Essay Rizal

Not Too Old to Alter
Larry S.Esperas

One hundred fifty one years hitherto, a substantial Filipino in the illustrious epithet of Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Realonda, extricated our predecessors from being slaves by deploying a taciturn yet strapping apparatus. It was for his exertion that we are anon lodging on the snug threshold of freedom. By dint of his literary works −essays, novels and articles. He brawled for our territory’s liberty hostile to the Spanish settlers who subjugated us for three hundred thirty three years. I staunchly cannot portray where we will be today if it was not for Jose Rizal’s intrepid escapade. But why is it that until today, we are still bruised by the storms of hitch and inundated with wrangles? Is this the underlying pretext why Rizal squandered his duration aiming to fulfill his desire? Is this worth three centuries of anguishing? Well, no! He divulged, “our liberty will not be secured at the sword’s point… we must secure it by making ourselves worth of it. And when the people reaches that height, God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards. And liberty will shine out like the first dawn.” Unambiguously, he craves us to rectify our oblivion towards his forfeits, to esteem what he capitulated in abidance for us to stow our existence like it should be. And in the interval we exploited our latitude fruitfully, everything will plummet into array.

Ostensibly our interstate hero, Dr. Jose Rizal still subsists in ontological epoch, he would aptly be applying his erudite dexterity reversely to the pompous President Pnoy. Rizal covets genuine metamorphosis, and Aquino’s administration has not outdo it yet, alternatively, he burlesqued number games on our psyche to somehow persuade us that he and the Filipino at large are on the right-track (tuwid na daan). Reminiscent of what he executed throughout his State of the Nation Address, he swindled us via manifesting statistic testimony vis-à-vis his feats that were explicated by some research agency or sector. Indubitably he would be an underground propagandist for the second time around.

Rizal is a true-blue nationalist. He is a silhouette of expansive brainpower, he manipulated his wit to craft a fictional character playing role in a true-to-life story that had commenced the Filipino’s quandary during the Spanish conquest. Although the characters were illusory, Filipinos were adroit to grasp the gist beyond it, he used that conspiracy to elevate his tacit propaganda, to somehow truant from prosecution.

He has utilized his writing prowess to hoist his fellow Filipino’s cognizance. Using this slant, he affirms that we can elicit liberty without denuding of blood, that it is a diplomatic and robust tool to draw a collective force among his country men.

Disdain of what he did to galvanize our perception, after obtaining our unequivocal sovereignty, we again stagger in hauling up our country from drowning. We struggle in the somber because of our own liabilities.

It is our transgression that scorted us to our congested enlargement. We have continuosly been predominated by our culture principally by our unbecoming customs –crab mentality, pride.

Instead of maneuvering for a progressive state, we Filipinos hubs solely for our personal garnishment. We quantize everybody as our adversary no matter what their socio-economic status is. How can we debark affluence when there are these people who are only aspirng for our stoppage? This kind of stance, crab mentality, will only make our country unsteady. If everyone has this perspective, then at the end, everyone will torment the consequences.

“There are more faults which make a man more unpopular and no faults which are more unconscious of in us. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.” A quotation made by an outlandish writer, C S Lewis. Interiorizing this notion, pride is a bigger stumbling block as we ever envisage it to be and the appalling side of it is more vicious as we opine it to be. When we are gobbled by pride, we incline to look down on people, and are not able to empathize with them. It is hard to put yourself in the shoes of others. Same as in national growth, if we prefer to use Filipino vernacular rather than English as a medium of interaction in edifying, I believe it would be more tranquil to digest the information. Like for example Japan, look where they are now. But then, it is not the peccadillo of the followers alone. The leader of our nation also endows to the loss of our state by their bogus governance. They are the very incentive why Philippines is internationally renowned for corruption. The funds that are preordained for the people were embezzled barbarously. This money is intended for everybody not for somebody. Therefore, we arbitrate the Filipino themselves are the midmost walls hindering national expansion.

The great Jose Rizal once articulated, “no good water comes from the muddy springs. No sweet fruit comes from a bitter seed”. No matter how callous our Government Officials try to avert smelly fish from amplificating its smell, it would always find its way out to the sense of our country men. And that kind of Government Officers reflects to the kind of country they belong to.

Even in Rizal’s interlude, these barriers were vividly observable. This is the wall shadowing our triumph which generated the darkness we are in now. These things will continue to shake our solidarity until we learn how to lend a hand.

How will we telltale this to our national hero? He would be so thwarted when he unearth that his atonement was sealed in a trash bag. He filled our thirst for freedom by furnishing to us a cup full of fearlessness, hope and determination to uphold a better future.

Let us not recollect the dim history of the past when we are muted by illiteracy. Only elites had a privilege to have an education. Thus the higher classes repress the Indio’s.

We have now arrived in this murky place to cue us how subterranean we fell. This is not the time to blame one another. It is now time to make valid the promises of liberty. Start breaking the seal! This is the moment where we ascend from the dark, where we rise from drowning and were we face tomorrow’s sunlight wiping off the shadow of yesterday.

Just like what Elias said in Rizal’s notorious novel, Noli me Tangere, “Mamamatay akong hindi nakikita ang ningning ng bukang-liwayway sa aking Bayan! Kayong makakakita, salubungin ninyo siya, at huwag kalilimutan ang mga nabulid sa dilim ng gabi.” Today we are still balking for that versatile transformation that only us, FILIPINOS can do. Who else will have a “Rizalic” heart that will have the audacity to protract his bequest? Who else? Will it be the Americans? Or the Chinese? Will it be Koreans? No! We should impede contemplating on those foreigners, pioneer laboring for the betterment of our country.

Now, let the light cover Luzon. Let the light cover the island of Visayas. Let it reign across Mindanao. And when our motherland is categorically blanketed with rays of light, only then our boon will emerge to bloom, conceiving a better society. Only then will Jose Rizal’s death would be worth it.