Monumenta sa Monumento: New Texts, Old Tensions in the Filipino Pantheon

Nery, John. Revolutionary Spirit: Jose Rizal in Southeast Asia. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2011. San Juan, E. Rizal in Our Time: Essays in Interpretation (Revised Edition). Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, 2011. Almario, Virgilio. Ang Pag-Ibig sa Bayan ni Andres Bonifacio: Isang Pagtingin sa Tulang Katipunero. Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2012. Dery, Luis Camara. Bantayog ni Inang Bayan: Panibagong Sulyap sa mga Bayani ng 1896 Himagsikan. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2012.

ABSTRACT: The years 2011 and 2013 were remarkable dates due primarily to their significance to two national heroes: Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. Celebrating their respective sesquicentennial birth anniversaries, books were released attempting to review and re-interpret their impacts in the development of the Filipino national identity. The re-contextualization of Rizal as an international icon of nationalistic and democratic struggle, as well as the perceived necessity of enshrining Bonifacio as the formal founder of the Philippine nation-state (and hence, its first president), exhibit such trends. These books by Nery, San Juan, Almario and Dery revisits the biographical form as a practice in literary interpretation of events and texts affiliated to the person, and thus attempts to rework an image of Rizal and Bonifacio palatable to a 21st century audience. Yet despite their attempts to upgrade the narratives and story-telling involved in the appraisals of Rizal and Bonifacio as heroes (by extension an appraisal of the founding narrative of the Filipino nation), the results of their work actually exhibits the existing cracks and limitations in their treatment in Philippine historiography. In focusing too much on the interpretations of their literary accomplishments, the resulting contemporary images of Rizal and Bonifacio actually re-inscribe old classed readings in new forms, expanded in light of globalization and the transformations of the Philippine nation-states functions and perceived identifications. Rizal continues to be viewed as the cosmopolitan middle-class leader the state desires to project to a global system caught in the vagaries of late capitalism, whose politics are as radical as they are ineffectual in reaching out to marginalized conceptions of democracy. These latter aspirations, while finding continued potential in the mythos of Bonifacio, are nonetheless wounded and politically stymied to actually press its claim for historical saliency.