A Tale of Two Firebrands

by Sir Jose S. Luzadas, KGOR (Scarborough Chapter)

“In spite he was educated by Spain , Filipinas, is the country he calls his motherland” - Retana                                               

“When the Colonials started behaving and calling themselves Americans, Thomas Paine puts legitimacy to their claim by naming the newborn Republic: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , a name adopted by the Continenetal Congress and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence” - Luzadas              

It was a laudable gesture by the association of journalists and newspersons in the Philippines to posthumously award Dr. Jose Rizal, as their “MEMBER” for his contribution to articles he wrote in the La Solidaridad, the mouthpiece of the propaganda movement in Spain a century ago. The event happened in 1996 in time for the national hero’s centenary year of his martyrdom.

Jon Katz of WIRED.com , US based website in 1995 posted an article on Thomas Paine, claiming that the English firebrand was the first journalist to use the media against the entrenched power structure.  Katz passionately argued that Paine should be resurrected and proclaimed” the moral father of the INTERNET”. To win his argument, the author noted that making the internet accessible to every one, it enable users to play active role to advance human rights, spread democracy, ease suffering and even pester government.

Pestering the government and the Church using the media and the power of the pen is the hallmark of rabble-rousers such as Jose Rizal and Thomas Paine. They were born a generation apart.  He was an Asian intellectual and a “soft-spoken” nationalist who at the insistence of his brother Paciano and presumably his brother’s mentor, Father Jose Burgos, when young Jose Rizal surreptitiously left the Philippines to study in Europe . It was a calculated risk if not an excellent alibi for a family under the watchful eye of the Spanish authorities.

Paine on the other hand, is a learned radical English pamphleteer who was invited by Benjamin Franklin to come to America . His timely arrival helped galvanized the courage and determination of the thirteen original states opting for political and economic independence from their mother country. Paine’s rhetoric and writings on American Crisis became contagious to the colonials. When he raised a question, whether an island (referring to England ) has the right to rule over a continent? Hs obvious reply is plain common sense.

Marcelo H. Del Pilar, editor of La Solidaridad asked Rizal to write an article praising the young women of Malolos for their courage in petitioning the Governor General to open school where they can learn Spanish language. Rizal accepted the request. He cautioned his women audience to exercise norms of behavior worthy of a Filipina and at all times behave with open mind free from any coercion or influence of the friars. Writing in Tagalog and at one point, he challenged his audience in general to think intelligently whether a carabao dressed in friar’s clothing can act as God’s representative to receive confession.  And neither is man, Rizal argued.

Educated both in the Philippines and Spain , Rizal’s life long dream is to free his country from a continued subjection by Spain . Rizal’s chronicle of chronic and pitiful events about his country was written in the form of a novel. He exposed with outrage the moral degradation brought about by an outdated brand of colonialism. The NOLI and FILI scathingly exposed the Spanish authorities as cruel, corrupt, incompetent and abusive colonial administrators. He poked fun on the behavior of the friars as he exposed a litany of sins of the Catholic Church. The two books did not spare his countrymen from his criticisms, either. He unmasked their psyche for self-examination in order to awaken their consciousness, warped by four hundred long years of ignorance and servitude. He made them aware of what it feels to be a Filipino and the hypocrisy of a borrowed culture. The impact of his writings, however, took a heavy toll. He paid his life.

Any country experiencing tyranny and oppression that obliterate freedom and political rights, Thomas Paine would prefer to be mercenary and citizen to that country where he can find opportunity to apply his skills and talents of fomenting dissension to incite a revolution. As ‘the man on the go’, Paine, the Englishman turned American did not hesitate to enlist his services to Marat, Danton and Robiespierre when the French Revolution broke out in 1792. That was twenty years after he helped and collaborated with the Founding Fathers of the American Republic .

Paine’s career is an enigma. It was tragic and at most times ironic to note why he was not accorded the same treatment of respect and recognition as Washington, Jefferson, John and Samuel Adams or Franklin. The present generation of  Americans are less fascinated with the role he played. Instead they showered their lavished expression of praise and adulation to Marquis de LaFayette. This is evidenced by countless number of villages, towns, cities, institutions, monuments, landmarks and parks named after the French nobleman. 

Among the foreigners who came to the United States in her War of Independence, notably Kociusko, Polaski, and LaFayette, only Thomas Paine has the distinction of being the “godfather” in one unique distinguished role. When the Colonials started behaving and calling themselves Americans, Thomas Paine puts the legitimacy of their claim by naming the newborn Republic:THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, a name unanimously adopted by the Continental Congress and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.

Rizal’s patriotism is a textbook story of unquestionable commitment of love, loyalty and service to the motherland. To shed blood or sacrifice life for a noble patriotic cause is not an option but a commitment for every Filipino. He was in Europe when informed that one of his closed associates in the propaganda movement died.  Rizal did not only mourn his death but lamented that this brave Filipino patriot died in a wrong place and a wrong time. He should have been in the Philippines fighting and dying face to face with the enemy. Filipinas, his beloved motherland would be highly honored to die in her bosom. Leaving Madrid to return to the Philippines in 1892, Rizal bade farewell to his compatriots. He was remembered telling them that in waging struggle for reforms and independence one had to bring the medicine at the bedside of the patient.

It was during the French Revolution when The Rights of Man was drafted and approved by the French Parliament guaranteeing the political rights and civil liberties of the citizens.  The main architect of this historic document was Thomas Paine while serving as deputy in the French Parliament.

