I am an alumnus of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (UPCA, now UP Los Baños). Today, I want to celebrate the martyrdom of our National Hero by talking about Ateneo’s favorite son who was, surprised? Farmer Jose Rizal!
(above image from Rizal Shrine in Talisay[1], from Phtourguide.com)
I am reading the article “Rizal As A Farmer In Dapitan[2]”
on the JoseRizal.Ph website, with
this 1st paragraph:
To prove to his people
that farming is (as) good a profession as medicine, Rizal became a farmer in
Dapitan. In a letter to his sister, Lucia, on 12 Feb 1896, he said: "We
cannot all be doctors; it is necessary that there would be some to cultivate
the soil."
"We
cannot all be doctors; it is necessary that there would be some to cultivate
the soil."
This is surprising as Rizal is up to now Ateneo’s favorite
son. Yet Ateneo forgot Agriculture, one of the courses it was already offering
in Rizal’s time. Does that mean that the Spanish Ateneo administrators did not give much value to this course in their
own academe? And no, there is no Agriculture in today’s Ateneo offerings:
All
that suggests that the Ateneo Fathers looked down on the cultivators of the
fields as second class citizens, even if they were the ones who grew the food
that went into their hungry mouths. The Ateneo Fathers did not recognize the radical
in Rizal’s mind: “We cannot all be doctors; it is necessary that there would be
some to cultivate the soil.”
If you look at the above image again, it is a reminder that
this Filipino valued farming even as he valued his doctoring. I remember that
his brother Paciano was the one
who managed their landholdings in Laguna growing sugarcane, whose stalks
produced sweetness and the pesos that were the source of Jose’s education in
the Philippines as well as in Spain.
So,
how good was Jose Rizal as a farmer in Dapitan? He was very good; he knew his
science very well.
JoseRizal.Ph says:
On this land in Talisay…
with the help of his pupils and some laborers, (Rizal) cleared it and planted
cacao, coffee, coconuts, and fruit trees.... In due time, his total land
holdings reached 70 hectares. They contained 6,000 abaca plants, 1,000 coconut
palms, many coffee and cacao plants and numerous kinds of fruit trees.
Science calls that terrific combination “multiple cropping,”
mixed plantings of abaca, cacao, coconut, coffee, and fruit trees. (My source
does not mention rice.)
(Rizal) encouraged the
Dapitan farmers to replace their primitive system of cultivation with these
modern methods… the use of fertilizers, the rotation of crops, and the use of
farm machines. Rizal actually imported some farm machines from the United
States.
And
you know what? As the superimposed image states, “Sen Kiko Pangilinan Remembers Rizal As A Farmer[3]” –
now then, as an Agriculturist, there is none other whom I will vote for as Vice
President in 2022!@517
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