WHO MADE JOSE

RIZAL OUR FOREMOST

NATIONAL HERO,
AND WHY?
By, Esteban A. De Ocampo

Group 1
Mikee Gopilan
Randy Alingog
Richard Sanchez
Dave Aguila
Mark M Perez
Esteban A. De Ocampo (Mark perez)

■ Si Propesor de Ocampo ay naging punong mananaliksik ng (National Jose

Rizal Centennial Commission), miyembro ng (National Heroes
Commission) at ng Komite ng Pilipinas sa mga Makasaysayang Pananda
(Philippine Historical Markers Committee). At Bilang pagkilala sa
pinakamahusay na kontribusyon niya sa kasaysayan, binigyan siya
ng Gawad Sentenyal ni Rizal ng Order of Knights of Rizal sa pananaliksik at
pagsusulat tungkol sa pambansang bayani noong 1961 at ng Republic
Cultural Heritage Award ng pamahalaan ng Pilipinas para sa pagsusulat ng
kasaysayan at mga bayaning Pilipino tulad ni Rizal, Aguinaldo at iba pang
mga bayani at pagpapalaganap ng kasaysayan sa mga Pilipino noong 1970.

Renato Perdon (January.2015). Propesor Esteban A. de Ocampo: Rizalista at Mananalaysay

http://muntingnayon.com/103/103937/index.php
What is a Hero? (Mark perez)

■ A hero is a prominent or central personage taking an admirable

part in any remarkable action or event.

■ A person of distinguished valor or enterprise in danger, or

fortitude in suffering

■ a man honored after death by public worship, because of

exceptional service to mankind
Is Jose Rizal a Hero? (Mark perez)

■ Dr. Jose Rizal Mercado y Alonso, or simply Jose Rizal (1861 1896), is unquestionably the greatest
hero and martyr of our nation. The day of his birth and the day of his execution are Gittingly
commemorated by all classes of our people throughout the length and breadth of this country and
even by Filipinos and their friends abroad. His name is a byword in every Filipino home while his
picture adorns the postage stamp and paper money of widest circulation. No other Filipino hero
can surpass Rizal in the number of monuments erected in his honor; in the number of towns,
barrios, and streets named after him; in the number of educational institutions, societies, and trade
names that bear his name; in the number of persons, both Filipinos and foreigners, who were
named “Rizal" or "Rizalina” because of their parents' admiration for the Great Malayan; and in the
number of laws, Executive Orders and Proclamations of the Chief Executive, and bulletins,
memoranda, and circulars of both the bureaus. of public and private schools. Who is the Filipino
writer and thinker whose teachings and noble thoughts have been frequently invoked and quoted
by authors and public speakers on almost all occasions? None but Rizal. And why is this so?
Because, as biographer Rafael Palma said, “The doctrines of Rizal are not for one epoch but for all
epochs. They are as valid today as they were yesterday.
Rizal is a made-to-order national hero (Randy
alingog)

Unfortunately, however, there are still some Filipinos who entertain the belief that
our Rizal is a "made-to-order” national hero, and that the maker or manufacturer in
this case were the', Americans, particularly Civil Governor William Howard Taft.
This was done allegedly in the following manner:
"And now, gentlemen, you must have a national hero". These were supposed to
be the words addressed by Governor Taft to Messrs. Pardo de Tavera, Legarda, and
Luzurriaga, Filipino members of the Philippine Commission, of which Taft was the
Chairman. It was further reported that “in the subsequent discussion in which the
rival merits of the revolutionary heroes (Marcelo H. del Pilar, Graciano Lopez ;
Jaena, Jose Rizal, General Antonio Luna, Emilio Jacinto, and Andres Bonifacio - O.)
were considered, the final choice — now universally acclaimed a wise one -- was
Rizal. And so history was made.“

