Editorial comments: Not his talent but his character

Title

Language

English

Year

1944

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

EDITORIAL COMMENTS Not His Talent But His Character FOK THE LAST EIGHT AND FORTY YEARS, WE HAVE REMEMBERED Rizal, in June and December. On these occasions, we have extolled hs manysided talent and virtues. Every community had orators, poets, an- song^rs eag-r to pay tribute to “the Greatest Man the Malay Race ever produced.' Inousands of beauties have been crowned to honour this exceptional genius, who was p ysician, oculist, linguist, philosopher, poet, novelist, playwright, painter and woodcarver, musician, fencer, scientific agriculturist, naturalist, mentor, crusaaer, nationalist, patriot and martyr. Periodicals from time to time managed to uneartn an interesting anecdote or a piece of writing or thought by or about him to revea. his exceptional ability in this endeavour or that, and why he surpassed many men by nature and by training, and why because of his many-sided genius ne is a worthy example to young and old alike.- Which, without doubt, he is. But somehow, so much attention has • been directed towards his personal abilities and the admirable facility with which he cultivated now interests and branched out into almost any activity in which, with little e..ort he im-’r, y excelled. . His private life and his secret loves were ventilated and worcrred a.. Who is the cdmirinq young or‘the credulous old who h&s not marvo:'.?o a ■■ a fantastic versions of the manner in which he fell, his heart picrcec by tne al.:n dominator's bullets? Perhaps through no-, fault of well-meaning hero-v/cr:’:;o->ers, Rp d s Le J.as become a rarity regarded with unreasoning admiration and curiosi,y, i.-, nue meaning all but lost to the generations most called upon to trans.a.e u.io'li mg reality thu ideals he lived and died for. In his people's fuller realrr.t;on or i.;S consuming passion for national dignity and self-respect, engendered in fi.e mm character and national solidarity cf the Filipinos, is Rival's greatness measured. True, we were not wanting in correlating some aspects of his moral and nafrioiic fervour to an occasional excitement or an attempt to stir up a lukewarm Fiiipinism; t Ph il ippin e Re v ie w December but.Jsince -the .shallow interests and exotic alien dislraciions of the past called ■flor> jifothing mere substantial than lip-service and even this was jradually lost in elaborate programmes of little civic value, we had to wait for a global v.ar to bring us the blessings of his restoration to the level of his true worth and stature. We massed R rial's meaning, net so much by a dullness of wit or deliberate intent, as by our insistence to measure his greatness n^pn terms of human character but in terms of the natural gifts considered an# appreciated as private assets nece-sary to ind; iclnal success. Taken individually. and given the opportunity, the Filipino is the equal if not the better of other individuals elsewhere in the world. And therein lies our strength and our weakness as a natiofV that the individual Filipino can be superior but as a national unit weakened by the dearth of individual talents ready Io bury personal glsry and con.enienc& to the necessary jolf-of-fac'.ment that ncd’onal ur.ily demands- In cur eagerness-to demonstinre individual aptitudes and to q’ory in their cultivation, we think not in terms of the honoui cr ihe di:ora‘<? which we c?st upon that sum-total of the combined human vc’ricn and character wo call the Fi'ipino nation, but rather of our narrovy individud -self. We quite miss the pc’nt that had we been bom in s~me Fclyncsian aioli, we would not have been afforded the opportunities and the natural talent in which our nation and race have been favoured to excel, that we owe it all to the country that gave us bii m r?nd. of course, to a just God who has seen it in His infinite wisdom'to give us this land. Thus is Real's true worth lost in the individua'istic buy-and-sell man who bell'vos that the country h->d been made for him to do as he n’eased and that the fellow., who ere compelled by their principles to stay away from the fortunes of the black market ere unfortunate, dullards. He has forgotten that Rizal could have been a very rich man had he chosen to utilise bis abundant talent to satiate his capacity for personal wellbeing and the good life, that the Fact that Riial's character firmly attached the patriot to an uncompromising principle which led to his martyrdom, far from qualifying Rizal as an unfortunate dullard, confirmed his greatness’and held up this nation to the just admiral icn and respect of the whole world. Rizal dies in those of us who are lc«t in cur ego, who think more of what we can get in terms of personal wellbeing—abundant cash, loot, rice, privileges, bonuses, possessions and comforts procured in a manner which we hide even from ourselves, personal security, freedom from inconvenience, or the solicitude to live at any cost and under any circumstance. Rizal is worlds apart from us in that Rizal had character, which alone makes a man; and he had pr.r.ciples by which a true man always abides with all the strength of his character, no matter to what persona! misfortune his attachment to those principles may lead him. When his friends offered him a fake passport with the wherewithal and the opportunity to escape the injustice of an impending martyrdom, like Socrates of an earlier "day, our hero chided his wellmeaning friends for inducing him to run away like a guilty criminal, away from the only country and people he had learned to cherish and whom he must never abandon to their hapless fate. He accepted an unjust verdict and faced deafh with the Jov of one who is assured in h>$ heart that death woufd at last release him . from the narrow prison cell of individual self end take him away to the infinite and eternal felicity of an ever-fuhr;'!inq d^ethlessn'ss. and to crown with it his people and those of other climes and ages that might derive great rewards therefrom. ' .

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