MODULE 4- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL

“I do not write for this generation. I am writing for other ages. If this could read me, they would burn my books, the
work of my whole life. On the other hand, the generation which interprets these writings will be an educated
generation; they will understand me and say: Not all were asleep in the nighttime of our grandparents.”
– Jose Rizal

Objectives: What will you learn from this module?

At the end of the module, you should be able to:

1. Discover the different philosophies of Rizal in terms of: education, politics, religion, and other
aspects;
2. Realize the importance of Rizal’s ideals and Philosophies; and
3. Relate the different ideals and Philosophies of Rizal in our daily lives.

Introduction

The underlying philosophies behind our country’s foundation are made up of the intricate and
composite interrelationship of the life histories of its people along with other nations; in other words, the
philosophy of our nation would be hard to understand and live by if we do not delve into the past tied up with
the notable life experiences of the representative personalities of our nation.

Being one of the prominent representatives of the Filipino personalities, Rizal’s philosophy deserves to
be recognized and given importance. Jose Rizal’s ideals and philosophies were a product and composite of the
teachings of what is known as the philosophy of Enlightenment. That stage of philosophy marked the dawn of
the eighteenth century in Europe and continued to the 19th century. Having been a victim of Spanish brutality
early in his life in Calamba, Rizal had thus already formed the nucleus of an unfavorable opinion of Castillian
imperialistic administration of his country and people.

The horrible social conditions of the Philippines during the 19th century from the arms of our
conquerors, particularly of Spain, with agriculture, commerce, communications, and education languishing
under its most backward state. It was because of this social malady that social evils like inferiority complex,
cowardice, timidity, and false pride pervaded nationally and contributed to the decay of social life. This
stimulated and shaped Rizal’s life philosophy to be to contain if not eliminate these social ills.
failing to make
progress

Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL

 Analysis:
Below are pictures of news and articles that discuss the different issues of society in the present time.
Analyze the pictures and enumerate different political/social problems embedded that you can identify from
the given pictures of news headlines or cut-out articles (for example graft and corruption, terrorism, etc). Write
your answers at the back of this page.

Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL

 LESSON IV. RIZAL’S IDEALS AND PHILOSOPHIES

Abstraction

A. Educational Philosophy

Rizal's love for learning had a huge impact on the

foundation of his ideas and philosophies in life even during
his younger years. Rizal always considered education as
medicine or something that could cure the societal
illnesses of Colonial Philippines. He believed in education
that is free from political and religious control. He
asserted that reform cannot be achieved if there is no
suitable education, a liberal one available to Filipinos.

In 1893, Rizal's idea of education as an instrument of change has not diminished a bit. In one of his
letters to Alfredo Hidalgo, a nephew, Rizal stated: Life is a very serious thing and only those with intelligence
and heart go through it worthily. In the same letter, he also told his nephew that to live is to be among men
and to be among men is to struggle He concluded that on the battlefield man has no better weapon than
his intelligence.

His concept of the importance of education was also enunciated in his work entitled Instruction wherein
he sought improvements in the schools and the methods of teaching. He emphasized that the
backwardness of his country during the Spanish era was not due to the Filipinos' indifference, apathy, or
indolence as claimed by the rulers, but to the neglect of the Spanish authorities in the islands.

For Rizal, the mission of education is to elevate the country to the highest seat of glory and to develop
the people’s mentality. Since education is the foundation of society and a prerequisite for social progress,
Rizal claimed that only through education could the country be saved from domination.

Rizal's philosophy of education, therefore, centers on the provision of proper motivation to bolster the
great social forces that make education a success, to create in the youth an innate desire to cultivate his
intelligence and give him life eternal.

B. Religious Philosophy

Rizal grew up nurtured by a closely-knit Catholic family, was educated in the foremost Catholic schools
of the period in the elementary, secondary, and college levels; therefore, he should have been a propagator
of the Catholic faith and traditions. However, in later life, he became exposed to the massive corruption,
abuses, and exploitations executed by the people behind the church. Consequently, he developed a
philosophy contrary to the catholic practices and ideals that were rooted in the actual condition of his
society.

