The ambiguity of freedom and nationalism

Last of a series"BAYANING Third World" is a 1999 film about two fictional filmmakers setting out to make a film about Jose Rizal. After briefly exploring numerous (worn out) themes, they settled on the retraction controversy because this was a relatively unexplored topic (at the time).They were ready to conclude that the retraction was genuine and effectively tarnished Rizal's key role in Filipino nationhood. However, at the last second, the two filmmakers came to the conclusion that whatever the truth about the retraction, people's unshakable views of Rizal — "kanya-kanyang Rizal" — will render the "truth" a moot point. In short, Rizal was undeserving as a hero, but the ignorant mass will probably not even care.As with Renato Constantino's "Veneration without understanding," "Bayaning Third World" managed to trivialize in a sort of post-truth fashion, Rizal's heroism for the Filipino people. The film exaggerated the potency of the retraction in roughly the same manner Constantino distorted Philippine history to destroy Rizal.In his essay on the "history wars" of the 1950s, Reynaldo Ileto showed that American proconsul William Taft highlighted a usable portion of Rizal's life, works and writings — where the national hero supposedly "endorsed education over other means of achieving independence and nationhood" — to advance colonial interests. The conservative-reformist younger Rizal was emphasized, while the revolutionary (and even anarchist) older Rizal was downplayed for colonial purposes.What "Bayaning Third World" wanted us to believe, as Taft, Wenceslao Retana and Constantino did before it, is that they wielded the power to decide for the rest of us which part of Rizal was relevant for Philippine nationalism. Thus, when the Rizal bill was being debated in 1956, 10 years after Philippine independence from the United States, the opponents of the proposed legislation desperately wanted to prevent the Filipino youth from reading the words of the revolutionary Rizal (and critic of the Catholic Church), instead focusing only on the conservative-reformist writings of the younger Rizal.Fortunately, nationalist titans like Jose P. Laurel (born in 1891) and Claro M. Recto (born in 1892) were reared in an era when people actually read Rizal's revolutionary writings in the original Spanish. More importantly, Laurel and Recto's generation — as did the majority of the Filipino people in the generations that followed — viewed Rizal and his contemporaries primarily as courageous revolutionaries who gave up their lives for the country's future as an independent nation.As politicians who made their bones in the shadow of American and Japanese colonial rule, Laurel and Recto understood that revolutionary or radical nationalism needed to be couched in rhetoric that would not arouse suspicion or deadly action from the authorities. Even ordinary Filipinos had grown weary of years of revolutionary violence and wanted to advance nationalism within the allowable limits of American colonial rule.They were inspired by Rizal's unparalleled courage in openly writing about revolution in "El Filibusterismo," for which he earned a harsh rebuke from the conservative-reformist ranks via the essay "Five-and-Ten-Cent Redeemers" published in "La Solidaridad" under the pen of Edilberto de Leporel (believed to be Philippine-born Spaniard Eduardo de Lete).Laurel sought to follow Rizal's example with an equally revolutionary and unheard-of act (in the context of colonial rule) of promoting Tagalog literature and drama during the Japanese occupation period. He published "Forces that Make a Nation Great," a series of articles that, according to Ileto, "sought to bring the heroes of the Propaganda Movement, the Revolution and the Filipino-American War back into the public sphere, without the distortions and silences imposed by an American presence." Under American rule, the subject of the 1896 Revolution — including the biography of militant leader Andres Bonifacio — and the Filipino-American War was "severely curtailed."As president during the Japanese occupation, Laurel envisioned an independent Philippines free from colonial influence, beginning with the writing and study of our nation's history. This meant highlighting the life, works and writings of the heroic and revolutionary generation of 1896, including Rizal, Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Marcelo del Pilar and others.After Philippine independence from the United States was granted in 1946, Laurel and Recto were troubled by the continuing — and arguably, growing — American influence in our country. It seemed to them that our people needed to be reintroduced to the revolutionary roots of Philippine nationalism courtesy of the generation of 1896 in order to arrest the massive distortion of our sense of nationalism and freedom under the relentless assault of American neocolonialism. Laurel and Recto leaned anew on Rizal as the resolute anchor and beacon of Filipino nationalism and sense of freedom in the face of the American interference in our independence during the 1950s."Kanya-kanyang Rizal" was peddled by "Bayaning Third World" as if all the versions of Rizal are equally valid. They are not.One version by the acculturated (American) Filipinos, the demagogic political left, and stragglers of the trite Rizal vs Bonifacio tack are actually spreading disinformation about Rizal, focusing solely on his conservative-reformist younger version, while maliciously obscuring the older revolutionary or radical Rizal.The version of nationalist intellectuals, earnest and honest students of Philippine history, and the bayan itself is more authentic. It sees Rizal for who he truly is: the inspirational revolutionary central figure in the foundational event of Philippine history and nationhood, and the brilliant representative image of the Filipino nation to the rest of the world.