It’s unbelievable but true that he almost lost his head at the guillotine after falling out with Robiespierre for being critical of his role in the Reign of Terror. In the ensuing frenzy, innocent people were butchered mercilessly with one faction mistaking justice for vengeance. In desperation, Madam Roland said ”O Liberty, how many crimes have been committed in thy name?”  Paine’s anti-clerical views and strained relations with Robespierre landed him in the French jail. After his released, thanks to the intervention of Monroe then American ambassador to France , Paine wrote the Age of Reason before returning to America . At the same time, he was a wanted man in England for his anti-monarchical views.

Had the Philippine Revolution of 1896 occurred eighty years earlier while Thomas Paine was still in better shape, this Englishman-turned-Colonial-turned-American-turned-French would probably surface in the Philippines collaborating with Apolinario Mabini in Emilio Aguinaldo’s inner circle. Rizal would possibly be a ready acquaintance and probably our national hero’s fate might have ended in a different scenario and finale’.

 Rizal’s translation of Paine’s Rights of Man in Tagalog was a valuable and inspiring contribution to Andres Bonifacio and his Katipuneros, reminiscent of George Washington’s foot soldiers who after reading Paine’s Crisis number One during the shivering winter campaign at Valley Forge were transformed into highly inspired and motivated men of war to fight the British regulars.

The shifting fortunes in the lives of Dr. Jose Rizal and Thomas Paine are beyond their control. Rizal was formally charged by the Spanish authorities for committing sedition and armed rebellion with much of the evidence presented coming from the extracted confessions of Filipinos who were alleged to have work with or have close ties to Rizal. Insisting his innocence and denying any participation nominal or active, Rizal, nevertheless, faced a MILITARY not a civil court indicating that Rizal was a military personnel during an insurrection. Only a military court has jurisdiction to try his case. Tried and convicted, he was condemned to die in a firing squad.

Do we blame the actions of the men or institutions of the past with the values of today? Rizal’s heroic stand before the firing squad was avenged by an inglorious nastiness if not vindictiveness of the Catholic Church. It was the prerogative of the Catholic Church to determine whether or not Rizal was Christian albeit a Catholic on the day he died and the manner of his death.

The rationale of the Church, claiming that Rizal did not deserve a Christian burial was the reason for exhuming his remains hours after his burial. An added humiliation was the name

 The name “Jose Rizal” was crossed out in the registry among the list of those who died on December 30, 1896 . This incident was too much an agony prolonging the indignation long endured by his wife, Josephine Bracken and the Rizal family. His body originally buried in Paco Catholic cemetery was exhumed and transferred to another burial place for non-Christians.

The mystery or controversy surrounding his internment and burial contradicted the stand held by the Church that Rizal died a Catholic as he retracted in a confession purportedly extracted by the Jesuit priests early in the morning of his execution. In fact, to the curiosity of many students of history, the authenticity of Rizal’s Letter of Retraction is not well settled to every ones’ satisfaction.  If ever there is a valid reason to suspect the Philippine Catholic Church involved in a foul play, this anomaly tainted by the loss of credibility is because of a celebrated scandal involving the Papacy centuries ago when the Church of Rome is accused of religious and intellectual dishonesty. Lorenzo Valla, an Italian scholar in the Middle Ages was responsible for exposing the supposed Letter of Donation, as fake and spurious. It was claimed by the Church of Rome that Constantine, theGreat, the Roman emperor donated a vast lands known as the Papal Estates which included the present-day Vatican to the Pope. It caused a tremendous embarrassment and credibility gap ever experienced by the Church during the middle ages.

When Spain ceased to govern the Philippines , and the country became free, the grateful nation puts Rizal’s remains in the historic hallowed ground that once bore the name Bagumbayan, then Luneta and now Rizal Park , as his final resting place. Appropriately, a 1950 portrait of the hero bears the following dedication:

Your Nation’s heart

Your Grave will be,

Your Monument

A Nation free!

In the case of Thomas Paine, during his incarceration in a French jail neither Washington , Jefferson came to his rescue. After his release, he stayed another year in France to finish his book, The Age of Reason. Paine, finally settled in New York hoping to spend the rest of his life in peace.

But the irony of fate hunted him. His Deist and anti-clerical views antagonized strong religious groups, who later campaigned and lobbied to disenfranchise him of his political rights. He was banned from voting, the worst humiliation received by a man who wrote The Common Sense and rallied the colonists during the time of their CRISIS.

He died disillusioned. A broken-hearted man, Paine did not even experience the joy of resting his soul in peace. Then one day, a fellow British radical and admirer named Cobbett came to America to exhume his body in order to give him a decent burial in the land of his birth. But tragedy continues to haunt him. In life, Paine is an uncompromising man in a hurry, reckless and restless traveler. Even in death, restlessness continues to dominate his fate. His bones were scattered around the globe. His skull is said to have wound up in Australia .

 Exhuming Paine’s remains is one thing and reburying them is another. Conflicting views and controversial accounts abound surrounding his remains. One thing sure is that commercialism in the sale of his bones played a major role in the disappearance of his body.

A society dedicated to collecting the missing bones of Paine was organized in New Jersey . Impossible but true that this could happen in America where the founding fathers and the heroes of the revolution were revered ICONS? What was once a promising infatuation and romance with the the Colonial Americans  whom he gave strength, hope and assurance of what independence can bring, ended surprisingly in a sad as you read the poignant lyrics of a nursery rhyme dedicated to  Thomas Paine

Poor Tom Paine! There he lies; Nobody laughs and nobody cries. Where he has gone and how he fares Nobody knows and nobody cares.

Copyright 2007 Knights of Rizal Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

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