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BY SONIA D. DAQUILA
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Monday, January 2, 2017
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DECEMBER 30, 2016 marked the 120th death anniversary of Dr. Jose Rizal but what significance does it bear to the millennials?
In my previous writings I stressed three points: the universality, the timelessness and the timeliness of Rizal’s two novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. These are the only two internationally acclaimed socio-cultural and political novels written by a Filipino from 1800s to 2016. The message is universal. It holds true to any race; it is timeless because it is true at any time; and it is timely because it is true, particularly in the Philippine setting today.
Noli Me Tangere is an analysis of the illness which gnaws the moral fiber of Philippine society. El Filibusterismo is about CHANGE through revolution. It underscores the tatsulok or the triumvirate of society: the civil government, the military officers and the abusive religious. Both novels point out the cause of social cancer, “greed for power.”
In the Marxist point of view, cosmetic changes cannot cure social ills. Change is only possible by radical means. President Rodrigo Duterte may be viewed in this context. Like Simoun in El Filibusterismo who said, “…I have returned to destroy this system, precipitate its corruption, push it towards the abyss to which it is running stupidly, even if I have to use waves of tears and blood…! Coward fathers will only produce lazy children. It is not worthwhile to destroy in order to build again with rotten materials…a paralytic and corrupt people have to die to give way to a new, active one, full of energy…the earth is more fertile when fertilized with blood, and thrones more secure when cemented on crimes and cadaver…”
Towards the end of El Filibusterismo, the dying Simoun asked Fr. Florentino why his revolution failed, and the priest said, “Because you have chosen means He could not approve of…the glory of saving the country cannot go to him who has contributed to its ruin…error, hatred, create only monsters, crimes and criminals…”
In conclusion, through Fr. Florentino, Rizal said, “An immoral government corresponds to a demoralized people, to an administration without a conscience, to rapacious and servile citizens in towns, bandits and robbers in the mountains! Like masters, like slaves. Like people like government.”
Are not these words universal, timeless, and timely? (delsocorrodaquila@gmail.com/PN)
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