Rizal’s Role in Nation-

Building
LEADING TOPICS:
• The Mission of Rizal is Noble
• Rizal’s Early Experiences and the Nascence of His Mission
• Rizal Sounds the Call for Individual Regeneration
• Rizal Awakens National Consciousness
• Rizal Insists on Education as the Instrument for Social Progress
• The People’s Welfare Is the Concern of Governments
• Rizal’s Nationalistic Mission Through More Reforms
• The Ultimate Means at Nation-Building Is National Unity
 The Mission of Rizal is Noble
Rizal remembered those who were brutalized by the masters, and described
how his mission came into being to his letter to Mariano Ponce and
Companions on April 18, 1889 as Rizal’s Correspondence with Fellow
Reformists.
He also elaborated further his mission which he considered as a duty when
he wrote his parents in May, 1882.
“My mission,” he told his former mentor at the Ateneo, Father Francisco
Paula de Sanchez, “is to make men worthy.”
 “At the sight of … injustices and cruelties, while still a child, my
imagination was awakened and I swore to devote myself to avenge one day
so many victims, and with this idea in mind I have been studying and this
can be read in all my works and writings. God will someday give me an
opportunity to carry out my promise.”
(Letter to Mariano Ponce and Companions of La Solidaridad, Paris, 18 Apr 1889)
 “If we have no duties, if we live for no one but for ourselves, if
selfishness were, even not a virtue, a state that is not censurable, how
happily I would spend my life beside my family neither demanding nor
wishing for anything, neither expecting nor hoping to be useful to anyone
but myself. But has God not made anything useless in this world, as all
beings fulfill a role in this sublime drama of creation, I, too, have a
mission to fill as for example: alleviating the suffering of my people.”
(Asuncion Bantug. “The Novel that Shook a Nation,” The
Saturday Herald, June 17, 1961, p. 41)
 Rizal’s Early Experiences and the Nascence of
His Mission
• Rizal saw unbridled force and violence committed by those supposed to be in
charge of watching over public peace in town.
• The imprisonment of his mother by persons whom his parents considered as their
friends.
• Rizal suffered from discrimination during a literary contest held by the Liceo
Artistico-Literario de Manila in 1880.
• He also experienced a similar beating when he was given a lash by the lieutenant of
the civil guard, Lieutenant Porta, for his failure to salute him one night.
“Since then, though still a child, I have distrusted men and
friendship. I do not want to tell you our resentment and
profound sorrow.”
(Reminiscences and Travels, pp. 12-13)
 “Putting on the vizor, I took part in literary contests, and
fortunately I won; I heard the sound of sincere and enthusiastic
applause; but, we revealed ourselves, and the applause was
transformed into coldness, into mockery, into insult, and the defeated
one was honored instead.”

“Victim of a brutal aggression, I demanded justice, believing in

it… I complained to the captain-general but they did not do me
justice.”
“On the day when all Filipinos should think like him (M H del Pilar)
and like us, on that day we shall have fulfilled our arduous mission,
which is the formation of the Filipino nation.”
(Letter to Mariano Ponce, 27 July 1888).
 Rizal Sounds the Call for Individual
Regeneration
• Most important in this program of regeneration is self-confidence which can be developed
if the Filipino would discard their feeling of inferiority.
• He stressed the worth of the human person and that human dignity is a person’s worth,
which makes him stand above all other creatures.
• Rizal also impressed upon his people their duty to love God and confidence in Him.
• He emphasized the importance of man’s conscience and urged his countrymen not to
sacrifice conscience for glory.
• Rizal urged his countrymen to live a life of virtue. The building of a nation requires good
men who must virtuous.
 “What I regret most is that many of our countrymen, already poisoned by the
atmosphere (of easy life), join parties against their conscience; seek glory through
money…”

Rizal reminded them of what they should do to serve the

country, of the leadership they could provide. He exhorted them to
give up their fruitless pastimes. This was part of his mission to
make men worthy.
 Rizal Awakens National Consciousness
• He was aware that a regenerated individual would easily understand and
feel love of country.
• A literary piece, “Love of Country” published on August 20, 1882, was one
of Rizal’s early steps in setting an ideal for his people , the search for national
identity.
• To Rizal, love of country is the national ideal.
• The sincerity of Rizal’s love of country was the crowning glory of his
patriotism.
“ Whatever our condition might be then, let us love our country and
let us wish nothing but her welfare. Thus, we shall labor in
conformity with the purpose of humanity dictated by God, which is
the harmony and universal peace of His creatures…”

