Sisa

“No painter’s brush, nor poet’s pen; injustice to her fame, has ever reached half high enough to write a mother’s name.”

            Being a mother is the most hardworking field women would enter. It is a job that requires patience and perseverance nevertheless; it is the highest salaried occupation since the payment is pure love. It is giving up even the bread which you are about to consume just for your children to be satisfied – a life-long gift and curse. Motherhood is sacrificing everything you have – jewelries, clothes, fame and fortune – merely for your offspring to be happy.

            Our national hero, whose letters and deeds are inscribed on the pages of history – Dr. Jose Rizal –, had clearly stated on one of his diaries the greatness of mothers. “Without her (mother) what would have become of my education and what would have been my fate? Oh yes! After God the mother is everything to man.” These words show Rizal’s reverence and importance given to them. Her diligent mother, Teodora Realonda Alonzo y Quintos, taught him how to read, she taught him how to stammer the humble prayers which they addressed fervently to God and imparted him morals and values which he lived in every day of his life. The boy Rizal grew up to be one of the most influential personalities in history.

            His devotion is expresses not by bloody war or swords clashing but by his wisdom and quill pen and he was able to come up with two great novels – Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Filibustering or commonly known as The Reign of Greed). These wonderful masterpieces portray the status of the Philippine Islands during the Spanish regime. It is a story about the oppression of the Spanish friars and government officials whose main role is to torture and to treat Filipinos or “Indios” as they call them, as slaves. With this, Dr. Jose P. Rizal placed notable characters on his wonder-work. One of them is a woman with great love for her family. Noli Me Tangere would not be complete without her portrayal. This role was one of the retribution of Rizal to the women of that time. He made this character a significant part of the life of Filipinos.

            She was a simple woman but with great faith to God. Words that fall from her lips were not harsh languages nor scandalous verbalism but prayers and humble thoughts. She lived in a small cottage outside the skirts of the town. The characteristic Rizal painted for her was to be a martyr - a woman who had endured many punishment, embarrassment and tribulations for her dearest family. She was someone who would offer her very own life for her precious treasures. She wanted the best for her children.  Hard beatings and not loving embraces did she received from her husband, yet she still loved him. The woman treated her wedded man as her master and her children as angels.

Rizal made use of this character to illustrate the love of mothers. An unconditional love who does not care even if her own life would be ruin, one who does not seek one self’s pleasure but for the dearest to her - the mother who would kneel before everybody and humiliate herself - moved by her emotions towards her family. These similarities given by Jose Rizal represent the Motherland herself, the Philippines.

             The Philippines is the mother of all Filipinos, the benefactor and the caring. Rizal disguised her by one of the main characters of Noli Me Tangere. The Gurdia Civil and Spanish friars’ insulting words and terrible punishment signifies without doubt, the situation of the Mother Country. She was tyrannized and humiliated as her sons were persecuted too. The country was once rich, a beauty of nature, but when the foreign invaders colonized and influenced her, she lost her complete sanity. The Spanish people kept the Filipinos – her own children – away from her. She longed for them, uncertain of the misfortunes that befall them. Her sons imply the characteristic and personification of the Filipino citizens. They maltreated them and bade them to do unbearable tasks. Life would much be easier if these greedy aliens will give what is just to the Filipinos.

            I can align my life with the good examples of this character even as a student. She represents pictorially a portrait of the idea of patriotism. She wanted to witness how her sons and daughters would someday rise up to be successful individuals. Similarly, the Mother Country herself, desires her children to rise up from the underestimation and insults of the foreign countries. As much as I do, I wish the Philippines would be listed as a nation united together and a country prosperous throughout the world. Our land would be the center of economical progress and livelihood education. We, Filipinos should commit ourselves in the apostolate of the religious to empower the underserved to claim their human dignity and their right to total human development.

            Being a hardworking pupil, I can express my deepest devotion to the loving Motherland through pastoral works that encourages and uplifts religious commitment which is the ultimate deed above all. Also, through excellence in communicative and reflective skills in the facets of life as a result of relevant and meaningful learning experiences, I can impart the knowledge I obtained to instruct the ignorant for the improvement of individuals and the academic community.

            The reign of Spanish colonization illustrates the iron fists that clasps the fetter attached to the Mother Land. They kept her as a prisoner, a mother suffering from the unjust verdict of the foreigners. Cold death will be much sweeter than to stay with those unruly outsiders.

            The country still suffers to the relative to the values of the foreign powers which had previously subjugated them through colonization and is commonly known as colonial mentality. This is one of the influences the foreign left us. Colonial mentality is the thinking that foreign talents and products are always the good, the better, and the best, and that the local ones are of poor or no quality at all. Colonial because our Spanish and American colonizers, during their four-century rule of the Philippines, instilled into the Filipino mentality the belief that foreigners and anything associated with them were the superior, and that Filipinos and anything associated with them were worthless. But it is not true that we Filipinos admire and patronize nothing but foreign talents and products only. We watch local movies and television shows. We adore our movie stars, singers, television personalities, artists, scientists, athletes, professionals, magnates, leaders, and other talented countrymen. We use Calabarzon-manufactured household appliances, read Manila-printed books, wear Marikina-made shoes, drink Batangas coffee, own Laguna carvings, and display Ilocos pottery.

            Our task in terms of the national economy in our homeland should be to think FILIPINO FIRST, as other nations rightly do think of and for themselves in their own homelands. But of course, our "Filipinism" has to be different from the selfish individualism (lacking in social concern) of the native businessmen/entrepreneurs of the past who used nationalism to advance solely their own private interests. This latter danger can be prevented by nationalistic mass education; since knowledge should not be an exclusive domain of the middle class and socioeconomic elite.

It is only with a nationalistic consciousness in his mind and heart will the Filipinos be able to fight, deal and work with utmost determination for our own betterment, those of our children and grandchildren; and consequently of our homeland.