Volume 4, Issue No. 41
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
Our latest as of Monday, January 23, 2023
~ A top Historical Commission official in Manila admits to purposely keeping out essential information from a historical marker attached to a bust of national hero Jose Rizal in Toronto's Earl Bales Park. The metal tablet had earlier been rejected in the City of Markham for lacking important particulars to fully understand the hero's martyrdom in the hands of Spanish colonizers.
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NATIONAL HISTORICAL COMMISSION SAYS:
Omission in Rizal Marker 'Deliberate'
'Adulatory Narrative' Weighs More
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“Honest history is the weapon of freedom." - Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
TORONTO - Some important details about the life of Jose Rizal, the acknowledged national hero of the Philippines, were purposely left out in the historical marker recently installed at his bust in this city's Earl Bales Park in North York district.
The explanation came from a top official of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) in Manila amidst a brewing controversy over the marker that had been originally intended for the life-size monument in the neighboring City of Markham.
"A few biographical details were deliberately omitted in the text in favor of a more adulatory narrative," said Carmi Arevalo, the officer in charge of NHCP's Office of the Executive Director. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkiSTz-tpCU).
She was in Toronto with another official, Eleonor B. Samonte, project development officer, for the unveiling of the marker seven months ago on June 22, a published press release from the Philippine Consulate here said.
"Such is the case for historical markers for Rizal installed in the North American continent, in which he only passed through in a transcontinental train journey in April-May 1888 en route to London," she explained.
In contrast, Toronto's Park and Recreation, however, said in a letter to the North York Community Council on March 23, 1998, that "Dr. Rizal is said to have been the first Filipino to set foot on Canadian soil, on May 12, 1888".
The omission of some meaningful items, which local history aficionados claim leads to ambiguity, did not sit well with the Filipino Canadian community in Markham where artist and journalist Ignacio "Mogi" Mogado had sculpted Rizal's bronze statue that now stands in that city's Luneta Garden. (Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2019/07/).
"The text of the marker installed is based on a pro forma text for a specific subset of historical markers installed in honor of Jose Rizal in foreign countries, specifically in places where he never set foot on and where the installation of such was only due to a monument being erected in his honor there by the local Filipino community," Ms. Arevalo clarified in an email to this reporter last week. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh3M0bPelv8).
After the marker - described as "slipshod, grotesque, and inappropriate" - was rejected in Markham, it soon found its way to Earl Bales Park, the site of Rizal's bust erected there in 1998 to celebrate the centennial of Philippine independence from Spain, the country's colonizer for more than three centuries.
The choice of Earl Bales Park for the bust was dictated by these considerations: it's a favorite site of the Filipino community, and it is centrally located and easily accessed. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gquI4L1gmMQ).
Spain's part and responsibility in the execution by musketry of Rizal in what is now Luneta Park in the heart of Manila was evidently lost in the NCHP's historical marker.
(Full story at: https://filwebchannelmagazine.blogspot.com/2023/01/distortions-in-rizal-marker-prompts-non.html).
"The text was composed to be as concise as possible while still capturing the significance, magnitude and extent of Rizal's role and contributions in the making of the Filipino nation, for the benefit of non-Filipinos who may otherwise be unfamiliar with his life and works," according to Ms. Arevalo.
Ms. Arevalo also took exception to certain allegations in an earlier reporting. "The National Historical Commission of the Philippines does not and will never engage in what you claim to be 'Historical Distortion'," she stressed.
"The omission of a few minute details - information which can easily be verified in textbooks and other grey literature - in a historical marker is not the same as making false claims or deliberately distorting or invalidating established historical facts to push a malicious agenda," she stated.
"The NHCP will never tolerate, much less propagate, fake news, as doing so is antithetical to our mandate as the government agency tasked to safeguard our country's history," Ms. Arevalo concluded.
According to knowledgeable sources, the unveiling of the marker at Earl Bales Park was just a pretext for what they claimed was a "junket" by the two NHCP officials in their travel to Canada.
The event in June 2022 was officiated by Consul General Orontes Castro and some representatives of the local Knights of Rizal.
"Remember this Knights of Rizal is all titles and ranks and uniforms and empty talks and photo ops," the sources claimed. (Related video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wawXMwwUVOU). (Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved).
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