Note: A short essay I contributed last April 6, 2020 (Originally written on May 15, 2019), to the “PHILIPPINE STYLE: The Beauty of Things Filipino” Facebook group, which aspires to set in motion a natural development & an emotional connectivity towards a so-called Philippine Aesthetics or Philippine Art Appreciation in its members.
How can we say that one has literary prowess?
Rizal once wrote, “Man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks,” so I agree. The man himself spoke twenty-two languages and could converse pleasantly and naturally with them.
Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, German, Portuguese, Italian, English, Dutch, Japanese, Arabic, Swedish, Russian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew and Sanskrit; and the local languages Malay, Chavacano, Visayan, Ilocano and Subanun: these are all the languages Doctor Jose Rizal spoke and perhaps wrote.
In an essay written by Ambeth Ocampo called “The bookworm in Rizal”, saying that “To clone Rizal’s mind I likened his brain to a room filled with furniture. A mind is filled with books. However, finding it not easy as I thought, I gave up. But one of the things I learned from this failed intellectual exercise was that Rizal was really a bookworm. He grew up in an unusual Filipino home, it had many books! Early in life he was taught and care for books.”
He went on describing that the Rizal residence boasted one of the biggest libraries in the town of Calamba, and perhaps stood as one of the finest libraries in the country at time, even so if we compare it to modern standards.
After mentioning his lingual and reading excellence, let us allow his works to speak for themselves. He wrote in Noli: “To be happy does not mean to indulge in foolishness!” I think these words summarize the brilliance of the mind and heart that is in Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado.
For me, literary prowess is not defined by the color and choice of words an author conveys in what he tries to say.
Prowess, as defined as “distinguished bravery”, is what Rizal had in finding the pen mightier than the sword. Even the most sensitive of souls can easily crumble by the slightest amount of words written in a piece of paper that composed the novel Noli Me Tangere. In fact, he was almost starving to death as he gave a lot away just to get his novels done.
But even more, the power of Rizal’s words, which have stunned both Filipinos and foreigners alike after his execution, still ring a bell in today’s story of the Filipino when it comes to comparing to our present administration and state of the Philippine nation. Like what I’ve said in The Philippine Star, the choice of Rizal choosing the pen than the sword is opposed to today’s war on drugs and extrajudicial killings, questioning the morality of our being Filipino, as what Rizal says in his writings.
Perhaps what Rizal only faltered in doing, as he struck the minds and hearts of his beloved people, including myself, is to ensure the fact that we will continue his legacy of sparking fire in the midst of the dark disarray, not only of colonial matters such as before, but the continuing search for the identity of the Filipino.
In the words of Rizal himself, the Filipino is where “there are no slaves, hangmen or oppressors; where faith does not kill; where the one who reigns is God.” The Filipino is the “man that is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks.” The Filipino people are “The people [who] do not complain because they have no voice; do not move because they are lethargic, and you say that they do not suffer because you have not seen their hearts bleed.”
We then consider the literary prowess of Rizal, who didn’t color the pages of his history, but let his words save our country from its unfading misery. Let us remember that there is no formula to his greatness, rather, it is only having that disposition of using the pen for the greater good and love for all Filipinos.
