The Principle Over Survival: Understanding Jose Rizal's Final Choice

Every December 30, when Filipinos mark Rizal Day, few pause to consider what actually drove this national figure to walk calmly toward his execution in Luneta Park over a century ago. The story of Jose Rizal isn’t primarily about how he died—it’s about why he refused to live by compromising his beliefs. That distinction matters enormously, especially when his legacy has been reduced to a calendar date nestled conveniently between holiday festivities.

A Conscious Decision, Not a Tragic Accident

Jose Rizal did not accidentally stumble into his death sentence. Historical records reveal that months before his execution, concrete opportunities existed for escape. The Katipunan revolutionary organization specifically offered to orchestrate his rescue from his Dapitan exile. Andres Bonifacio, one of the revolution’s leading figures, directly invited Rizal to join and help command the uprising. He declined both propositions deliberately.

His reasoning reflected a pragmatic assessment rather than cowardice. Rizal believed his countrymen lacked sufficient resources and organization to wage successful armed conflict. An immediate uprising, in his estimation, would only multiply suffering without securing victory. While the Katipunan pursued independence through violent means, Rizal advocated for reform from within existing structures—yet both camps shared the ultimate destination of freedom from Spanish rule.

This philosophical disagreement produced a profound irony. Though Rizal inspired revolutionary sentiment through his writings and activism, he publicly renounced the very uprising his work helped ignite. In a December 15, 1896 manifesto, he declared: “I do condemn this uprising — which dishonors us Filipinos and discredits those that could plead our cause. I abhor its criminal methods and disclaim all part in it, pitying from the bottom of my heart the unwary that have been deceived into taking part in it.”

The Ilustrado Who Feared Bloodshed

Historian Renato Constantino’s landmark 1972 analysis, Veneration Without Understanding, provides crucial context for understanding Rizal’s contradictions. Constantino described him as a “limited” Filipino—the educated elite (ilustrado) who sought national unity but recoiled from revolutionary violence, who desired modernization yet harbored affection for Spanish civilization, though only in his own refined, intellectual manner.

For much of his life, Rizal genuinely believed assimilation with Spain represented both possibility and desirability. He absorbed European art, culture, and liberal philosophy with evident enthusiasm. Yet repeated encounters with colonial racism and systemic injustice gradually eroded this faith. During the Calamba land conflict—when Dominican friars pressured his family regarding tenant land—Rizal experienced assimilation’s impossibility firsthand. Writing to correspondent Blumentritt in 1887, his disillusionment crystallized: “The Filipino has long wished for Hispanization and they were wrong in aspiring for it.”

Yet something remarkable occurred. Though Rizal remained what Constantino termed “a consciousness without movement,” that intellectual awakening became historically transformative. The propaganda movement Rizal championed didn’t bring Filipinos closer to Spain as intended; instead, it cultivated national self-awareness that made separation inevitable. As Constantino observed, “Instead of making the Filipino closer to Spain, the propaganda gave root to separation. The drive for Hispanization was transformed into the development of a distinct national consciousness.”

Rizal’s original vision—elevating indigenous Filipinos through Spanish cultural absorption—inverted into its opposite: a separatist movement asserting Filipino identity precisely against Hispanic dominance.

The Legacy of Refusal

When Spain executed Rizal at Luneta Park in 1896, something paradoxically larger emerged from his death. The execution intensified popular demand for independence, unified previously scattered movements, and provided the revolution with moral coherence it previously lacked. Yet this outcome need not have materialized through him specifically.

Without Jose Rizal, the uprising likely would have materialized anyway—though possibly more fragmented, less strategically coherent, and less philosophically anchored. His distinctive contribution was demonstrating that principled conviction could supersede survival instinct.

Historian Ambeth Ocampo captures this in Rizal Without the Overcoat (1990), noting Rizal’s extraordinary composure before execution. Medical reports documented his pulse remained normal before the firing squad. Ocampo terms him a “conscious hero” because his decisions reflected deliberation and full awareness of consequences. In a 1882 letter, Rizal himself articulated his reasoning: “Moreover I wish to show those who deny us patriotism that we know how to die for our duty and for our convictions. What matters death if one dies for what one loves, for one’s country and for those whom he loves?”

This wasn’t martyrdom sought for its own sake. Rather, it represented commitment to principle so profound that compromise became impossible—even when escape remained available.

Reclaiming Rizal from Mythology

Contemporary memory often presents Rizal as a sanctified, American-approved figure. Theodore Friend’s Between Two Empires reveals how American colonial administrators deliberately elevated Rizal over more militant alternatives. Aguinaldo seemed too warlike, Bonifacio too radical, Mabini too uncompromising. Colonial authorities favored “a hero who would not run against the grain of American colonial policy.”

But Rizal requires no official constitutional recognition to matter. His actual legacy transcends the narratives imposed upon it.

Humanizing rather than sanctifying Rizal permits more penetrating questions: Which elements of his example remain applicable? Which have become historically superseded? Constantino proposed making Rizal obsolete—not through forgetting, but through realizing the ideals he represented. Once corruption and injustice disappear, once principled governance replaces compromise, Rizal’s symbolic necessity diminishes. His work becomes complete.

The Philippines currently remains distant from that state. Corruption persists. Injustice endures. Therefore, Rizal’s example retains urgent relevance. His refusal to betray conviction under pressure—resisting both revolutionary fervor and colonial inducements—speaks across temporal distance to contemporary Filipinos facing their own temptations toward compromise.

That enduring resonance, more than any ceremonial observance, constitutes Jose Rizal’s actual legacy on December 30 and beyond.