.

WHY STUDY RIZAL: BECAUSE OF THE LESSONS CONTAINED WITHIN THE

COURSE

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 Aside from those mentioned above, there are other reasons for teaching the Rizal course
in Philippine schools:

 To recognize the importance of Rizal’s ideals and teachings in relation to present

conditions and situations in the society.
 To encourage the application of such ideals in current social and personal
problems and issues.
 To develop an appreciation and deeper understanding of all that Rizal fought and
died for.
 To foster the development of the Filipino youth in all aspects of citizenship.

We now live in a postmodern world dominated by electronic gadgets, cyber technology,

and robotics, scientific and genetic breakthroughs. The Philippines, in spite of its status as an
industrializing country, also manages to get by with the current trend of development and
industrialization. It is a fact that education plays a vital role in the growth of a country, for an
educated and functional population maneuvers the fate of its country and its fate as a people.

At present, many tertiary students, particularly those taking up technical, engineering and
nursing courses, ask about the relevance of Rizal Course to their courses and planned career
paths. Some of them wonder if the subject will just be a mere repetition of what they had during
their high-school days, while some insist that the subject, whatever its code, may be just a waste
of time and money. Thus, most students tend to be antagonistic not only to the subject but to the
teacher and, worst, to Jose Rizal himself.

Rizal Course is mandated by law under Republic Act 1425, authored and fought for by
Claro M. Recto. R.A. 1425 is also known as the Rizal Law.

The law has three major provisions: First, it directs educational agencies such as the
Department of Education and the Commission of Higher Education to include in the curricula of
all schools, colleges and universities, public or private, the study of the life of our national hero,
with emphasis on the original or unexpurgated versions of the Noli and El Fili.

73
 Second, it obliges all the libraries of all schools, colleges and universities to maintain an
adequate number of copies of Noli and El Fili in their collections as well as other materials
related to the life of Rizal.

Third, it directs the Board of National Education to take charge of the translation,
reproduction and distribution of printed copies of Rizal’s novels to interested parties through
purok organizations and barangay councils, free of charge.

The antagonistic attitude of students toward the Rizal Course can be generally traced to
our historical unawareness and indifference. Some of us already stopped caring about our
significant past, thus making us ignorant of the good lessons we should have learned for our own
good. Some of us were just so preoccupied that we had no time to be conscious and look back to
learn from the deeds and principles of the people who started shaping the destiny of our nation.

Another factor that’s also fanned negative impressions about the Rizal Course was the
way teachers and professors handle and deliver the subject. While strictly following the
provisions of R.A. 1425, teachers are free to be creative and apply appealing teaching techniques
that would cater to the interests of the students. Teaching the course should not only involve
memorizing and reading the novel, instead a presentation of Rizal as an ordinary boy or student
who exerted his utmost efforts to be a great and functional person will be highly appreciated by
students, while also taking note of his flaws as a person and how he surmounted them through
his strengths.

Teachers can direct their students to read the novels of Rizal and allow them to analyze if
the plots of the novels still apply to our present situation. Provocative questions must be asked
among learners in order to allow them to think critically. Professors can assign them tasks that
require researches in order for them to visit the school libraries and use the library’s Rizaliana
Collection.

Meanwhile, schools, colleges and universities must act in accordance with R.A. 1425 and
equip their libraries with materials about Rizal. There are lots of works about Rizal nowadays,
written by both Filipino and foreign authors. In this way, the schools, colleges and universities
not only complied with the law but helped form historically aware and concerned young citizens.

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 Some would argue that the Rizal Law is obsolete and needs to be abolished or amended.
But the law is very simple, yet it caters to the Filipinos not to hero-worship but to remember a
hero who chose death for the sake of his convictions and of his country. To pay tribute to an
exemplary Filipino who even in his lifetime was already revered by his compatriots with the
likes of Andres Bonifacio and Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, by world-renowned personalities like Dr.
Rudolf Virchow and Ferdinand Blumentritt. Most of all, this law indirectly guides us to live
according to Rizal’s examples by knowing him and by reading him.

THE RIZAL BILL was as controversial as Jose Rizal himself.

The mandatory Rizal subject in the Philippines was the upshot of this bill which
later became a law in 1956. The bill involves mandating educational institutions in the country to
offer a course on the hero’s life, works, and writings, especially the ‘Noli Me Tangere’ and ‘El
Filibusterismo’. The transition from being a bill to becoming a republic act was however not
easy as the proposal was met with intense opposition particularly from the Catholic Church.

Largely because of the issue, the then senator Claro M. Recto—the main proponent of the
Rizal Bill—was even dubbed as a communist and an anti-Catholic. Catholic schools threatened
to stop operation if the bill was passed, though Recto calmly countered the threat, stating that if
that happened, then the schools would be nationalized. Afterward threatened to be punished in
future elections, Recto remained undeterred.

Concerning the suggestion to use instead the expurgated (edited) version of Rizal’s
novels as mandatory readings, Recto explained his firm support for the unexpurgated version,
exclaiming: “The people who would eliminate the books of Rizal from the schools would blot
out from our minds the memory of the national hero. This is not a fight against Recto but a fight
against Rizal.” (Ocampo, 2012, p. 23)

The bill was eventually passed, but with a clause that would allow exemptions to students
who think that reading the Noli and Fili would ruin their faith. In other words, one can apply to
the Department of Education for exemption from reading Rizal’s novels—though not from
taking the Rizal subject. The bill was enacted on June 12, 1956.

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The Importance of Studying Rizal

The academic subject on the life, works, and writings of Jose Rizal was not mandated by
law for nothing. Far from being impractical, the course interestingly offers many benefits that
some contemporary academicians declare that the subject, especially when taught properly, is
more beneficial than many subjects in various curricula.

