It seems that in everything, he is seen to be right, or prophetic, or should be listened to or his advice followed always, even in the case where suggesting that the Filipinos were (and are) not ready for independence, or at least revolution, even when Bonifacio/the Katipunan was already wanting to start the Revolution, or the fact that Maria Clara was not really supposed to be an inspirational character but was somehow not ideal, etc. I wonder what, if any, are the exceptions on being right most if not all of the time (or even seen to be "right" most of the time), whether it be on Filipino culture, history, even any messages in the Noli or Fili, recommendations for the country/people, or just writings, etc., in general.
Of course, sometimes "wrong" and "right" can be subjective depending on who is saying it and when (and even where), but I guess a general scholarly consensus in any given period can be used to base this on. Answers could be based on the views of people in the past, but if possible, what about modern consensus (now/21st century, based on modern interpretations of his work)?
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Try to read the book Rizal: Contrary Essays! A compilation of critical essays towards his writing and sense of nationalism.
This is more on the “Rizal is prophetic” side and isn’t his fault since he wouldn’t have known at the time, but, Nick Joaquin, in one of his essays on Rizal in A Question for Heroes, mentions that Rizal’s admiration of the Germans and Japanese is one of the views that did not particularly age well for reasons that would be obvious later on in history.
“Would Rizal, who so admired the Germans and the Japanese for their dedication to science, commerce, education and progress, have recognized the Germany of Belsen and Dachau, the Japan of the Death March? Yet these bloody apparitions were shaped by the very virtues he admired.”
Joaquin’s point works as a warning against turning admiration into worship, virtues like discipline, science, and national cohesion can be redirected into militarism and atrocity. But that doesn’t really make Rizal ‘wrong’, he was describing what he saw in the 1880s, not endorsing the regimes of the 1930s to 1940s. The better takeaway is that no national model is automatically safe, the same strengths you admire need moral and civic limits, or they can become tools of violence…what you said make it sound like or implies that Rizal was praising those later regimes, when the more accurate reading is that he was praising observable social habits in his own time. If we want a cleaner “Rizal was wrong” example, we should look at his actual claims, predictions, or strategies, not retroactively hang 20th-century crimes on his 19th-century impressions.
I wonder if any other Filipino ilustrados or thinkers of that time also looked to those countries as well for inspiration.
Buti pa siguro kung Japan. The Japan of his (and Bonifacio's, etc.) time was, in fact, trying to help the Katipunan, and might have had a little success if its guns didn't keep getting sunken before the Revolutionaries could receive them.
Also, speaking of being "prophetic," I'm not sure where I read or heard of it, but that "The Philippines A Century Hence" was apparently a mistranslation, so it's not really talking about what might happen to the country in 100 years, but something more like "The Philippines Within The Century", so just what was already going on in the 1800s so far. Do you know of this?
Rizal’s original Spanish title is “Filipinas dentro de cien años.” That phrase “dentro de” basically means “in” or “within” a period of time. So you can read the title in two natural ways. “The Philippines in a hundred years”, meaning “what the Philippines might look like a hundred years from now.” “The Philippines within the next hundred years”, meaning “what could happen during the next hundred years, starting from Rizal’s time.” Both are pointing to a time window, not a specific exact date like “in the year 1996.”
That’s why “A Century Hence” isn’t exactly a mistranslation, it’s just a more old-fashioned English way of saying “a hundred years from now.” But people sometimes prefer wording like “within a century” because it makes it feel less like Rizal is doing fortune telling, and more like he’s saying: “Here’s what’s already going on, and here’s where it could lead over the next hundred years.”
Wait, so in other words, you are saying he was prophetic, or trying to be?
You can’t really answer this without defining what “prophetic” means. If we mean prophetic as in someone claiming special foresight, like “this will definitely happen,” then no, Rizal wasn’t trying to be prophetic. He was doing something closer to analysis, basically “given what I’m seeing right now, these are the likely outcomes if trends continue.” He wasn’t claiming certainty, he was laying out scenarios. People call it prophetic later because, looking back, some of those scenarios ended up resembling what happened. Plus I don’t think “prophecy” is the right lens for Rizal at all. He’s writing political critique and social analysis, he explains what’s happening in his time, why it’s happening, and what outcomes are likely if those conditions continue. Treating that as prophecy turns an argument into a fortune telling contest. It’s cleaner to read him as diagnosing forces and persuading readers, then judge the reasoning in context.
Trying to be. But that's just my opinion.
Many other authors and scholars have made similar works further in the past.
Oh, other Filipino authors and scholars? Like who?
I think it's more like predicting scenarios based on the political realities of his time. not much different from the usual "will China invade Taiwan in a few years?" discussions in the present, for example.
