Think about it
A meaningful Rizal Day observance
By Jun Velasco
RIZAL Day yesterday did not just come to pass. Yes, unlike in many observances past when meaningless rhetoric filled the air ad nauseaum.
There was felt a kind of yearning for a liberator, a Philippine hero to appear on the scene, to come to the rescue of Beloved Motherland or, better yet, as spoken so ardently by former Supreme Court Chief Justice, now Knights of Rizal Supreme Commander, Hilario G. Davide Jr., to come forward, to seek the “appearance of new Rizals in our midst.”
He said: “let’s create new Rizals!” as he turns to the young – and even the old who are young at heart – urging a mushrooming of several, hundreds or thousands or millions of “points of light in their communities, herpes in their own right.”
Yesterday’s rites at the Luneta, in Quezon City and in Dagupan City, we could hear footsteps of young and old people who have had enough of our unworkable system and the ill-fit leaders arising from the ruins, yes, like the Phoenix offering their precious hours for country.
Incidentally, we met the Czech Ambassador to the Philippines Jaroslav Ludva, a handsome and pleasant guy, who in a recent Knights of Rizal gathering in Quezon City recited from memory the famous “Mi Ultimo Adios.”
How ennobling that the Knights group is going out of its way to promote Rizalism, perennially inspired by the hero himself, a kabayan, a Pinoy just like you and me, who has held the whole world in awe for his genius and patriotism.
In one of our chats at the KOR headquarters in Manila, we asked our Knights supremo what specifically was the hero’s greatest contribution to the country or the world. Was it his idealism, his genius, intellectual excellence, scholarship, patriotism, his writing skills (he penned the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo, remember?), his sacrifice for the country’s freedom, his exemplary life, etcetera?
The self-effacing Jun Davide matter- of-factly said, “he is all of the above; you can’t single out which is most or more over his other qualities” (word to that effect).
A German Rizalista in Dagupan, Sir Manfred Ollik, a KoR deputy commander in his home town in Germany, is like many of our foreigner friends who are devotees of the Filipino hero. Sir Barry Bowman, a colleague in Rotary, is a Knights regional commander in Europe, and so, with Sir Yasuaki Niitsu, a regional head in Japan. Their devotion to Rizal brings us pride because he belongs to us. He was a countryman, and in our case in Pangasinan and Dagupan City, he walked our streets in Dagupan, Bayambang and Lingayen while visiting the love of his life, Leonor Rivera.
Over a cup of coffee, we told Sir Niitsu “how come you from a prosperous country have the time and interest in studying a Filipino hero from this luckless land?”He said, “No, you are luckier, because a great man dwelt among you.”
Before we sat down to write this column, we had a chat with former Ambassador Mel Jovellanos, son of the late former municipal president of Dagupan Don Jose Villamil Jovellanos, Sr., who translated Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios.”
Titled Kaonoran ya Patanir which he translated in September l946, the first paragraph runs thus:
On patanirak bahley ya kagalang, puloy banuan pinabli
Perla sa Dayat Letakan, naandin kaliketan mi,
Diad sika iter ko’y bilay ko ayan maermen, pakaskasi, man
Komon no mamarlang, mabonabona, lalon masori,
Siansian diad sika ibagat lapud panabig mon dili.
Due to lack of space, we promise to include the rest of the stanzas in a future column.
* * *
Happy New Year!
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/think-about-it/)
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
