JPRizal Handout

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REPUBLIC ACT NO. 1425
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
WHEREAS, today, more than any other period of our history, there is a need for a re-dedication to the
ideals of freedom and nationalism for which our heroes lived and died;
WHEREAS, it is meet that in honoring them, particularly the national hero and patriot, Jose Rizal, we
remember with special fondness and devotion their lives and works that have shaped the national character;
WHEREAS, the life, works and writing of Jose Rizal, particularly his novels Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo, are a constant and inspiring source of patriotism with which the minds of the youth,
especially during their formative and decisive years in school, should be suffused;
WHEREAS, all educational institutions are under the supervision of, and subject to regulation by the State,
and all schools are enjoined to develop moral character, personal discipline, civic conscience and to teach
the duties of citizenship; Now, therefore,
SECTION 1. Courses on the life, works and writings of Jose Rizal, particularly his novel Noli Me Tangere
and El Filibusterismo, shall be included in the curricula of all schools, colleges and universities, public or
private: Provided, That in the collegiate courses, the original or unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo or their English translation shall be used as basic texts.
The Board of National Education is hereby authorized and directed to adopt forthwith measures to
implement and carry out the provisions of this Section, including the writing and printing of appropriate
primers, readers, and textbooks. The Board shall, within sixty (60) days from the effectivity of this Act,
promulgate rules and regulations, including those of a disciplinary nature, to carry out and enforce the
provisions of this Act. The Board shall promulgate rules and regulations providing for the exemption of
students for reasons of religious belief stated in a sworn written statement, from the requirement of the
provision contained in the second part of the first paragraph of this section; but not from taking the course
provided for in the first part of said paragraph. Said rules and regulations shall take effect thirty (30) days
after their publication in the Official Gazette.
SECTION 2. It shall be obligatory on all schools, colleges, and universities to keep in their libraries an
adequate number of copies of the original and unexpurgated editions of the Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo, as well as of Rizal’s other works and biography. The said unexpurgated editions of the Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo or their translations in English as well as other writings of Rizal shall be
included in the list of approved books for required reading in all public or private schools, colleges and
universities.
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The Board of National Education shall determine the adequacy of the number of books, depending upon
the enrollment of the school, college, or university.
SECTION 3. The Board of National Education shall cause the translation of the Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo, as well as other writings of Jose Rizal into English, Tagalog and the principal Philippine
dialects; cause them to be printed in cheap, popular editions; and cause them to be distributed, free of
charge, to persons desiring to read them, through the Purok organizations and Barrio Councils throughout
the country.
SECTION 4. Nothing in this Act shall be construed as amendment or repealing section nine hundred twenty-
seven of the Administrative Code, prohibiting the discussion of religious doctrines by public school teachers
and other person engaged in any public school.
SECTION 5. The sum of three hundred thousand pesos is hereby authorized to be appropriated out of any
fund not otherwise appropriated in the National Treasury to carry out the purposes of this Act.
SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.
Approved: June 12, 1956

Published in the Official Gazette, Vol. 52, No. 6, p. 2971 in June 1956.
THE TRIALS OF THE RIZAL BILL

A Summary
By Dr. Jose B. Laurel, Jr.
The Republic Act No. 1425, also known as the Rizal Law, has been in much controversy because of the
dichotomy it has wrought. It sparked debates and feelings of bitterness and recrimination in the Congress
during its inception. When it was filed on April 3, 1956 by the Committee on Education, a former committee
in the Legislation, under the name Senate Bill No. 438, only three (3) lawmakers earned its support, such
as Senators Jose P. Laurel and Claro M. Recto, seeing it as a non-controversial measure.
As told by Senator Laurel, the aim of the bill was to disseminate the ideas and ideals of Jose Rizal, known
to be a great patriot, by reading his works, especially the two (2) famous novels, in their original and
uncensored versions, translated in English, Filipino, and native dialects.
The Catholic church members inside and out of the Congress completely disagree, however. They deemed
that the novels contain elements that discredit the religion and its tenets. They challenged its compulsive
nature to be a violation of religious freedom. The principal basis of this opposition stemmed from an alleged
Pastoral Letter which branded the novels as heretical and impious, despite praising Rizal. The letter's
authenticity was questioned, but it was certain that it has sown discord among the people.
This led to its first debate on April 23, 1956, headed by Sen. Laurel and supported by Senator Claro M.
Recto, with Senators Mariano J. Cuenco, Francisco Rodrigo, and Decoroso Rosales leading the opposition.
Recto noted that the bill' objective was to foster appreciation of Rizal's times and of the role he played in
the eventual combat against Spanish tyranny. He noted that the novels did not pretend to teach religion or
theology upon their conception, that Rizal aimed to have Filipinos become aware of their society and instill
in them the national dignity, personal pride, and patriotism. And, if references to the misdeeds of the church
and its ministers had been shown in the novels, it was then to shed light on what the country was back then
-- Rizal simply narrated what had been.

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Meanwhile, Senators Cuenco, Rodrigo, and Rosales, with the support of the Catholic church and its
members, spearheaded the argument that by compelling someone to read that is against their religious
convictions is no different from requiring someone to salute the flag, which, based from the US Supreme
Court back then, was an impairment both of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Also, they invoked
the need for unity, which would be upended by the signing of the bill. Noting that them being Catholics do
no mean they were recalcitrant to the country, Sen. Rodrigo remarked that the majority of Filipinos, "…
have two (2) great loves: their country and their faith. These two loves are not conflicting loves. They are
harmonious affections, like the love of a child for his father and for his mother."
Sen. Rodrigo also implored that nationalism and religion, government and church, must not be in conflict
with one another.
This conflict, however, reached the House of Representatives as early as April 19, 1956 when
Congressman Jacobo Z. Gonzales introduced another bill, House Bill No. 5561, which was an identical
copy of Senate Bill No. 438. It also had its struggles similar to the senate bill. However, due to Senator
Laurel creating a substitute bill in place of the original senate bill, more debates and amendments were
made. This led to the condition imposed that if a student's beliefs were to be compromised while taking the
subject, then they can be granted an exemption by the university.
Since then, the bill was to be adjourned sine die (i.e. in indefinite time) since it has to be printed and
disseminated to the entire Congress within three days. The opponents sought to use this technicality to
deter the bill further, forcing Cong. Gonzales to have the Bureau of Printing reprint the Laurel substitute bill
and give out as many copies as possible, changing only the bill's number and the Chamber of origin -- all
the while the actual Senate bill was in its third reading. This was done to ensure that both Laurel and
Gonzales bills would not be tampered in any way. Both Senate Bill No. 438 and House Bill 5561 were
approved upon third reading on May 17.
When the bill has been finalized and signed, it was agreed upon that the Board of National Education (now
called the Commission on Higher Education) shall be responsible in implementing this Act to the public and
private universities and colleges.
THE RIZAL LAW AND THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY

By Renato Constantino
Recto's next big fight was over the Rizal bill. Though this did not directly, affect our colonial relations with
America, his championship this measure was an integral part of his nationalism. It was his belief that the
reading of Rizal's novels would strengthen the Filipinism of the youth and foster patriotism.
Recto was the original author of the bill which would make Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo
compulsory reading in all universities and colleges. Reported out by the committee on education, it was
sponsored by Senator Laurel, committee chairman. The measure immediately ran into determined
opposition from the Catholic hierarchy spearheaded in the Senate by Senators Decoroso Rosales, brother
of Archbishop, now Cardinal Cuenco; and Francisco Rodrigo, former president of Catholic Action. Their
argument was that the bill would violate freedom of conscience and religion. The Catholic hierarchy even
issued a pastoral letter detailing its objections to the bill and enjoining Catholics to oppose it. Despite the
fact that public hearings had already been conducted, Rodrigo proposed that the education committee hold
a closed-door conference with the Catholic hierarchy to search for a solution to the dispute.
Laurel and the other supporters bill rejected the proposal inasmuch as the public hearing had already
afforded the church the opportunity to be heard fully. Recto said that Father Jesus Cavanna of the Paulist
Fathers, who had written the pastoral letter, had himself testified against the bill during the public hearing.

