19/06/2026
Today, the ๐๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐๐ ๐๐ง ๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ฅ ๐๐ง๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ ๐๐๐ซ๐ข๐ญ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐๐ฎ๐ฆ joins the nation in celebrating the ๐๐๐๐ญ๐ก ๐๐ข๐ซ๐ญ๐ก ๐๐ง๐ง๐ข๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ฒ of ๐๐ซ. ๐๐จ๐ฌ๐ ๐๐ข๐ณ๐๐ฅ.
Josรจ Protasio Rizal Mercado Y Alonso Realonda was born in the town of Calamba, Laguna, Philippines on June 19, 1861. His pursuit of education and political reform took him across Europe, including extended residencies in Spain, France, Germany, England, and Belgium, as well as transit through Japan, the United States, and across Asia and the Middle East. It was during these travels that he wrote his novels, Noli Me Tรกngere (1887) and El Filibusterismo (1891), which exposed the misgovernment and cruelties of colonial administrators and friars. His writings, essays, and poetry consistently invoked an unyielding love of country, calling upon its women, its parents, and especially its youth to rise toward national aspirations. Following a four-year exile in Dapitan, his life culminated in a swift, unjust trial for sedition by a kangaroo military court, leading to his ex*****on by firing squad at the Luneta in Manila on December 30, 1896, at the age of 35.
The Museum features a 1953 bust of Rizal, crafted by alumnus and National Artist for Sculpture, Guillermo E. Tolentino. Housed under the care of the UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the Palma Hall alcove, this piece carries a rich institutional history. According to accounts from the Philippine Collegian, the bronze sculpture was cast in Italy and stands on a solid marble base. It was officially unveiled on March 29, 1956, in a campus ceremony led by UP Vice President Enrique Virata with University Regent Vicente Lontok as the guest speaker. Beneath the sculpture is a plaque bearing the first verse of A La Juventud Filipina, translated into English by Leรณn Ma. Guerrero. It serves as a daily reminder to the Universityโs youth of their duty to the motherland.
Beyond its physical likeness, what strikes viewers most about this monument is a meticulous personal detail: Rizalโs name inscribed into the base using the oldest known form of the native Baybayin script. A survey of Tolentinoโs broader body of work, including his portrait busts of Andrรฉs Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo, Manuel Quezon, and Ramรณn Magsaysay on display at the National Museum, reveals that many historical figures he sculpted had their name etched in Baybayin at the base. Tolentino was a staunch, lifelong advocate of the pre-colonial script, actively employing it as a fully functional writing system in his daily life for personal note-taking and documentation.
While acknowledging that Tolentinoโs transliteration was mostly accurate, Prof. Nicolas A. Zafra (1956) offered an epigraphical correction, noting that the opening character โJoโ in โJoseโ was mistakenly etched in a tilted position, whereas the standard established by the 1593 Doctrina Cristiana, the countryโs โmost authoritative and reliable primary source for ancient Tagalog syllabariesโ according to Zafra, dictated a strictly horizontal alignment. Zafra also observed that while the early Filipinos utilized diacritical marks (kudlit) to alter vowel sounds, the Doctrina specifically favored commas rather than the dots implemented by the sculptor, arguing that ancestral scripts must always be handled with the utmost academic care and scrupulosity.
Two months later in the May 1956 issue of the Philippine Collegian, Tolentino defended his artistic and historical choice, countering that Zafra had committed a grave error by labeling the modern script a โSpanishโ alphabet when it is globally known to be Phoenician in origin. Tolentino pointed out that the Doctrina Cristiana was printed by a friar who learned the script from native converts, each possessing individual styles and penmanship, just as modern individuals sign their names uniquely using borrowed Western letters. โIt is very surprising indeed to find out that the Tagalog alphabet is 2,000 years older than the Sanskrit,โ Tolentino averred, illustrating how the tilted โHsโ served as the foundational parent for the Bornean, Kawi, Batta, Rejang, and Lampoon alphabets, whereas the horizontal orientation found in the Doctrina could easily be misread as the letter โY.โ He explained that the seventeen characters of our ancestral script are not rigid signs but highly metaphysical, stylized interpretations of the natural world; specifically, the letter โHโ represents lightning, an atmospheric discharge of electricity that is naturally inclined or vertical, but never horizontal.