“My dream was my country’s prosperity… I would like the Filipino

people to become worthy, noble, and honorable.”
 Rizal aimed at making Spain understand the problems of the Filipinos who in
turn would know what they could do for themselves to attain their aspirations.
Due to lack of funds, it took him three years to write the book Noli Me
Tangere, which was published in Berlin, Germany and completed on February
21, 1887.
Another significant work in awakening national consciousness is his work El
Filibusterismo which was published in Ghent, Belgium on September 18, 1891.
In March , 1889, upon learning that some Filipinos were arrested and
imprisoned, he wrote the members of the La Solidaridad Association, urging them
to work harder.
 Rizal Insists on Education as the Instrument
for Social Progress
• Education stands as the foundation of society.
• Rizal pleaded to government authorities to take steps to improve the education of the
Filipinos.
• He advanced all possible arguments in favor of the Filipinos’ need for education.
• Rizal warned Spain against the possible outcome that may arise from denying the people the
benefits of education.
• The enriching effects of Rizal’s study abroad made him see how education could bring
social progress.
• He consistently urged his fellowmen to do everything they could do for the education of
their generation.
“We believe, that the cause of our backwardness and ignorance
is the lack of means of education, the vice that afflicts us from
the beginning until the end of our careers, if not the lack of
stimulus of a doubtful future, or the fetters and obstacles that
are encountered at every step.”
 The People’s Welfare Is the Concern of
Governments
• Rizal argued that the main function of any government, including the
governments of colonies, is the promotion of the people’s welfare.
• The first observation of Rizal is that a colonizing country must know her
colony.
• A second observation was on the status of the Philippines under Spain’s
colonial system of administration.
• The third and timely observation of Rizal about colonizing powers is it revolves
around the use of prudence and tact.
• The fourth current observation was the rulers’ lack of concern for the governed.
• Rizal requested Spain to change the basis of her colonial policy in the
Philippines. His fifth observation is that the policy of the
government must be sincere and consistent to keep the loyalty of a
country.
• The sixth observation is that he foresaw how social progress was
possible if there was cooperation between the government and the
people.
• The seventh observation is that the government must keep the lines
of communication open if they need the support of government.
 Rizal’s Nationalistic Mission Through More
Reforms
• All the reforms requested by Rizal were initially in accord with the policy of assimilation
espoused by him and his fellow reformists in Spain.
• As early as January, 1887, Rizal made known to Blumentritt the major reforms he hoped for
his country.
• In the Noli Me Tangere, he asked radical reforms in the armed forces, in the priesthood,
administration of justice, respect for man’s dignity, more security of an individual, and less
force in the armed forces.
• He wrote in La Solidaridad his request to Spain to grant good reforms and two of which were
the freedom of the press and representation in the Spanish Cortes.
• In his El Filibusterismo, Rizal pointed a number of useful principles of administration and
guides to human dignification essential in the political life of the people.
 “We do not want separation from Spain. All we ask is
greater attention, better education, better government
employees, one or two representatives, and greater security for
our persons and prosperity,” he said.
During, Rizal’s four-year exile in Dapitan, he expressed to Ricardo Carnicero,
the Politico-Commander, several reforms aside from the freedom of the press
and representation in the Spanish Cortes. These were:
1. Secularization of the parishes and distributing the curacies
2. Reform in all branches of the administration
3. Encouragement of primary education and removing friar intervention in it
4. Higher salaries for deserving
5. Opportunity for appointment to the government
6. Improvement of the moral tone of the administration
7. Creation for schools of arts and trade in provincial capital of more than
16,000 people
8. Freedom of religion
 The Ultimate Means at Nation-Building Is
National Unity
• Rizal viewed the refusal of any individual in fighting injustice as a form
of social evil.
• In a letter to Rev. Father Vicente Garcia, a Filipino doctor of Sacred
Theology, Rizal stressed the ideal of social justice which will unify his people.
• In the Philippines, there was individual progress and not national progress.
• Rizal never lost faith in the capacity of his people to work together in spite
of these observations.
 “The individual should give way to the welfare of the society… whoever wants to
take part in this crusade (for reforms) ought to have renounced beforehand life and
fortune.”

“Let us then work together… let us apply the remedy, let us build, no matter if
we begin with the simplest, for later we shall have time to erect new edifices on that
foundation. Step by step one reaches the Temple of Progress whose numerous and
fitful steps are not climbed without faith and conviction of the soul, in the heart
courage necessary in encountering disillusions, and the gaze fixed in the future.”
(Miscellaneous Writings of Dr. Jose Rizal, p. 15)