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A closed-door conference was obviously one of the means by which the hierarchy hoped to exert pressure
against the bill/ Lobbies from various Catholic organizations as well as the clerics themselves were very
active in the Senate throughout the discussion of the Rizal bill. These clerics, many of them foreigners were
seeking conferences with the senators to convince them to oppose the Rizal bill.
A more organized campaign against the bill was launched under the auspices of the Catholic Action of
Manila. Its first activity was a symposium and open forum in which two announcements were made: first,
that the Sentinel, official organ of Philippine Catholic Action would henceforth be published daily instead of
weekly, and second, that Filipino Catholics would be urged to write their congressman and senators asking
them to "kill" the Rizal bill. Speakers at the symposium offered a variety of objections to the measure. Fr.
Jesus Cavanna, introduced as an authority on Rizal, said that the novels "belong to the past" and it would
be "harmful" to read them because they presented a "false picture" of the condition in the country at that
time. He described the Noli Me Tangere as an "attack on the clergy" and said its object was to put to ridicule
the Catholic Faith." He alleged that the novel was not really patriotic because out of 333 pages only 25
contained patriotic passages while 120 were devoted to anti-Catholic attacks. Jesus Paredes, a radio
commentator, declared that since some parts of the novels had been declared "objectionable matter" by
the hierarchy, Catholics had the right to refuse to read them so as not to "endanger their salvation." Narciso
Pimentel, Jr„ another radio commentator, offered the interesting speculation that the bill was Recto's
revenge against the Catholic voters who, together with Magsaysay, were responsible for his poor showing
in the 1955 senatorial elections.
Against this background of bitter opposition, one can more fully appreciate the integrity and courage of
Recto in championing the bill. He stubbornly persisted in his defense, unmindful of the fact that he was
antagonizing a vital electoral element.
In a three-hour speech on the Senate floor, he attacked the hierarchy of the Catholic church for its pastoral
letter. He declared that the pastoral letter had been "more severe" in its condemnation of the novels than a
committee of Spanish Dominican priests whose findings had resulted in Rizal's execution. In support of his
contention, he brought up the fact that the pastoral letter had cited 170 passages from the Noli and 50 from
the Fili which it regarded as attacks on the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic church. He said he could
understand the foreign clergy taking such a position but he found it difficult to understand how Filipino
bishops "who will not be bishops now were it not for Rizal" could adopt such a stand when Rizal exalted
the Filipino clergy in his novels.
Rodrigo interpellated the speaker and in the process found himself the butt of Recto' sailies, to the delight
of the gallery. Rodrigo said he had read the books at twenty after securing special dispensation from church
authorities. Having taken advanced scholastic philosophy and religion, he declared his faith was then firm
enough. "But I cannot allow my son who is now 16 to read the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo
lest he lose his faith," Rodrigo said. He proposed instead compulsory reading of footnoted editions of the
novels.
Commenting on the opening paragraph of the pastoral letter which praised Rizal as our greatest hero, Recto
charged that these laudatory phrases were being used "to hide the real intentions of the pastoral which is
to separate the people from Rizal." When Rodrigo agreed to his appeal to the people to scrutinize the
pastoral letter, Rodrigo said this would arouse the people to oppose the measure. Recto retorted that on
the contrary the reading of the hierarchy's letter "should open the eyes of the people to the real enemies of
Rizal and true nationalism.
While others were beginning to yield to pressure, no threats could frighten Recto. In reply to a threat that
Catholic schools would close should the Rizal bill pass, Recto went on record in favor of the nationalization
of all schools. He contended that nationalization might be just the step needed to foster a more vibrant
nationalism among Filipinos. He did not really believe the threat. "They are making too much profit which
they can ill-afford to give up," he said.

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Tempers flared during the continuous debates and opponents attacked each other with greater virulence.
Recto was in the thick of the fight, his tirades against the church growing ever more bitter. On May 3, in a
privilege speech, he recalled that during the days of Rizal, religious orders dominated the government. "Is
this a new attempt to deliver the State to the Church?" he asked. Reacting to a Philippine News Service
report that Bishop Manuel Yap had warned that legislators who voted for the Rizal bill would be "punished"
in the next election, Recto took the floor for the seventh time to warn against church interference in state
affairs. He branded Yap as "the moderately Torquemada."
Finally, on May 12, the month-old controversy ended with unanimous approval of a substitute measure
authored by Senator Laurel and based on the proposals Senators Roseller T. Lim and Emmanuel Pelaez.
The bill as passed was clearly an accommodation to the objections of the Catholic hierarchy and Laurel
said as much. Though it still provided that the basic texts in the collegiate courses should be the
unexpurgated editions of the two novels, it was now possible for students to be exempted from using the
unexpurgated editions on grounds of religious belief. Opponents of the original Recto version jubilantly
claimed a "complete victory." Proponents felt they had at least gained something. After the entire debacle,
it was July of 1956 when Recto eyed American president Richard M. Nixon and criticized him due to their
intentions of owning operating military bases in the country.
REFERENCES:
Constantino, R. (1969). The Rizal law and the Catholic hierarchy. The Making of a Filipino: A Story of
Philippine Colonial Politics
Laurel, J.B. Jr. (1960). The trials of the Rizal bill. Historical Bulletin
Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines (n.d.). Republic act no. 1425.
https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1956/06/12/republic-act-no-1425/

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Jose Rizal and the Invention of a National Literature

A Summary
By Resil B. Mojares
Jose Rizal, as a nineteen-year old student, won first prize in an essay-writing contest in Manila. His alleged
winning piece, entitled El Consejo de los Dioses (i.e. The Council of the Gods), entails Homer, Virgil, and
Cervantes' reputations being cross-examined by the Greek gods in Mt. Olympus. They were arguing who
among the three (3) literary figures was the best in terms of art and virtue, whose musings led to them
declaring Cervantes as a winner, whose works were centered around social reform and the rule of reason.
Rizal, as Minerva, narrated that Cervantes' work, Don Quixote, was chosen as the winning piece because
it is "… the magic hand that strongly guides human passions," and "the whip which punishes and corrects
without bloodshed."
With Cervantes, Rizal noted that, "Truth came back to occupy its place, announcing a new era to the world,
then corrupted."
Perhaps it was viewed as pro-Spain at first glance because it was written to reflect Rizal's classical learning
during his time. However, a closer introspection can imply that he was subversive as well -- Rizal could be
implying that the Philippines needed its Cervantes when he [Cervantes] praised the Spaniard for what he
did in a society ruled by "the obscurity of intelligence",
"… afflicted by a kind of madness, made more dismal and frantic when stupid authors with
feverish imaginations write about it; bad taste was propagated everywhere and time was
uselessly spent in pernicious reading …"
This essay, composed and submitted in 1880, was composed by Rizal during the early days of the
Propaganda. This movement was the response of the Filipinos for the tragic 1872 events, particularly the
Cavite Mutiny and the GomBurZa Execution. It waned for a while, but later resurged after 1880 when
Marcelo Hilario del Pilar relaunched it.
Rizal himself was affected by these events. During the 1880s, the Propaganda was then an "assimilationist"
movement that aimed for the reformation, autonomy, and equity among Filipinos and Spaniards -- a
recurring theme among concerned peninsular and creole authors in Manila. Rizal attempted in his essay to
stand on equal grounds with Spaniards: writing in Spanish, using a Spanish classic, and applying European
discourse in his work. However, his attempts were rebuffed -- the Spanish jurors instead chose to deface it
by referring it as a work by a Spaniard, not by an indio. What sets Rizal -- and the ilustrados -- from the
other critics was their use of literary works as media for their propaganda. Dominated in the scene by a
handful of notable peninsulares and Creoles such as Jose felipe del Pan, Francisco de Paula Entrala, and
Antonio Vasquez de Aldana, their open-minded and self-conscious views were often lauded due to their
racial privilege. Their objectives being pro-Spain, they imagined themselves as the forerunners of unity and
enlightenment in the metropolis. However, their influence ever extended only beyond their local Spanish
community. They have acquired "disciples", such as Isabelo de los Reyes and Pascual Poblete, who initially
shared their ideas of modernity, but eventually pushed them in the other direction.
Literature as a medium for propaganda did not guarantee safe scrutiny: it is a medium full of struggles,
innovation, and challenges to authority. Thus, the dichotomous works about Philippine nationalism had
always been evident. Views such as assimilationism and separatism were noted -- reflecting the complex
and dynamic continuum of ideas inextricably existing, as well as the views of reformation and revolution
and pre-nationalism and nationalism. Rizal, in 1880, stood at the forefront where the perspective change
from pre-nationalism into true nationalism, forging a path to a "national" literature.
Rizal tried different things that would incorporate and highlight the Filipino culture: from researching and
writing his own version of national history to composing and creating a lexicon of all known dialects in the
country, starting from T'boli up to the well-known ones such as Tagalog and Cebuano -- all in the name of

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asserting difference in culture. He knew that local languages are cultural resources for national unity. He
and the early nationalists knew that their propaganda mission was an ambivalent one. They were claiming
that the Filipinos can stand equally with Spaniards, the benefactors, whose myriad of local languages can
be utilized as an autonomous state, much like Galicia and Catalonia in the main peninsula.
However, they also noted that the Filipinos weren't also welcoming to the steady encroachment of said
benefactors, as the Spanish literary space could spell the erasure of cultural autonomy in the country -- one
of the vital components to become a separate nation-state. They knew of the importance of being
"internationalized", and how it could help natives step up and join the "world-system", allowing them to
engage with other external power because their way of life has been contaminated and vitalized by foreign
elements.
Because of this, Rizal noted that people's literature should be grounded in their history, acting as a store of
social, psychological, and linguistic resources. He added that, in literature, writing is an exercise in authority
-- and that Filipinos must be active participants in literature-writing and must exercise command over it.
However, he also pointed out that literature can only grow through a vital conversation with the rest of the
world. In this perspective, he treated Noli Me Tangere as a window to his "present time", while El
Filibusterismo is a glimpse of the "future" that Noli Me Tangere might head towards.
The Rizal Bill of 1956: Horacio de la Costa and the Bishops

