Flesh and spirit November 30, 2006

ONE part of me is elated. I’m glad Gaspar Vibal has managed to track down and bring back first-edition copies of “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo.” They’re now on display inside a glass panel in Hyatt Hotel. The copies are very rare and were retrieved only after 25 years of dogged pursuit. My thanks go to Vibal.

But another part of me is dismayed. It’s all very well to have something as valuable as these back home. Especially since the value of the novels is largely intrinsic or sentimental, unlike GSIS president Winston Garcia’s fetish, the Juan Luna paintings, whose value is extrinsic -- or indeed fabulous. Vibal brought home the Jose Rizal novels only as a result of dogged pursuit, Garcia did so the Juan Luna paintings as a result of wanton spending of government employees’ retirement money. The value of Rizal’s novels to this country is incalculable, the value of Luna’s paintings to Garcia and company is very calculable.

But that is not the source of my dismay. It’s simply that I don’t know that the repatriation of the first edition of the novels does not produce an ironic commentary on our life and times. I don’t know that our having those novels in those glass panels does not speak volumes about the same foibles of the "indios" Rizal loved to write about. Chief of them our monumental capacity to substitute form for substance, ritual for practice, façade for integrity. A foible he reposed among others in the character, or caricature, of Doña Victorina in “Noli Me Tangere.”

I mean: What’s the use of having with us Rizal’s novels, even in their rarest form which is their first editions, when their spirit does not animate us, or when our capacity to see them as limpid pools that reflect our times is rarer than an honest person in Malacañang? What’s the use of having with us Rizal’s novels, when we do not recognize in them our very own condition and strive to transcend it while avoiding the pitfalls of the ways of false prophets? Indeed, what’s the use of having with us Rizal’s novels, when you have the very person who is responsible for today’s tyranny (which resembles almost facet for facet, viciousness for viciousness, the Spanish colonial rule) and whose only common feature with Rizal is height, preening before the cameras in front of them in a photo op?

All artifacts, remnants, relics, vestiges of the past are important. They are physical reminders of what came before, they are links to our origins, they are the magical threads that point us out of the Minotaur’s cave. But they are only as good as their significance is grasped. They are only as good as their meaning is lived. The American Declaration of Independence is a magnificent document, but its magnificence does not lie only in the yellowed paper that contains its words, it lies in the hearts and minds that breathe life into those words. The American Declaration of Independence means nothing if its principles do not take on living, breathing and vibrant expression among the people who honor it.

I don’t know that most of us have even read Rizal’s novels. I suspect that if you gave Jose de Venecia’s minions in the House a quiz on them, most of them will flunk miserably. Not least the ones who liked quoting the majesty of the law to perpetrate the murder of the impeachment bid. Well, they will probably excuse their ignorance as a refusal to bow down to “Manila imperialism.”

But far more than that, what were the “Noli” and “Fili” all about? They were, as the novels themselves say again and again, about a social cancer. They were about the corruption not just of the body but of the soul. They were about a tyranny, not just the one wrought by tyrants upon a hapless people but the one wrought by a hapless people upon themselves. They were about the perversion of values, where the rulers led the ruled to the path of ruin, where the spiritual leaders led the flock to the path of evil, where everywhere cruelty and pettiness and mediocrity triumphed. They were about an order that was a political “Alice in Wonderland,” one that turned the world on its head, where right became wrong and wrong became right, where good became evil and evil became good.

Isn’t that world familiar? Isn’t that the mirror image of what we have today? Isn’t that a humongous parody of an answer to Rizal’s famous essay, “What Will the Philippines Be A Century Hence”?

The part in particular about evil becoming good and good becoming evil, right becoming wrong and wrong becoming right, is something we can’t possibly miss. I’ve been in a number of youth forums lately, to prepare first-time voters to vote, and the question of values has always cropped up, most kids saying we no longer have any sense of right and wrong. I keep saying it’s worse than that. It’s not just that we no longer have a sense of right and wrong, it’s that we’ve made right wrong and wrong right, we’ve made good evil and evil good. Just look at the Marines who are in detention today, a couple of them recipients of the Medal of Valor, the highest award given to a soldier for showing bravery over and beyond the call of duty, and look at the generals who helped Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo steal the elections sitting in judgment over them. The only consolation I can offer Ariel Querubin and company is that the Medal of Valor on their chests is nothing compared to the Medal of Honor they are being bestowed by a grateful people, if only in their hearts and minds, for fighting an even bigger battle and showing courage over and beyond the call of heroism.

Vibal spent 25 years of his life to bring back the original “Noli” and “Fili” to these shores. I can only hope we do not spend the same time to bring back the original spark of love of freedom those novels meant to ignite.

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