The Hero, The Philippines Epitome

Rizal was a prolific writer and was anti-violence. He rather fight using his pen than his might. Rizal's two books "Noli Me Tangere" (Touch Me Not) which he wrote while he was in Berlin, Germany in 1887 and "El Filibusterismo" (The Rebel) in Ghent, Belgiun in 1891 exposed the cruelties of the Spanish friars in the Philippines, the defects of the Spanish administration and the vices of the clergy, these books told about the oppression of the Spanish colonial rule. These two books made Rizal as a marked man to the Spanish friars. A man who altered the path of Philippine history, Rizals literary works has opened the minds of Filipino people to fight for their rights in their own country. He inspired most of our revolutionary organizers by exposing the arrogance and tyranny of the Spanish clergy. His communal annotations on Spanish rule formed the basis of literature that encouraged armed revolutionaries and diplomatic reformist. He was internationally known for his two novels that made the Filipinos aware of Spanish injustices and eventually fought for and achieved independence after a bloody revolution which was triggered by his death on December 30, 1896. The first novel, "Noli Me Tangere" was analytically considered as the "work of the heart" that made the Filipino readers at that time, felt the social injustices or social cancer; and the second novel, "El Filibusterismo", the continuation of the first, was considered as the "work of the head" as it was a political novel. Jose Rizal was not really against Spain or the Catholic Church during that time. He was fighting using his writing prowess against bad friars and abusive government officials. While staying in Europe, he wrote his first novel wherein copies were sent and circulated in the Philippines. After helping the people in the agrarian trouble of his hometown and curing the blindness of his mother's eyes, he was forced to go abroad again on February 1888 in order not to jeopardize the safety and happiness of his family and friends with his presence due to the anger of people who were doing injustices who were hurt of truth Rizal revealed through his novel. He suffered hard in the hands of the Spanish church and government but he never gave up with his aspirations for the benefit of his land and its people. In the early morning of December 30, 1896, 35 year old Jose' Rizal, wearing a black suit and hat, stood erect and calm in an open field by Bagumbayan. he refused to kneel and be blindfolded. He asked to face the firing squad but was forced by the officer in charge to turn his back. A military doctor took his pulse. It was, strangely, normal. At 7:03 the bark of bullets rent the air. Rizal fell, and so, virtually, did Spanish colonial rule. He was a martyr, a hero at a very young age of 35. He surely has touched the hearts of the Filipinos which made him become an epitome of Filipino Nationalism.