Cake and ‘pancit’ for Rizal’s birthday

Rising early is not one of my virtues. Nine years with the National Historical Commission meant sunrise flag raising and floral offerings at national historical sites and landmarks. Waking up at dawn wasn’t the real penance, it was having to endure a succession of speeches that all began with acknowledgment of everyone of importance in attendance from the barangay captain to the highest national official. I used to imagine this as one of the special rings of hell.

Last Monday, I found myself at the Rizal Shrine in Dapitan, laying a bouquet at the foot of Rizal’s statue with Mayor Seth Frederick “Bullet” Jalosjos. The program, at my insistence, was mercifully short and the procession of wreaths came after our speeches. By coincidence, the mayor and I emphasized Rizal’s life rather than his martyrdom. After all, it was Rizal’s 162nd birthday. And Dapitan, his place of exile from 1892-1896, was the laboratory where the hero practiced everything he knew and studied for in Europe. He designed and beautified the town plaza. With his favorite Jesuit teacher Francisco de Paula Sanchez and the community, they made a relief map of Mindanao on the grass in front of the town church. Rizal had a medical clinic where people paid what they could afford, in kind, vegetables, eggs, chickens, fish, and even “lightning teeth” that turned out to be prehistoric stone adzes. He had a school for boys, a “sari-sari” store, and by necessity had an illegal practice of dentistry because there was no dentist in town. He wrote poems, essays, drafts of novels to take off where “El Filibusterismo” stopped. He compiled an English-Tagalog dictionary, that began and ended with the letter “A.”

Even in 2023, Dapitan is still a sleepy town (its charter as a city was granted simply because Rizal lived there!). To get there, you fly from Manila to Dipolog, then continue by land to Dapitan. Another option is to fly from Manila to Cebu and then take a three-hour boat ride to Dapitan. Imagine what Dapitan was like in 1892, more so for a man who knew world capitals like London, Madrid, Berlin, and Paris like the back of his hand. A cosmopolitan like Rizal exiled to Dapitan would have gone mad with boredom, but he kept himself busy making life better for others.

He observed that Dapitanons lived by the sea but did not know how to use fish nets. He wrote to his family and ordered a net so he could teach townspeople a more efficient way to fish. Next month, he asked his family to send a professional fisherman because using a net isn’t something he could learn on his own. He built a dam on his beachfront estate and distributed the collected water all over the property with bamboo tubes. He is best remembered for clearing the marshes (to minimize malaria) and organizing people into building a water system from a mountain stream that was connected downhill using roof tiles.

To put it simply, Rizal showed by example what it meant to be a “bayani.” In the 1832 edition of the “Vocabulario de la lengua tagala,” compiled by the Jesuits Noceda and Sanlucar, one of the meanings of bayani is not “hero” but someone who does something or provides a service for free toward a common goal. My friend Tina Cuyugan, reflecting on Rizal’s civic and public works in Dapitan, said that he did all these not for pay but for the betterment of the community. Rizal was not “epal.” He did not advertise his achievements on billboards or tarpaulin. He did not do things with the end goal of running for barangay captain or higher office. He did public works because they had to be done, not because he wanted a government contract.

While Dec. 30 is a national holiday, June 19 is not commemorated officially outside Calamba and now Dapitan. Can’t we start with June 12 Independence Day and end with Rizal’s birthday on June 19? Mayor Jalosjos and I wondered why are the ceremonies for Dec. 30 and June 19 the same. Can’t we innovate and celebrate on June 19 and leave the somber funeral procession for Dec. 30? Instead of wreaths, can’t we offer a birthday cake and pancit at Rizal’s statue and have a picnic afterward? Should we teach young people that heroism is not always about dying but living for the country? Our national anthem concludes with “ang mamatay nang dahil sa iyo.” Shouldn’t we emphasize a useful and meaningful life with “ang mabuhay nang dahil at para sa iyo”?