(above image from Rizal Shrine in Talisay[1], from Phtourguide.com)
I am reading the article “Rizal As A Farmer In Dapitan[2]” on the JoseRizal.Ph website, with this 1st paragraph:
To prove to his people that farming is (as) good a profession as medicine, Rizal became a farmer in Dapitan. In a letter to his sister, Lucia, on 12 Feb 1896, he said: "We cannot all be doctors; it is necessary that there would be some to cultivate the soil."
"We cannot all be doctors; it is necessary that there would be some to cultivate the soil."
This is surprising as Rizal is up to now Ateneo’s favorite son. Yet Ateneo forgot Agriculture, one of the courses it was already offering in Rizal’s time. Does that mean that the Spanish Ateneo administrators did not give much value to this course in their own academe? And no, there is no Agriculture in today’s Ateneo offerings:
All that suggests that the Ateneo Fathers looked down on the cultivators of the fields as second class citizens, even if they were the ones who grew the food that went into their hungry mouths. The Ateneo Fathers did not recognize the radical in Rizal’s mind: “We cannot all be doctors; it is necessary that there would be some to cultivate the soil.”
If you look at the above image again, it is a reminder that this Filipino valued farming even as he valued his doctoring. I remember that his brother Paciano was the one who managed their landholdings in Laguna growing sugarcane, whose stalks produced sweetness and the pesos that were the source of Jose’s education in the Philippines as well as in Spain.
So, how good was Jose Rizal as a farmer in Dapitan? He was very good; he knew his science very well.
JoseRizal.Ph says:
On this land in Talisay… with the help of his pupils and some laborers, (Rizal) cleared it and planted cacao, coffee, coconuts, and fruit trees.... In due time, his total land holdings reached 70 hectares. They contained 6,000 abaca plants, 1,000 coconut palms, many coffee and cacao plants and numerous kinds of fruit trees.
Science calls that terrific combination “multiple cropping,” mixed plantings of abaca, cacao, coconut, coffee, and fruit trees. (My source does not mention rice.)
(Rizal) encouraged the Dapitan farmers to replace their primitive system of cultivation with these modern methods… the use of fertilizers, the rotation of crops, and the use of farm machines. Rizal actually imported some farm machines from the United States.
And you know what? As the superimposed image states, “Sen Kiko Pangilinan Remembers Rizal As A Farmer[3]” – now then, as an Agriculturist, there is none other whom I will vote for as Vice President in 2022!@517
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