Valle: The clever young Women of Malolos’ struggle for education

Saturday, February 4, 2012

THERE is one aspect in mentoring that makes it very interesting and fulfilling. It is the fact that one need to retrace one’s path in education, which, as I have realized, I really did not give much attention when I was younger I guess, because as I journey again with my students into the life and work of our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, I began to see him differently. It could also be because I have become more knowledgeable?

Back in our days in college, when peers whom we call “comrades” in our “activism” insisted that it should have been Andres Bonifacio, who should have been declared a hero because we argued that he was actually the one who “fought” the Spanish forces, the enemies of the Filipino people and led the revolution that eventually maimed the military forces of Spain in the country. But this is another story.

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As I rediscover the life and works of Dr. Jose Rizal, I realized that indeed, he really deserved to be an icon of nationalism and patriotism after all. And though he was also tagged by a biographer among those who wrote about his exemplary life, as a “womanizer” because of his various involvement with different kinds and races of women all throughout his 35 years of existence, it was a fact that his greatness was also greatly influenced by the women in his life like his mother, Dona Teodora Alonso whom Jose Rizal so revered and loved the most and had a enormous impact on his being.

For all his physical flaws, Jose Rizal attracted the opposite sex in his time more because of his great mind, his intelligence having been exceedingly more pronounced than the outward attributes of his person, and his creativity. Reading through the different romantic involvement of “Ute” as he was fondly called by his family at a young age, I came to a conclusion that women even during those times were inclined to prefer the knowledgeable among the opposite sex than those abundant with material possessions and good looks.

The other thing that Jose Rizal possessed and endeared himself to many women in his time include his spontaneity in expressing his true feelings, although this trait also earned him the ire of the Spanish empire whose stranglehold on the country was threatened by the rebellious character of his writings that were written in Spanish and sometimes in Tagalog. The Spanish conquestadores had come to believe that the critical writings of Jose Rizal had also helped fuel the growing unrest among Filipinos.

This was apparent in one of his encouraging letters to the women of Malolos, wherein he unflinchingly lashed at the Spanish Catholicism, the same religion that he had grown to revere during his younger days, as his well-to-do- family was considered one of the bastions of Roman Catholicism.

There is a dearth about information of the women of Malolos at that time in 1888, but when they protested it was only because they wanted to learn the Spanish language, and so they petitioned higher authorities for a school that would cater to the need of Filipina for education. But with patriarchy at its height, their requests were turned down.

Thus, when one of Rizal?s friend, Marcelo H. Del Pilar heard about this development, he asked Jose Rizal who was then in London to write to the women of Malolos, perhaps to encourage them on with their struggle. The rest was history.

It is making us wonder now what could have urged the women to desire learning a colonial language at that time, when it could hardly work to their advantage. But then, language is the window to our soul, and the women in Malolos were too clever to realize that, perhaps. It could be that they thought they can only understand what was happening all around them if they know exactly what the se¤ores are up to at that time...