Using this debate to challenge all โDoubting Thomases,โ Tolentino called upon the entire Filipino nation to re-adopt our native alphabet for its profound metaphysical significance, urging schools and universities to integrate our ancient civilization and culture. Directly quoting Zafraโs own closing plea, that the inscription must remain a permanent source of enlightenment for future generations of UP students, demanding absolute accuracy and scrupulosity even in the smallest detail, Tolentino declared: โThat is exactly what I have done.โ
The discourse carried over into the next month when Zafra published his response in the June edition of the Philippine Collegian. He urged Tolentino to disclose the nature and character of his sources regarding his claim to know the author of the ancient Tagalog alphabet. Zafra further argued that Tolentinoโs assertions about โthe antiquity of Tagalog alphabet (2000 years older than the Sanskrit), the identity of the friar who wrote the Doctrina Cristiana, as well as the convert who taught him how to read and write the Tagalog characters, the derivation of the characters for โHโ in the Bornean, Kawi, Rejang, and Lampoon alphabets, as well as the horizontal โYโ in the Doctrina from the inclined or tilted Tagalog letterโ could not stand on their own. He maintained that these assertions could not be accepted as statements of historical fact until Tolentino presented ample proof in the form of authentic and reliable historical evidence.
Regarding Tolentinoโs metaphysical interpretation, Zafra noted that Tolentino did not provide concrete examples. To anchor his rebuttal, he cited documents studied by scholars such as Martinez Vigil in his La Escritura Propia de los Tagalos, Sinibaldo de Mas in his Informe sobre el estado de las Islas Filipinas, Dr. P. de Tavera in his Contribucion para el estudio de los antiguous alfabetos Filipinos and Ignacio Villamor in his La Antigua Escritura Filipina, that the character for โHโ was consistently documented in a horizontal orientation, never stilted or inclined.
Zafra stood firm on his demand for a historical correction on the sculpture. Maintaining that the early Tagalogs naturally wrote the character horizontally, he concluded: โThere is a need, therefore, in rectifying the error in the inscriptions of that character in the bust of Rizal.โ Echoing his original sentiment, Zafra insisted that because the piece would stand as a permanent source of information for future generations of UP students, โWe should not let the beautiful sculpture of Rizal to serve as an instrument in the dissemination of a historical inaccuracy or a historical misrepresentation.โ
๐ผ๐๐ ๐ฃ๐ค๐ฌ๐ก๐๐๐๐๐ข๐๐ฃ๐ฉ: The Bulwagan ng Dangal extends its sincere gratitude to the UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, custodian of the work, for granting permission to feature the 1953 Rizal bust sculpture of Tolentino in commemoration of Jose Rizal's birth anniversary.
References:
Librojo, G. C. (2019, June 20). Where to Find: UPDโs Collection of Rizalian Art. DZUP Online. https://dzup.org/news/up/where-to-find-upds-collection-of-rizalian-art/
Sicat, G. (2020, January 1). โThe major biographies of Josรฉ Rizal.โ PhilStar. https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/01/01/1981091/the-major-biographies-jos-rizal
Severino, H. (2025, November 24). An Oblation Run to Baybayin. GMA Network. https://www.gmanetwork.com/regionaltv/features/111559/essay-an-oblation-run-to-baybayin/story/
Zafra, N. (1956, June 20). Reply. Philippine Collegian.
Tolentino, G. (1956, May 2). The Inscription on the Bust of Rizal. Philippine Collegian.
Unveil Rizal statue Mar. 27. (1956, February 22). Philippine Collegian.
Unveil Rizal statue today. (1956, March 29). Philippine Collegian.
Virata leads unveiling rites. (1956, March 17). Philippine Collegian.
Zafra, N. (1956, March 27). The Inscription on the Bust of Rizal. Philippine Collegian.