It would be interesting to find out if other Filipino authors, in his time or even before or recently after, who did similar predictions. I wonder what predictions he made that he got wrong.
Japan and Germany in Rizal's time, is unique in a sense that nationalists all over the world (even the Chinese) found inspiration to the two civilizations on the opposing part of the globe.
Germany did not really exist as a nation state before the 1870s, they were divided between duchies and kingdoms that were under the influence of Prussia and Austria. Only then when they defeated the French in 1871 did they unite as a "Nation".
Japan was a backwater with feudalist systems until the Americans showed with gunboats in the 1850s. And after that, they became so humiliated that they played the Westerners at their own game: to modernize, or perish. They eventually defeated the Russians with this mindset.
Despite huge difference in culture, one can find inspiration to the two states because of their successes of uniting their people against enemies that deemed them inferior and proving their place on the world stage.
He made quite a few mistakes in his love life probably, he himself would not deny that
Most Filipinos today don't seem to consider them mistakes, so much as symbols of him being extra "macho", "alpha male", "chick boy" and "able to get all the girls", though.
Of course, on the one hand, being connected with so many women might mean that no single relationship lasted long enough, and probably broke up at some point, and it's hard to think that he wasn't at least partly at fault, at least in a few cases. On the other hand, it's also possible we're just exaggerating some of those relationships, and maybe some of them were just that "he liked talking to women sometimes," without it necessarily meaning more than that.
Well. His A la juventud filipina was quite optimistic.
All I can think of was when he littered Pasig river with his goddamn sandals.
That story is almost certainly apocryphal. I think I read it somewhere that similar versions of this story exist in other countries, for example, Mahatma Gandhi in India supposedly also dropped his shoe off a train, and thus dropped the other shoe so that someone else could have a pair. At least from the train, it falls on land, while sandals or slippers on a lake or river might drift too far to find them both, or it's easy enough to row back to pick them up. (Unless it was a ferry or steamship, siguro, but that still won't stop the sandals drifting.)
Laguna Lake not Pasig
But they were organic and not plastic…. and they were intended to be found
Yeaaah, Rizal was wrong about some things, or at least some of his claims did not hold up once history moved on, and some of the “Rizal is always right” vibe comes from how people later canonised him. Like, He misread how imperial powers would actually behave.. In Filipinas dentro de cien años, Rizal argues that if the Philippines won independence, major powers would not bother seizing the islands, and he downplays the likelihood of US expansion, partly because it would be “contrary to her traditions” and because other powers would block it. History went the other way very quickly, the US took the Philippines in 1898 and fought a brutal war to keep it. So in the narrow sense of forecasting, he got the geopolitical risk wrong. He also frames Japan as constrained and focused elsewhere (Korea), basically not in a position to “think of outside affairs” in the way people feared then. Later tho, Japan absolutely became an imperial power in the region, including the Philippines. So again, as prediction, that reassurance aged badly. The 1896 uprising is one of the biggest “he might have been wrong” flashpoints.. He explicitly condemned the 1896 uprising as “absurd” and “savage,” and he insisted on education first and reforms “from above.” Constantino makes this the heart of his critique, he says Rizal’s refusal to align with the revolutionary forces and his condemnation created a dilemma people often try to ignore. But this is where “wrong” becomes contested, because other serious historians argue Rizal’s relationship to revolution is more complicated than “reformist vs Katipunan.” Schumacher and Quibuyen debate Rizal’s revolutionary meaning, his influence, and how later narratives framed him. His historical method was partly propaganda, which can mean “wrong” in historian terms. Rizal’s annotated edition of Morga wasn’t only neutral scholarship, it was also a political weapon against Spanish narratives. Ambeth Ocampo one of his piece describes how Rizal used annotation as propaganda, history as a weapon, and how that shapes what the work is doing.  That doesn’t make it worthless, but it does mean some judgments can be polemical, selective, or anachronistic, which is a different kind of “wrong” than factual error.
“Maria Clara as the ideal Filipina” is mostly a later misunderstanding, not Rizal being “right”. A lot of people treat Maria Clara as a model woman, then blame Rizal for it, but literary scholarship often argues that Maria Clara becomes an allegory and a contested symbol over time, not a simple ideal.  So the “wrongness” here is often the later cultural reception, not Rizal’s intent.
On “national virtues” and the Nick Joaquin line about Germans and Japanese.. Joaquin’s point is basically traits like discipline, science, education, and cohesion are morally neutral tools, they can serve humane progress or organised brutality depending on the political system. That’s a strong warning against idolising “model nations.” But it becomes misleading if someone reads it as: “Rizal admired Nazis or wartime Japanese atrocities.” He didn’t, he was reacting to what he observed in the 1880s, and his praise wasn’t a blank cheque for whatever those states became later. Rizal just becomes this national symbol.. people often read him like an oracle, then cherry-pick lines that match what happened later, while smoothing over tensions like his anti-uprising statement in 1896. The ‘Rizal is always right’ culture isn’t just admiration, it’s institutional design, once the US endorsed the Rizal narrative, it became the easiest nationalism to teach, and the hardest to question.
