Rizal Law
Republic Act No. 1425, known as the Rizal Law, mandates all educational institutions in the
Philippines to offer courses about José Rizal. The full name of the law is An Act to Include in
the Curricula of All Public and Private Schools, Colleges and Universities Courses On the
Life, Works and Writings of Jose Rizal, Particularly His Novels Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo, Authorizing the Printing and Distribution Thereof, and for Other Purposes.
The Rizal law, in any case, was emphatically restricted by the Christian church much
appreciated to the anti-clerical subjects that were pertinent in Rizal’s books Noli Me Tangere
and El Filibusterismo.
History
Senator Claro M. Recto was the main proponent of the Rizal Bill. He sought to sponsor the
bill at Congress. However, this was met with stiff opposition from the Catholic Church.
During the 1955 Senate election, the church charged Recto with being a communist and an
anti-Catholic. After Recto's election, the Church continued to oppose the bill mandating the
reading of Rizal's novels Noli Me Tángere and El Filibusterismo, claiming it would violate
freedom of conscience and religion.
In the campaign to oppose the Rizal bill, the Catholic Church urged its adherents to write to
their congressmen and senators showing their opposition to the bill; later, it organized
symposiums. In one of these symposiums, Fr. Jesus Cavanna argued that the novels belonged
to the past and that teaching them would misrepresent current conditions. Radio commentator
Jesus Paredes also said that Catholics had the right to refuse to read them as it would
"endanger their salvation".
Groups such as Catholic Action of the Philippines, the Congregation of the Mission, the
Knights of Columbus, and the Catholic Teachers Guild organized opposition to the bill; they
were countered by Veteranos de la Revolucion (Spirit of 1896), Alagad in Rizal, the
Freemasons, and the Knights of Rizal. The Senate Committee on Education sponsored a bill
co-written by both José P. Laurel and Recto, with the only opposition coming from Francisco
Soc Rodrigo, Mariano Jesús Cuenco, and Decoroso Rosales.
The Archbishop of Manila, Rufino Santos, protested in a pastoral letter that Catholic students
would be affected if compulsory reading of the unexpurgated version were pushed through.
Arsenio Lacson, Manila's mayor, who supported the bill, walked out of Mass when the priest
read a circular from the archbishop denouncing the bill.
Rizal, according to Cuenco, "attack[ed] dogmas, beliefs and practices of the Church. The
assertion that Rizal limited himself to castigating undeserving priests and refrained from
criticizing, ridiculing or putting in doubt dogmas of the Catholic Church, is absolutely
gratuitous and misleading." Cuenco touched on Rizal's denial of the existence of purgatory,
as it was not found in the Bible, and that Moses and Jesus Christ did not mention its
existence; Cuenco concluded that a "majority of the Members of this Chamber, if not all
[including] our good friend, the gentleman from Sulu" believed in purgatory. The senator
from Sulu, Domocao Alonto, attacked Filipinos who proclaimed Rizal as "their national hero
but seemed to despise what he had written", saying that the Indonesians used Rizal's books as
their Bible on their independence movement; Pedro López, who hails from Cebu, Cuenco's
province, in his support for the bill, reasoned out that it was in their province the
independence movement started, when Lapu-Lapu fought Ferdinand Magellan.
Outside the Senate, the Catholic schools threatened to close down if the bill was passed;
Recto countered that if that happened, the schools would be nationalized. Recto did not
believe the threat, stating that the schools were too profitable to be closed.[1] The schools
gave up the threat, but threatened to "punish" legislators in favor of the law in future
elections. A compromise was suggested, to use the expurgated version; Recto, who had
supported the required reading of the unexpurgated version, declared: "The people who
would eliminate the books of Rizal from the schools would blot out from our minds the
memory of the national hero. This is not a fight against Recto but a fight against Rizal",
adding that since Rizal is dead, they are attempting to suppress his memory.
On May 12, 1956, a compromise inserted by Committee on Education chairman Laurel that
accommodated the objections of the Catholic Church was approved unanimously. The bill
specified that only college (university) students would have the option of reading
unexpurgated versions of clerically-contested reading material, such as Noli Me Tángere and
El Filibusterismo. The bill was enacted on June 12, 1956, Flag Day.
