Rizal's Concepts
of Nation Building
Rizal had a pervading constancy and love for
his country which meant love for justice, for
liberty and for personal dignity.
He was the first Filipino to give expression to
Philippine nationalism in his writings, to chart a
route to national unity for his people and to
elaborate nationalism as tangent to freedom
and emancipation.
Rizal
Education
Racial Pride and
Dignity
National
Consciousness
Re-orientation of
Values and Attitudes
Willingness to
Sacrifice
Rizal's Blueprint of Nation
Building
Rizal looked upon education as a prerequisite to
the realization of a peoples freedom. It is
through education that people obtains
knowledge of themselves as individuals and as
members of a nation. He wanted them to
develop a national awareness of their rights and
pride in their country's heritage and culture.
Education
The paramount problem during Rizal's time was
the development of a national consciousness,
that is, the creation of the spirit of nationhood in
the minds of the people. It was important that the
people realized the sordid facts of their existence,
the cause of their oppression, and the sacrifices
they must endure to be freed from colonial
domination.
Re-orientation of Values and
Attitudes
Rizal emphasized that the task of nation building
is accompanied by hardships and sufferings
which the people must inevitably experience to
bolster their courage. The sacrifices experienced
by a people strengthen their bonds of unity and
their sense of independence.
Willingness to sacrifice
Rizal's Program of Action
Organize a group of Filipino students in
Madrid. They would form the nucleus of a
group that in the future would use their
varied talents to work for solutions to the
Philippine problems.
Proposed to them the writing of a book similar
to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
and Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew which
would deal with the various aspects of Filipino
life. The book would be the project of the
Circulo Hispano-Filipino with each member
contributing a chapter. (This book was entitled
Noli me Tangere, 1887).
From the records in the vast Filipiniana
collection of the British Museum, Rizal has
pieced the Filipinos already had a
development culture. And of these records, he
chose to annotate Morga's Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas.(Excerpt from his dedicatory
remarks “It is necessary to first lay bare the
past in order to better judge the present and to
survey the road trodden during three
centuries.”)together the past history of the
Philippines which revealed that even before
the coming of the Spaniards.
He wrote “The indolence of the Filipinos” which
came out as a series of 5 articles in La
Solaridad from 15 July to 15 September, 1899.
Feared the possibility of the Filipinos resort to
arms as a desperate, he wrote El Filibuserismo
to show his countrymen the price they should
be willing to pay and the problems they would
have solve first before plunging the country to
revolution. He warned his countrymen to
consider seriously its decision to revolt against
Spain if no reforms were granted.
He thought of showing the people how to
organize themselves into a compact
homogenous body in the Philippines. Rizal's
major plan of organization was the
establishment of La Liga Filipina ( Philippine
League).
When he was deported to the Dapitan he
had already accomplished a major part of a
self-imposed mission of redeeming the
Filipinos from medieval colonialism. His
exile demonstrated the hero's with untiring
efforts at continuing the program of action
that he relentlessly purchased for the
realization of his blueprint of nation
building. Establishment of a school and a
clinic therein, the community development
projects he undertook.
RIZALS PROGRAM OF REFORMS
The nationalism he taught his people did not
end with the attainment of independence. He
looked beyond independence to the
progressive development of a new nation in
politics, economics, technology and
education. His writings conveyed concepts
that are applicable for all time especially to the
present in all major areas of political, socio-
economic and educational reforms and his
moral teachings and principles convey the
essence of national awareness. His profound
ideas and teachings have become the model
and inspiration for Philippine national leaders.
Political Reform
restoration of Filipino
representation to the Spanish
Cortes and freedom of press
secularization of parishes,
improvement in judicial procedure
Filipinos be allowed the same
opportunity to hold
government positions
removal of friars from the
admin of provinces, towns
religious liberty
Educational Reforms
education is necessary condition
to a free society
mass education for all the people
opted for a school that would
respect academic freedom and
develop the potentials of students
education would liberate
Filipinos from ignorance
education as important
ingredient in the task of nation
building
Socio- Economic Reforms
development of agriculture
proposed incentives to development
country's economy
one cause of backwardness was the
rampant red tape and bribery
laws must be passed to ensure free trade
re-orient the attitude of Filipinos
Moral Principles and Teaching
morality is the application of reason and
conscience to specific problems of behavior
home as a strong influence in the minds of
children
no man has the right to subjugate his will to
another
mutual interplay of individual
and society
taught morality by his own
experience
firm believer in God and he
dedicated to a noble purpose
importance of women
