Flame Pillar of Rizal

Rizal was Never the First Choice

Dr. Jose Rizal was a man-of-letters, nationalist, and most of all, man of peace. However, he wanted to dictate the acceptance of the uprising in the Philippines through his enelightened ideas, but KKK was inadequately organized at the same time. His belief of the future Philippines holds nothing but losing a war against the Americans.

Through the Taft Commission of 1901, Rizal never be the first choice of our national hero by the Filipino people. He never became a full but only the revered Bulacan hero to be an acceptable national hero, Marcelo H. del Pilar, because of his unyielding and undying national sentiments for the Filipino people against the Spaniards especially the ill-mannered friars. Unlike him, Rizal was a prolific linguist that travel in many countries in the world for continuing his studies and expanding his career that became his routine truthfully but he never forgets the duties for his fatherland. This was the intriguing controversy regarding of his heroism.

Not only del Pilar to be the line for this achievement. The commission also included: Bonifacio, Mabini, and Aguinaldo. But in the end, Rizal was unanimously declare Rizal the Philippine National Hero. Why? Because he was an American-sponsored Hero, not by the people in the Philippines. For the Americans, he was a symbol of assimilation that contributed to the acceptability. Here are the other factors pointed by Constantino (1969) below were the following:

> Rizal never be an anti-American policy in the Philippines. Unlike him, especially, Mabini was never accepted the allegiance of the American imperialism until his death.

> Rizal was already dead at the time of the Americans began their aggression in the Philippines.

> And most importantly, Rizal's dramatic and ultimate martyrdom had already made him the symbol of Spanish oppression.