It could have been the result of contemporary contact, companionship, observation, research, and the
possession of an independent spirit. Being a critical observer, a profound thinker, and a zealous reformer,
Rizal did not agree with the prevailing Christian propagation of the Faith by fire and sword. This is shown in
his Annotation of Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.
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 Rizal did not believe in the Catholic dogma that salvation was only for Catholics and that outside
Christianity, salvation was not possible even if Catholics composed only a small minority of the world's
religious groups. Nor did he believe in the Catholic observation of fasting as a sacrifice, nor in the sale of
such religious items as the cross, medals, rosaries, and the like to propagate the Faith and raise church
funds. He also lambasted the superstitious beliefs propagated by the priests in the church and the schools.
All of these and a lot more are shreds of evidence of Rizal's religious philosophy.
criticize
Rizal's contacts with the great thinkers, leaders, scholars, scientists, and philosophers of the progressive
libertarian movement in Spain and other European countries revolutionized his religious philosophy. He
met with Austrian Ferdinand Blumentritt who was one of the European specialists in the Philippines. He
read the radical theological writings of Felicite R. de Lamennals, who advocated that Christians must serve
the poor and fight injustices including those perpetrated by the Catholic Church. Men like Rafael Labra,
Manuel Luis Zorilla, and Francisco Pi y Margall, who struggled to reform Spain's antiquated feudal system,
were close friends of Rizal.

GOD: Rizal believed in God, he pounded this belief in his letters to Fr. Pablo Pastells which goes: “I
believe firmly in the existence of God the Creator…I firmly believe in His wisdom, His infinite power (my
idea of the infinite is so limited), His goodness manifested in the marvelous creation of the universe; in the
order that reigns in His creation; His magnificence that overwhelms my understanding; His greatness that
enlightens and nourishes all. His wisdom is so great that it humiliates human reason and makes me dizzy
with vertigo for my own reasoning is imperfect and confused. Many times my reasoning leads me to raise
my eyes to Him. I believe Him to be in the immense system of planets, in all the aggregation of nebulae,
that bewilders and stretches my imagination beyond my comprehension that I am filled with dread, awe,
and bewilderment and leaves me dumb with wonder"

“How can I doubt God when I am convinced of my own existence? Who recognizes the effect recognizes
the cause. To doubt God would be to doubt one's conscience and consequently, to doubt everything; and
then, what is life for?

JESUS CHRIST: Rizal did not believe that Jesus Christ was God, during his exile in Dapitan in his letter to
Fr. Pastells, he wrote: "Who died on the cross? Was it God or man? If it was God, I do not understand how
God could die: how a God conscious of his mission could cry out in his bitter agony: 'My God, my God why
has Thou My forsaken Me’ This cry is absolutely human; it is the cry of a man who was banking on the justice
of God and worthiness of his cause, and then found himself surrounded by every type of injustice without
any hope of salvation., all the words of Christ on the cross reveal to us, true enough, a man in torment and
agony. But what a man!'

RELIGION: Rizal believed in religion, in his letter to his mother in 1885, he articulated this very
eloquently when he wrote: "For me, religion is the holiest of things, the purest, the most intangible, which
escapes all human adulterations, and I think I would be recreant to my duty as a rational being if I were to
prostitute my reason and admit what is absurd. I do not believe that God would punish me if I were to try
to approach Him using reason and understanding, -his most precious gift". Rizal opposed the perversions,
abuses, and hypocrisy of the Catholic hierarchy and the colonial government that he manifested in his two
novels. He did not intend to destroy the Catholic Church but desired its practices more consistent with the
fundamental tenets of Christianity.

REVELATION: Rizal's fourth letter dated April 4, 1893, to Fr. Pablo Pastells, he wrote: “I believed in the
revelation but in that living revelation of Nature that surrounds us everywhere, in that voice, potent,
eternal, incessant, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as the Being from whom it proceeds; in that
revelation that speaks to and penetrates us from the moment we are born until we die

Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL

 adopt never been wrong

CATHOLICISM: Rizal espoused Christianity but rejected the Catholic Church's claims of infallibility. In the
same letter to Fr. Pablo Pastells, Rizal wrote: "All the brilliant and subtle arguments of Your Reverence,
which I shall not attempt to refute because I would have to write a treatise, cannot convince me that the
Catholic Church is endowed with infallibility. It also carries the human thumbprint… with all the defects,
errors, and vicissitudes proper to the work of men." Dr. Maximo Viola in his "Mis Viajes con el Dr. Rizal" (My
Travels with Dr. Rizal), mentioned that "the religion of Christ was the most perfect, but due to the
modifications introduced into it, by malice or religious fanaticism, it has become like an edifice, which
because of so many modifications has been so disfigured and threatens to fall apart."

