Relevance of Studying Rizal in College in The Philippines

by Harvey Smithson in Issues, November 14, 2011

The Rizal subject should be included in the curriculum of Engineering because we engineering students are not only striving to be engineers. We are also Filipino citizens and human beings as well. The Rizal subject, as part of the General Education, aims to form as good citizens and well-rounded individuals. We owe the freedom we are enjoying today because of the martyrdom of Rizal.

“Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa paroroonan” is a saying that inspires us to live life without forgetting about the achievements of the generations before us. By studying about his life, we can prove wrong all the fallacies about Filipinos. Filipinos are intelligent. Thus, Filipino engineers are not all intelligent but patriotic as well. Surely, after studying about Rizal’s life, we wouldn’t be exactly like him. Studying Rizal is not all about his history. We’ll able to learn ideals that will enable us to act in supporting our country because nowadays Filipino inventors aren’t recognized for their discoveries and achievements. There is already a sense of injustice there. Foreign countries are benefitting from the toil of our intelligent citizens.

The Rizal subject also aims to remove the colonial mentality among ourselves. When we say our shoes are imported, our kababayans look with awe at those imported shoes, neglecting the beauty of Filipino-made shoes in Marikina. Not only engineers are affected because we look down at Filipino products. Filipino businessmen also suffer because of this. Not all Filipinos are influenced easily by colonial mentality. We are living in a society where each one of us must participate for the success of our country’s economy. We study Rizal’s life to emulate him because he is studious student of different fields and a patriotic citizen.

The right attitude that we’ll emulate from him may help us become patriotic engineers because there is always hope for our country. Other engineering graduates opt to go abroad because the high salary offered by foreign companies because of what is happening in our country today: unemployment, minimum wage, underemployment and the like. If we lose faith in our country, we lose faith in ourselves because the success of the country begins at individual minds. “Ako ang Simula” is the famous slogan in TV Patrol. If Rizal is alive today, he would do follow what the slogan says. Mabuhay!