Pedagogical Issues in Teaching the El Filibusterismo

 What was the context in which Rizal

wrote El filibusterismo?
 What literary strategies did Rizal use in
writing this novel?

 What is distinctive about El

filibusterismo compared with Noli me
tangere?
 How did this novel contribute to
national consciousness and the
revolution?
 What was the context in which Rizal wrote El filibusterismo?

 El Fili is more than a sequel of the Noli, in fact, it is not

even a continuation of the first.
 the context relates to Rizal’s break with del Pilar
 By the end of 1889, Del Pilar’s political rganization had three elements:
1) Masonry – with the support of leading Spanish Masons;
2) Asociación Hispano Filipina – a respectable lobby organization for reform
3) La Solidaridad – organ of propaganda

 Anderson (2008) believes that it was never an attack to Spanish colonial

regime. The novel is an attack or is a satire on Del Pilar’s assimilation
tactics which was shown in the plot – the students’ campaign for a Spanish
language academy.
 It was never an attack to Spanish colonial regime.
 Absence of direct reference to political institution, classes and ideologies

 Rizal is more of a “moralist” rather than a “political thinker/analyst”

Example: The character of Simoun shows “revenge” but this is largely personal
with little substantive political content.

 The novel is an attack or is a satire on Del Pilar’s assimilationist view

 By 1887, Rizal was already convinced that Spain would not listen to the
Ilustrados’ reasonable demands; hence he opted for the independence of
the Philippines and thus political activity should be pursued in the Philippines
rather than in Spain.
 Anderson (2008) believes that the Fili is aimed at Rizal’s fellow-countrymen,
its imagining of the Philippines is heavily refracted through the author’s often
painful experiences in Europe.
 What literary strategies did Rizal use in writing this novel?

 transcontinentalism

 the Fili’s setting was the Philippines but the events were really those in
Europe that are only projected to the Philippines.
 Anderson (2008) reads that the word creole begins to be identified with
Spaniards rather than with filipinos.

 español as a racial-national category

 español del Parian (EP) – also called chabacano

 Anderson (2008) also reflects that the relationship between nationalism

and languages played an important aspect in the Fili.

 “Idioma” (the common language, lingua franca) – In the Fili, this idioma was
never referred to Tagalog
 Anderson (2008) argues that Rizal wrote the Fili for his compatriots
than the Noli as seen in the Narrator’s frequent use of the word indio,
suggestive of the beginnings of a nationalist meaning inside the colony,
while the word filipino has more varied connotations and is suggestive
of semantic turmoil.
 “filipino” in the Fili sometimes referred to indio, sometimes to Creole but often
in a quasi-geographical sense, especially by the Narrator