Jose Rizal a Heretic not a Catholic

We Filipinos are not winning in the struggle to achieve for ourselves a sane and a healthy society. We only believe what Ninoy Aquino believed that: “the Filipino is worth dying for.” And to think Ninoy died because the Filipino killed him. Unless we reform with the radical reform of humanitarian ideals, we will just carry on dying destructively as a people rather than living creatively as a nation. The Philippines is on the way towards extinction. No, we have not found the power that would destroy us. On the contrary, we have not found the truth that should save us. In 1896 Jose Rizal was put to death. He was executed because he was a heretic. He loved the power of reason. He was always at work to challenge deviltry as he was never comfortable with the promises of theology. He believed that the discovery of truth entails free inquiry and free expression. He wrote the Noli and Fili – two great books about our faith in sacred lies and other ecclesiastical deceptions. The same faith, in fact, that’s keeping the Filipino poor as a people and the Philippines backward as a nation. And to think that those in authority responsible for Rizal’s death are still the very same authority today that continue to dominate the minds and hearts of our children in schools, colleges, and universities. In the meantime, in this 21st century, we Filipinos are still bereft of national identity. We are still victimized to love not our country, but love only divinity. Rizal did not care to believe in the next world to come after death. A rarity as a thinking Filipino that he was, he believed, instead, in a better life for the Filipino living in a better country that needs always to be made better. Especially with the power of knowledge that frightens not, but joyfully enlightens the minds of men, and cheerfully strengthens the hearts of women. Rizal’s enemy was not the Filipino. He was executed by mindless and heartless believers - the real enemy that’s keeping the Philippines still pretty much defeated in the race as a nation to achieve peace and unity, security, social and political and environmental sanity, and indeed, economic prosperity. Rizal cared much for life not after death, but for life after birth. He cared much for the good life - one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Indeed, Rizal believed in the pursuit of endless education rather than the final preparation for eternal salvation. After all, in the ultimate analysis, eternal salvation is the condition of dead Filipinos who refuses to believe that they are already dead. Poch Suzara