By Marisse T. Sonido
Rizal Revisited is Ms. Sonido’s personal reflection, written 16 years after her award-winning essay, “Doña Victorina’s Lesson on True Colors” submitted for PreMYo Rizal High School Category.
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In 2010, I wrote an essay about Rizal’s character, Doña Victorina, as a Year 11 high school student for the PreMYo Rizal Essay writing competition. When I was asked by the Binhi Foundation to revisit my essay sixteen years later, I was delighted they wanted to hear from me again, but I did hesitate. Since I wrote my essay, many things in my life have changed and, as a result, my perspective on some of the things had written about had changed, too. I touched on a few complex issues, like nationalism and authenticity—concepts that my younger self did not quite have the life experience to understand the nuances of. But, on reflection, this is all the more reason to revisit what I wrote with sixteen years’ worth of new insights.
So, where am I now? A few years after I wrote my essay, my parents moved our family to Sydney, Australia. I finished medical school and am now a pediatric resident. Funnily enough, I am now a practicing doctor overseas, like José Rizal once was.
In my essay, I raised the question of how Filipinos could help their country and express true nationalism when they could not even stay in the country. I appreciate the situational irony of what I wrote now considering where I ended up. While it was not my decision to move away, I chose, in the end, to stay here with my family after my university education and build my life in Australia. I often grapple with the question of whether this decision makes me a ‘bad’ Filipino— a thought that is, frankly, a little heartbreaking. Being Filipino is an indelible part of my identity. When asked where I am from, my first instinct is to say ‘the Philippines’ because it still explains more of who I am than ‘Sydney’ does. It hurts to wonder whether I have failed the place that shaped and continues to shape me.
And yet, I understand better now why so many Filipinos are here, or in the United States, or in Japan, or every other country around the world. While many of us feel a sense of duty to the Philippines and a responsibility to use our skills and talents to help it grow, there is often a bigger sense of responsibility towards the people whose lives we can directly improve. And sometimes that means seeking opportunities elsewhere.
I know supporting my brother with autism was one of the biggest reasons my parents chose to migrate. At that time, there were simply no programs in the Philippines that were tailored to his needs and few opportunities for him to achieve a fulfilling and productive adulthood once he was finished with school. Here, he has supported employment and spends time with friends bowling and making art in a life skills program. He saves up for yearly holidays in the Philippines, which is still his favourite place in the world but one that unfortunately cannot provide him the supports he requires. For my parents, fulfilling their responsibility to improve his life and their desire to stay in the Philippines were unfortunately mutually exclusive decisions. When I look at my brother and how far he’s come since we moved here, I know I cannot disagree with the choice they made.
I think that is the story of many Filipinos who are no longer in the Philippines. They are not Doña Victorinas, ashamed of being Filipino and wishing to be something else. In fact, most Filipino parents, nurses, and fellow doctors I meet at the hospital are excited when I tell them I’m Filipino, too. We almost always immediately swap to a shared mother tongue, happy to find a piece of home in a stranger. Many express they only left the Philippines because change feels too far away to achieve in a single lifetime and this is the only time they have to improve things for their loved ones.
Nationalism in a global world was never going to be as simple as I thought it would be when I wrote my first essay. I wish I had the answer of how to do it ‘right’ but, if anything, I am realising that thinking that way may be more harmful than helpful. Believing there are good Filipinos means believing that there are bad Filipinos—a dichotomy that distracts us from shaping that shared identity together.
The Philippines has always been a country that has had to overcome division. An archipelago of 7,641 islands, we have always been separated geographically, linguistically, and culturally. Rizal’s works highlighted how social class, colonialism, and contradicting ideologies make it difficult for us to weave a common national identity. Today, it only gets increasingly difficult to feel a sense of unity amidst opposing political allegiances and our cultural diaspora all over the world. If we are not careful, that division will become what defines us.
The root world of nationalism is ‘nation’ and, interestingly, most dictionaries define a nation not as a place but as a ‘community of people’. While Rizal extolled the Philippines’s physical beauty in ‘Mi último adiós’, it was the people who lived in it that he was proud to die for. I guess all this is to say that things are not so black and white as I thought sixteen years ago. I can love my country without being in it. I do this by connecting with my identity as a Filipino and focusing on what I share with other Filipinos regardless of where we are in the world: our tenacity, our hospitality, our intelligence, our adaptability, and all the other qualities that we have embodied throughout our shared history. I know that, one day, I will find some way to give back to the Philippines in person but for now, while I learn to straddle two homes, this is enough.