An Abridged Summary
By John N. Schumacher, SJ
Several drafts of a pastoral letter, written by Horacio de la Costa for the bishops in 1952, survive. De la
Costa's Rizal emerges as an outstanding moral figure whose devotion to the truth made his novels a source
of moral as well as social and political wisdom for Filipinos. Although subsequent drafts show he was forced
by an unknown interlocutor to temper this view, he retained an essentially positive reading of the novels. In
the face of Recto's 1956 bill imposing the novels, however, Archbishop (Abp.) Rufino J. Santos
commissioned Father (Fr.) Jesus Cavanna to draft a new "Statement." Beginning with a few positive
paragraphs from De la Costa, the "Statement" then absolutely condemned the novels and forbade their
reading, a prohibition that proved quite ineffective. The drafts of De la Costa show that there was within the
Catholic Church a totally different attitude toward Rizal, whose legacy the church could embrace.
There are five (5) known versions of Horacio de la Costa's pastoral letter: the original draft (Draft A), the
carbon copies of their predecessors (Draft B), the first revision (Draft C), the abridged version (Draft D),
and the copy of the "Statement", where De la Costa underlined everything that was omitted by the Catholic
church (Draft E).
Draft A painted Jose Rizal as a true patriot and a compassionate Filipino who devoted his time to "dispel
the ignorance of his people, raise their moral standards, and combat the injustices and inequality under
which they labored." However, he also noted that Rizal was also a flawed individual, calling out how the
national hero criticized the defects from his countrymen, because he noted that Rizal was only driven to tell
the truth. De la Costa noted several propositions in Draft A, which were as follows:
1. Rizal, by universal consent, is first among Filipinos who have distinguished themselves for
service to their country.
2. For he possessed to an eminent degree those moral virtues that make up true patriotism.
3. He devoted himself to dispelling the ignorance of his people, raising their moral standards, and
combating the injustices and inequality under which they labored.

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4. His love for his country did not blame all ills on strangers, but proclaimed that the Filipino people
were also victims of their own vices and defects.
5. That is why he could say of the Noli that "no one can dispute the objectivity of my narrative."
6. His devotion to the truth gave him a clear vision. No Filipino before or after him has understood
so well or so memorably expressed the moral, political, and social principles upon which the
peace and prosperity of our country must be based.
7. We must applaud in principle that the writings of Rizal be more read and even introduced into
our schools.
8. Apart from the formal teaching of religion, there is no more effective means to develop in our
youth a sane and constructive nationalism; the moral qualities of justice, responsibility, and
integrity; and the civic virtue of subordinating individual ambitions to the common good.
9. Rizal declared he did not intend to attack the Catholic Church itself, but the abuses in it.
10. We must not allow the enemies of the Catholic Church to tear texts from their context to imply
the opposite.
11. Rizal's statement is borne out by a critical examination of the novels, according to their nature
as fiction.
12. He wrote about fictional crimes of fictional characters, which had a basis in fact.
13. In doing this, Rizal did not attack the Catholic Church itself; rather he did it a service.
14. As to the facts, the church awaits the judgment of history.
15. But since the history of the nineteenth century is imperfectly known, this induces many to take
a fictional narrative like Rizal's novels as a substitute for the facts.
16. This is the main danger we foresee in their indiscriminate and undirected reading, especially
by the young, who are apt to take as literally true whatever they see in print.
17. Young people cannot be expected to make the distinctions between what the persons in a
novel say in accordance with their character, nor between what is said ironically and seriously
stated, between the condemnation of an individual and the condemnation of the organization
to which he belongs.
18. Therefore, it is our judgment that, while Rizal's novels should be made familiar to our students,
the editions should be accurate translations from the Spanish text, properly annotated by a
scholar familiar with the ecclesiastical and civil history of Rizal's period, and should ordinarily
be commented on and explained by the teacher in charge.
19. There is nothing in the novels that constitutes a danger to the faith and morals of a mature,
well-instructed Catholic.
20. Rather, they contain much that is in conformity with the Gospel and right reason, and will serve
to develop in our people a wise and generous love of their native land.
From these propositions it is obvious that for De la Costa, as shown in Draft A, Rizal is the national hero
not just because he was executed by the Spaniards, nor because he analyzed the problems of the nation
with perspicacity, nor because he enunciated political and social principles for the good of the nation. He
did all these, but he was also a moral teacher and even a moral example (nos. 2, 3, 6, 8).
In Draft C, there is a conscious effort to deny to Rizal the moral role, so prominent in Draft A, and which
played so important a part in his life. He was no longer said to have devoted himself "to raising the moral
standards" of his people. His novels were said to develop in the youth "a sane and constructive nationalism"
but not "the moral qualities of justice, responsibility, and integrity." The whole long passage on Rizal's
"unswerving devotion to the truth" is omitted. So too is the quotation from Rizal that had been adduced in
support of that characterization, where he insisted on the objectivity of his narrative with regard to the Noli.
Since he submitted the third draft, Fr. Cavanna utilized the first six paragraphs of Draft C as his opening in
his official "Statement" before making significant changes to it, to De la Costa's disappointment. He then
received a copy of this "Statement" and highlighted everything that has been changed. Over the course of
the translation process from Draft C to the "Statement", Rafael Palma's Epistolario Rizalino was used.

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There, he deliberately added in the translation the phrase "rituals and superstitions" in the passage from
Rizal's correspondence with Ferdinand Blumentritt, where it originally stated,
"I wanted to hit the friars, but since the friars use religion not only as a shield, but also as
a weapon, protection, citadel, fortress, armor, etc., I as therefore forced to attack their false
and superstitious religion in order to combat the enemy who hid behind this religion.... Why
should I not attack this religion with all my strength, if it is the prime cause of our sufferings
and our tears? The responsibility lies on those who misuse its name. Christ did the same
with the religion of his country, which the Pharisees had so misused."
REFERENCES:
Mojares, R.B. (n.d.). Jose Rizal and the invention of a national literature. National Library of Spain.
http://www.bne.es/es/Micrositios/Exposiciones/Rizal/resources/documentos/rizal_estudio_03.pdf
Schumacher, J.N. (n.d.). The Rizal bill of 1956: Horacio de la Costa and the bishops. Ateneo de Manila
University - Philippine Studies

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Hard to Imagine
An Abridged Version
By Benedict Anderson
Rizal had always been regarded as a national hero, his works worthy of scrutiny and analysis. His two (2)
greatest novels (i.e. his chefs d'oeuvre) were Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo -- instrumental in
awakening the Filipino nationalism and patriotism. However, he has written them in Spanish. So, when the
American occupation took place, only a handful knew how to speak creole and fluent Spanish since
American slowly replaced the former as the lingua franca of the country. Thus, when needed to be
translated, the known translators at that time, such as Leon Ma. Guerrero, only had to work with what they
had because both novels became inaccessible (this was also noted by Doreen Fernandez in a different
article).
With it, came the bitter rivalry between factions in the national government. On the early run of the Rizal
bill, opposition was fierce. With it came the competition for translating the novels, where Guerrero enters
the scene. Leon Ma. Guerrero was then an ambassador to the court of St. James, whose translations were
prized among many. But he did not submit his work later due to the low cash prize, instead giving it to The
Manila Times for publication. Since then, as Doreen Fernandez noted, Guerrero's translation became "the
only translation anybody reads now."
By analyzing Guerrero's translations, word-for-word with the original manuscripts, it is clear that it has been
distorted in interesting ways. These perceived "distortions" were, in his own words, an "attempt" to make
the novel "palatable to a new generation of English-speaking Filipinos, and give it, beyond them, a wider
audience among other English-speaking peoples on the centenary of Rizal's book. In his own new version,
he tried to give "the reader 'the ease of original composition,' the Noli as Rizal might have written it if he
had been writing in English for the present generation of Filipinos."
Guerrero observed that Rizal's writing style might be unappealing to the modern ear, as Spanish is a
language that can be more sentimental and florid (i.e. complicated) than modern English.
The Introduction
By Caroline Hau
In the mid-1950s, Jose Rizal was still a hot topic sixty years after his execution regarding the inclusion of
the study of his life and works in the curricula of all public and private schools, colleges, and universities.
Despite that the hero was well-known, his life was largely unread. The Rizal bill's aim was to give
appreciation to the life of the national hero and analyze his works, particularly his well-known novels of Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. However, the lawmakers had to confront the dangers in reading Rizal.
First, to be read means that these will be read in different ways; and second, different ways of reading are
ideological in nature, thus it can be political. His writings can be interpreted in different ways, depending on
the context being picked up as it was being read.
This debate stemmed from the Catholic church's insistence that Rizal's harsh criticisms at friar abuses,
simony (i.e. the act of paying the church to do sacred roles and/or things, such as sacraments), and other
practices were the rants of a heretic. As they defended, Rizal's actions and novels must stay in the past
because it talks about the past. As written by Teodoro Locsin, Sr.,
"Many of the passages in Rizal's novels which the Catholic hierarchy finds so shocking, so
objectionable, would take on a new, a more comfortable meaning if read in the context of

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the novels, against the background of the life of the hero. "These are the conditions that
estranged Rizal from the church," a Catholic instructor might begin a course on the writer.
"These conditions no longer exist. The abuses are gone. In his place you might have felt
as he did, written what he wrote."
REFERENCES:
Anderson, B. (2004). 11 Hard to imagine. In Spectre of comparisons: Nationalisms, Southeast Asia, and
the world, 253-47. Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Hau, C. (2000). Introduction. In Necessary fictions: Philippine literature and the nation.
https://archive.org/details/necessaryfictions

