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Rizal’s Challenge to the Women of Today

            In his poem “To the Young Women of Malolos”, Rizal expressed his great joy and admiration to the young women of this town for they had shown a great fighting spirit in aiming for their rights. He also stated the roles of a mother to her children and their task to the society. And that’s the challenge of Rizal to the women of today. Right now, it seems that the qualities of women are lost in the way they do things. There are oftentimes that mothers forget their role to their children and right now there are many cases in the society that involve women.

-           LABRADOR , RAVEN

Socio – Political Situation

               In Rizal’s time our country is in the era of struggling to have rights and fair standard with the Spaniards.  Under the Spanish colonization the government is more likely controlled by priest rather than officials. They called the Filipinos as “indios”, a term that describes the indolence of the Filipino. A rampage of rebellion everywhere, there’s a large resistance against the Spaniards.

-          SERRANO, DEAN

Through Education the Motherland Receives Light

                At a very young age, Jose Rizal, our national hero, wrote the poem “Through Education the motherland receives light”. He indicates here how he values education a lot.  Out of his fervent love for our motherland, education seems for him a way for us to extend our deep and warm gratitude to every wonder that we receive from her every day.

            Rizal, a man full of intelligence, knows that the key to improve our dear country is the awareness of everything. Thus, education is the one that trains people how to become a productive and civilized citizen to our motherland.

            A nation where educated people out number uncivilized ones reveals treasures more cherished than any stones of the earth. So when the time comes that we witness our terrifying fall, we emerge through the help of those who value most the true essence of education… the best light that every nation receives.

-           PANINGBATAN , DAVE

INDOLENCE of the FILIPINOS

            Rizal and the most of us, Filipinos, admitted that we are indolent in many things.  Indolence of the Filipinos are not hereditary, it is caused by the troubles that the Spaniards gave to us. During the Spaniards colonization, Filipinos became indolent because of certain causes. One of this is the bad system in education and in religion. In school, they only taught on how to pray and they don’t taught subjects like agriculture and other courses that involve economic activities which is much more important to the Filipinos that time. As for the religion, the friars told the Filipinos that it is easier to enter to heaven if they remain poor and because of this, Filipinos didn’t work and remain poor because they believe in what the friars told them. We really can’t blame ourselves in becoming indolent after knowing this fact, because Filipinos are born industrious and hardworking. As Rizal stated in his poem, indolence has only two solutions, which is liberty and education.

-           LABRADOR , RAVEN

To My Fellow Children

Even at the early age, Rizal already possessed a gifted talent for literature. He was encouraged by his mother, who was a lover of literature, to write poetry.

            On Rizal’s first day at the Binan School, when he was eight years old, he was left by his brother Paciano after introducing him into his teacher, Maestro Justiniano Aquino Cruz. Before sitting on his assigned seat in the class, the teacher asked him if he knows how to speak in Spanish or Latin, he replied “A little, sir”. Because of his answer the teacher hit him. The students there laughed at Rizal. Rizal was very upset. And this happening cause Rizal to write his first poem in the native language entitled Sa Aking Mga Kababata (To My Fellow Children). He realized that in order to make our country in liberty, he had to write in his native tongue.

            Rizal’s poem “Sa Aking Mga Kababata” reveals his early dedication to our country. In the verses of his poem, he proudly state that people who truly love his native language will surely attempt for liberty “as does the bird which soars to freer space above” and Tagalog is the same with Latin, English, Spanish and any other language. And also the most quoted line of his poem which is “He who loves not his own language/is worse than a beast and a stinking fish”.

Rizal encourages the Filipinos to adopt Tagalog as their language, and since Tagalog was the language used before for the Filipinos to have an easy communication. Tagalog is our very own and when we are going to use Tagalog, it’s like you are acting or showing that you love your native country and are proud of being a Filipino that is distinct from other people who use language other than Tagalog. Loving your own native language is like having the feeling of enriching your own country and the language that was taught to you that you should learn to love and be proud of. We should treat Tagalog language the same as any mother loves to feed her young. We should be thankful that God gave us native language and Rizal making his effort that we should show the beauty in using Tagalog rather than other foreign language.

But some people was interrogating if Rizal did really wrote his said first poem at 8 years old or did he write the poem at all. Because there is no original manuscript in Rizal’s own hand exists for “Sa Aking Mga Kababata”.

-           MAGANTE,  RALPH RENZ

The Poem – “Memories of My Town” by Jose. Rizal

                                                                                                

- Rizal Shrine - Young Rizal with his dog 

            Based on my interpretation, it is a poem in which his memories of a life as a child were idyllic and represent the love of nature and family. This poem tells about someone who lives the chaos of the modern world to be a lone and reflect on nature. Then as he sits he is over come with a sudden memory of all the things he saw as grief, he realize that they were what they were and it is his choice to see them as he once did.

            The fact on his poem is the “beauty of nature”.  He will always recognize the place where he lived.           We all know, the nature is the one thing that can give happiness. Moreover, Rizal reminisces of his childhood days, as he writes that poem. He somehow wishes he could rewind the time and spend more days doing what he used to do, being with the people he used to be with, and feeling the sensations he felt as a boy. He wants his innocence back, and the great feeling of praying to God Almighty with a little child's faith which is believed to be the purest of all hearts.

- RASING, BERNALYN