2 - “THE VERY SOUL OF THIS REBELLION”

Summary

Ahundred fifty years after his birth, and a hundred and fifteen since his execution, it is difficult to appreciate the subversive nature of Rizal's reputation when he emerged on the political scene. Much of what he dedicated himself to, much of what he served as symbol of, is now simply assumed in the Philippines: civil liberties, the right to education, political representation of the people and a free press, above all freedom of conscience. His martyrdom is so familiar, such a common point of reference, that his willing embrace of it is taken for granted. His appeal to non-violence, to study and the civic virtues, continues to be seen as difficult, but no longer radical.

We can get an inkling of Rizal's significance for his time from his mother's extreme reaction to the so-called brindis or toast of 25 June 1884, which is when Rizal began to assume the mantle of leadership of the Filipino community in Spain.

She had fallen seriously ill for a week, and in a letter to Rizal dated 5 November 1884, Paciano explained why:

You are the cause of her sickness and I'll tell you why. About that time the talk here was the speech you delivered at the banquet in honour of the Filipino painters [Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, whose top prizes at the Madrid exposition occasioned Rizal's soon-controversial toast to the equality of the Spanish and Filipino peoples] and commenting on it, there was one who asserted that you would not be able to come back, some that it would be desirable for you to remain there; others that you have made enemies; in short, there was not even wanting one who asserted that you have lost friends; but all are unanimous in saying that it was not convenient for you to return here. These gratuitous suppositions were the ones that afflicted very much our mother and made her sick. [Rizal 1963a: 149–50]

After the Noli Me Tangere circulated, Rizal became the subject of even more suppositions, gratuitous or otherwise. He was, one might argue, the first Filipino celebrity.