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Imagined Communities
An Abridged Version
By Benedict Anderson
INTRODUCTION
Ever since the Second World War ended, there has been a significant rise of national revolutions all over
the world, particularly in countries in resistance to the idea of Marxism. As Eric Hobsbawm stated, Marxist
movements and states have pushed to become national, in both form and substance -- that is, to be a
nationalist -- that nothing suggests that this trend shall not continue. Nor is the tendency confined to the
socialists. Simply put, it is a nationalistic idea that has its intentions steeped in truth but has flaws that can
be exploited to lead them to ruin. Like what happened with 'old' nations, the idea of nationalism within its
territories became their undoing as, one by one, these territories become nations on their own, separate
from their 'old' nation. This leads to the boundaries on the definitions of what a nation, nationality, and
nationalism blurring with each other.
Three (3) paradoxes often challenge the theory of nationalism:

1. The objective modernity of nations to the historian's perspective versus (vs.) their subjective
antiquity in the nationalist's perspective;
2. The formal universality of nationality as a socio-cultural concept (i.e., everyone can have a
nationality) vs. the irremediable particularity of its concrete manifestations (i.e., nationality is sui
generis or uniquely one's own, where others can't just become a part of it); and
3. The perceived 'political' power of nationalism vs. the philosophical poverty, even the incoherence
of it.
This makes the study of this concept difficult because one tends to unconsciously tell it concretely that
nationalism exists as an ideology, alongside 'fascism' and 'liberalism.' Thus, Anderson defines nationalism
as an 'imagined' political community, having its limitations and sovereignty. It is 'imagined' because the
constituents of a given locality may have the idea that they are all connected despite never hearing,
meeting, nor knowing each other well -- but it is not inherently made up. A nation is imagined as limited
because every nation, whatever the size, always has its borders limiting their scope; it is also imagined as
sovereign because this marks the end of dynastic rule, and the masses took upon themselves to destroy
this royal right via revolutions, as spearheaded by enlightenment. Finally, it is imagined as a community
because everyone has a deep sense of comradeship -- so deep that they are willing to die for the other
members, regardless of inequalities and exploitations that can prevail in each of them. This poses a
question about the idea of nationalism:
"What makes the shrunken imaginings of recent history (of at least more than two
centuries) generate such colossal sacrifices?"
The answers may lie in the cultural roots of nationalism.
CULTURAL ROOTS
Humans lead a life of necessity and chance, aware of the inescapability and uncertainty it brings -- genetic
heritage, gender, physical capacities, and language, among other things. Religion, when not used for
domination and exploitation, has been merited with existential questions. Their imaginative responses can

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attest to the enduring existence of various religions to the overwhelming bulk of human suffering. Each
existentialist question is met with an attempt from the religious, sometimes with silence. At the same time,
religion also explains why fatalities are transformed into continuity to provide an obscure connection to
immortality. These seemingly unconnected ideas are brought because they provide a vague connotation
to nationalism -- which began when man started to question religion with secular thinking and rationality.
The quest to know why suffering exists provided two (2) points:
1. Nothing makes fatality more arbitrary; thus, the idea of paradise disintegrates.
2. Nothing makes another style of continuity more necessary; thus, the absurdity of salvation is
observed.
This pushed people to provide a secular transformation of fatality into continuity, of uncertainty into
meaning. As Anderson stated, "… few things were (are) better suited to this end than an idea of a nation.
If nation-states are widely conceded to be 'new' and 'historical,' the nations to which they give political
expression always loom out of an immemorial past, and, still more important, glide into a limitless future."
Therefore, the idea of nationalism does not actually bear from the erosion of religion, nor that this erosion
requires complex thought processes to give meaning. Even still, it also does not, historically speaking,
'supersedes' religion. It can be assumed that the idea of nationality can be best explained by somehow
aligning it, not with political ideologies, but with large cultural systems that preceded it. Thus, the two
relevant cultural systems present are religious communities and dynastic realms.
In religion, no matter what language used in conversing it to others, the idea of a sacred and language and
written script is vital for it to be understood. As an example, if a Maguindanaon Muslim met a Berber in
Mecca, oblivious to their spoken languages, they still understand each other through their use of their
ideographs, because the sacred texts of their religion exist in classical Arabic. With this, written Arabic
functions like Chinese logograms to create a community based on signs -- creating a link that is considered
cosmically central to these communities. However, the idea of having a sacred language alienates those
who do not understand it. Thus, to those outsiders who want to "join" in this new community, they have to
be indoctrinated to their language, at least to become less of an outsider and to become halfway
"acceptable." As stated by the 19th-century Colombian liberal Pedro Fermin de Vargas,
"To expand our agriculture, it would be necessary to hispanize our Indians. Their idleness,
stupidity, and indifference towards normal endeavors cause one to think that they come
from a degenerate race which deteriorates in proportion to the distance from its origin . . .
it would be very desirable that the Indians be extinguished, by miscegenation with the
whites, declaring them free of tribute and other charges, and giving them private property
in land."
As clear as it is spoken, indoctrinating outsiders into a new way of living "eradicates" the already-established
national identity of the colonized people, and they were better off being transgressed and manipulated by
the colonizers to "progress" their civilization than to outright kill them. After all, an indoctrinated outsider will
do anything to be a part of this new circle.
CREOLE PIONEERS
The term "creole" has two (2) working definitions: (1) it refers to a person with mixed European and black
descent -- by black, it means non-Europeans; and (2) it refers to the formation of a mother tongue based
from the combination of two languages from its early pidgin (i.e., crude) state. For a place to become truly
creole, there must be an inherent intermingling of European and native influences, such as in the case of
Cuba, Puerto Rico, the United States, Mexico, and the Philippines, to name a few. To these mentioned
countries, all of them have been influenced by Spain.

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Creole communities had experienced strife among their foreign settlers, partly because they fear of being
classified in the lower classes in their communities and strive to be in the middle class. This "inequality"
seen by the "indoctrinated" people drove them to fight for their rights to live on their land, particularly in
Spain-controlled colonies. This is in part of the two reasons that was happening on the main peninsula:
1. Madrid tightened its control to its colonies; and
2. Liberal ideas began to spread during the period of Enlightenment in Europe.
REFERENCES:
Anderson, B. (1991). Creole pioneers. In Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of
nationalism, 47-65. Anvil Publishing, Inc.
Anderson, B. (1991). Cultural roots. In Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of
Anderson, B. (1991). Introduction. In Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of

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Filipinos and their Revolution: Events, Discourse, and Historiography

An Abridged Version
By Reynaldo Ileto
BERNARDO CARPIO: AWIT AND REVOLUTION
The Philippine Revolution, despite being one of the most famous events in national history, is still muddled
with questions due to some problems regarding its conception. One such problem is the relationship
between the educated ilustrados and the inarticulate "masses." The ilustrados were the ones who left most
documents behind while the "masses" were the grunts and pawns in this revolution. In the pre-colonial
Philippine society, the principalia (i.e., gentry) has a patron-client relationship with their people, which
allowed them to draw and mobilize war troops. But that is not the case in the revolution, where the common
folk offered both body and soul not just to the individual personalities behind the revolution, but of their
conceptions of the meaning of the "times." As written by John Schumacher, the ilustrados created the basis
for a Filipino history that would undermine and overthrow the Spanish narrative that mandated Filipino
loyalty to Spain under moral sanctions. It seemed powerful enough to drive them to establish a nation, but
it is unclear how it could impulsively break the ties provided of utang-na-loob (i.e., debt of gratitude) to Spain
-- spanning three centuries of rule over the indios. After all, utang-na-loob is based on remembering the
past.
And the revolution changed all that.
Spain has imposed censorship and other forms of intellectual repression during their rule. Because of these,
the "indoctrinated" turned to reading religious tracts, such as the pasyon, corridos, and the awit, a form of
metrical romances. One (1) famous awit, aside from Francisco Balagtas' more popular Florante at Laura,
is the story of Bernardo Carpio, written in the Historia Famosa ni Bernardo Carpio, which is based on the
legend of the Spanish hero of the same name. This tale reveals a popular perception of the past where
Filipino nationalists attached their separatist views.
Famously known for its unknown authorship, it has the same formula of being based in a European
protagonist (which, in this case, is Spanish) fighting some Moorish enemies. It was greenlit by the friars
after being filtered out from Mexico, whose negative views on the Muslim populace earned them certain
control over the "indoctrinated," patronizing Spain and Catholicism further. These forms of literary work
slowly replaced the indigenous literature that these Spanish priests destroyed soon after. Soon, the native
priests and laymen quickly drew to them and instantly became a "blockbuster" of sorts. So powerful and
popular was the impact of this awit that it was said the average indio have dreamt of emulating chivalrous
knights fighting in the Crusade or saving damsels in distress, knew more about Charlemagne, the Seven
Peers of France, and the destruction of Troy rather than the Philippine rajahs and the destruction of Manila
caused by these colonizers.
However, despite the popularity of the awit, the revolution still occurred. Contrary to some ilustrados' belief
that these so-called pobres y ignorantes were enamored in fairy tales, these same clueless masses formed
the bulk of the revolution, fighting both Spain and the United States. To understand this a bit, it is time to
analyze what this awit is about.
The original author of the Historia Famosa narrated that he cherry-picked some details in the Spanish story
of Bernardo Carpio and proceeded in this manner: The king and queen of Spain have died, leaving their
young son Alfonso and daughter Jimena behind. Don Sancho, the count of Cerdeña, served as an acting
ruler until Alfonso comes of age. When Alfonso became king, he remained unmarried, while Don Sancho
became the royal adviser and commanding general. His friend, Don Rubio, was the captain of the army.

