Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot
Such protection was not given the subjects of Spain, but still, with
all the laxity of the Spanish law, and even if all the charges had been
true, which they were far from being, no case was made out against
Doctor Rizal at his trial. According to the laws then in effect, he
was unfairly convicted and he should be considered innocent; for this
reason his life will be studied to see what kind of hero he was, and
no attempt need be made to plead good character and honest intentions
in extenuation of illegal acts. Rizal was ever the advocate of law,
and it will be found, too, that he was always consistently law-abiding.
Though they are in the Orient, the Filipinos are not of it. Rizal once
said, upon hearing of plans for a Philippine exhibit at a European
World's Fair, that the people of Europe would have a chance to see
themselves as they were in the Middle Ages. With allowances for the
changes due to climate and for the character of the country, this
statement can hardly be called exaggerated. The Filipinos in the
last half of the nineteenth century were not Orientals but mediaeval
Europeans--to the credit of the early Castilians but to the discredit
of the later Spaniards.
The Filipinos of the remoter Christian barrios, whom Rizal had in mind
particularly, were in customs, beliefs and advancement substantially
what the descendants of Legaspi's followers might have been had these
been shipwrecked on the sparsely inhabited islands of the Archipelago
and had their settlement remained shut off from the rest of the world.
Except where foreign influence had accidentally crept in at the
ports, it could truthfully be said that scarcely perceptible advance
had been made in three hundred years. Succeeding Spaniards by their
misrule not only added little to the glorious achievement of their
ancestors, but seemed to have prevented the natural progress which
the land would have made.
In one form or another, this contention was the basis of Rizal's
campaign. By careful search, it is true, isolated instances of
improvement could be found, but the showing at its very best was
so pitifully poor that the system stood discredited. And it was the
system to which Rizal was opposed.
The Spaniards who engaged in public argument with Rizal were
continually discovering, too late to avoid tumbling into them, logical
pitfalls which had been carefully prepared to trap them. Rizal argued
much as he played chess, and was ever ready to sacrifice a pawn to
be enabled to say "check." Many an unwary opponent realized after
he had published what he had considered a clever answer that the
same reasoning which scored a point against Rizal incontrovertibly
established the Kalamban's major premise.
Superficial antagonists, to the detriment of their own reputations,
have made much of what they chose to consider Rizal's historical
errors. But history is not merely chronology, and his representation
of its trend, disregarding details, was a masterly tracing of current
evils to their remote causes. He may have erred in some of his minor
statements; this will happen to anyone who writes much, but attempts to
discredit Rizal on the score of historical inaccuracy really reflect
upon the captious critics, just as a draftsman would expose himself
to ridicule were he to complain of some famous historical painting
that it had not been drawn to exact scale. Rizal's writings were
intended to bring out in relief the evils of the Spanish system of
the government of the Filipino people, just as a map of the world
may put the inhabited portions of the earth in greater prominence
than those portions that are not inhabited. Neither is exact in its
representation, but each serves its purpose the better because it
magnifies the important and minimizes the unimportant.
In his disunited and abased countrymen, Rizal's writings aroused, as he
intended they should, the spirit of nationality, of a Fatherland which
was not Spain, and put their feet on the road to progress. What matters
it, then, if his historical references are not always exhaustive, and
if to make himself intelligible in the Philippines he had to write in
a style possibly not always sanctioned by the Spanish Academy? Spain
herself had denied to the Filipinos a system of education that
might have made a creditable Castilian the common language of the
Archipelago. A display of erudition alone does not make an historian,
nor is purity, propriety and precision in choosing words all there
is to literature.
Rizal charged Spain unceasingly with unprogressiveness in the
Philippines, just as he labored and planned unwearyingly to bring
the Filipinos abreast of modern European civilization. But in his
appeals to the Spanish conscience and in his endeavors to educate his
countrymen he showed himself as practical as he was in his arguments,
ever ready to concede nonessentials in name and means if by doing so
progress could be made.
Because of his unceasing efforts for a wiser, better governed and
more prosperous Philippines, and because of his frank admission that
he hoped thus in time there might come a freer Philippines, Rizal was
called traitor to Spain and ingrate. Now honest, open criticism is
not treason, and the sincerest gratitude to those who first brought
Christian civilization to the Philippines should not shut the eyes to
the wrongs which Filipinos suffered from their successors. But until
the latest moment of Spanish rule, the apologists of Spain seemed to
think that they ought to be able to turn away the wrath evoked by the
cruelty and incompetence that ran riot during centuries, by dwelling
upon the benefits of the early days of the Spanish dominion.
