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MODULE 4- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL

“I do not write for this generation. I am writing for other ages. If this could read me, they would burn my
books, the work of my whole life. On the other hand, the generation which interprets these writings will
be an educated generation; they will understand me and say: Not all were asleep in the nighttime of our
grandparents.”
– Jose Rizal

Objectives: What will you learn from this module?

At the end of the module, you should be able to:

1. Discover the different philosophies of Rizal in terms of: education, politics, religion, and
other aspects;
2. Realize the importance of Rizal’s ideals and Philosophies; and
3. Relate the different ideals and Philosophies of Rizal in our daily lives.

Introduction

The underlying philosophies behind our country’s foundation are made up of the intricate
and composite interrelationship of the life histories of its people along with other nations; in other
words, the philosophy of our nation would be hard to understand and live by if we do not delve into
the past tied up with the notable life experiences of the representative personalities of our nation.

Being one of the prominent representatives of the Filipino personalities, Rizal’s philosophy
deserves to be recognized and given importance. Jose Rizal’s ideals and philosophies were a product
and composite of the teachings of what is known as the philosophy of Enlightenment. That stage of
philosophy marked the dawn of the eighteenth century in Europe and continued to the 19th century.
Having been a victim of Spanish brutality early in his life in Calamba, Rizal had thus already formed the
nucleus of an unfavorable opinion of Castillian imperialistic administration of his country and people.

The horrible social conditions of the Philippines during the 19th century from the arms of our
conquerors, particularly of Spain, with agriculture, commerce, communications, and education
languishing under its most backward state. It was because of this social malady that social evils like
inferiority complex, cowardice, timidity, and false pride pervaded nationally and contributed to the
decay of social life. This stimulated and shaped Rizal’s life philosophy to be to contain if not
eliminate these social ills.

Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL

 LESSON IV. RIZAL’S IDEALS AND PHILOSOPHIES

Abstraction

A. Educational Philosophy

Rizal's love for learning had a huge impact on the

foundation of his ideas and philosophies in life even
during his younger years. Rizal always considered
education as medicine or something that could cure
the societal illnesses of Colonial Philippines. He
believed in education that is free from political and
religious control. He asserted that reform cannot be
achieved if there is no suitable education, a liberal
one available to Filipinos.

In 1893, Rizal's idea of education as an instrument of change has not diminished a bit. In one
of his letters to Alfredo Hidalgo, a nephew, Rizal stated: Life is a very serious thing and only those
with intelligence and heart go through it worthily. In the same letter, he also told his nephew that
to live is to be among men and to be among men is to struggle He concluded that on the
battlefield man has no better weapon than his intelligence.

His concept of the importance of education was also enunciated in his work entitled Instruction
wherein he sought improvements in the schools and the methods of teaching. He emphasized
that the backwardness of his country during the Spanish era was not due to the Filipinos'
indifference, apathy, or indolence as claimed by the rulers, but to the neglect of the Spanish
authorities in the islands.

For Rizal, the mission of education is to elevate the country to the highest seat of glory and to
develop the people’s mentality. Since education is the foundation of society and a prerequisite for
social progress, Rizal claimed that only through education could the country be saved from
domination.

Rizal's philosophy of education, therefore, centers on the provision of proper motivation to bolster
the great social forces that make education a success, to create in the youth an innate desire to
cultivate his intelligence and give him life eternal.

B. Religious Philosophy

Rizal grew up nurtured by a closely-knit Catholic family, was educated in the foremost Catholic
schools of the period in the elementary, secondary, and college levels; therefore, he should have
been a propagator of the Catholic faith and traditions. However, in later life, he became exposed to
the massive corruption, abuses, and exploitations executed by the people behind the church.
Consequently, he developed a philosophy contrary to the catholic practices and ideals that were
rooted in the actual condition of his society.

It could have been the result of contemporary contact, companionship, observation, research,
and the possession of an independent spirit. Being a critical observer, a profound thinker, and a
zealous reformer, Rizal did not agree with the prevailing Christian propagation of the Faith by fire and
sword. This is shown in his Annotation of Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.
 Rizal did not believe in the Catholic dogma that salvation was only for Catholics and that
outside Christianity, salvation was not possible even if Catholics composed only a small minority
of the world's religious groups. Nor did he believe in the Catholic observation of fasting as a
sacrifice, nor in the sale of such religious items as the cross, medals, rosaries, and the like to
propagate the Faith and raise church funds. He also lambasted the superstitious beliefs propagated
by the priests in the church and the schools. All of these and a lot more are shreds of evidence of
Rizal's religious philosophy.

Rizal's contacts with the great thinkers, leaders, scholars, scientists, and philosophers of the
progressive libertarian movement in Spain and other European countries revolutionized his religious
philosophy. He met with Austrian Ferdinand Blumentritt who was one of the European specialists in
the Philippines. He read the radical theological writings of Felicite R. de Lamennals, who advocated
that Christians must serve the poor and fight injustices including those perpetrated by the Catholic
Church. Men like Rafael Labra, Manuel Luis Zorilla, and Francisco Pi y Margall, who struggled to
reform Spain's antiquated feudal system, were close friends of Rizal.