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Jimena, upon reaching adulthood, had smitten both Sancho and Rubio, their inner being (called loob)
confused with their feelings. Jimena rebuked Rubio's advances, "hardening" his loob, and became
treacherous and selfish. Sancho, a man capable of love, won Jimena's heart by professing his life for her.
This heartfelt confession resembles the kundiman of the Tagalogs.
Typical in the 19th-century awit, a Moro envoy appeared to challenge Alfonso and his throne. The king
entrusted Sancho to win the war but warned him to never meet Jimena. Defying this order, he sneaked into
her room and professed his farewell. Jimena, with her confused loob overpowered with his words,
surrendered herself to him. Sancho indeed won the war in a gruesome manner, but Rubio was already
aware that both lovers met. He plotted his revenge to Sancho by manipulating Alfonso into having his sister
be married to the Count of Barcelona and cement an alliance. Sancho heard this and furiously cornered his
friend. Fearing for his life, his loob filled with fear and shame, Rubio backed down -- but not until he heard
Jimena giving birth. Reporting it to Alfonso, the king swore to ruin the lives of his sister and his adviser. The
event forced Sancho to take the infant Bernardo and flee to Cerdeña. The author took this to narrate
Jimena's grief:
Alin cayang loob na sacdal nang tigas What loob however hard
alin namang puso ang hindi mabagbag, what heart would not be overcome by this
na 'di malunusan at magdalang sindac and be saddened and struck with pain
sa dalauang sintang ang loob ay tapat? for the two lovers with a pure loob?
As they fled from Jimena's quarters, Sancho was attacked by Alfonso's men. When the infant cried, the
king joined in the fray and accused Sancho of treachery. The former adviser knelt and begged for mercy,
asking for his hand to wed Jimena. Alfonso, manipulative as he was, gave his word, but not before luring
Sancho to visit the castle of Luna. Upon reaching the grounds, Sancho was chained and tortured him until
he went blind. Lamenting at his pain and blindness, Sancho poured out his heart and soul in his monologue
of being separated from Jimena and Bernardo. He ended it with an appeal to God to have pity on young
Bernardo:
At maquilala rin ang tunay na ina And may he eventually recognize

at aco'i, gayon din na caniyang ama, his true mother and true father
na cun siya Poon nama'i lumaqui na and when, Lord, he comes of age
aco po, Dios co, nama'i maquilala. may he, Lord God, recognize me.
Meanwhile, Rubio was entrusted to care for Bernardo and ordered him to withhold information on the child's
parentage. Alfonso then threw his sister to a cloister, scolded her for the "sins" she committed, and forgot
all the love and care he gave to her and told her that she had failed to show her utang-na-loob for things
past. Much like Sancho, Alfonso left her fate to God's will. As Bernardo grew up, everybody noted upon his
strength and stamina, always on the move:
Na lalacad-lacad ualang pinupunta He walks and walks, but goes nowhere,

ang loob at puso'i, parating balisa … his loob and heart always perturbed …
With Bernardo's powers unstable, killing every animal he came across, people began to complain to Rubio.
Bernardo asked his "father" to let him serve King Alfonso as a knight, but he was rebuffed by Rubio, telling
him that he can't serve as a knight without his past. Realizing he was adopted, he broke down in tears, until
Alfonso came along to see them. Showing pity to the young man, Bernardo was knighted and adopted by
Alfonso. Killing Rubio in a duel, he was granted an army and became a general -- avenging his true father.
Being adopted by Alfonso let Bernardo "refine" his powers through endless battles, with his rival being
Emperor Carpio, whose territories were impenetrable even by the Twelve Peers of France. One day,
Carpio's envoy, Veromilla, arrived at Spain and demanded vassalage from the king or else face invasion.
Bernardo, in his usual antics, attacked the envoy:

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At tuloy tinampal and upuang silla He struck the chair upon which the envoy sat
ay agad natapon sampong embajada, causing him to fall over
nagcadurog-durog nabaling lahat na everything was crushed, broken to pieces
nangusap ang hari Bernardo'i sucat na. the king tried to calm Bernardo:
Anac co, aniya, icao ay maglibang My so, he said, just take it easy
at iya'i 'di utos sa leing alin man, to attack an envoy as you did
na ang embajada ay malalabanan is against all the rules
caya ang loob mo ay magpacahusay. so straighten out your loob.
As Veromilla returned to his camp, Bernardo implored to Alfonso to give his blessing and let him
singlehandedly fight the enemy. As he was given his blessing, Bernardo wasted no time and laid waste to
Veromilla's camp, with the envoy fleeing in panic. Upon his return, he dedicated his victory to the king,
attributing it to God's mercy (awa) and to fate. He asked for a single request in return: to tell him the identity
of his true parents. Alfonso tried to deceive Bernardo by making a deal: defeat Emperor Carpio for the
information. Knowing Caprio's reputation, he was sure that Bernardo would die. However, he miscalculated
Bernardo's powers. Conquering Carpio's nineteen castles until the emperor himself surrendered, Bernardo
now owned Carpio's territories.
Upon returning to Spain once more, Bernardo Carpio, as his new name, was shocked to find a French
prince ruling the kingdom, also named Bernardo. Alfonso, while on a hunting trip, explained that he
temporarily relinquished the throne to the French to honor the "traditional ties" between the two kingdoms.
Furious with this, Bernardo Carpio scorned Alfonso's response and despised him for not honoring their
bargain. He angrily declared that he would find parents by force. And by force, he did -- killing the king's
horses to prevent pursuit. On his way, he knelt in prayer to both God and the Virgin Mary when, in the act
of deus ex machina, a letter floated down from the heavens, revealing his parents' whereabouts and
additional instructions to do before finding them. He was told to cut the ties between Spain and France,
then headed by Emperor Ludovico. The French cut ties with Spain, for fear of Bernardo Carpio's powers,
which prompted Bernardo to visit the castle in Luna. Shifting the narrative to Sancho, lamenting in his own
darkness and Alfonso's cruelty:
Icao naman cay ana sintang anac co And you my beloved son
na nababalitang Don Bernardo Carpio, who, I hear, is now called Don Bernardo Carpio
tanang villa't reino ay nasasapit mo have passed through a multitude of towns and
'di mo na narrating ama mong si Sancho. kingdoms
and yet have not found your father, Sancho.
Ano baga bunso na giulio co't sinta
'di na siniyasat ang poon mo't ama, Why, my beloved child
ang puso't loob mo'i 'di na nabalisa have you not searched for your lord, your father?
sa nagdaralita't dito'i nagdurusa? Haven't your heart and loob been moved
by my sufferings and laments?
By some act of miracle, Bernardo found Sancho's prison cell, killed the guards, and freed his father.
However, their reunion was bittersweet because Sancho succumbed to his injuries. Finally, legitimizing his
parentage, he brought Sancho's corpse back to Alfonso's palace, where Jimena was to be wed. Only after
the father, mother, and son reunited did Bernardo pretended to discover that Sancho died -- a fitting end to
a tragic tale.
However, the awit provided more.
Declining the Spanish throne, Bernardo Carpio roamed the lands and punished idolaters. In his exile, he
found a churchlike structure with two lion statues guarding the entrance. Kneeling in prayer outside the
building, a lightning bolt struck and destroyed one of the lions. Angered with this, he threw the other statue
away and vowed to destroy the lightning. Not far away from the church, he saw two (2) mountains slamming

