Show of disrespect

The announcement last Friday by Malacañang that President Rodrigo Duterte would skip Monday’s traditional Rizal Day ceremonies was not much of a surprise, given the by-now lengthy record of the President missing out on major engagements here and abroad, for various reasons.

But it’s still a keen disappointment. This marks the second year in a row that the President has chosen to snub the annual solemn ritual of the country’s chief executive leading the national commemoration of the martyrdom of Jose Rizal—a day that had been designated a holiday precisely to allow the country to observe the occasion with the proper stateliness and sense of remembrance befitting the National Hero.

Last year, Mr. Duterte spent Dec. 30 in Davao; ostensibly on doctor’s orders, he was a no-show at the 122nd anniversary rites honoring Rizal at the city’s park named after the hero.

It was his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, who subbed for him, reading a message that urged Filipinos to “emulate Rizal’s patriotism” by, among others, “supporting the government’s development agenda and campaign against corruption, criminality and illegal drugs.”

Rizal’s courage and patriotic fervor, the speech added, should “inspire us all to develop compassion for our fellowmen, as well as foster a greater desire to always think of the common good so that we may be able to progress as a people and as a nation.”

This year, it isn’t for a medical reason that the President would not be laying the traditional wreath at the foot of the Rizal monument in the Luneta.

Per a report in this paper, “Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Duterte would rather honor other Filipino heroes who do not have a date to commemorate their heroism.”

The President, it appeared, had expressed irritation at having to do the same thing again: “He said he always goes to Luneta,” said Panelo, so “I think this year he wanted to give treatment to [General Gregorio] del Pilar.”

Wouldn’t that be a show of disrespect toward the National Hero? Panelo: “I don’t think so. He always issues statements, anyway.”

Panelo’s glib dismissal of the sour taste arising from the President’s apparent disdain for his duty to publicly lead the Rizal Day honors is breathtaking (“he always issues statements, anyway”—as if platitude-studded pro-forma presidential statements, most likely dashed off by Panelo himself, amount to anything). But the proffered explanation for Mr. Duterte’s pointed refusal to go to the Luneta is something else.

Why must Rizal, who holds a preeminent place in the pantheon of the country’s greats not by his choice but by the historic acclamation of his countrymen, be pitted against other Filipino heroes—as if celebrating his heroism also means denigrating and making short shrift of others?

Who thinks this way other than Mr. Duterte? Why is the President seemingly making a big to-do about how other heroes are supposedly ignored in comparison to Rizal, on the very day meant to salute the man’s sacrifice—as if Rizal himself were not, in fact, the inspiration and exemplar for many of these heroes, beginning with Andres Bonifacio who avidly read Rizal’s two novels and whose Katipunan distinctly honored the “Noli” and “Fili” author by using his surname as a password among its members?

Or is it simply that Mr. Duterte is not in the mood to go, for whatever reason, and so his underlings must come up with some ludicrous, tendentious pretext to justify yet another snub by the President of one of the country’s most important civic occasions?

Once upon a time, “So important was the observation of Rizal Day that President Quirino approved on June 9, 1948, Republic Act No. 229 which prohibits cockfighting, horse racing and jai-alai every 30th of December of each year, in order to have proper observance of Rizal Day.” That’s from the official website of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, in an article detailing the “Historical Context and Legal Basis of Rizal Day and Other Memorials in honor of Jose Rizal.”

The decades since have seen the steady erosion of the significance of the day, if not the man; Rizal seems to inspire more lip service than sincere emulation these days among men and women who imagine themselves worthy of being called leaders of this country and heirs to the work of nationhood of the National Hero and his compatriots. But if visiting dignitaries still find it necessary to pay homage and respect to the Filipino race by, first and foremost, trekking to the Luneta to lay flowers at the foot of Rizal—“The First Filipino,” in Leon Ma. Guerrero’s estimation—is it too much to expect that the President himself should be bothered to do likewise?