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I. Opening Statement: Iiia. 2 RRL
I. Opening Statement: Iiia. 2 RRL
I. OPENING STATEMENT
The second and last novel completed by José Rizal (though he left behind the
unfinished manuscript of a third one), El Filibusterismo is a sequel to Noli Me Tangere. A dark,
brooding, at times satirical novel of revenge, unfulfilled love, and tragedy, the Fili (as it is
popularly referred to) still has as its protagonist Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra. Thirteen years older,
his idealism and youthful dreams shattered, and taking advantage of the belief that he died at
the end of Noli Me Tangere, he is disguised as Simoun, an enormously wealthy and
mysterious jeweler who has gained the confidence of the colony’s governor-general.
Jose Rizal may have been executed more than a century ago, but his written works
remain crucial since the evils that he endeavored to fight yet cost him his life: incompetent
leadership, corruption, abuse of women, and the influence of the Catholic Church over matters
in politics and of the society, evidently persist in our time and are plaguing us today. In
addition, Rizal’s ideas remain applicable and carry some “inspirational value” to this day.
Rizal's life, especially his trial, reveals something of the unexpected and unaccountable
consequences of this wish for authorship. Just as evangelization resulted in conversions and
translations beyond the reach and outside the expectations of Spanish missionaries resulting,
for example in the emergence of "folk Catholicism," or figures such as the "filibustero," or even
"Rizal". So nationalist authorship sparked readings that it could not anticipate much less
control. For rather than lead to the domestication of desires and languages out of place,
nationalist authorship tended in fact to spur them into uncharted and at times, revolutionary
directions. In all cases, Castilian played a key role, keeping a sense of the foreign--that is, that
which escaped assimilation either into the colonial or the national—in circulation, available for
all kinds of use and misuse. The history of conversion made Spaniards over into a medium for
transmitting a fantasy about direct communication and unlimited transmissions across socio-
geographical divides. The name "Rizal" by the late nineteenth century thus retained and kept
in circulation the sense of the foreign which even he himself could not recognize and account
for at the point when Castilian was denied to the rest of the colony's subjects. Proclaiming in
his trial that "I am innocent," meant that "I" did not intend to commit a crime which nevertheless
bears his signature. His innocence then implies his guilt, the culpability he incurred in ignoring
the effects that a second, foreign name would have on those who felt its force.
V. CLOSING STATEMENT
In Rizal's opinion, the Filipinos of his time were not yet ready for revolution since they
were yet undeserving of freedom. That is why he keep persuading the citizen through his novel
and its characters. He wants the young people to engage themselves on the fight he started
for they are the next citizen who will fight for the country’s future. When individuals learnt to
prioritize the common good over personal gain, and when these individuals constituted a
country, “God would supply the weapon,” whether it be revolution or else, and independence
would be gained. Independence would be an illusion, a change of rulers, until a fresh
uncorrupted generation came, and it was preferable to bury the revolution in the depths of the
sea. Bonifacio, on the other hand, would disagree. History and revolution do not wait for a
perfect and innocent victim.
VI. REFERENCES
Anderson, B. (2006). Forms of Consciousness in "El Filibusterismo". Philippine Studies, 54(3),
315-356. Retrieved June 29, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42633876