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against each other at regular intervals. Then an angel from heaven appeared and told Bernardo that the
lightning had entered the mountain. The angel guided him towards the center of the two mountains.
Bernardo stood in the middle and stopped the mountains from colliding using his strength. God, knowing
that Bernardo was a powerful champion, blessed him with eternal life and cloaked him so that none may
see him doing this colossal feat.
This summarized awit is vital to the study of the revolution in two respects: (1) by appropriating a Spanish
tale into a native retelling, it enabled a group of people without a history of themselves, as a people, to have
imagined a lost past and a yearning for freedom from Spain; and (2) the awit's crafted structure enabled
nationalists to use it as their medium for their political ideas. The first point argued that Bernardo Carpio's
last journey alludes that Carpio represents the Philippines in the story and that he was the indigenous king
of the Tagalogs trapped inside a mountain, struggling to break free and fight off the oppressors. This
ideology of Bernardo Carpio earned the interest of Jose Rizal, who used the premise of the tale in El
Filibusterismo as a plot device in a conversation about the possibility of an armed revolt. In this scene, Rizal
was careful to separate the "mythical" from the "national" in his writings.
The second point noted that to deal with the Historia Famosa and its connection with nationalist ideas, it
must juxtapose the various aspects of the awit with nationalist writings. While Rizal was in Europe studying
Antonio de Morga's work in a British museum, the poem Hibik ng Filipinas sa Ynang España was being
secretly circulated in the local populace. The author, a teacher by the name of Hermenegildo Flores, worked
with Marcelo del Pilar to bring the anti-friar issue into the light. The key to the poem's meaning lies in the
opening stanza:
Ynang mapag-ampon Españang marilag, Oh, beautiful and generous Mother Spain
nasaan ang iyong pagtingin sa anac? where is your loving concern for your child?
Acong iyong bunson abang Filipinas. It is I, your youngest born, unfortunate Filipinas.
Tingni't sa dalita'i 'di na maca-iuas! Glance at me, you cannot ignore my suffering!
What follows this is a history of the country under the rule of corrupt friars, who used their authority to
accumulate wealth through trickery (daya) via various taxes and "voluntary" contributions, which "granted"
a swift entrance to heaven. In the middle of it, it also narrated the friar-instigated murder of the liberal
Governor-General Bustamante in 1719. All these narrations are accompanied with the imagery of a mother-
child perspective, which became the foundation and feature of nationalist poetry directed to the mass
audience. Going back to the awit, the laments of the prominent characters draw feelings of the reader's
personal relationships -- effectively utilizing empathy (damay). This poem had a sequel, entitled Sagot ng
España sa Hibik nang Pilipinas, illegally circulated in the country. This poem follows the same pattern as
the former, which again is directed toward the reader's empathy. This is why modern writers and film critics
are dismayed in the Philippine Cinema and Television industry: this form of writing and plot is a popular
piece for mass consumption.
This theme was re-explored in the establishment of the Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan
ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK). Its founder, Andres Bonifacio, used this in his writings, but this time its logic
is aimed at demanding a revolution. Growing up in awit poetry, Bonifacio used his knowledge in his theater
work to rewrite the Historia Famosa to his liking, using Tagalog names in place of the original. Through this,
Bonifacio made King Alfonso represent Spain, Sancho, and Jimena to be the devoted parents of the
Tagalogs (which can be interpreted as the entire country), Rubio representing the friars, and Bernardo
Carpio himself as the youth of the land -- the lost indios who had no historical heritage. The mountains that
imprisoned Bernardo was changed to Montalban.

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RIZAL AND THE UNDERSIDE OF PHILIPPINE HISTORY
In contrast with the Southeast Asian neighbors having been transformed by the great traditions of Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Confucianism -- which gave them a feeling of being exotic and impenetrable, the Philippines
is transparent and knowable. When John Phelan wrote his history book about the country, he never actually
visited the Philippines, nor learn anything about it. He, instead, based his work on Spanish source materials
and with his familiarity with Latin America. However, his work showed something regarding Filipinos and
the Spanish culture: the natives were no longer passive recipients of the things Spain had. The Filipinos'
responses varied from indifference and rage to simple acceptance. Because of this treatment, anything that
was made by the natives was easily dismissed as either devotional or literary, except with a few personal
correspondences.
This had led to some degree of anxiety to Filipinos about the possibility that there was a truly Filipino history
before the mid-19th century. It was until 1872, when the GomBurZa were executed, did the Filipino
perspective shifted from blind acceptance of Spain's presence to an awareness that there must be
something that caused them pain. The execution garnered much public sympathy and outrage that the
control that Spain had begun to weaken, leading to an awakening of the nationalist spirit and the struggle
for independence. However, this evolutionist view on the events depends on the assumption that the
Filipinos lived in lavish innocence and wonder before being enslaved by the colonizers. Rizal himself noted
to a text in a 17th-century Spanish written history book that the natives forgot their alphabet, their songs,
poetry, and laws among others, to imitate other doctrines that they themselves did not know, losing their
confidence in their own past, faith in the present, and hope for the future -- a dark and grim fate. Rizal
labored in the British Museum to research and document the image of a flourishing pre-colonial civilization,
which he awakened consciousness and self-assertion.
His construction of a "usable past," in turn, privileged the other ilustrados to help educate the history-less,
superstitious, manipulated masses (i.e., pobres y ignorantes -- naïve and ignorant). Given that the indios
were converted into Christianity, one has to move beyond the established and familiar views of how the
indios were affected by the new religion. On one hand, the Pro-Spain views that Christianity brought
civilized etiquette, salvation, and unity in the archipelago. On the other hand, nationalists argued that
Christianity was used as a weapon for facilitating the political and economic enslavement of the
"indoctrinated". Whichever side was chosen, the indios are the passive recipient, The friars, as
representatives of God on Earth, are viewed as exerting a powerful moral hold over his native wards. He
interprets the rules of Christian behavior, rewarding the obedient and submissive, and punishing the
evildoers. It can be implicitly stated that Christianity had an impact on the indios' resignation to their reality:
resignation to forced labor and head tax, and submission to the whims of the maguinoo (i.e., native chiefs
or gentry). However, it is viewed, there's always room for allowing the triumph of liberal ideas in the 19th
century.
REFERENCES:
Ileto, R. (1998). Bernardo Carpio: Awit and revolution. In Filipinos and their revolution: Event, discourse,
and historiography. Ateneo de Manila University Press
Ileto, R. (1998). Rizal and the underside of Philippine history. In Filipinos and their revolution: Event,
discourse, and historiography. Ateneo de Manila University Press

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TAKEAWAYS FOR WEEKS 06-07

The Essence of Research in the Study of Rizal
The study of the life and works of Jose Rizal is a result of decades of research about Jose Rizal, as well as
the study about the conditions of the Philippines during the Spanish Colonization. In essence, the life of
Jose Rizal and the country's social conditions during the Spanish Colonization are inextricable. Since the
term "research" has been mentioned, let us define what it is. Research is a systematic method of
investigating and studying materials to establish facts and conclusions. Thus, we establish truths and
information based on concrete, substantial evidence.
One (1) way of obtaining information is through an interview. An interview is the method of obtaining
information through an interchange of questions and answers. The researcher personally asks someone
about something, which is reciprocated with information, which can be scrutinized later when corroborated
with other pieces of evidence obtained in other means.
The Philippines During the Spanish Colonization
The Philippines, before it was colonized, had been a thriving civilization, with its own established cultures,
traditions, ways of living, religions, and laws. This was also when we had established trade relations with
nearby countries, such as China and Indonesia, among others. For the Chinese, we have bartered pearls
and other produce for porcelain, jade, and silk, among others being carried in their junk (i.e., trading boat).
Each barangay had a datu, the leader, and prime defender of the community. These leaders may not be
accommodating towards outsiders, but they were not dictators (as narrated by Filomeno Aguilar).
However, when Spain set foot on our native soil, the pre-colonial lifestyle began to dwindle except in some
parts of Mindanao. During this time, the colonial government implemented taxation onto the colonized
natives and their trade partners. The taxation system can be seen in its established Casta. The casta is
divided into sections, which dictated their tax value.
Peninsulares
Tax-Free Americano
Insulares
Mestizo de Español
Variable Tax Mestizo de Bombay
Mestizaje
Value Mestizo de Sangley
Tornatras
Quadrupled
Sangley
Tax Value
Base Tax Indio
Value Negrito
Filipinos and the Negritos pay only the base value, making them the only ones who pay the minimum
amount. The Sangleys are the pure-blooded Chinese who lived in the country. They pay to quadruple the
base amount because of their business and labor skills. The mestizaje is the racially ambiguous people
who paid tax based on their lineage and status. As an example, if a Sangley businessman had a mestiza
de Sangley, daughter, the daughter would pay half as much as her father's tax rate. However, should the

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mestiza daughter marry an Americano, who paid zero tax alongside the insulares and the peninsulares,
her tax would be removed altogether.
However, the treatment she would receive from the masses would remain the same. Indians also lived in
the country, but they were not part of the casta. Below the blancos (i.e., the "tax-free" casta) were the
mestizaje, whose casta were based on their parentage. Mixed blood by nature, their status often fluctuated,
and their taxes were the same as the indios (except for the mestizo de Sangleys). Of the four (4) mestizos,
the Tornatras were the lowest because they had more than two (2) racial parentages, hinting that the
Tornatras had the most intermingling of races.
If we are to look at them today, we can use the following celebrities and heroes as examples:
NAME IMAGE HERITAGE(S) CASTA
Paul Patrick Filipino-German Tornatras
Gruenberg (possibly multiracial
"Polo Ravales" to his Filipino side)
Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1066382/bio
Trinidad Spanish (born in the Insulares (Mestizo
Hermenigildo Pardo Philippines) de Español in some
de Tavera references)
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidad_Pardo_de_Tavera
Kristina Bernadette Filipino-Chinese Mestizo de Sangley
Aquino
"Kris Aquino"
Source: https://mydramalist.com/people/20452-kris-
aquino
Cesar Manhilot Filipino Indio
"Cesar Montano"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Montano

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Ramon Bagatsing III Filipino-Indian Mestizo de Bombay

