Veneration Without Understanding Analysis

Based on the article Veneration Without Understanding, Renato Constantino strongly believes and fearlessly admits that Jose Rizal should not be the Philippine national hero and I somehow agree with his stand. For many decades, distorted information about Rizal and our history has been passed from one generation to another. Our history textbooks and professors have successfully made the Filipinos believe that Jose Rizal was the greatest Filipino hero who served his country during the time of the Spaniards' conquest and national revolution. This, in fact, is not true for Rizal even opposed Andres Bonifacio and the Filipinos who were fighting for the country's freedom. I am aware that Rizal did not lead the Revolution but based from my understanding …show more content…
Maybe because, as I have said, it was implanted on my brain by my history teachers and history textbooks that Rizal was really the greatest, and who am I as a student to question or doubt that? As I am only a student and not a historian, I only know the information about history that is being given to me and I am supposed to believe it. When I was only an elementary, I remember my teacher said that Rizal fought through peaceful means and that he rather state all the wrongdoings, slavery and opportunism towards the Filipino in their own country through writings. Now that I am older and have more wisdom, my perspective changed and I know now that it is not through the peaceful way that makes a country free and independent from foreign rule, but it is through actions, through fighting for one’s own rights, through a national revolution. A national hero generally arises from the national revolution and that is now why I am having uncertainties about Rizal. “Rizal repudiated the one act which really synthesized our nationalist aspiration, and yet we consider him as a national reader,” as what Constantino …show more content…
He was not really the one who saved and freed the Philippines and its people from the Spanish rule. Other heroes, like Andres Bonifacio, have contributed much more in history yet our focus is always on Rizal. Bonifacio led the KKK or Katipunan which aimed to attain independence from Spain through an armed revolution. The main reason why it is a requirement for every Filipino student to study the life and writings of Rizal is still because of the American sponsorship. It all began when the Americans started letting the Filipino people to acknowledge and recognize Rizal as the national hero by teaching the young Filipinos all about his memory. As a result, “the heroes who advocated independence were therefore ignored” and much of the focus in history is on