It’s easy to forget, especially in the haze before the New Year’s festivities, that on a late December morning over a century ago, Jose Rizal walked to his execution with remarkable composure. It’s a striking scene: the man who did not believe in a violent uprising met a violent end, simply because he refused to betray his principles.

Still, it wasn’t the execution itself, but his life and works, that made a lasting impact on the course of the country’s history.

December 30, Rizal Day, has mostly become just another red-letter date on the calendar, conveniently tucked between the nation’s favorite holidays of the year. The man himself has faded into a distant myth, and many Filipinos have grown numb to what he actually represents. But thanks to him, of course, for some, that means another paid day off and a chance to sleep in and catch up on shows on the watchlist.

Besides, who has the energy to care about a 19th-century figure when daily life is already exhausting enough?

Ironically, that might be exactly why Rizal’s life and death still matter today.

The man behind the moment

Rizal did not stumble into his death. Months before his execution, the Katipunan offered to rescue him from his exile in Dapitan. Andres Bonifacio even invited him to help lead the revolution, but he declined the offers.

His reasoning might have been too pragmatic. He believed that due to lack of resources, his countrymen were not prepared for a full-blown uprising, and the act could only lead to unnecessary bloodshed. 

Rizal and the Katipunan pursued freedom from different directions but were ultimately moving towards the same goal. Rizal sought liberation through reform, while the Katipunan pursued independence through revolution.

Despite inspiring the revolution, Rizal openly condemned it in his manifesto written on December 15, 1986, where he declared: “I do condemn this uprising — which dishonors us Filipinos and discredits those that could plead our cause. I abhor its criminal methods and disclaim all part in it, pitying from the bottom of my heart the unwary that have been deceived into taking part in it.”

Yet even as Rizal committedly hoped for reform within the system, the propaganda movement helped cultivate a national consciousness that made separation from Spain inevitable. 

As historian Renato Constantino observed in his 1972 essay Veneration Without Understanding, “Instead of making the Filipino closer to Spain, the propaganda gave root to separation. The drive for Hispanization was transformed into the development of a distinct national consciousness.” 

Although Rizal understood oppression intimately through his own experiences and that of his family, Constantino described him as a “limited” Filipino, explaining that he’s “the ilustrado Filipino who fought for national unity but feared the Revolution and loved his mother country, yes, but in his own ilustrado way.”

Rizal believed for a long time that assimilation with Spain was possible — and desirable. He admired European art, culture, and liberal ideas, but his repeated encounters of racism and injustice did result in some erosion of that belief at some points in his life. During the pressures of the Calamba land dispute with Dominican friars to whom his family was renting their land, Rizal admitted the failure of assimilation, writing to Blumentritt in 1887 that, “The Filipino has long wished for Hispanization and they were wrong in aspiring for it.”

Rizal may have been, in Constantino’s words, a “consciousness without movement,” but that consciousness mattered, and the revolution transformed that awakening into action.

“As a social commentator, as the exposer of oppression, he performed a remarkable task. His writings were part of the tradition of protest which blossomed into revolution, into a separatist movement. His original aim of elevating the indio to the level of Hispanization of the peninsular so that the country could be assimilated, could become a province of Spain, was transformed into its opposite,” wrote Constantino.

Could the revolution have happened without Rizal?

Rizal fell when Spain pulled the trigger in 1896 in what’s now known as Luneta Park in Manila, but what rose was something larger than him. His execution intensified the people’s desire for separation, unified disparate movements, and gave the revolution a sense of moral clarity. 

But without Rizal, the uprising might still have happened, in a likely more fragmented, less coherent, and less anchored way.

His life and death led to systemic change. It’s not because he sought martyrdom, but because he refused to betray his ideals.

Dying, after all, is not a prescription for patriotism.

Historian Ambeth Ocampo describes his unsettling calm in Rizal Without the Overcoat (1990), “Rizal was a quiet, peaceful man who willfully and calmly walked to his death for his convictions. Before his execution, his pulse rate was reputedly normal. How many people do you know who would die for their convictions if they could avoid it?”

Ocampo refers to Rizal as a “conscious hero” because he was deliberate in his decisions and was fully aware of its consequences.

In a 1982 letter that he wrote, Rizal himself explained why he chose not to save himself: “Moreover I wish to show those who deny us patriotism that we know how to die for our duty and for our convictions. What matters death if one dies or what one loves, for one’s country and for those whom he loves?”

What can we still learn from Rizal today?

Rizal is often remembered today as a saintly, American-sponsored hero. After all, his present legacy was shaped in part by American colonial narratives. Theodore Friend noted in his book, Between Two Empires, that Rizal was favored because “Aguinaldo [was] too militant, Bonifacio too radical, Mabini unregenerate.”

Constantino was even more blunt when he wrote that, “They favored a hero who would not run against the grain of American colonial policy.”

Yet national hero is not an official constitutional title, and Rizal does not need one. His legacy stands on its own. But humanizing Rizal, rather than sanctifying him, allows Filipinos to ask better questions: Which parts of his example still apply? Which don’t?

Constantino puts it in Our Task: To Make Rizal Obsolete: “Rizal’s personal goals were always in accordance with what he considered to be in the best interest of the country.” What he meant in making Rizal obsolete was that as long as corruption and injustice persists, Rizal’s example stays relevant. Once those ideals are truly realized, his legacy has done its job, and there is no need for a symbolic hero to inspire conscience.

However, the country is clearly far from that situation. Just as Rizal refused to betray his ideals, Filipinos today are called to stand firm against the temptations and pressures that corruption and injustice present. That may be the most enduring lesson. 

On December 30, the nation remembers not just how Rizal died but, more importantly, why he did not save himself –Rappler.com