HEAVEN: Rizal wrote in his "Mi Ultimo Adios" his last poem. "For I go where no slave before the
oppressor bends, Where faith can never kill, and God reigns everywhere."

HELL, AND PURGATORY: Rizal believed that these were invented for the exploitation of the people, by
means of the sale of ribbons, scapulars, rosaries, and religious articles to the ignorant, this was also written
in Dr. Viola's "Mis Viajes con el Dr. Rizal" (My Travels with Dr. Rizal). Purgatory was not even written in the
Bible. As regards hell, Rizal wrote to Fr. Pastells. ” God cannot have created me for my harm: for what harm
had I done Him before being created that He should will my damnation?”

C. Ethical Philosophy

The study of human behavior as to whether it is good or bad or whether it is right or wrong is the
science upon which Rizal's ethical philosophy was based. The fact that the Philippines was under Spanish
domination during Rizal's time led him to subordinate his philosophy to moral problems. This trend was much
more needed at that time because the Spaniards and the Filipinos had different and sometimes conflicting
morals. The moral status of the Philippines during this period was one with a lack of freedom, one with the
predominance of foreign masters, one with the imposition of foreign religious worship, devotion, homage,
and racial habits. This led to moral confusion among the people, what with justice being stifled, limited, or
curtailed and the people not enjoying any individual rights.

To bolster his ethical philosophy, Dr. Rizal had recognized not only the forces of good and evil but also
the tendencies towards good and evil. As a result, he made use of the practical method of appealing to the
better nature of the conquerors and of offering useful methods of solving the moral problems of the
conquered. support

To support his ethical philosophy in life, Rizal:

1. censured the friars for abusing the advantage of their position as spiritual leaders and the ignorance
and fanaticism of the natives;
2. counseled the Filipinos not to resent a defect attributed to them but to accept same as reasonable
and just;
3. advised the masses that the object of marriage was the happiness and love of the couple and not
financial gain;
4. censured the priests who preached greed and wrong morality; and
5. advised everyone that love and respect for parents must be strictly observed

D. Political Philosophy

In Rizal's political view, a conquered country like the Philippines should not be taken advantage of but
rather should be developed, civilized, educated, and trained in the science of self-government.

He bitterly assailed and criticized in publications the apparent backwardness of the Spanish ruler’s method
of governing the country which resulted in the bondage and slavery of the conquered, the Spanish
government’s requirement of forced labor and force military service upon the natives, the abuse of power
by means of exploitation, the government ruling that any complaint against the authorities was criminal;
Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL
 and Making the people ignorant, destitute and fanatic, thus discouraging the formation of national
sentiment.

In his essay “The Philippines: A Century Hence,” contains predictions on the possible future of the
Philippines within a hundred years:
1. that the Philippines would stay a Spanish colony provided its citizens receive not only the rights and
privileges of citizens of the Spanish crown but also the inherent rights of a human being;
2. that the Philippines will inevitably rise in revolt against Spain if continuously exploited and abused;
3. and that the Philippines may be conquered by other nations after Spain's presence in the country
is extinguished.

Reform thru non-violent means

Andres Bonifacio and other leaders of the Katipunan, together with ranks of the revolutionaries,
belonged to the “left-wing tendency” of those who adhered to the ideas that Jose Rizal espoused. Upon
closer look at the ideas, one will find that most of his thoughts on society were essentially heavily tainted
with French revolutionary ideas but were also calibrated in such a way that they fit into a reformist frame.

