(Editor’s Note: The following won second prize in the recently concluded Anvil-PDI Essay Writing Contest to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Dr. Jose Rizal. The author is a fourth-year student of the Mandaue City School for the Arts.)
I wish Jose Rizal was my boyfriend. Don’t be surprised or judgmental. I have thought about it long enough to consider him as my Dream Guy. Besides, who in the entire universe would not have wanted to date him? He was a rarity.
I have thought long and hard about Rizal’s attributes and qualities that made him a suitable boyfriend. His humor and sense of formality, the way he captured a lady’s heart with his wit and charisma got me thinking.
The many-sided persona of Jose Rizal made him a curious person. Not to mention his mastery of more than 20 languages and his outstanding writing.
He was very knowledgeable, a polymath who, in his spare time, loved to discover and ponder the concerns of life.
Another trait of his that I truly liked was the different way he looked at the world—with unselfishness and great fervor. He was not absorbed in his own convictions and anxieties. He found the time for his family and friends.
This might mean that his notion of time was precious and he would really find the time for me.
There are just two problems about being his girlfriend. One is that he was such a charmer that other women would run after him. And two, being an eloquent writer and all, Rizal would express his opinion through whatever medium. This might mean that he would blog if there wasn’t any other way to be heard.
If Rizal was a blogger in his time, he would be famous for the depths of meanings captured in his words. He would be a prolific blogger with a talent for changing the perspectives of people who would read his blog. His commentaries would be controversial pieces.
This would have been so annoying. Who would want a boyfriend known for being notoriously opinionated? Well, this defect led me to a further analysis of Rizal to see if he was really worthy to be my Dream Guy.
Rare gem
But, looking at his works, I realized that he was a gem that was really hard to find. He would write about the injustices and discriminations against the Filipino people. But he would not only dwell on his love for the country but also the philosophies he had learned in life.
The lessons he learned from his mother, his friends and his family strengthened his ideals. For what defines a person? It is his philosophies that shape him and form his ideals.
His love for knowledge paved the way to many other things, things that won the hearts of the Filipinos and sparked a revolution.
I imagine Rizal writing his tenth entry in his website with the blog title: “The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword.” For he believed in attaining freedom through peaceful reform rather than violence. He would have written that good always conquered evil and only the restoration of the dignity of the people was real justice.
Rizal would have expressed his progressive ideas on the rights and liberty of the people and his anger at corruption. He would ask questions that would be haunting and thought-provoking. He would ask why, instead of Filipinos ruling their motherland, a foreigner claimed to own it.
Rizal was not only centered on politics and inequality but also had his own outlook on the sciences and arts. Education for him vanquished ignorance and enlightened minds. Rizal would write in his blogs about the “Triumph of Science over Death.” About how, through scientific advancements, the ignorance of humankind was slowly fading, how science helped us conquer our fear of death. He would have told us to face life with wisdom and understanding.
But nobody escapes death, even Jose Rizal. As I review his writings, I realized it was not his brilliant ideas or his love of country that made him great. It was his willpower.
He said, “I want to show to those who deprive people the right to love of country, that when we know how to sacrifice ourselves for our duties and convictions, death does not matter if one dies for those one loves—for his country and for others dear to him.”
Maybe Rizal would not be so bad when it came to love. If you really think about it, he was really one of a kind and just about perfect. It’s sad that he is just a Dream Guy, my Dream Guy.