"Raymond (surname Filipinized
Bagatsing" from Indian Bhagat
Singh)
Source:
http://www.showbizportal.net/2011/10/raymond-
bagatsing-assailed-ex-wife-cora.html
Jose Protacio Rizal Multiracial Tornatras (however,
Mercado y Alonso he was considered
Realonda a mestizo de
Sangley)
Source:
https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/12/30/news/top-
stories/jose-rizals-prowess-in-sports-legendary/668654/
Along with the establishment of the casta was the implementation of the polo and bandala. Polo is the
forced labor imposed upon Filipino men aged 16-60 years. They were required to do skilled labor for 40
days, which was reduced to 15 days. Filipinos can be exempted from this labor in two (2) ways:
1. They had to pay a fine (called a falla); or
2. Work until they paid their debt.
Not even death could prevent the debt from growing. If the abled men died, their unpaid debts would be
passed on to the next abled men in the family, and so on. If the able person's age was below the
requirement, yet their birthday drew close to the recruitment date, then they would render polo nonetheless.
The History of Land Ownership and Peasantry in the Philippines
During Rizal's education in the Philippines, Paciano provided ample funding for his younger brother to study
abroad. This made Rizal a member of the ilustrado, an expatriate whose sole purpose abroad was to study.
However, when Rizal arrived and settled in Europe, problems began to rise in Calamba regarding the lands
owned by his family.
The problems with agrarian ownership have been a long-standing problem in the country, which was more
evident during the Spanish Occupation. This was when the local serfs (i.e., the aliping namamahay) were
stripped of their lands by the Spaniards, who used these lands for their own. These lands were cultivated
by the same natives who were once the former owners. Such problems began to expound when friars
became the owners, particularly in Negros and Calamba. In Calamba, the Dominicans began to exploit the
natives with their ever-fluctuating tax values. This was viewed by the Calambeños as abusive and began
to argue with the abusive Dominicans -- especially when they grabbed the lands owned by the Mercados.
They at first appealed to the local government but were ignored due to the influence of the Dominicans in
the place. Thus, they prompted Rizal to conduct an investigation, whose reports would be submitted to a
local judge connected to Paciano to even the odds. However, in the end, their protestations fell onto deaf
ears.

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The Cavite Mutiny
The Cavite Mutiny was one (1) of the aftermaths of the civil war that erupted in Spain during Queen Isabella
II's reign. On 27 February 1767, King Carlos III of Spain ordered the complete expulsion of the sect of the
Society of Jesus (Jesuits) from Spain and all her colonies. Then Governor-General Raon tried to help the
religious order in exchange for bribes. Once the Jesuits destroyed their documents and hid all their
possessions, there was a shortage of priests when Raon died before being punished by his successor.
Then Manila archbishop Basilio Sancho de Santa Justa spearheaded the conversion and ordainment of
Filipinos into the priesthood, which was heavily opposed. This argument came to be known as the
secularization issue. Back then, news traveled slowly. When then Governor-General Carlos Maria de la
Torre was still in the country, he received a letter about his reinstatement without knowing about the civil
war in Spain. Upon his departure, his liberal program was stunted upon the sudden arrival of Rafael
Geronimo Cayetano Izquierdo. Izquierdo noted that he would rule the Philippines "with a cross in one hand
and a sword in the other".
Thus, with a strict regime, the lives of the Filipinos began to crumble. When the mutiny occurred, the
Spanish friars accused Filipino priest Jose Burgos, along with a few other secular priests, to be the
masterminds of the event, despite being truly driven by the Filipinos' desires of escaping polo in Cavite, the
"Land of the Brave". Due to the friar's influence, three (3) Filipino priests -- Mariano Gomez, Burgos, and
Jacinto Zamora -- were implicated in the trial by another fellow Filipino, Francisco Zaldua (Saldua in other
references). This event, among many others, paved the way to drive out Spain.
REFERENCES:
Aguilar, F. (1998). Elusive peasant, weak state: Sharecropping and the changing meaning of debt. In Clash of Spirits:
The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island, 63-77. Quezon City: Ateneo de
Manila University Press. HD9116 P53 N42
Aguilar, F. (2016). Sugar capitalism: The divergent paths of haciendas on Negros island and the Hacienda de Calamba.
In Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
Artigas, M. C. (1996). National glories: the events of 1872 (O. D. Corpuz, Trans.). Quezon City: University of the
Philippines Press.
Rizal, J. P. (1889). La verdad para todos. In La Solidaridad, 1 (G. Fores-Galzon, Trans.). Pasig: Fundacion Santiago.
DS651 S6 1996
Roth, D. M. (1982). Church lands in the agrarian history of Tagalog region. In Philippine social history: Global trade and
local transformation (A. W. McCoy & E. de Jesus, Ed.), 131-153. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press. HN713 P44
Schumacher, J. (1999). Historical introduction. In Father Jose Burgos: A documentary history with Spanish documents
and their translations, 1-32. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. DS675.8 B8 S37
Schumacher, J. (2011). The Cavite mutiny: Towards a definitive history. In Philippine Studies, 59(1), 55-81
Schumacher, J. (2011). The Burgos manifesto: The authentic text and its genuine author. In Philippine Studies, 54(2),
153-304
Wickberg, E. (1964). The Chinese mestizo in Philippine history. In Journal of Southeast Asian History, 5(1), 62-100.
New York, NY: Cambridge University Press
Wickberg, E. (2000). The Philippine Chinese before 1850. In The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850-1898, 25-36. Quezon
City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. D666 C5W5 2000

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TAKEAWAYS FOR WEEKS 08-09
The Expatriates
We all have our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who serve as our expatriates [Gk. ex- ("beyond,
outside") + patros ("father"), "beyond the father's abode"], people who work outside the country. There are
many reasons why people work abroad, with one most common reason being to support their families
because of meager job opportunities in the country. Particularly in our country, we had been sending
expatriates since the Spanish Occupation, which can be seen in the ilustrados.
The ilustrados, during their tenure abroad, sought and campaigned for reforms in the colonial government.
They studied abroad because of the following reasons:
1. The idea of the indios developing anticlerical thoughts was considered a crime. Thus, people who
directly opposed the friars were tried and sentenced. This made some prominent people move out
of the country to escape persecution, with a prime example being Jose Rizal. He was expatriated
by his brother Paciano because Jose earned the wrath of the friars.
2. The advent of industrialization paved the way for more ideas to move from Europe to the other
parts of the world, with the opening of the Suez Canal being one (1) of these. Since the Philippines
was not educationally liberal, the number of opportunities for those willing to learn and "improve"
their social status were slim -- making education in the country deplorable during Rizal's time. This
was also the time when politics were being debated and discussed more in classrooms, which
became a social taboo, as it "promoted sedition and anarchy" to the young students. Thus, studying
outside the Philippines gave them better odds.
3. The governments were beginning to modernize because of the changing times. The ilustrados saw
this as an opportunity to campaign their proposed reforms.
The ilustrados came from all casta, save for outsiders such as Indians and Muslims. Prominent members
include Trinidad Pardo de Tavera (insular), the Lunas (mestizo de Español), and Rizal himself (mestizo de
Sangley). There were members who brought renown, such as Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and Juan Luna,
which served as an advantage for their campaign -- that Filipinos and Spaniards could live in harmony, that
the common indio can do what the blancos do, as noted by Rizal and his famous phrase in his speech for
Hidalgo: "… The Philippines' patriarchal era is passing. The illustrious deeds of its sons are not
circumscribed by the home. The oriental chrysalis is [leaving] the cocoon".
Deconstructing Noli Me Tangere
One (1) of the famous works of Jose Rizal is Noli Me Tangere, where he told the story of Crisostomo Ibarra
as he strode through the intrigue and suffering of his brethren and of himself in a society where the friars
held absolute dominion over the colonized land -- evident during Rizal's time. The title is a Latin phrase
which means, "Touch me not,", while internationally it is titled as, "The Social Cancer", as provided by
Charles Derbyshire.
Only a few know its origin. The Latin phrase was explained by Rizal as a response by Jesus after Mary
Magdalene had touched him, as mentioned in the Bible (David, n.d.). Literally translated as "Don't touch
me," it can also be translated as "Don't cling to me."
Originally published in 1887 in Europe, it took all of Rizal's money, time, and effort to do this. It was
supposed to be a collection of stories made by him and his ilustrado friends that would provide a window
to the slice-of-life tales in the Philippines, as well as the social conditions and injustices that were happening
back then. But, due to them procrastinating, Rizal was offended and took it upon himself to write the book.

