“Deserving Hero”

By: Yhenaldyn E. Manay

During American era, Governador Civil William Howard Taft, held a meeting and discussed who
should be the Philippines’ greatest National Hero. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda (Jose
Rizal) was chosen to represent our country. Rizal was a Filipino writer, nationalist during Spanish-colonial
period.

However, there are never ending debates and perspectives of different Filipinos about who
should be our greatest National Hero, if it should be Rizal or Andres Bonifacio, since Bonifacio was the
founder of Kataas-taasan, Kagalang-galangan na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (KKK), a Filipino
organization that aimed independence from Spain through revolution.

I believe that still, Rizal should be our greatest National Hero because he promoted freedom
through peaceful way, with pen and paper. He was the one who opened the minds of many Filipinos, by
writing and spreading his words and wisdom through his books and poems.

His books, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, provoked many Filipinos to stand up and fight
for our country. The Filipinos’ attention was caught because of these books. Bonifacio himself was
inspired because of Rizal’s novels.

When Rizal was on Madrid to study, he joined Circulo Hispano Filipino, an organization of
illustrado in Spain who aimed to reveal in public how Spaniards mistreated Filipinos in the Philippines. He
supported this association to show that even when he was not in the Philippines that time, he can still do
something for our country. Even when he was an illustrado and his family was rich, he chose to fight for
our country. He can always turn his back to the other Filipinos and live peacefully, but he chose to take
risk, he chose to die and sacrifice himself for our land.

Rizal was convicted of sedition and sentenced to death by firing squad on Dedember 30, 1896.
His public execution in Bagumbayan, now Luneta, prompted more Filipinos to oppose the Spanish rule.
Meanwhile, Andres Bonifacio was shot together with his brother by Major Lazaro Macapagal, when they
rebelled against the newly established government of Emilio Aguinaldo. The death of both heroes were
also a factor to consider the greatest National Hero.

Andres Bonifacio did a really huge part of our history and really a hero, but there is no doubt that
Rizal deserves his title as our greatest National Hero because of what he had done for our country.

http://lifeofahero.tumblr.com/post/1026580030/pagsapi-sa-circulo-hispano-filipino

https://tp3malit.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/bonifacios-death-an-execution-or-a-murder/