Rizal, God and my country

In one unusual occasion, President Benigno Aquino III declared June 20 a national holiday in commemoration with the 150th birthday of the one of the country's most acclaimed heroes, Jose Rizal.

Rizal, the Philippines' National Hero, was born on June 19, 1861. He was highly recognized for being a reformist during the rule of the Spaniards in the 19th century. He, together with the Propaganda Movement whose members composed of Filipino expatriates in Europe, fought for the recognition of human rights in the Philippines and pushed for the legalization of Spanish and Filipino equality, among others.

Readings on Rizal also noted his notion of national identity similar to the anti-colonial sentiment. Filipinos are who they were before the Spaniards came in 1521. In his Annotations to Morga's Succesos de las Islas Filipinas, he documented Filipino native languages and the re-establishment of national identity based on trade, industry and craftsmanship.

But up until now, citizens of the Philippines ask themselves, who are we as a nation? Filipinos easily adapts to the changes in environment that it somehow compromises the idea of identity.



I once heard Carlos Celdran, a famous Manila tourist guide, in one of his trips describing Filipinos like the street food halo-halo. There is just so much in the mixture, it is actually hard to describe what it is and what it tastes like.

Prophet to the Philippines, Cindy Jacobs, in her interview with 700 Club Asia, even referred the Philippines as a fatherless nation, a man without a surname. She however, pointed out that this confusion is actually the perfect opportunity for the country to look to God:

If Filipinos would make a choice, God is more than willing to take us as a nation and be his child. If we Christians take that stand and lead the country to Christ, He promises prosperity as in Isaiah 45:

‘I will go before you
      And make the crooked places straight;
      I will break in pieces the gates of bronze
      And cut the bars of iron. 

       I will give you the treasures of darkness
      And hidden riches of secret places,
      That you may know that I, the LORD,
      Who call you by your name,
      Am the God of Israel. 

Rizal's second book, Noli Me Tangere, was translated in English as The Social Cancer, referring the blindness of Filipinos with regard to their and their neighbor's misfortunes under the Spanish regime:

Then I was blind, annoyed—what did I know? Now misfortune has torn the bandage from my eyes; the solitude and misery of my prison have taught me; now I see the horrible cancer which feeds upon this society, which clutches its flesh, and which demands a violent rooting out. They have opened my eyes, they have made me see the sore, and they force me to be a criminal! No, I will not be a criminal, never is he such who fights for his native land, but quite the reverse! We, during three centuries, have extended them our hands, we have asked love of them, we have yearned to call them brothers, and how do they answer us? With insults and jests, denying us even the chance character of human beings. There is no God, there is no hope, there is no humanity; there is nothing but the right of might! - Ibarra to Elias, Chapter 61

Rizal died warning the Filipinos of their tendency to be blind and passive. More than a hundred years had passed since his death. We now have the chance to move the country to another direction. But are we still the same as the Filipinos of the Spanish era? Or are we going to respond to the call God wanted for us?