Looking Back 5

Rizal's Teeth, Bonifacio's Bones

Ambeth R. Ocampo

• Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789712736797
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: History

In this book, besides offering the usual juicy titbits, he looks back not just at our history but also on his life as an historian, this book being written for his 50th birthday. His introduction alone is already worth the price of admission.

AMBETH R. OCAMPO is a public historian and independent curator whose research covers the late 19th century Philippines: its art, culture, and the people who figure in the birth of the nation.

At present he is Full Professor and former Chairman, Department of History, Ateneo de Manila University. He has held previous appointments at: University of the Philippines (Diliman), De La Salle University, San Beda College, Chulalong University (Thailand), Kyoto University, and Sophia University (Tokyo, Japan).

He also served as: President, Philippine Historical Association; Chairman, National Historical Commission of the Philippines; Chairman, National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

He has published over thirty-five books, writes a widely read editorial page column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and moderates a growing Instagram and Facebook fan page.

Other books by AMBETH R. OCAMPO:

The Paintings of E. Aguilar Cruz (1986)

Rizal Without the Overcoat rev. ed. (2011)

Makamisa: The Search for Rizal’s Third Novel rev. ed. (2009)

A Calendar of Rizaliana in the Vault of the Philippine National Library rev. ed. (2011)

Aguinaldo’s Breakfast (1993)

Bonifacio’s Bolo (1995)

Mabini’s Ghost (1995)

Teodora Alonso (1995)

Talking History: Conversations with Teodoro A. Agoncillo rev. ed. (2011)

Luna’s Moustache (1997)

The Centennial Countdown (1998)

Bones of Contention rev. ed. (2014)

Meaning and History: The Rizal Lectures rev. ed. (2013)

Bones of Contention: The Andres Bonifacio Lectures rev. ed. (2014)

60 Years and Bon Vivant: Philippine French Relations (2008)

101 Stories of the Philippine Revolution (2009)

Looking Back rev. ed. (2009)

Looking Back 3: Death by Garrote rev. ed. (2015)

Looking Back 4: Chulalongkorn’s Elephants rev. ed. (2016)

Looking Back 5: Rizal’s Teeth, Bonifacio’s Bones (2012)

Looking Back 6: Prehistoric Philippines (2012)

Looking Back 7: Storm Chasers (2014)

Looking Back 8: Virgin of Balintawak (2014)

Looking Back 9: Demonyo Tables (2015)

Looking Back 10: Two Lunas, Two Mabinis (2015)

Looking Back 11: Independence X6 (2016)

Looking Back 12: Quezon’s Sukiyaki (2016)

Looking Back 13: Guns of the Katipuan (2017)

Looking Back 14: Dirty Ice Cream (2019)

Looking Back 15: Martial Law (2020)

Rizal Without The Overcoat new ed. (2018)

Looking Back 5
Rizal’s Teeth, Bonifacio’s Bones

Ambeth R. Ocampo

Anvil Publishing

Looking Back 5

Rizal’s Teeth, Bonifacio’s Bones

Copyright © Ambeth R. Ocampo, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

Published and exclusively distributed by

Anvil Publishing, Inc.

7th Floor Quad Alpha Centrum

125 Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City

1550 Philippines

Trunk lines: 8477-4752; 8477-4755 to 57

Fax: [phone]

www.anvilpublishing.com

[email protected],

[email protected],

[email protected]

www.anvilpublishing.com

First printing, 2012

Second printing, 2014

Third printing, 2017

Cover design by Robbie Villegas

Edited by Rene E. Guatlo and Renán S. Prado

All images from Ambeth R. Ocampo Collection

eBook conversion by JP Meneses

eISBN: 978-971-27-3679-7

Contents

Introduction True Confessions: My First Time

Bonifacio’s Teeth, Rizal’s Breath

Cráneo de Rizal

Jack the Ripper or the Father of Hitler?

Rizal and Bonifacio as Students

The Hero as Teacher

Rizal as OFW

Rizal Did Not Write “Sa Aking Mga Kabata”

Choosing Between Books and Bolos

Why Rizal’s House Turned Green

From Palay to Canin

Rizal’s Lotto Windfall

Rizal the Metrosexual

Thoughts on the Noli

Rizal A-to-Z

Introduction
True Confessions: My First Time

150 years since Jose Rizal’s birth, half a century since the nation celebrated his birth centennial in a grand way in 1961 (and his death centennial in 1996) one would think that we would know all that we should know about Rizal by now. The many papers delivered at different conferences here and abroad, however, prove that this is not so and that there will always be new perspectives on Rizal for a long time. Unlike other scholars I offer nothing new except a call to return to the primary sources yet again to ask new questions of something old or ask old questions to get new answers.

Half my life has been spent researching, writing, and lecturing on Rizal, in those years past I have focused on obscure details to keep my newspaper deadlines, to keep my students awake, to keep people thinking. Now at 50, I look back.

Many know the story, how I turned up at the National Archives one day in my youth, curious to see, touch, smell the ancient papers that comprise the primary sources for our history. Then as now the National Archives was a friendly institution: I filled up a form, paid a minimal fee, and was handed a worn folder containing the menu of historical materials available. It was a simple list of topics, in Spanish, sorted by bundles roughly identified by subject and I looked up: Divorcio, Aborto, Extranjeros, Cédulas. While waiting for bundles to be brought in from storage one could browse through bound photocopies of the Record groups marked: Sediciones y Rebelliones and Erección de Pueblos available in the reading room.

At some point I let my fingers do the walking down a list of Varias personas noting names I remembered from textbook history. It was from this list that I requested the Rizal bundle and waited. A researcher from the National Historical Institute, who was eavesdropping on everyone else in the room, read my request form, smirked, and with an odd mixture of condescension and assistance, came up to me and whispered, ”Why do you want to see the Rizal bundle? What do you expect to find there? Everything on Rizal has been written and published already.” Gasgas na yan were his sharp words. Those words rang in my ears years later when this man was caught red-handed by NBI agents in an Ermita antique shop peddling original documents he pilfered from the Philippine Insurgent Records in the National Library. After a trial that took almost a decade he was found guilty and has since “disappeared” allegedly protected by a political patron.

Looking back, if I had been swayed by his practical advice, I would be an expert on something else. I could be doing town or family histories and not be the Rizal scholar I am today. That fateful day my pride got the better of me. Shamed, I held my ground and nervously awaited the delivery of the Rizal bundle. What if he was right, what if everything on Rizal had already been written and published? My only concern at the time was the experience of handling Rizal manuscripts; I wanted to literally touch history.

Compared to the hefty bundles of archival manuscripts on the desks of the other researchers, the Rizal bundle that landed on my desk looked slim and unpromising. Untying the string and opening the Manila paper wrapping I was greeted by a note signed by James Alexander Robertson, Director of the National Library, he of “Blair and Robertson” fame. Long before the war, Robertson had ordered and authorized the tr...