GOD: Rizal believed in God, he pounded this belief in his letters to Fr. Pablo Pastells which
goes: “I believe firmly in the existence of God the Creator…I firmly believe in His wisdom, His
infinite power (my idea of the infinite is so limited), His goodness manifested in the marvelous
creation of the universe; in the order that reigns in His creation; His magnificence that overwhelms my
understanding; His greatness that enlightens and nourishes all. His wisdom is so great that it
humiliates human reason and makes me dizzy with vertigo for my own reasoning is imperfect and
confused. Many times my reasoning leads me to raise my eyes to Him. I believe Him to be in the
immense system of planets, in all the aggregation of nebulae, that bewilders and stretches my
imagination beyond my comprehension that I am filled with dread, awe, and bewilderment and
leaves me dumb with wonder"

“How can I doubt God when I am convinced of my own existence? Who recognizes the effect
recognizes the cause. To doubt God would be to doubt one's conscience and consequently, to doubt
everything; and then, what is life for?

JESUS CHRIST: Rizal did not believe that Jesus Christ was God, during his exile in Dapitan in
his letter to Fr. Pastells, he wrote: "Who died on the cross? Was it God or man? If it was God, I
do not understand how God could die: how a God conscious of his mission could cry out in his bitter
agony: 'My God, my God why has Thou My forsaken Me’ This cry is absolutely human; it is the cry of
a man who was banking on the justice of God and worthiness of his cause, and then found himself
surrounded by every type of injustice without any hope of salvation., all the words of Christ on the
cross reveal to us, true enough, a man in torment and agony. But what a man!'

RELIGION: Rizal believed in religion, in his letter to his mother in 1885, he articulated this
very eloquently when he wrote: "For me, religion is the holiest of things, the purest, the most
intangible, which escapes all human adulterations, and I think I would be recreant to my duty as a
rational being if I were to prostitute my reason and admit what is absurd. I do not believe that
God would punish me if I were to try to approach Him using reason and understanding, -his most
precious gift". Rizal opposed the perversions, abuses, and hypocrisy of the Catholic hierarchy and
the colonial government that he manifested in his two novels. He did not intend to destroy the
Catholic Church but desired its practices more consistent with the fundamental tenets of
Christianity.

REVELATION: Rizal's fourth letter dated April 4, 1893, to Fr. Pablo Pastells, he wrote: “I believed
in the revelation but in that living revelation of Nature that surrounds us everywhere, in that
voice, potent, eternal, incessant, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as the Being from whom
it proceeds; in that revelation that speaks to and penetrates us from the moment we are born
until we die
 CATHOLICISM: Rizal espoused Christianity but rejected the Catholic Church's claims of infallibility. In
the same letter to Fr. Pablo Pastells, Rizal wrote: "All the brilliant and subtle arguments of Your
Reverence, which I shall not attempt to refute because I would have to write a treatise, cannot
convince me that the Catholic Church is endowed with infallibility. It also carries the human
thumbprint… with all the defects, errors, and vicissitudes proper to the work of men." Dr. Maximo
Viola in his "Mis Viajes con el Dr. Rizal" (My Travels with Dr. Rizal), mentioned that "the religion of
Christ was the most perfect, but due to the modifications introduced into it, by malice or religious
fanaticism, it has become like an edifice, which because of so many modifications has been so
disfigured and threatens to fall apart."

HEAVEN: Rizal wrote in his "Mi Ultimo Adios" his last poem. "For I go where no slave before
the oppressor bends, Where faith can never kill, and God reigns everywhere."

HELL, AND PURGATORY: Rizal believed that these were invented for the exploitation of the
people, by means of the sale of ribbons, scapulars, rosaries, and religious articles to the ignorant, this
was also written in Dr. Viola's "Mis Viajes con el Dr. Rizal" (My Travels with Dr. Rizal). Purgatory was
not even written in the Bible. As regards hell, Rizal wrote to Fr. Pastells. ” God cannot have created
me for my harm: for what harm had I done Him before being created that He should will my
damnation?”

C. Ethical Philosophy

The study of human behavior as to whether it is good or bad or whether it is right or wrong is
the science upon which Rizal's ethical philosophy was based. The fact that the Philippines was under
Spanish domination during Rizal's time led him to subordinate his philosophy to moral problems. This
trend was much more needed at that time because the Spaniards and the Filipinos had different and
sometimes conflicting morals. The moral status of the Philippines during this period was one with a
lack of freedom, one with the predominance of foreign masters, one with the imposition of foreign
religious worship, devotion, homage, and racial habits. This led to moral confusion among the
people, what with justice being stifled, limited, or curtailed and the people not enjoying any
individual rights.

