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Chap 4 Reflection Paper

This chapter reveals the cruelty of the Spanish rulers in the Philippines. It describes how Don Rafael Ibarra, father of Crisostomo Ibarra, was unjustly imprisoned and died alone after saving a child from a violent Spanish tax collector. As a reader, one shares Ibarra's frustration at his father's situation and the injustice of the colonial system. Rizal chose to have the tax collector hurt a child to represent how proud Spaniards would inflict violence on anyone who damaged their pride, no matter who they were. Those seen as heretics or rebels, like Don Rafael, faced the same fate - imprisonment without justice under a colonial system that abused its power over Filipinos. This injustice

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Queenie Amor Astillo
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360 views1 page

Chap 4 Reflection Paper

This chapter reveals the cruelty of the Spanish rulers in the Philippines. It describes how Don Rafael Ibarra, father of Crisostomo Ibarra, was unjustly imprisoned and died alone after saving a child from a violent Spanish tax collector. As a reader, one shares Ibarra's frustration at his father's situation and the injustice of the colonial system. Rizal chose to have the tax collector hurt a child to represent how proud Spaniards would inflict violence on anyone who damaged their pride, no matter who they were. Those seen as heretics or rebels, like Don Rafael, faced the same fate - imprisonment without justice under a colonial system that abused its power over Filipinos. This injustice

Uploaded by

Queenie Amor Astillo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Astillo, Queenie Amor B.

March 25, 2019


BS Management IV PI 100 B | MTh 1:30PM - 3:00PM

Reflection Paper: Heretic and Filibuster


Noli Me Tangere, Chapter 4

The image of a slow-paced progress in the Philippines which was illustrated as Ibarra
walked the streets of Manila and noted how nothing had changed in the past seven years was
not just a portrayal of a poor Philippine economy, but it also represented the exact irony of
stability despite living in an unstable country ruled by ruthless colonizers who denied justice
to its own people. The injustice that Don Rafael Ibarra, the father of Crisostomo Ibarra, had
encountered was the agony that Filipinos in Rizal’s time suffered. In a colony ruled by an
absolute power, those who speak or act, against the ruler, the heretic and filibuster, can be
shown no mercy.

This chapter is the start of the revelation of the cruelty of the Spanish rulers. As a
reader, I could not fathom the pain that Ibarra felt when Teniente Guevarra told him for the
first time about how his father died lonely and unfortunately, with no one by his side. Don
Rafael was imprisoned because of saving a child from the hands of a violent and illiterate
Spanish tax collector. In the process, the tax collector was pushed and he died after his head
hit a rock. Don Rafael was jailed, and the people who used to openly respect him came out
and denounced him. Eventually, he died in jail due to sickness. The readers shared the
Crisostomo Ibarra’s frustration for being helpless of his father’s situation. This chapter made
me grow hatred for the means of injustice and crave for vengeance. This must have been the
rage that the Filipino readers of the Spanish era felt about Noli Me Tangere, which
unsurprisingly made Rizal notorious to the colonizers.

Superficially, what happened to Don Rafael is merely a situation of unfortunate


events that may happen to anyone who wasn’t privileged. However, it is more than that. Why
did Rizal choose the character who was abused by the tax collector to be a child? The
illiterate Spanish tax collector who hurt a young boy who was making fun of him is a
representation of how prideful Spaniards were. Their pride is so important that they would
impart violence to anyone who hurts their pride, whether they were men, women, or children.
Rizal chose the character to be a child since Spaniards had no consideration for the weak and
the ignorant; they were rather the easiest to abuse and manipulate.

As what Teniente Guevarra told ibarra, “​To be a heretic is a great danger anywhere,
but especially so at that time when the province was governed by an alcalde who made a
great show of his piety, who with his servants used to recite his rosary in the church in a loud
voice, perhaps that all might hear and pray with him. But to be a filibuster is worse than to
be a heretic...​” Those who were heretic and filibuster would suffer the same fate as Don
Rafael Ibarra. Rizal knew what could happen to him as he wrote his book, nonetheless he
took the risk for the sake of the awareness of the Filipinos.

In the past, it was the colonizers who denied justice to the Filipino people. Today, it is
the Philippines’ own Filipino government who denies justice to its own people. ​Anong
pinagkaiba natin sa mga mananakop na Espanyol? ​Will Rizal’s, and the other heroes’,
sacrifices be put to waste?

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