Nama, John Carlo S.
Btte I.T. – 2nd year
A paper on Veneration without Understanding by Renato Constantino.
“In the histories of many nations,” Constantino writes, “the national revolution represents a peak of achievement to which the minds of man return time and again in reverence and for a renewal of faith in freedom. For the national revolution is invariably the one period in a nation’s history when the people were most united, most involved, and most decisively active in the fight for freedom. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that almost always the leader of that revolution becomes the principal hero of his people. There is Washington for the United States, Lenin for the Soviet Union, Bolivar for Latin America, Sun Yat Sen, then Mao Tse-Tung for China and Ho Chi Minh for Vietnam. The unity between the venerated mass action and the honored single individual enhances the influence of both.”
“In our case, our national hero was not the leader of our Revolution. In fact, he repudiated that Revolution.” *
In 1901 the Governor of the so-called Philippines, William Howard Taft suggested to the Philippine Commission that we so-called Filipinos be given a national hero. He boldly states, “And now, gentlemen, you must have a national hero.” “Taft with other American colonial officials and some conservative Filipinos chose him (Rizal) as a model hero over other contestants – Aguinaldo too militant, Bonifacio too radical, Mabini unregenerate.”** Charles Bohlen, one-time ambassador to the Philippines, described Taft’s motivations like this: “Taft quickly decided that it would be extremely useful for the Filipinos to have a national hero of their revolution against the Spanish in order to channel their feelings and focus their resentment backward on Spain. But he told his advisers that he wanted it to be someone who really wasn’t so much of a revolutionary that, if his life was examined too closely or his works read too carefully, this could cause us any...
