Reflection Paper: Rizal

Solving out a puzzle without having any clues is like going to a place where there is no any given direction – You know the answer for the question what, but do not know the answers for when, where, why and how. Having and given the chance to study the works and life of Rizal, somehow gave me a sense of feeling and understanding that his life and he, himself, is some sort of a puzzle. Besides of all the great works and contributions that he did, Rizal is considerably indeed a very extraordinary man. We can read all of his works and be able to sort it out into bits of pieces just to know and dig deeper to the meaning and message of his work. Some of his works were easy to understand. Some were a bit surprising and a revelation. But most of it will leave a person, somehow, to a state of confusion.

Rizal, as I have said, is considerably an extraordinary man, “Small but terrible” as they say; A man that led a revolution with just the use of his mind and pen; the man behind the two of his great novels, the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo; the man who woke up the sleeping nationalism of the Filipinos for their country against the abusive Spaniard colonization; and the man whom we now considered and looked up to as the National Hero of our country. But how much do we really know Rizal? Is it only his name, his birthday, his family, his girlfriends, his death or his image in our one peso coin? I also asked the same question before. How much do I know Rizal, the National Hero of the Philippines? What really were his contributions in freeing our country from the harsh hands of the Spaniards? What were his points of views? But mostly, who really is Jose Rizal?

After being able to study, read and know some portion of his works throughout this term, I am still not sure of what should I really know about Rizal. I found most of his works fascinating and very intriguing; and these works were really authentic pieces of him. I do not know what else could I say about...