(reprinted with some editions from the book "Remembering Rizal: Voices from the Diaspora", edited by Edwin A. Lozada)
The vast majority of Filipino historians are likely to reinforce the hardened belief that José Rizal deserves to be the true national hero of the Philippines. However, prominent left-leaning historians such as Renato Constantino and Teodoro Agoncillo have taken issue with that contention as they came to their own equally-plausible conclusion: that the founder of the Katipunan, Andrés Bonifacio, and not José Rizal, should be the rightful national hero.
In keeping with the prevailing view among historians, most Filipino citizens have been led to believe that Rizal's status as national hero is not only justified, but inviolable. Crucial factors in defense of Rizal's status are his reformist, if not entirely revolutionary, credentials, and his ultimate sacrifice for the sake of his people's freedom. Due deference on the part of several generations of Filipinos has been reserved for this polyglot intellectual if for no other reason than for his courage in articulating what was unjust about Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines.
Where does that leave Andrés Bonifacio? Surely his own revolutionary record is comparable to that of Rizal's, a fair argument that would nevertheless, not easily meet with the approval of the Rizal side. Some would say that Bonifacio's revolutionary record surpasses that of the presumed national hero. As conceivable an insight as it may be, to be convinced of the case in favor of Bonifacio was considered by Rizal absolutists to be an act of national "apostasy".
Reynaldo C. Ileto, in "Filipinos and their Revolution", puts forward the question of Bonifacio’s entitlement to be national hero as it was solicited by the historians Teodoro Agoncillo, Milagros Guerrero, and Renato Constantino. Ileto wrote "If, ask Agoncillo and Guerrero, Bonifacio were the 'legitimate Father of the Revolution,' without whom 'it is extremely doubtful whether the Philippine revolution would have become a reality...' why is he overshadowed by Rizal as the national hero?"
There is an assessment of Rizal's ascendancy as the virtual national hero that is couched in imperialism. American colonial administrators and military leaders shut their eyes to Filipinos' aspirations for independence and hoped to deter the fomenting of a Bonifacio-punctuated revolution to attain it. The United States was concerned that Bonifacio's burning of the revolutionary candle at both ends would encourage an uprising against American colonial rule.
American colonial advocates felt genuinely confident about their imperialist designs on the Philippines with Rizal as national hero. For the Americans, Rizal represented moderation, reform, and peaceful political action, a stark contrast from the more radical outlook of Bonifacio.
As Austin Craig wrote in "Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal", the apparent national hero "inculcated that self-respect which, by leading to self-restraint and self-control, makes self-government possible; and sought to inspire in all a love of ordered freedom."
One of the historical cues of the Bonifacio-Rizal national hero debate that invariably crops up is the held difference in their respective socio-economic classes. For many years it was Filipinos understanding that Andres Bonifacio was a product of the lower classes.
Almost by necessity, Bonifacio was deemed to be from the lower rungs of society which on the face of it, made him a more authoritative representative of the Filipino masses. He was in spite of everything, a hero in a society in which a dispossessed and disenfranchised majority tried to seek meaning to their suffering, a meaning that would sanguinely find its incarnation in Bonifacio's grassroots revolution.
By choosing to look at the debate this way was to register the claim that Rizal, by mere fact of being one of the "ilustrados" (the intellectual and upper middle class), should be placed below Bonifacio on the totem pole of Philippine national heroes. The highly-exaggerated nature of this "class conflict" theory has badly distorted the debate, especially when it has now come to light that Bonifacio wasn't exactly the lower-class "Great Plebeian" that many thought he was.
Not standing far behind Rizal's supreme intellect, Bonifacio was a knowledgeable ilustrado in his own way. Having to wrestle with not having a formalized education, the self-educated Bonifacio was a considerable reader of history and fictional works, including those about the French and American revolutions. In his professional career, Bonifacio joined the employment force as a clerk, a sales agent, and as a warehouse agent, occupations that require some level of brainpower.
The historian Ambeth Ocampo summed it up nicely: "I maintain that Bonifacio had some education, he was literate, he was upwardly mobile in jobs with today's equivalent of multinational companies. Bonifacio was great, but he was far from having been a plebeian.”
There are those who will continue to push the class conflict argument, the argument that frames the debate in a crude rich-versus-poor dichotomy. But the historical evidence is in favor of a Rizal-Bonifacio historical reconciliation. We know that Bonifacio had great respect and veneration for his La Liga Filipina counterpart and that the "Father of the Katipunan" was a reader of Rizal's literary works. Hence, no one can say that Rizal was not a tremendous influence on Bonifacio.
Rizal for his part, found Bonifacio's revolutionary passion irresistible if dangerous. Rizal, as disillusioned as he was at the articles of absolute faith that Filipinos were subjected to at the hands of the Spanish friars and colonial authorities, could not condone the use of violence for the furtherance of political aims. This is one of the places where he and Bonifacio differ. But that didn't stop the two of them from forming a grudging respect for each other.
In the end, E. San Juan Jr. puts it best in explaining how Filipinos should historically treat the two great men. San Juan does not get into who he believes should be the national hero, but he is instead taken with a syncretic approach: "we should celebrate Rizal and Bonifacio together, not pit one against the other, because for all their contradictions and disjunctions, the only way we can use them as symbolic models and examples would be to illuminate each of them by the shadow and radiance of the other. This is our urgent and uncompromising project."
ALLEN GABORRO
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