Rizal’s concept of the nation in

FOR the 126th anniversary of the establishment of the La ( The Philippine League) last July 3, I was invited to speak by the Museo ni José Rizal, Rizal Shrine in Fort Santiago. The actor Robin Padilla, who once played another hero, Andres Bonifacio, attended the event. In that shrine, its founding is portrayed in a popular 1961 painting by D. Caparas entitled “The Establishment of It shows a meeting with only a few people around. But an original photo-postcard of a drawing by an eyewitness in the possession of the collector Mariano Cacho shows that it was actually a surprisingly very big meeting.

For many, the

was just a mere footnote in our history. Three days after its founding at the house of Doroteo Ongjunco in Ilaya Street, Tondo, Manila, Rizal was arrested and subsequently thrown into exile in Dapitan. But the Liga would soon be overshadowed by an organization that was formally established a day after Rizal’s arrest, July 7, 1892, by people who were members of the Liga, headed by Andres Bonifacio —

a society they had been planning to organize since January 1892. Some Liga members continued to become the cuerpo de compromisarios (body of compromisers) who, through a lawyer named Apolinario Mabini who would become a differentlyabled person by 1896, was able to walk and collect money here in the Philippines for the publication of La Solidaridad in Spain.

The La Liga Filipina is important because there is a widespread perception that La Propaganda did not have a concept of the nation and that they only wanted to become part of Spain. Scholar Floro Quibuyen in his book,

emphasized that Rizal’s concept of the nation is implied in the aims of this organization as written in its constitution. The aims were originally written in Spanish but historian Bernadette Abrera recently uncovered a Tagalog version from Epifanio de los Santos’ 1914 monograph “

a version which we believe was also used simultaneously with the original: “(1) To unite the whole archipelago into one compact, vigorous, and homogeneous body ( (2) Mutual protection in every want and necessity ( (3) Defense against and injustice ( ); all violence ); ( 4) Encouragement of instruction, agriculture, and commerce ( , ang pagtatanim at ang comercio); (5) Study and application of reforms (

motto: (One like all.)” One should notice that although nothing explicit here is being said about nation-building, the aims of this organization stated that he wanted to unite everyone into one body (“

meaning “association”), then what body could that be? Another organization? You cannot create an organization that aims to create another organization. It could only be something else, a nation.

But what kind of nation? Zeus Salazar in a recent book argued that the nation that Rizal was talking about shouldn’t be confused with an independent one, since in Spain, the Spaniards look at the different lands and peoples under them as “or “as in Cataluña and Vasconia or Euskal Herria, all having distinct identities and histories from each other yet were still one under the banner of the United Kingdom of Spain.

Independent or not, we can still learn from what Rizal’s vision of the nation with its own personality and identity that we can hopefully apply in the 21st century.

Rizal said later in his December 15, 1896 manifesto before he died that reforms, “if they are to bear fruit, must come from above, for reforms that come from below are upheavals both violent and transitory.” Of course, in the he contradicted himself, and rightly so. We now know that he believed that change can come from the grassroots as could be read from the Liga’s constitution: “— cooperation, compassion, loving and helping each other, educating each other, learning together and encouraging agriculture and commerce together. We can only do this if we are united, not divided.

Nipped in the bud, Rizal supposedly was not able to demonstrate his concept of the nation since he was arrested after three days of founding the But people do not usually realize that his exile in Dapitan showed that indeed Rizal implemented the

there, but now for the local community. For, as Quibuyen said, in Dapitan, Rizal introduced progressive education, social entrepreneurship and community development which transformed Dapitan from a lonely faraway place to an industrious town.