The following are just some of the significance of the academic subject:

1. The subject provides insights on how to deal with current problems

There is a dictum, “He who controls the past controls the future.” Our view of history
forms the manner we perceive the present, and therefore influences the kind of solutions we
provide for existing problems. Jose Rizal course, as a history subject, is full of historical
information from which one could base his decisions in life. In various ways, the subject, for
instance, teaches that being educated is a vital ingredient for a person or country to be really free
and successful.

2. It helps us understand better ourselves as Filipinos

The past helps us understand who we are. We comprehensively define ourselves not only
in terms of where we are going, but also where we come from. Our heredity, past behaviors, and
old habits as a nation are all significant clues and determinants to our present situation.
Interestingly, the life of a very important national historical figure like Jose Rizal contributes
much to shedding light on our collective experience and identity as Filipino. The good grasp of
the past offered by this subject would help us in dealing wisely with the present.

3. It teaches nationalism and patriotism

Nationalism involves the desire to attain freedom and political independence, especially
by a country under foreign power, while patriotism denotes proud devotion and loyalty to one’s
nation. Jose Rizal’s life, works, and writings—especially his novels—essentially, if not perfectly,
radiate these traits. For one thing, the subject helps us to understand our country better.

4. It provides various essential life lessons

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 We can learn much from the way Rizal faced various challenges in life. As a
controversial figure in his time, he encountered serious dilemmas and predicaments but
responded decently and high-mindedly. Through the crucial decisions he made in his life, we can
sense his priorities and convictions which manifest how noble, selfless, and great the national
hero was. For example, his many resolutions exemplified the aphorism that in this life there are
things more important than personal feeling and happiness.

5. It helps in developing logical and critical thinking

Critical Thinking refers to discerning, evaluative, and analytical thinking. A Philosophy

major, Jose Rizal unsurprisingly demonstrated his critical thinking skills in his argumentative
essays, satires, novels, speeches, and written debates. In deciding what to believe or do, Rizal
also proved his being a reasonably reflective thinker, never succumbing to the irrational whims
and baseless opinions of anyone. In fact, he indiscriminately evaluated and criticized even the
doctrines of the dominant religion of his time. A course on Rizal’s life, works, and writings
therefore is also a lesson in critical thinking.

6. Rizal can serve as a worthwhile model and inspiration to every Filipino

If one is looking for someone to imitate, then Rizal is a very viable choice. The hero’s
philosophies, life principles, convictions, thoughts, ideals, aspirations, and dreams are a good
influence to anyone. Throughout his life, he valued nationalism and patriotism, respect for
parents, love for siblings, and loyalty to friends, and maintained a sense of chivalry. As a man of
education, he highly regarded academic excellence, logical and critical thinking, philosophical
and scientific inquiry, linguistic study, and cultural research. As a person, he manifested
versatility and flexibility while sustaining a strong sense of moral uprightness.

7. The subject is a rich source of entertaining narratives

People love fictions and are even willing to spend for books or movie tickets just to be
entertained by made-up tales. But only a few perhaps know that Rizal’s life is full of fascinating
non-fictional accounts.

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 It's not the first time that I heard it; actually, most of the college students complain about
taking history and Rizal courses. They question the use of these subjects on the career that they
will be pursuing after graduation, how their money is wasted on those units, and how their time
is consumed just to earn good grades for the subjects.

Truth be told, I felt just the same when I was in high school. We were made to report or
dramatize Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo per chapter, and every five chapters, there
would be an exam covering names, places and dates from those sections. Their importance were
not explained deeply, and they were forgotten when exams were over.

But college came and I took a different perspective because of one thing: my Rizal
professor told us that they teach those courses because it's a law. The Republic Act No. 1425, An
Act to Include in the Curricula of All Public and Private Schools, Colleges and Universities
Courses On the Life, Works and Writings of Jose Rizal, Particularly His Novels Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo, Authorizing the Printing and Distribution Thereof, and for Other
Purposes, commonly known as the Rizal Law, mandates all educational institutions in the
Philippines to offer courses about Jose Rizal.

But she didn't stop there. She told us how stupid we are not to want to know history and
it's evident on the way we respond to what is happening in the Philippines. If we are learned in
history, we will not still be in the society that Rizal drew in Noli and El Fili, but alas, most of
their chapters are reflections of the present Philippines still. From the falsehood of the Filipino
Catholic church as 'church for the poor', to usurping of lands from the indios, to mockery of too-
Filipino-looking people (pango, kayumanggi, maliit).

Padre Salvi and Sisa's family story is parallel to Bishop Teodoro Bacani and his sex
scandals, Tandang Selo's family story is parallel to Hacienda Luisita's farmers' never-ending
battle (I hope not) with the Aquino-Cojuangco clan, and powdered Dona Victorina is parallel to
every out-of-stock condition of whitening products in the Philippine market.

If only these were taught to every Filipino since high school, no one would dare ask again
of its relevance. In the end, nothing's changed because we don't know the value and meaning of
the things that are required for us to learn.

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Bibliography

 Derbyshire, Charles (1912). "II: Crisostomo Ibarra". The Social Cancer.

New York: World Book Company. Retrieved 1 February 2015
 Ubalde, Mark J. (2007-08-22). "Rizal's Noli hits major Aussie book
shelves". GMA News. Retrieved 1 February 2015
 Agonillo, Teodoro A. “Rizal and the Philippine Revolution.” University of
the East Rizal Centennial Lectures. Manila: 1961. 36-45
 Anderson, Benedict. “Cacique Democracy and the Philippines: Origins
and Dreams.” New Left Review 169, May-June 1988: 3- 31.
 ---- Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism... London: Verso Editions and New Left Books, 1983.
 Bahktin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. Caryl
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