‘Destiny is a woman’ and other Rizalisms

Rizal Day is upon us once again, and the commemorative speeches will be rolled out tomorrow, mostly from politicians beating the dead horse with the same tired quotations they learned in school. Jose Rizal then and now should inspire, and there is no better way to know him than to read him. After all, he left us with 25 volumes of writing that are hardly read outside of what is required in school. His six-volume correspondence, for example, is not just an outline of a short but meaningful life; his letters to family, friends, acquaintances, and colleagues in the Propaganda Movement remind those who have forgotten that he was made up of flesh and blood before he was petrified into monuments of marble and bronze.

Over the years of rereading Rizal to prepare for classroom lectures, I have been drawn to his sense of humor that remains relevant over a century since they were written. While listening to juicy society and show-biz gossip recently, I remembered an appropriate line in “Noli Me Tangere” on: “social parasites; the pests or dregs which God in His infinite wisdom created and very fondly breeds in Manila.” And again: “Generally speaking, we mortals are like tortoises; we are valued and classified according to our shells; for this and for other qualities as well, the mortals of the Philippines are the same as tortoises… and we can add, like tortoises some can be quite slow, in mind and movement.”

While passing deteriorating structures that make for urban blight, I remembered Rizal who said: “We do not believe that its owner would have had it pulled down, this task being ordinarily taken care of by God, or Nature, with whom our government has many projects under contract.” Rizal is a serious man, and even in jest he can cut clean and deep as he does with a scalpel: “One has no reason to be on bad terms with God, with the good God when you are well-off on earth, when you had never communicated with Him, or lent him Money… God in His infinite goodness had created the poor for the benefit of the rich.”

Many of my students rediscover Rizal when they read the prescribed novels as literature to be enjoyed rather than texts to be memorized for useless detail, or mined for nationalistic intent. Students often miss out on Rizal’s continuing relevance in lines like: “Before I visit a country I endeavor to study its history, its exodus—if I may call it that—and after that I would find it understandable. I always found that the prosperity or the misery of a people is in direct proportion to its liberties or concerns, and consequently to the sacrifices or selfishness of its ancestors.”

Aside from the novels, poems and political and historical essays, it is in Rizal’s miscellaneous writings that one finds the hero under the overcoat. Some years ago the descendants of Paciano, Narcisa and Maria Rizal collaborated to make public a previously unpublished manuscript, “La Sibyla Cumana,” that came with an 8-sided top that reveals one’s fortune from a book of set questions and random answers. Translated from the original Spanish by Gemma Cruz Araneta, the oracle also has a Filipino translation by National Artist Virgilio S. Almario. From it I found Rizal’s guidelines for 2018:

1. Trust no one, even yourself. 2. Reject all cheap advice. 3. If there is hope, why worry? If there is no hope, why fret? 4. Silence is talent. 5. Opportunity is required, even for doing wrong. 6. One easily believes what one desires to believe. 7. Faith saves. 8. Divorce costs more than a bad marriage because after the divorce you want to marry again. 9. Follow your conscience, what least pleases you. 10. All the water in the sea is not enough to cry over what is already done.

11. Lack of capability is meritorious in a twisted society. 12. Trust with eyes wide open. 13. If you note down what you spend daily, you will save money. 14. Think twice about yourself and only once about others. 15. Silence is due to prudence or lack of wit. 16. The best perfume comes in small bottles. 17. Destiny is a woman, and you should not make her wait. 18. Life is nothing but a continuous struggle, but struggle improves men. 19. Your encounters are like those of ships—harmless from a distance and fatal up close. 20. The world will end, but there will always be fools.

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