HOME AWAY FROM HOME (Part 5)

By Rene Calalang
Scarborough- Ontario
December 15, 2014



I THINK, having mentioned the “Twenty Women of Malolos,” even at a glance only, it is worth having a glimpse on the life of these women, all of which were members of the prominent Chinese Mestiso families, who they were, and what were their contribution to history.

In a time when Filipinos, notably the natives and Chinese mestizos were discouraged to learn Spanish, as the hated friars who were given the responsibility to supervise education in the Philippines by an 1863 decree, would like to keep them in the dark. Knowledge of the Spanish language, the friars feared, would make the Filipinos understood political issues and would expose them to liberal ideas happening in Europe. Thus, proficiency of the Spanish language by the Filipinos would pose as a threat to them.

This was the situation in Malolos during that time. Thus, a number of prominent residents, under the leadership of Teodoro Sandico, a graduate of the University of Sto Tomas, courageously opened a private school.

Sandico also gave Spanish lessons to adult, including the Women of Malolos. However, when he seeked for legitimatization from the provincial government, his request was turned down.

Because of the rejection, he drafted a letter (that they be allowed to build a school at their own expense, so that they would be able to learn the Spanish language) gave it to the Women of Malolos, to be presented to Governor General, Valeriano Weyler, a liberal minded Spaniard.

At the beginning, their request was rejected because of the friar’s influence. But the “Twenty Women of Malolos,” persevered until the Governor General approved their request.

Their bravery led to the teaching of Spanish to them, albeit for a short time, at the house of one of the “Twenty Women of Malolos, Rufina T Reyes.”

Marcelo H del Pilar, The Great Propagandist, and who hailed from the neighboring town of Bulacan, Bulacan, upon knowing of the courage of the “Women of Malolos” wrote Dr. Jose Rizal a letter, asking him to write to the women praising them for their courage. And the rest was history.

I think it is worth repeating/quoting/ discussing a section of Rizal’s letter.

Because of their blind obedience to the friars, Dr. Rizal did not think too high to many of the Filipina Women during the Spanish time, but the Women of Malolos proved him wrong.

In the beginning of his letter, he said and I quote:

“When I wrote the Noli Me Tangere, I pondered long on whether or not courage was a common virtue of the young women of our country.”

“…due to their excessive goodness, humility, or perhaps ignorance. They are like withered plants, sown and grown in the darkness. Though they may bloom, their flowers are without fragrance; though they may bear fruit, their fruit has no juice.”

“However, now that news arrived here of what occurred in your town of Malolos, I realized that I was wrong, and my joy was beyond bounds.”

“Now that you have responded to our vehement clamor for public welfare; now that you have shown a good example to your fellow young women who, like you, desire to have their eyes opened and to be lifted from prostration, our hope is roused, now we are confident of victory.”

Close to the end of the letter, Rizal gave the women some words of wisdom, which he thought, the women should consider in pursuing their goals. Again, he said and I quote:

“May these few loose lines serve as an aid to your natural intelligence and enable you to proceed along the path on which you have already started.”

1.     Some become treacherous because of the cowardice and negligence of others.

2.     Lack of respect and excessive timidity invite scorn.

3.     Ignorance is bondage, like mind, like man. A man without a will of his own is a man without personality. The blind that follows other’s opinion is like a beast led to the halter.

4.     One who wants to help himself should help others, because if he neglects others, he too will be neglected by them. One midrib is easy to break, but not a bundle of many midribs, tied together.

5.     If the Filipino woman will not change, she would not be entrusted with the education of her children. She should only bear them. She should be deprived of her authority in the home; otherwise she may unwittingly betray her husband, children, country, and all.

6.     Men are born equal, naked and without chains. They were not created by God to enslaved, neither was endowed with intelligence in order to be misled, nor adorned with reason to be fooled by others. It is not pride to refuse to worship a fellow man, to enlighten the mind, and to reason out everything. The arrogant one is he wants to be worshipped, who misleads others, and wants his will to prevail over reason and justice.

7.     Analyze carefully the kind of religion taught you. Find out if that is the command of God or the teaching of Christ for alleviating the suffering of the poor, for comforting those in pain. Consider everything taught you, the aim of every sermon, the underlying reason of every mass, novena, rosary, scapular, image, miracle, candle belt, and other things forced upon you, dinned daily into your ears and dangled before your eyes, and discover their beginning and their end, and then compared that religion with the pure religion of Christ, and see if your Christianity is not the milking animals, or like the pig that is being fattened, not for its own sake, but in order to sell it at a high price, and make more money out of it.

What the Twenty Women did, to challenge the authority of the friars, which was unheard of during that time was big news in Europe. This also resulted in other articles being written about their heroic acts. One of them is a sonnet written by KUITIB (pen name of Fernando Canon, one of Rizal and del Pilar’s fellow propagandist/reformist) and published on the March 15, 1889 issue of La Solidaridad.

The heroism of the Women of Malolos did not end with their request for a school, as they supported the revolution in some other ways.

Today, a marker stands to the place where the Spanish lesson took place. Obviously the original house is no longer there.

To help preserve the memorabilia of these heroic women, the house of one them, Alberta Uitangcoy Santos, now serves as a dedicated museum, which I, together with some members of our high school class personally visited last February.

So, you see Virginia, there is so much history in my hometown and perhaps in yours too. While we travel and admire other nation and people’s history (don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that), we forgot that we ourselves has so much to learn about our own history.

I have partly done my homework. Go and do yours.

Note: A book titled “The Women of Malolos,” published by Ateneo de Manila University Press, is available. It was written by Dr. Nicanor Tiongson, a direct descendant of one of the Women. Dr. Tiongson is the Dean of College of Mass Communication and a professor at UP Diliman. 

My copy was given to me as a gift by a dear relative, Mrs. Paquita Lomotan Cruz, a retired Guidance Counselor at UP Diliman.