(Dahil sa sinabi ng Governor na si Willian Howard Taft, an American “"And now, gentlemen, you must have a national hero". Sinabi na nya na meron na
tayong bayani, na iyon ay si rizal. So nag duda and ilang mga Pilipino na si Rizal ay hinirang lamang ng mga Americano.)
Why is Rizal our foremost national hero? (Mikee Gopilan)

according to Esteban A. De Ocampo

■ He is our greatest hero because, as a towering figure in the Propaganda Campaign, he
took an “admirable part" in that movement which roughly covered the period from
1882 to 1896. If we were asked to pick out a single work by a Filipino writer during
this era which more than any other writing, contributed tremendously to the formation
of Filipino nationality, we shall have no hesitation in choosing Rizal's Noli Me Tangere
(Berlin, 1887). It is true that Pedro A. Paterno published his novel, Ninay, in Madrid in
1885; Marcelo H. del Pilar, his La Soberania Monacal in Barcelona in 1889; Graciano
Lopez Jaena, his Discursos y Articulos Varios, also in Barcelona in 1891, and Antonio
Luna, his Impresiones in Madrid in 1893, but none of these books had favorable and
unfavorable comments from friends and foes alike as did Rizal's Noli Me Tangere.
(Mikee Gopilan)

■ No Filipino has yet been born who could equal or surpass Rizal as a person of
distinguished valor or enterprise in danger or fortitude in suffering.” Of these traits of
our hero
■ And for the third and last time, we repeat the question: Why is Rizal the greatest
Filipino hero that ever lived? Because he is “a man honored after death by public
worship,
Why is Rizal our foremost national hero?
Sanchez)
(Richard

■ According to Rafael Palma (Filipino politician, Rizalian, writer, educator and a famous Freemason. He
was a senator from 1916 to 1921 and was the fourth President of the University of the Philippines)

"Is his complete self-denial, his complete abandonment of his personal

interests in order to think only of those of his country, He could have
been whatever he wished to be, considering his natural endowments,
he could have earned considerable sums of money from his profession;
he could have lived relatively rich, happy, prosperous, had he not
dedicated himself to public matters. But in him the voice of the species
was stronger than the voice of personal progress or of private fortune,
and he preferred to live far from his family, and to sacrifice his personal
affections for an ideal he had dreamed of. He heeded not his brother,
not even his parents, beings whom he respected and venerated so
much, in order to follow the road his conscience had traced for him. 
(Richard Sanchez)

■ “He did not have great means at his disposal to carry out his campaign, but
that did not discourage him; he contented himself with what he had. He
suffered the rigors of the cold winter of Europe, he suffered hunger, privation,
and misery; but when he raised his eyes to heaven and saw his ideal, his
hope was reborn. He complained of his countrymen, he complained of some
of those who had promised him help and did not help him, until at times,
profoundly disillusioned, he wanted to renounce his campaign forever, giving
up everything. But such moments were evanescent, he soon felt comforted
and resumed the task of hearing the cross of his suffering."
Writings of Rizal (Dave Aguila)
Jose Rizal’s novel Noli Me Tangere received praises from family, friends and famous people.
If Rizal's friends and admirers praised with justifiable pride the Noli and its author, his
enemies were equally loud and bitter in attacking and condemning the same. Perhaps no
other work or writing of another Filipino author has, 'up to this day, aroused as much
acrimonius e.g angry and bitter debate not only among our people but also among the
reactionary foreigners as the Noli of Rizal.
In the Philippines the hero's novel Noli Me Tangere was attacked and condemned by a
Faculty Committee of a Manila university and by the Permanent Censorship Commission in
1887. The Committee said that it found the book “heretical, impious, and scandalous to the
religious order, and unpatriotic and subversive to public order, libelous to the Government of
Spain and to its political policies in these Islands”, while the Commission recommended “that
the impor", tation, reproduction, and circulation of this pernicious book in the Islands be
absolutely prohibited." Coming down to our time, during the Congressional discussions and
hearings on the Rizal (or Noli-Fili) bill in 1956, the proponents and opponents of the bill also
engaged themselves in a bitter and long-drawn-out debate that finally resulted in the
enactment of a compromise measure, now known as Republic Act No. 1425.
(Dave Aguila)

To the bigoted Spaniards in Spain and in the Philippines Rizal was the most
intelligent, most courageous, and most dangersous enemy of the
reactionaries and the týrants; therefore, he should be shot publicly in order to
serve as an example and a warning to those of his kind. This was the reason
why Rizal, after a brief mock
trial, was sentenced to death and made to face the firing squad at
Bagumbayan Field, now the Luneta, in the early morning of December 30,
1896.
Thank you

■ Reference
Gregorio Z. Sonia Z. (n.d) Who made Jose Rizal our foremost national hero, and why?
Jose Rizal Life, Works and Writing