Wearisome was the eternal harping on gratitude which at one time was
the only safe tone for pulpit, press and public speech; it irritating
because it ignored questions of current policy, and it was discouraging
to the Filipinos who were reminded by it of the hopeless future for
their country to which time had brought no progress. But with all the
faults and unworthiness of the later rulers, and the inane attempts
of their parasites to distract attention from these failings, there
remains undimmed the luster of Spain's early fame. The Christianizing
which accompanied her flag upon the mainland and islands of the
New World is its imperishable glory, and the transformation of the
Filipino people from Orientals into mediaeval Europeans through the
colonizing genius of the early Castilians, remains a marvel unmatched
in colonial history and merits the lasting gratitude of the Filipino.
Doctor Rizal satirized the degenerate descendants and scored the
unworthy successors, but his writings may be searched in vain for
wholesale charges against the Spanish nation such as Spanish scribblers
were forever directing against all Filipinos, past, present and future,
with an alleged fault of a single one as a pretext. It will be found
that he invariably recognized that the faithful first administrators
and the devoted pioneer missionaries had a valid claim upon the
continuing gratitude of the people of Tupa's and Lakandola's land.
Rizal's insight discerned, and experience has demonstrated, that
Legaspi, Urdaneta and those who were like them, laid broad and firm
foundations for a modern social and political organization which
could be safely and speedily established by reforms from above. The
early Christianizing civilizers deserve no part of the blame for
the fact that Philippine ports were not earlier opened to progress,
but much credit is due them that there is succeeding here an orderly
democracy such as now would be impossible in any neighboring country.
The Philippine patriot would be the first to recognize the justice
of the selection of portraits which appear with that of Rizal upon
the present Philippine postage stamps, where they serve as daily
reminders of how free government came here.
The constancy and courage of a Portuguese sailor put these Islands into
touch with the New World with which their future progress was to be
identified. The tact and honesty of a civil official from Mexico made
possible the almost bloodless conquest which brought the Filipinos
under the then helpful rule of Spain. The bequest of a far-sighted
early philanthropist was the beginning of the water system of Manila,
which was a recognition of the importance of efforts toward improving
the public health and remains a reminder of how, even in the darkest
days of miseries and misgovernment, there have not been wanting
Spaniards whose ideal of Spanish patriotism was to devote heart,
brain and wealth to the welfare of the Filipinos. These were the
heroes of the period of preparation.
The life of the one whose story is told in these pages was devoted
and finally sacrificed to dignify their common country in the eyes
of his countrymen, and to unite them in a common patriotism; he
inculcated that self-respect which, by leading to self-restraint and
self-control, makes self-government possible; and sought to inspire
in all a love of ordered freedom, so that, whether under the flag
of Spain or any other, or by themselves, neither tyrants (caciques)
nor slaves (those led by caciques) would be possible among them.
And the change itself came through an American President who
believed, and practiced the belief, that nations owed obligations
to other nations just as men had duties toward their fellow-men. He
established here Liberty through Law, and provided for progress in
general education, which should be a safeguard to good government as
well, for an enlightened people cannot be an oppressed people. Then
he went to war against the Philippines rather than deceive them,
because the Filipinos, who repeatedly had been tricked by Spain with
unfulfilled promises, insisted on pledges which he had not the power to
give. They knew nothing of what was meant by the rule of the people,
and could not conceive of a government whose head was the servant
and not the master. Nor did they realize that even the voters might
not promise for the future, since republicanism requires that the
government of any period shall rule only during the period that it
is in the majority. In that war military glory and quick conquest
were sacrificed to consideration for the misled enemy, and every
effort was made to minimize the evils of warfare and to gain the
confidence of the people. Retaliation for violations of the usages of
civilized warfare, of which Filipinos at first were guilty through
their Spanish training, could not be entirely prevented, but this
retaliation contrasted strikingly with the Filipinos' unhappy past
experiences with Spanish soldiers. The few who had been educated out
of Spain and therefore understood the American position were daily
reenforced by those persons who became convinced from what they saw,
until a majority of the Philippine people sought peace. Then the
President of the United States outlined a policy, and the history
and constitution of his government was an assurance that this policy
would be followed; the American government then began to do what it
had not been able to promise.
The forerunner and the founder of the present regime in these Islands,
by a strange coincidence, were as alike in being cruelly misunderstood
in their lifetimes by those whom they sought to benefit as they were
in the tragedy of their deaths, and both were unjustly judged by many,
probably well-meaning, countrymen.
Magellan, Legaspi, Carriedo, Rizal and McKinley, heroes of the free
Philippines, belonged to different times and were of different types,
but their work combined to make possible the growing democracy of
to-day. The diversity of nationalities among these heroes is an added
advantage, for it recalls that mingling of blood which has developed