Greatest Filipino Lover

For the longest time, his name had been linked to a petite Segunda Katigbak, to a towering Leonor Valenzuela, to a protective Leonor Rivera, to a poetic Consuelo Ortiga, to an intelligent O-Sei San, to a buxom Gertrude Beckette, to a demanding Nelly Boustead, to a lachrymose Suzanne Jacoby, and a happy Josephine Bracken. And his name is Jose Rizal. Yes, one of the world’s greatest lovers is a Filipino.

But, to the more avid Rizalians, or Rizalists, they would prefer remembering him – on his 150th birthday on 19 June 2011 -- for his love, other than romantic.

As a professor who used to handle Philippines Instutions 100, or Rizal Course, we find him as classic and universal as his love for his country. In fact, his “predictions” could have prevented bad, or sad, news from happening -- had the concerned parties listened to him or read between his famous lines.

The day before last year’s Rizal Day, a decree issued by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo on 20 December 1898, our family had the chance to visit Fort Santiago. At the Rizal Shrine, we were able to watch a play -- Rizal: Haligi ng Bayan -- directed by Dr. Anton Juan who used our National Hero’s quotable quotes as his actors’ script.

A week after, Walter Hahn did the same, by citing his words of wisdom, in his lecture called 3 X 150 at the Philippine Education Theater Association (PETA) Theater Center. It was on the Feast of the Three Kings and he used the wise sayings of these Three Wise Men -- Tagore, Rizal, Steiner. But what stuck in our minds was the letter from another Wise Man -- Ferdinand Blumentritt: “You have a brave heart and a more noble woman looks at you lovingly: Your Native Land. The Philippines is like one of the enchanted princesses of German folklore who is the prisoner of an ugly dragon waiting for a valiant knight to liberate her.”

It was a letter for Rizal written on 15 February 1891.

Yet, it sounds as if it was the latest privilege speech of, say, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago or Pastor Ullmer’s clan’s updated blog entry from Wilhelmsfeld, a.k.a. “Noli Village,” where he finished Noli Me Tangere at the age of 25 and where you can find the sandstone fountain from which Rizal had drunk in 1886, which can now be seen in Luneta Park as a German donation to the Philippines.

We can go on and on, as our favorite love song goes, about Rizaliana.

Well, if you won’t lift a finger to make things happen, expect Rizal to haunt you with his take on unfinished businesses: ““It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.”