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The novel has 63 known chapters, but some modern-day books used in junior high schools feature a copy
of the novel with an extra hidden chapter explaining the origin of Elias (Rizal, 1887). This is in part of Rizal
writing the chapter but left unmarked because he did not know where to place it in the established continuum
of Noli Me Tangere.
A story can be analyzed by breaking down its components, starting with its characters. Any story contains
protagonists and antagonists that builds the narrative.
• A protagonist is a character that plays an important part in the story regardless of their role, but
many interpret it as the "good guys" in the story. There are several protagonists in Noli Me Tangere,
with the story centered on Crisostomo Ibarra, an ilustrado who studied abroad and went back home
to live his life in the country. As the novel progresses, he was slowly learning of the twisted and
horrible tragedies that befell his loved ones.
• An antagonist is a character that provides conflict to the story, usually assigned to the villains of
the story. In Noli Me Tangere, there are various antagonists with varying degrees of villainy. The
ones that stand out, however, are the corrupt friars -- mainly the Dominicans and the Franciscans
-- and the members of the blancos, which are the top three (3) members of the Spanish casta
system.
A story's literary style, or genre, is the element that drives a story. It can be based on reality or in a
completely made-up world. Noli Me Tangere, as a novel, is considered both as a fiction and satire.
• Fiction is a genre that describes a story that is not found or based on reality. Fictional stories are
the ones that can be a completely made-up world, scenarios, and people, or it can be based on
real ones with made-up elements mixed in between. Noli Me Tangere, a fictional novel with some
real-life places in the country, is constructed by Rizal by adding a few fictional places and people
to represent the small barrios and slice-of-life activities.
• A satire is a genre that uses exaggeration, humor, irony, or ridicule to expose human stupidity or
vices. This is an excellent genre to use if the story revolves around politics or major issues. Noli
Me Tangere satirizes the Roman Catholic church, the Colonial government, and the peninsulares.
Of course, some stories contain morals and/or qualities that exemplify some aspects of the narrative, which
calso be applied in real life. Noli Me Tangere primarily exhibits the following qualities (Schumacher, 1997e)
(Panistante, 2014):
• The Filipina's devotion and influence over a man. This has been exemplified by several Filipinas
in the novel, but it has been demonstrated the best by Maria Clara. As the true love of Crisostomo
Ibarra, she has shown grace and simple elegance through her actions and words, leaving a strong
impression over young men in their place.
• A deep sense of gratitude. Noli Me Tangere exemplified this trait through the eyes of several poor
and indebted characters, particularly Basilio. As he was left orphaned, he was left in the care of
Elias until the latter's death, leaving him with wealth that could afford him to study through college.
• Filipino Common Sense. The novel inadvertently has woken up the Filipinos' sleeping sense of
nationalism and, as such, opened their eyes to the bitter reality happening around them. This led
us to use our common sense more and be more aware of the current events in the country.
So why did Rizal write the novels?

• Disprove accusations made by Spaniards to Filipinos. The novel depicted Filipinos as seen
from the lenses of the freeman, living normal lives and experiencing problems similar to the affluent,
if not worse.
• Express the true social conditions of the country. Since the Age of Exploration has limited
forms of communication, many countries do not know what was happening outside their borders.
Since the Philippines had been campaigning for recognition in the Cortes Generales and the Real
Audiencia, the ilustrados used several means to express the true social conditions of the country,
which also include the novels.

GE1804
• Express the plight of the Filipinos. Since the majority of indios could not afford to speak out in
public nor travel abroad to escape persecution, the Filipinos were living in conditions filled with
strife, injustices, and hardships. Those that do either were executed in public or went abroad, as in
the case of some ilustrados.
• Expose the wrongdoings of the friars. Some of the friars had been known to use their religious
influences to manipulate things to go to their favor, such as using religious teachings to gain more
resources. The ilustrados wanted to expose these villainous and heinous acts committed by some
members of the church; thus, they also used the novels to expose them.
Another thing a literary material can be used is to spread awareness and nationalism.
• Andres Bonifacio, as a bourgeois, was well-versed in Western thinking and literature because of
his work in the British trade and in the books he read. When he scoured Noli Me Tangere, he was
moved and stirred to do something about the injustices that were happening to his fellowmen
(Mañebog, 2013). When he formed the Katipunan, he composed and published the very first
Kartilya ng Katipunan. Emilio Jacinto later revised it, to Bonifacio's delight and approval.
• Marcelo del Pilar, upon learning that Noli Me Tangere was to be banned for publication in the
Philippines, wrote a counter article to the one written by Fr. Jose Rodriguez. Rodriguez wrote
"Caingat Cayo! (Beware)", an article that supposedly tried to denounce Noli Me Tangere's credibility
as a novel. As retaliation, del Pilar wrote "Caiigat Cayo! (Be slippery as an eel)", which satirizes
Rodriguez's article while adding a few insults to their practices in the church (Schumacher, 1997c).
• Lualhati Bautista wrote the novel Dekada '70, which retold the story of Martial Law through the eyes
of a family who was caught up in the corruption and abuse of power during Marcos' regime. This
and other similar stories and/or novels serve as a reminder to us of the darker times in Philippine
history.
REFERENCES:
Anderson, B. (2008). Why Counting Counts: A Study of Forms of Consciousness and Problems of Language in Noli Me Tangere and
El Filibusterismo. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press
David, R. (n.d.). Noli Me Tangere. In Opinions, Philippine Daily Inquirer. Lifted and modified from https://opinion.inquirer.net/4582/noli-
me-tangere
Hau, C. (2000). The Fiction of a Knowable Community. In Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation. Quezon City:
Ateneo de Manila University Press
Joaquin, N. (2005). Why was the Rizal Hero a Creole? In A Question of Heroes. Mandaluyong City: Anvil
La Solidaridad (1889). Our Aims. Barcelona: Author.
Lamarque, P. (2006). The intentional fallacy. In Literary Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Mañebog, J. D. G. (2013). The collaboration between Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. Lifted and modified from
https://ourhappyschool.com/ap-social-studies/collaboration-between-jose-rizal-and-andres-bonifacio
Moises, A. (n.d.). Bonifacio and Rizal: Of oil and water and men of conviction. Retrieved from https://philippines-atbp.jimdo.com/about-
alex-moises-andres-bonifacio-tribute-part-iii-1/
Panistante, C. (2014). Aims of Noli Me Tangere. Lifted and modified from https://prezi.com/hd_loag9lspj/aims-of-noli-me-tangere/
Paraiso, B. A. C. (2011). Jose Rizal, suspected spy, deciphered. Retrieved from https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/7951/jose-rizal-
suspected-spy-deciphered
Rizal, J. P. (1887). Noli Me Tangere (P. H. Poblete, Trans.). Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20228/20228-h/20228-
h.htm
Rizal, J. P. (2011). Rizal's toast to Luna and Hidalgo. Retrieved from http://malacanang.gov.ph/4071-jose-rizals-homage-to-luna-and-
hidalgo/
Rizal, J. P. (1890). To his excellency, Ms. Vicente Barrantes. In La Solidaridad. Barcelona: La Solidaridad
Schumacher, J. N. (1997a). Del Pilar as delegate in Barcelona of "The Propaganda". In The Propaganda Movement: 1880-1895; The
Creators of a Filipino Consciousness, the Makers of the Revolution. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press
Schumacher, J. N. (1997b). Early student activities in Spain. In The Propaganda Movement: 1880-1895; The Creators of a Filipino
Consciousness, the Makers of the Revolution. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press
Schumacher, J. N. (1997c). Journalism and politics. In The Propaganda Movement: 1880-1895; The Creators of a Filipino
Schumacher, J. N. (1997d). The new Filipino newspaper in Barcelona. In The Propaganda Movement: 1880-1895; The Creators of a
Filipino Consciousness, the Makers of the Revolution. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press
Schumacher, J. N. (1997e). The "Noli Me Tangere," 1887. In The Propaganda Movement: 1880-1895; The Creators of a Filipino
Simban, A. (2014). Controversy of Noli Me Tangere. Lifted and modified from https://prezi.com/pc2yf7paq05d/controversy-of-noli-me-
tangere/


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GE1804

REPUBLIC ACT NO. 1425

01 Handout 1 *Property of STI

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

Approved: June 12, 1956

THE TRIALS OF THE RIZAL BILL

By Dr. Jose B. Laurel, Jr.

01 Handout 1 *Property of STI

THE RIZAL LAW AND THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY

01 Handout 1 *Property of STI

01 Handout 1 *Property of STI

01 Handout 1 *Property of STI

Jose Rizal and the Invention of a National Literature

01 Handout 2 *Property of STI

The Rizal Bill of 1956: Horacio de la Costa and the Bishops

01 Handout 2 *Property of STI

01 Handout 2 *Property of STI

01 Handout 2 *Property of STI

01 Handout 3 *Property of STI

01 Handout 3 *Property of STI

Three (3) paradoxes often challenge the theory of nationalism:

The answers may lie in the cultural roots of nationalism.

02 Handout 1 *Property of STI

02 Handout 1 *Property of STI

02 Handout 1 *Property of STI

Filipinos and their Revolution: Events, Discourse, and Historiography

BERNARDO CARPIO: AWIT AND REVOLUTION

And the revolution changed all that.

02 Handout 2 *Property of STI

At maquilala rin ang tunay na ina And may he eventually recognize

Na lalacad-lacad ualang pinupunta He walks and walks, but goes nowhere,

02 Handout 2 *Property of STI

However, the awit provided more.

02 Handout 2 *Property of STI

02 Handout 2 *Property of STI

RIZAL AND THE UNDERSIDE OF PHILIPPINE HISTORY

02 Handout 2 *Property of STI

TAKEAWAYS FOR WEEKS 06-07

The Philippines During the Spanish Colonization

03 Handout 1 *Property of STI

03 Handout 1 *Property of STI

Ramon Bagatsing III Filipino-Indian Mestizo de Bombay

The History of Land Ownership and Peasantry in the Philippines

03 Handout 1 *Property of STI

The Cavite Mutiny

03 Handout 1 *Property of STI

TAKEAWAYS FOR WEEKS 08-09

Deconstructing Noli Me Tangere

04 Handout 1 *Property of STI

So why did Rizal write the novels?

04 Handout 1 *Property of STI

04 Handout 1 *Property of STI

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