8/13/2019 PSHEV Book Review Proposal - Juliano

1/1

Monumenta sa Monumento: New Texts, Old Tensions in

the Filipino Pantheon

Nery, John. Revolutionary Spirit: Jose Rizal in Southeast Asia.Quezon City: Ateneo de

Manila University Press, 2011.

San Juan, E. Rizal in Our Time: Essays in Interpretation (Revised Edition). Pasig City: Anvil

Publishing, 2011.

Almario, Virgilio.Ang Pag-Ibig sa Bayan ni Andres Bonifacio: Isang Pagtingin sa Tulang

Katipunero.Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2012.

Dery, Luis Camara. Bantayog ni Inang Bayan: Panibagong Sulyap sa mga Bayani ng 1896

Himagsikan. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2012.

ABSTRACT:The years 2011 and 2013 were remarkable dates due primarily to their significance to two

national heroes: Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. Celebrating their respective sesquicentennial birth

anniversaries, books were released attempting to review and re-interpret their impacts in the

development of the Filipino national identity. The re-contextualization of Rizal as an international icon of

nationalistic and democratic struggle, as well as the perceived necessity of enshrining Bonifacio as the

formal founder of the Philippine nation-state (and hence, its first president), exhibit such trends. These

books by Nery, San Juan, Almario and Dery revisits the biographical form as a practice in literary

interpretation of events and texts affiliated to the person, and thus attempts to rework an image of Rizal

and Bonifacio palatable to a 21st

century audience. Yet despite their attempts to upgrade the

narratives and story-telling involved in the appraisals of Rizal and Bonifacio as heroes (by extension an

appraisal of the founding narrative of the Filipino nation), the results of their work actually exhibits the

existing cracks and limitations in their treatment in Philippine historiography. In focusing too much on

the interpretations of their literary accomplishments, the resulting contemporary images of Rizal and

Bonifacio actually re-inscribe old classed readings in new forms, expanded in light of globalization and

the transformations of the Philippine nation-states functions and perceived identifications. Rizal

continues to be viewed as the cosmopolitan middle-class leader the state desires to project to a global

system caught in the vagaries of late capitalism, whose politics are as radical as they are ineffectual in

reaching out to marginalized conceptions of democracy. These latter aspirations, while finding

continued potential in the mythos of Bonifacio, are nonetheless wounded and politically stymied to

actually press its claim for historical saliency.