Rizal’s statement that he had no desire to take part in conspiracies:

"I assure you that I have no desire to take part in conspiracies which seem to me
very premature and risky. But if the government drives us to the brink, that is to say, when
no other hope remains but seek our destruction in war when the Filipinos would prefer to
die rather than endure their misery any longer, then I will also become a partisan of violent
means. The choice of peace or destruction is in the hands of Spain, because it is a clear fact,
known to all, that we are patient, excessively patient and peaceful, mild, unfeeling, etc. But
everything ends in this life, there is nothing eternal in the world and that refers also to our
patience."

Rizal’s words subtly expressed that he desired reform over premature revolution. These words
however are significant to show that Rizal was not averse to revolution or violence if necessary. It
is also important to realize that when some historians and teachers of history created a gap
between reform and revolution, between the campaign for reforms and assimilation in Spain and
the outbreak of the Philippine revolution, they fail to see that Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, and others
saw reform and assimilation only as the first step to the eventual separation from Spain, the
independence of the Philippines. Reform was a means to freedom, not the destination.

Basic Political Reforms:

1. The restoration of Filipino representation to the Spanish Cortes and freedom of the press.
2. Reorganization of the administrative machinery.
3. Adoption of a comprehensive examination and the publication of its results and allowing Filipinos
to have the same opportunity with the Spaniards to hold government office.
4. Justice is the foundation of society and the government.

Rizal's guiding political philosophy proved to be the study and application of reforms, the extension of
human rights, the training for self-government, and the arousing of the spirit of discontent over oppression,
brutality, inhumanity, sensitiveness, and self-love.

E. Social Philosophy

That body of knowledge relating to society including the wisdom which man's experience in society has
taught him is social philosophy. The facts dealt with are principles involved in nation-building and not
individual social problems. The subject matter of this social philosophy covers the problems of the whole
race, with every problem having a distinct solution to bolster the people's social knowledge.
Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL
 Rizal’s social philosophy dealt with;
1. man in society;
2. influential factors in human life;
3. racial problems;
4. social constant;
5. social justice;
6. social ideal;
7. poverty and wealth;
8. reforms;
9. youth and greatness;
10. history and progress;
11. the future Philippines.

The above dealt with man's evolution and his environment, explaining, for the most part, human
behavior and capacities like his will to live; his desire to possess happiness; the change of his mentality; the
role of virtuous women in the guidance of great men; the need for elevating and inspiring mission; the
duties and dictates of man's conscience; man's need of practicing gratitude; the necessity for consulting
reliable people; his need for the experience; his ability to deny; the importance of deliberation; the
voluntary offer of man's abilities and possibilities; the ability to think, aspire and strive to rise; and the
proper use of hearth, brain, and spirit-all of these combining to enhance the intricacies, beauty, and values
of human nature. All of the above served as Rizal’s guide in his continuous effort to make over his beloved
Philippines.

Application:

Based on the political/social problems you have identified and analyzed from the news headlines/cut-
out articles above, select one problem and answer the following questions:

1. Which do you think is the most apparent political/social problem today based on the cut-out
articles?

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2. Do you think this prevailing political/social problem can be dealt with or resolved by the political
philosophies of Rizal? Why yes? Why No?

_ _
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_ _ _
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Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL

 Assessment:

Identification. Identify the following statements/questions whether it is Educational, Religious, Political,

Social, or Ethical/Moral philosophies of Jose Rizal. Write your answer on the space before the number.

R 1. Rizal did not believe that fasting is a form of sacrifice.

ED 2. According to Rizal: "Life is a very serious thing and only those with intelligence and heart
go through it worthily"
ED 3. The only way to elevate the country from the present social condition is to develop the
people’s mentality and intellect.
ETH 4. Rizal counseled everyone that love, honor, and respect for parents must be strictly
upheld at all times.
R 5. Rizal believed that the concepts of hell and purgatory were invented for the exploitation
of the people.
S 6. Greatness is the combination of the proper use of heart, brain, and spirit-all to enhance
the intricacies, beauty, and values of human nature.
E 7. Rizal wanted the people to understand that the objective of marriage and union was
happiness and love of the couple and for financial security or gain.
P 8. Rizal believed that reform was better than a premature revolution.
P 9. Filipinos should be allowed to have the same opportunity as the Spaniards to hold
government offices.
S 10. Human actions are rooted in his desire to possess happiness.

Module IV- PHILOSOPHIES OF RIZAL