To bolster his ethical philosophy, Dr. Rizal had recognized not only the forces of good and evil but
also the tendencies towards good and evil. As a result, he made use of the practical method of
appealing to the better nature of the conquerors and of offering useful methods of solving the
moral problems of the conquered.

To support his ethical philosophy in life, Rizal:

1. censured the friars for abusing the advantage of their position as spiritual leaders and the
ignorance and fanaticism of the natives;
2. counseled the Filipinos not to resent a defect attributed to them but to accept same as
reasonable and just;
3. advised the masses that the object of marriage was the happiness and love of the couple and
not financial gain;
4. censured the priests who preached greed and wrong morality; and
5. advised everyone that love and respect for parents must be strictly observed

D. Political Philosophy

In Rizal's political view, a conquered country like the Philippines should not be taken advantage of
but rather should be developed, civilized, educated, and trained in the science of self-government.

He bitterly assailed and criticized in publications the apparent backwardness of the Spanish ruler’s
method of governing the country which resulted in the bondage and slavery of the conquered,
the Spanish government’s requirement of forced labor and force military service upon the natives,
the abuse of power by means of exploitation, the government ruling that any complaint against the
authorities was criminal;
 and Making the people ignorant, destitute and fanatic, thus discouraging the formation of national
sentiment.

In his essay “The Philippines: A Century Hence,” contains predictions on the possible future of
the
Philippines within a hundred years:
1. that the Philippines would stay a Spanish colony provided its citizens receive not only the
rights and privileges of citizens of the Spanish crown but also the inherent rights of a
human being;
2. that the Philippines will inevitably rise in revolt against Spain if continuously exploited and
abused;
3. and that the Philippines may be conquered by other nations after Spain's presence in the
country is extinguished.

Reform thru non-violent means

Andres Bonifacio and other leaders of the Katipunan, together with ranks of the
revolutionaries, belonged to the “left-wing tendency” of those who adhered to the ideas that Jose
Rizal espoused. Upon closer look at the ideas, one will find that most of his thoughts on society
were essentially heavily tainted with French revolutionary ideas but were also calibrated in such
a way that they fit into a reformist frame.

Rizal’s statement that he had no desire to take part in conspiracies:

"I assure you that I have no desire to take part in conspiracies which seem
to me very premature and risky. But if the government drives us to the brink, that
is to say, when no other hope remains but seek our destruction in war when the
Filipinos would prefer to die rather than endure their misery any longer, then I will
also become a partisan of violent means. The choice of peace or destruction is in the
hands of Spain, because it is a clear fact, known to all, that we are patient, excessively
patient and peaceful, mild, unfeeling, etc. But everything ends in this life, there is
nothing eternal in the world and that refers also to our patience."

Rizal’s words subtly expressed that he desired reform over premature revolution. These
words however are significant to show that Rizal was not averse to revolution or violence if
necessary. It is also important to realize that when some historians and teachers of
history created a gap between reform and revolution, between the campaign for reforms and
assimilation in Spain and the outbreak of the Philippine revolution, they fail to see that Rizal,
Marcelo H. del Pilar, and others saw reform and assimilation only as the first step to the
eventual separation from Spain, the independence of the Philippines. Reform was a
means to freedom, not the destination.

Basic Political Reforms:

1. The restoration of Filipino representation to the Spanish Cortes and freedom of the press.
2. Reorganization of the administrative machinery.
3. Adoption of a comprehensive examination and the publication of its results and allowing
Filipinos to have the same opportunity with the Spaniards to hold government office.
4. Justice is the foundation of society and the government.

Rizal's guiding political philosophy proved to be the study and application of reforms, the
extension of human rights, the training for self-government, and the arousing of the spirit of
discontent over oppression, brutality, inhumanity, sensitiveness, and self-love.

E. Social Philosophy
 That body of knowledge relating to society including the wisdom which man's experience in
society has taught him is social philosophy. The facts dealt with are principles involved in nation-
building and not individual social problems. The subject matter of this social philosophy covers the
problems of the whole race, with every problem having a distinct solution to bolster the people's
social knowledge.
Rizal’s social philosophy dealt with;
1. man in society;
2. influential factors in human life;
3. racial problems;
4. social constant;
5. social justice;
6. social ideal;
7. poverty and wealth;
8. reforms;
9. youth and greatness;
10. history and progress;
11. the future Philippines.

The above dealt with man's evolution and his environment, explaining, for the most part,
human behavior and capacities like his will to live; his desire to possess happiness; the change of his
mentality; the role of virtuous women in the guidance of great men; the need for elevating and
inspiring mission; the duties and dictates of man's conscience; man's need of practicing gratitude;
the necessity for consulting reliable people; his need for the experience; his ability to deny; the
importance of deliberation; the voluntary offer of man's abilities and possibilities; the ability to
think, aspire and strive to rise; and the proper use of hearth, brain, and spirit-all of these combining
to enhance the intricacies, beauty, and values of human nature. All of the above served as Rizal’s
guide in his continuous effort to make over his beloved Philippines.