MANILA, Philippines – Instead of the usual oratorical and essay contests about Jose Rizal, we should observe the hero’s 150th birthday by doing what he used to do. Rizal never had an idle moment. He wrote letters, delightful travel notes, scientific articles, seditious novels, incisive political essays. He set up La Liga Filipina, opened clinics in Dapitan and Calamba, schools, painted landscapes, studied languages, put together a library of second-hand books, etc. In those 35 years he lived, Rizal showed the Filipinos how to live for the country.

Rizal spent long hours in museums and libraries in Europe studying ancient tomes that revealed what life was like in these islands before the Spaniards came. His purpose was to show that far from being savages, we had our own spiritual beliefs, social organizations, traditions, arts, music, and culture. Rizal wanted other native indios like him to feel proud of their past. At the British Museum, he found Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas, written by a manipulative Spanish politician who was sent to the Philippines for eight years, and in 1600, caused a naval disaster, the sinking of the galleon San Diego, among other debacles. Rizal copied Morga’s work and diligently annotated it to clarify lies and calumnies about Filipinos.

In that spirit, the Manila Historical and Heritage Commission, the National Museum, and the Manila-DepEd have designed a museum tour for public schools. The idea is to avoid zooming in and out of the National Museum, only to get a visual overload, but to focus on one of the exhibit galleries, for three hours, and learn about everything that is in there.

The first school to sign up for this Rizal@150 Museum Tour was the Mariano Marcos Memorial High School (MMMHS). Last 21 January, three busloads arrived precisely at 8 a.m. at Bulwagang Katipunan (now Villegas) of City Hall to view the fabulous mural of National Artist Carlos Francisco, a declared National Cultural Treasure, which I was only too happy to explain to them. I asked questions and those who gave correct answers received books, courtesy of the National Historical Commission. At 9 a.m. we headed for the National Museum. Manila’s Traffic Bureau cleared vital intersections so we got there in 10 minutes flat.

As planned, the 150 were divided into five groups, each with a guide and designated exhibit galleries. They took notes during the guide’s lecture, studied each item, and asked a lot of questions.

One of the galleries was about the San Diego, galleon wreck, Antonio de Morga’s folly; I think the students understood why Rizal felt he had to annotate the Sucesos. (gemma601@yahoo.com)