That Jose Rizal was bullied, at age 9, in the town school of Biñan, is well known for its result: Rizal beat the bigger, older boy and was never bullied again.
Then, as the national narrative goes, when the child matured into adulthood, he took on an even bigger bully, the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, conquering it through his life and works to gain freedom and the emergence of the Filipino nation.
Rizal’s experience over a century ago takes on contemporary relevance in the wake of the viral video on bullying taken at the Ateneo de Manila University junior high school that brought into public discourse what has been silently endured by many.
How Rizal coped with bullying is worth revisiting 122 years since he was martyred in Bagumbayan (now known as Luneta or Rizal Park).
Rizal’s experience with bullying is recorded in his “Memories of a Manila Student,” an autobiography he wrote when he was 17 and a high school student in the Jesuit-run Ateneo Municipal de Manila in Intramuros. In this handwritten memoir, now preserved in the National Library of the Philippines, Rizal looks back on the significant events of his early life saying: “The recollection of the past is truly a soothing balm which pours upon the heart a rueful sweetness, all the more dear and touching, the greater the burden upon the heart.”
Hiding behind the pen name “P. Jacinto,” Rizal also erased details in the text to further obscure his identity so worried was he that someone he knew might read his most personal thoughts. In the first line of the memoir, Rizal deleted “Calamba,” his birthplace, but retained his birthday which was June 19, 1861. Yet in the last pages of the notebook, he got so carried away by his writing that he forgot about P. Jacinto and signed his full name!
Answers & Comments
That Jose Rizal was bullied, at age 9, in the town school of Biñan, is well known for its result: Rizal beat the bigger, older boy and was never bullied again.
Then, as the national narrative goes, when the child matured into adulthood, he took on an even bigger bully, the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, conquering it through his life and works to gain freedom and the emergence of the Filipino nation.
Rizal’s experience over a century ago takes on contemporary relevance in the wake of the viral video on bullying taken at the Ateneo de Manila University junior high school that brought into public discourse what has been silently endured by many.
How Rizal coped with bullying is worth revisiting 122 years since he was martyred in Bagumbayan (now known as Luneta or Rizal Park).
Rizal’s experience with bullying is recorded in his “Memories of a Manila Student,” an autobiography he wrote when he was 17 and a high school student in the Jesuit-run Ateneo Municipal de Manila in Intramuros. In this handwritten memoir, now preserved in the National Library of the Philippines, Rizal looks back on the significant events of his early life saying: “The recollection of the past is truly a soothing balm which pours upon the heart a rueful sweetness, all the more dear and touching, the greater the burden upon the heart.”
Hiding behind the pen name “P. Jacinto,” Rizal also erased details in the text to further obscure his identity so worried was he that someone he knew might read his most personal thoughts. In the first line of the memoir, Rizal deleted “Calamba,” his birthplace, but retained his birthday which was June 19, 1861. Yet in the last pages of the notebook, he got so carried away by his writing that he forgot about P. Jacinto and signed his full name!
hope it helped.