Yes, we have to remember that the period was marked by ongoing debate between the Katipuneros who wanted outright revolt vs Rizal and others who at first advocated for peaceful reform. It wasn't until Gomburza that Rizal himself changed his mind.
It's always the people who judge after the fact to apply a label of who was right. Similar to the history of the USA as Ken Burns has presented in his current video series, which has truly annoyed those who would prefer a "pure" definition of patriotism to be the spark of change.
Rizal believed Filipinos of his time were not yet ready for independence because the country had not yet produced a strong educated class through its own schools. Spain deliberately limited education and opportunities, forcing ilustrados like Rizal to study in Europe, which led to the belief that true political and intellectual maturity could only be formed abroad.
This was later disproven by Mabini’s generation. Mabini, the ‘Brains of the Revolution’ himself, was educated in the Philippines and rose to become a brilliant jurist and statesman whose ideas were crucial in founding the nation. His generation--who spearheaded the revolution--showed that Filipinos, even trained locally, were already capable of leading a modern state, challenging this Eurocentric bias of the earlier ilustrados.
And now here? He would be very much right because one of the few good got eclipsed by the majority of the corrupt.
Is it accurate to say that he eventually found himself being "outdated" by the Katipunan/the growing need for a revolution and was trying to "catch up" or rationalize that "di naman kailangan pa yan right now" even if maybe for some people like Bonifacio, it was more urgent already?
Technically they're the same generation, but I get what you mean, as in as little as the next decade, the beliefs in what can (or should) be possible for the Filipino people in regards to self determination/autonomy had considerably, if not radically, changed.
Also, fully home-grown locally educated ilustrados are interesting. Isabelo De Los Reyes was arguably one in his early years, though when he occasionally traveled abroad or was even imprisoned abroad, he certainly learned more on those trips.
Yes, and even before the revolution, there was already growing dissatisfaction and pessimism regarding the reformists' stance on independence. They were talking to the wind as Spain remained steadfast in its colonial policies. The Spanish empire was basically on its heels at this point, and for them to grant autonomy to the Philippines not only signals other colonies to do the same, but also tarnish their image as a colonial power. Revolution was the answer, and Rizal was inconclusive of it.
This was one of Rizal's recurring blindspots; he tends to underestimate things, Filipino or Spain. While there was merit to his beliefs, these were disproven throughout his journey. It was disappointing how he was against the revolution given the many willing to die for it. But in the end, whether or not he was right remained a question since he died. We did win the revolution, but it was not your common Filipino that lost it, but the same rich class Rizal belongs to, who he believed should lead the country, who would then collaborate with the Americans.
Apparently, his annotation of Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. Di ko pa nabasa pero masyado raw emotional si Rizal and so he's not really that objective.
Ooh, diba na-reissue yun recently? I wonder if modern versions of it will contain modern Filipino academics' annotations or corrections din.
I seem to vaguely remember that one of those who might've taken issue with this in his time is Isabelo De Los Reyes, but I don't really know much more detail than that.
I think Ambeth Ocampo had wrote about the De Los Reyes topic in one of his essays
Meron sa NHCP. May kopya nga ako e pero di ko pa nababasa hahaha.
Edit: I'm on Chapter 4 na pala. Nakalimutan ko lang tapusin. Walang correction pero considered na siya ay dated.
Oh, paanong dated, as in outdated? I'm curious to know.
Outdated. Syempre mas May access na tayo sa better primary sources than him.
How I wish our national museums/DepEd would spend time and money on the relatively simple task of translating Spanish-era books and important written works to English (including those of Rizal). So that they're accessible to more people.
Even when they do do it, they place them behind paywalls where nobody will ever read them but specialist academics.
Is there any volunteer program, let alone like a freelance opportunity, to just find Spanish period documents and just go ahead to translate them? I would like to try and I know others who might like to try it, but of course it probably won't pay, but even something like a weekend volunteer opportunity would be helpful.
Oh if only. If you're in the academic space, you can try putting that idea through maybe Spanish or History courses in our public universities.
Though again, as I said, even when they get translated, they end up copyrighted. Inaccessible. Even though our tax money was used to pay for the work.
In contrast to most other countries, where digitized copies and translations of documents of historical significance are freely available to students, researchers, and hobbyists under Public Domain.
Too academic for casual readers
Too casual for academics