PILIPINAS

“I have always loved my poor country and I am sure I shall love her to the last moment if men should prove unjust to me; my future, my life, my joys, I have sacrificed all for love of her. By my fate what it may, I shall die blessing her and wishing for her the dawn of her redemption.”

-Jose Rizal, A letter to “the Filipinos” written on June 20, 1892

My inner flag stands half-mast.

Photo taken by Manuel Arias y Rodriguez on December 30th, 1896.

51 Note/s

Saturday, June 18, 2011

"If I could only be a professor in my country, I would stimulate these Philippine studies which are like the nosce te ipsum* that gives the true concept of one’s self and drives nations to do great things. But never would they permit me to open a school in my country, despite the fact that I have obtained my professor’s diploma in Madrid!"

Jose Rizal to Ferdinand Blumentritt, 13 April 1887, Berlin

*Know Thyself

(via iwriteasiwrite)

27 Note/s

Friday, June 17, 2011

iwriteasiwrite:

“As the Noli had shown the Filipinos their present condition under Spain, the Morga would show them their roots as a nation - “the last moments of our ancient nationality,” as Rizal put it. The foundation having been thus laid in these two books, Rizal would chart the Filipino course for the future in El Filibusterismo. Here we find the fulfillment of the promise contained in the Noli. He shows two possible courses remaining: the solution of Simoun and that of Padre Florentino - that of armed violence and that of active nonviolent resistance, to put them in terms familiar today. Rizal explores the way of Simoun-Ibarra in detail and rejects it; he has Padre Florentino give only the outlines of the second course, just enough to show that it is the only way to follow….he gives the vision and makes his act of faith in the Filipino and in the God of history…”

—

Father John N Schumacher, SJ

And that’s the answer to what Rizal’s three major works were attempting to accomplish; the inner and outer emancipation of his people.

0 Note/s