What Does Pepe Say to His Sisters?

By Richard R. Mickley, Ph.D., a 21st century Rizal admirer


We are all preparing to observe and celebrate Rizal’s 150th birth anniversary.

I have viewed favorably the advance stories published in the Inquirer.

Because my ministry for the last 20 years (since Rizal’s 130th birth anniversary in 1991) is an affirming ministry to gays and lesbians and all LGBT people, I began thinking again about that overworked and meaningless question, “Was Rizal Gay?”

That question is really irrelevant. I have written about it; Neil Garcia has written about it, others have. The most important thing is that Jose P. Rizal embodied so many sterling qualities of intellect, character, and talent that would make a perfect LGBT person, or, in his case, a perfect gay man.

Rather than revisit that question, I began to ask myself a new one, “What does Jose P. Rizal say to LGBT people today 150 years after his birth?

Every Sunday we hear in the sermon, “the Bible tells us… [today in the 21st century]…” The Bible written 2000 years ago — still speaking to us today.

So I began to ponder, “What does Rizal say to us today?” Then I looked at all the volumes of Rizal correspondence and other writings on my book shelves. It’s longer than 10 Bibles. So I got the idea for writing ten books, but not today. Today I will just take a look at what brother Pepe has to say to his sisters.

Actually I am an addict when I pick up Rizal’s writings, especially his correspondence. I want to look up something, but my addiction takes over and keeps me reading and reading and reading and pondering and pondering. He has so much to say.

I am glad they have “Rizal Excellence” programs in the schools. There should be more of them. His excellence is inexhaustible and more of his excellence would make his “patria” more excellent. The most recent seems to have been when 400 students gathered at Teacher’s Camp in Baguio in May for the 49th National Leadership Institute Conference aimed at making the youth become pro-active agents of change through Rizal’s example.

What does Rizal say to LGBT people today?

It seems to me the most obvious message is his most pronounced stance against the abuses of the Friars and the Spanish government of the time. What were the abuses of the Friars? In general we could today group them under the heading of sex-negative theology in preaching and disregard in the lives of those who were like Fr. Damaso. And, of course, my theme sex-positive theology.

He was against oppression, injustice and, yes, hypocrisy. To make a long story short, if our national hero was vehemently against injustice, would he not also be against injustice to LGBT people. As we shall see in a letter below he had no tolerance for that very thing. “I have glimpsed a little light, and I believe it is my duty to teach it to the people of my country,” he writes in an oft-quoted passage. Surely he would include us in the people of his country.

Quotations

The first book I picked up today from my “Rizal Shelves” was Quotations from Rizal’s Writings, from the National Historical Institute (1992) (and the Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1961).

What is more appropriate than the advice he gives to his sister Soledad (and his other sisters), “You are no longer a child… nor are you uneducated. I speak o you as my sisters and I repeat to you… You have many nieces; give them good example and be worthy of yourselves.”

As soon as I saw that word “worthy,” I thought of what the homosexual Roman centurion said to Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come [to my house].” The (Catholic) church makes those words speak to us by putting them in every Mass.

When Pepe says to Soledad and his other sisters, “Give good example and be worthy of yourselves,” he says to us, “Don’t let society devalue you; don’t devalue yourselves. You are adults now. Take responsibility for your lives and your behavior. Give good example, but don’t be a slave and victim to everything Fr. Damaso says. You are no longer a child. Think. Decide. Give good example.”

I am sure each of us could think long and hard about how that applies to our life. One person said to me that he was glad I was teaching sex-positive theology, so now he can do “whatever he wants.” My advice and Rizal’s advice: “You are an adult. Think. Behave appropriately. Give good example.”

To Soledad, he also writes, “If you have a sweetheart, behave towards him nobly and with dignity… rather than resort to secret meetings… Value more, esteem more, your honor, and you will be more esteemed and valued.”

What Pepe was saying to that sister with so much personal caring and love, he says to us as a rule of life. He did not shake his finger at her about having sex. What he says to us is “Don’t use people. Don’t be used. The key to honorable behavior is respecting the other person.”

In another letter to Trinidad, he seemed to admire women who are “somewhat masculine.” I present it here and let it speak for itself. “If our sister Maria had been educated in Germany, she would have been notable, because German women are active and somewhat masculine. They are not afraid of men. They are more concerned with the substance than with appearances…”

Quiet, not very lively, fine and affectionate

In our country, many a gay boy is subjected to and victimized by ridicule, bullying, harsh treatment and all too often physical abuse because of having “refined qualities.” Pepe seemed not to look down upon these qualities in his sister’s son, Alfredo Hidalgo. “Alfredo’s letter,” he wrote, “brought me great joy… He seems to be a lad of clear intelligence, quiet, not very lively, fine and, with time, he will be reserved and will know how to keep secrets, his own and other people’s… He will be pensive, a thinker, polite and considerate… He is besides affectionate.”

Never-wavering faith

In closing, as a priest-admirer of Rizal, I want to comment on his faith and spirituality. I teach that a well-rounded person must have a well-rounded, balanced life with health in one’s intellectual, physical, spiritual, and emotional components. The more one reads Rizal’s correspondence, the more it is abundantly obvious that his was a wholistically constituted life with all components in balance and harmony. But most of all I am stricken by his strong faith and spiritual basis, shown in letter after letter. In one, he gives, probably unknowingly, a perfect definition for “spirituality” — a person needs to believe and to love, needs a goal towards which to steer one’s actions, to formulate for oneself a purpose, to see something more beyond matter and noise; in short, one needs an objective worthy of one’s being and facilities.”

I see now it is an impossible venture to capture even the faintest glimpse of the greatness of Rizal in one essay. I opened one book, made a few quotes, and there is still the whole book before me, and volume after volume of Rizal’s wisdom on the shelves.

Light reading

I will just add one little light-reading moment. There is no evidence, that I can find, of any love-letters of Rizal to other boys when he was a boy or to men anytime in his life. But I found a cute love poem to him from one of his classmates at the Ateneo, who seemingly had a crush on Jose when Jose was about 16. A few lines of it are:

“Dedicated to Rizal by his classmate Ricado Aguado: to my dearest Friend, Jose Rizal, on his saint’s day, 19 March, 1877.”

“Your pleasing image alone,
in my soft heart always engraved,
now removes from me the fraud
the star from sailor forlorn
as in an agitated sea.

For you’re, sweet friend of mine,
the only joy of my soul,
and always to be with you
is my incessant desire
in this sad, unfortunate land.

But since luck denies
me such happiness this day
my Muse with tenderness
its affection doth send to you
at this pleasant hour of joy.


When Ricardo gave this love poem to Jose, he added a little personal note in prose, “Don’t show these verses to anybody…” Of course, they already had closets in 1877. [Note: I read these lines from the projective reading of a gay man of the 21st century. I will let you know if some learned straight professor informs me that this poem was indeed an allegorical writing and had nothing to do with gay love.]

Anyway, Rizal saved it, and that itself says a lot about his understanding, to say the least, and it has come down to us in the National Historical Institute’s Miscellaneous Correspondence of Dr. Jose Rizal.

Let’s say this all comes from one page of thousands of pages of Rizal wisdom, in word and action. Can you imagine what is in store in reading all the correspondence and works by Jose P. Rizal? May I recommend that you take a look for yourself as one way of celebrating his memory on his 150th birth anniversary?

Happy 150th birthday, Pepe, Big Brother, (no matter how short you were), our Kuya forever! Many of us who are not poets have a great love for you, too.