You will probably agree that Jose Rizal’s most depressing poem is “Mi Retiro,” written shortly after he arrived in Dapitan, which must have seemed like a veritable hinterland after his sojourn in Western Europe. But Rizal never wasted time wallowing in his personal tragedies. He always embarked on projects that would redound to the good of his fellow Filipinos. In Dapitan, he left a legacy that Zamboanguenos cherish to this day.

Aside from installing a waterworks system, a clinic and a school, he made a relief map of Mindanao at the public plaza which has become, Dapitan’s must see destination. Not many of us know that with the encouragement of his former Ateneo professor, Fr. Francisco de P. Sanchez, who was assigned to Dapitan, Rizal came up with a paste made of bakhaw ( bakawan) which could have been used for construction material suitable to these tropical climes.

Noting Rizal’s interest in that mangrove plant, Fr. Sanchez lent him the “Historia de Filipinas,” authored by fellow Jesuit Juan Jose Delgado, where on page 589 mentioned that local carpenters make a pasty substance with the bakhaw fruit and use this to fill in and smoothen the imperfections of wood.

Intrigued by what he had read, Rizal began to experiment with the bakhaw to see if it could become hard enough to carve and mold into particular shapes. According to Fr. Sanchez, after a few days, he received a rather triumphant note from his ex-pupil starting with “Eureka!,” claiming that he had discovered the formula for bakhaw paste.

This is how I did it, Rizal wrote, “with a knife I peeled the fruit and boiled the pulp until the water turned reddish and while it was still hot, I mashed the pulp, mixing it with a little lime water to make a water-resistant paste.” Significantly, at note, written with a pencil as he had ran out of ink, was dated 30 December 1892.

In a report to his superiors, Fr. Sanchez said Rizal made several sculptural studies using the bakhaw paste. He molded figurines, frames, tiles and observed that the bakhaw paste or masilla had three properties that made it ideal for tile roofing; it’s water resistant, fireproof and very light in weight. Their next project was about potable water.(gemma601@yahoo.com)