C E Publishing Inc El Filibusterismo Download
Madelyn Grindel
The seminal novels of the Philippines, Jos Rizal's Noli me tangere (1887) and El filibusterismo (1891), are written in Spanish, a language that began evaporating in the archipelago when the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and imposed English as a lingua franca. Where does a foundational author like Rizal fit in a discussion of globalized literatures when the Philippines are commonly framed as a historical and cultural hybrid neither quite Asian nor quite Western? In Rizal's El filibusterismo, the Philippines are an inchoate national project imagined not in Asia but amid complex allusive dynamics that emanate from the Americas. Rizal and his novel, like the Philippine nation they inspired, appear in global and postcolonial frameworks as both Asian and American in that epistemes Eastern and Western, subaltern and hegemonic, interact in a ceaseless flow that resists easy categorization.
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Jose Alejandro, one of the new Filipinos who had been quite intimate with Rizal, said, "in writing the Noli Rizal signed his own death warrant." Subsequent events, after the fate of the Noli was sealed by the Spanish authorities, prompted Rizal to write the continuation of his first novel. He confessed, however, that regretted very much having killed Elias instead of Ibarra, reasoning that when he published the Noli his health was very much broken, and was very unsure of being able to write the continuation and speak of a revolution.
Explaining to Marcelo H. del Pilar his inability to contribute articles to the La Solidaridad, Rizal said that he was haunted by certain sad presentiments, and that he had been dreaming almost every night of dead relatives and friends a few days before his 29th birthday, that is why he wanted to finish the second part of the Noli at all costs.
To a Filipino friend in Hong Kong, Jose Basa, Rizal likewise eagerly announced the completion of his second novel. Having moved to Ghent to have the book published at cheaper cost, Rizal once more wrote his friend, Basa, in Hongkong on July 9, 1891: "I am not sailing at once, because I am now printing the second part of the Noli here, as you may see from the enclosed pages. I prefer to publish it in some other way before leaving Europe, for it seemed to me a pity not to do so. For the past three months I have not received a single centavo, so I have pawned all that I have in order to publish this book. I will continue publishing it as long as I can; and when there is nothing to pawn I will stop and return to be at your side."
Inspired by what the word filibustero connoted in relation to the circumstances obtaining in his time, and his spirits dampened by the tragic execution of the three martyred priests, Rizal aptly titled the second part of the Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo. In veneration of the three priests, he dedicated the book to them.
"The church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been imputed to you; the Government, by surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows causes the belief that there was some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the Philippines, by worshipping your memory and calling you martyrs, in no sense recognizes your culpability. In so far, therefore, as your complicity in the Cavite Mutiny is not clearly proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and as you may or may not cherished sentiments for justice and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we await expectantly upon Spain some day to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over one who without clear proofs attacks your memory stains his hands in your blood."
U.S. President Bush, center, is accompanied by Mayor Lito Atienza, during a wreath laying ceremony at Rizal Monument in Manila, the Philippines, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2003. President Bush will address the National Congress and meet with Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo before continuing with his Asia tour. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) read more
Philippine Marine honor guards stand at attention while US President George W. Bush pays his respects in front of the monument of Philippine national hero Jose Rizal during a wreath laying ceremony in Manila (AFP/Jay Directo) read more
Disillusioned with how Filipinos in the Philippines were regarded as second-class citizens in institutions of learning and elsewhere, the National Hero Jose Rizal left the country in May 1882 to pursue further studies abroad. He enrolled in a course in medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid in Spain. In June 1883, he traveled to France to observe how medicine was being practiced there.
After his three-month sojourn in France, Rizal returned to Madrid and thought about publishing a book that exposed the colonial relationship of Spain and the Philippines. This idea was realized in March 1887, with the publication of the novel Noli Me Tangere in Germany.
Rizal was actively involved in the Propaganda movement, composed of Filipinos in Spain who sought to direct the attention of Spaniards to the concerns of the Spanish colony in the Philippines. He wrote articles for publications in Manila and abroad; convened with overseas Filipinos to discuss their duty to the country; and called on Spanish authorities to institute reforms in the Philippines, such as granting freedom of the press and Filipino representation in the Spanish Cortes.
From Hong Kong, Rizal traveled to Macau and Japan before going to America. Entering San Francisco, California, in April 1888, he visited the states of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Illinois, and New York. He jotted down his observations of the landscape in his diary.
- Guest Editor's Introduction Caroline S. Hau
All four articles look closely at the problems and challenges of reading and translating these two chefs d'oeuvres. In so doing, they show how the enduring interest in and long-staying power of Rizal's novels have depended not only on the manifold ways in which these novels have been able to "speak" to their readers across the chasm of years as well as changing mores, contexts, and perspectives, but also on the contest over meaning that they have provoked and the means and stakes of the struggle they entail.
John N. Schumacher revisits the Catholic Church's controversial response to the 1956 Republic Act 1425 that mandated the teaching of Rizal's "life, works and writings" in all public and private schools, colleges, and universities. He compares several drafts of a 1952 pastoral letter prepared by the Jesuit priest and historian Horacio de la Costa with the 1956 Statement written by Fr. Jesus Cavanna and issued by the church against the Rizal Bill. Schumacher's careful analysis reveals important differences of opinion between De La Costa and Cavanna over Rizal's depiction of the Spanish religious orders and colonial-era church practices. De la Costa, grappling with questions of fictionality, intentionality, and biography in his reading of Rizal's satire, argued that Rizal's criticism targeted the abuses committed in the name of the church by its representatives rather than the doctrine of the church itself. De la Costa affirmed the value of Rizal's novels by calling for more research, translation, and teaching to be done on them in order to better educate young Filipino readers in the nuances of Rizal's position on religion and the church.
It is telling that Cavanna's condemnation of the novels as attacks on the church is based on his citation of a passage from Rizal's letter that was originally written in German and subsequently translated into Spanish, and then "paraphrased" by Rafael Palma in his Spanish-language biography of Rizal, which in turn was translated into English by Roman Ozaeta. In the course of the letter's journey across languages, its contents shifted in meaning as Palma inserted the phrase "rituals and superstitions" where no such phrase existed in the German original and its Spanish translation. Cavanna's reading of the novels as satires of the Catholic religion and church in effect draws on Rafael Palma's...
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