Rizal

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human as th 5 Reasons why Article written by Loren Rosaria 30 Entertainment Heroes are human too; they laugh, they cry, they make mistakes. Jose Rizal was no different. To say he was an invincible champion who could do no wrong would be tarnishing the man Rizal was, for although he had his fair share of flaws, he still managed to overcome them all and become someone great. Rather than thinking of him as the ideal hero, let’s think of Rizal as someone who was just like us, yet persevered to become the great man we know him to be.
Rizal is just as e rest of us 1. He Was A Bit Of A Grammar Nazi. While not as annoying as those you meet in online forums, Jose Rizal did have the tendency to correct people’s grammar from time to time, as exemplified in a letter he wrote to his young nephew, Alfredo. In the letter, Rizal corrected Alfredo on the phrase “I and my brothers greet you” (which the latter wrote in an earlier letter) and said the pronoun should have been placed after and not before the word “brothers.” For Rizal, it should have been “My brothers and I greet you” and added that many others would often commit that mistake. From a bigger perspective, Rizal also wanted to emphasize that people should place others first before themselves. 2. He Was Stingy Yet Spent Regularly On Photographs. While living in Europe, Rizal gained the reputation of a miser due to his extreme penny-pinching ways (he supposedly lived on only P50 a month). Before checking into hotels, he would always opt for a room without breakfast and instead use the savings to buy tea, biscuits and alcohol. He also rationed his portions painstakingly. In one incident, he and his roommate Jose Alejandrino agreed to split a box of biscuits between them for a month. The result? A starved Alejandrino finished his portion in only 15 days while Rizal managed to make his own last the entire month. Sometimes, Rizal would also neglect personal hygiene. In a letter to his sister, he revealed that he went without taking a bath for a long time because he found them too expensive. For all his stinginess, however, Rizal made sure to regularly allocate money for photographs. The number of photos we have of him today is proof Rizal loved taking pictures of himself. 3. He Was Too Proud To Ask For Help. Despite his meticulous budgeting, Rizal’s financial situation did not always go smoothly. After his family’s estate in Laguna was subjected to a dispute, Rizal’s allowances became few and far between. Nevertheless, Rizal’s “Pinoy Pride” would never allow him to seek financial assistance from anyone. In fact, on the days he was broke and hungry, Rizal would often go out of his boarding house for a walk while cursing his bad luck. He would also go inside restaurants, take a whiff and go back home. Due to the smell of food on him, his companions would then assume he had just eaten out. Interestingly enough, American writer Ernest Hemingway also used this technique while he was living in Paris. 4. He Experimented With Drugs. To be fair, Rizal was NEVER a drug addict. However, that did not stop him from trying some for the sake of science. While just an 18-year-old, Rizal once used hashish he bought from a drugstore. At the time, the drug—a hallucinogen more potent than marijuana—could be easily bought over the counter along with cocaine, morphine and heroin. However, Rizal later justified his use of hashish in a letter he wrote to German scientist Adolf Bernhard Meyer, saying he just tried the drug for “experimental purposes.” Aside from hashish, Rizal was also known to use mustard plasters and sudorifics (drugs which cause sweating) to treat torticollis (“stiff neck”) when he was just a boy. 5. He Was Torpe. Given the number of women who went in and out of his life, it would seem counterintuitive to think Rizal was “torpe.” Yet for the Don Juan that he was, Rizal experienced a case of cold feet in his liaison with his first love Segunda Katigbak. Although Katigbak was already engaged to be married to Manuel Luz, Rizal still fell for her anyway, describing her as “bewitching” and “alluring.” For the young lovers, it was love at first sight—one that would be doomed from the start, in part because of Katigbak’s engagement and because of Rizal’s indecisiveness. It happened like this: Sometime in December 1877 Rizal promised to escort the carriage carrying Katigbak when it passed by Calamba on the way to her hometown in Lipa. True enough, Rizal did show up riding a white horse and spotted Katigbak waving a white handkerchief to him from inside the carriage. Surprisingly, Rizal—instead of following the carriage—turned around and went home. While we may never know what spurred him to do so, Rizal certainly was heartbroken as could be clearly seen in his farewell poem dedicated to Katigbak: “Ended at an early hour, my first love! My virgin heart will always mourn the reckless step it took on the flower-decked abyss. My illusions return, yes, but indifferent, uncertain, ready for the first betrayal on the path of grief.” Entertainment 31
Page 3: contents 5 - FACTS Rizal Fun facts
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Page 37 and 38: ‘Noli Me Tangere’ opera coming
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Rizal

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