Alfonso B. Busa Jr.

July 24, 2022

1. Why was Rizal adored and revered more than the comandante and the parish priest of the town? How did he live
among the townsfolk?

“The townsfolk adored and revered him. ‘Dr Rizal!’ people would call out, with great respect, upon seeing
him pass by: they doffed their hats and bowed. The townsfolk greeted him with more reverence than they did the
comandante and the parish priest. Just as he enjoyed fame as a wise man amongst Europeans for being an indio
puro, the natives thought of him as something extraterrestrial.” (Quibuyen, 2011). Rizal treated the townsfolk of
Dapitan as if they were his own family.

Quibuyen (2011) further adds, “In his four years in Dapitan, Rizal played multiple roles: doctor, social
worker, farmer, social entrepreneur, public works engineer, town planner, school founder, teacher and scientist.
He worked with the people as a civic volunteer, for he was unwaged and without an official title. Whatever earnings
he made from his social entrepreneurship and from his wealthy patients went to the upkeep of his household,
school and hospital. He took to his tasks with vigor and vitality—mindful that they were all part of his pledge to do
everything he could for Dapitan.”

2. What was the significance of the school Rizal established in Dapitan?

“Rizal’s Talisay school was both a primary and secondary school. Progressive education is perhaps Rizal’s
greatest legacy in Dapitan. In his Talisay school, Rizal pioneered what are now extolled as ‘school-based
management’ and ‘community-based education.’ ‘School-based management’ is the decentralization of authority
from the central government to the school level wherein responsibility for, and decision-making authority over
school operations is transferred to principals, teachers, and parents, and sometimes to students and other school
community members.

Dr. Maria Luisa C. Doronila writes of ‘community-based education’ as a ‘school of the people’—a ‘learning
community where literacy and education, as well as social participation, mobilization and advocacy for reform are
integrated towards the singular and continuing project of enabling people to move from the margins of society to
a social space in the mainstream which they have created and helped to transform for themselves.’

Doronila acknowledges Paolo Freire as the source of this concept, but she could as well have cited Rizal
whose pedagogical practice in Talisay in 1892 to 1896 may be regarded as the beginnings of ‘community-based
education’ in Asia.” (Quibuyen, 2011).

3. What is the concept of a progressive school?

“The progressive school movement deconstructed the taken-for-granted idea that the school is an
enclave where the student learns first and then later, after graduation, gets a job and, hopefully, becomes a
productive member of the community. Against this notion, it advocated and practiced the principle that the school
is an integral part of community life—that education is most fruitful when students are learning and working and
promoting the well-being of the community all at the same time.” (Quibuyen, 2011).

4. What is the concept of social entrepreneurship? How did Rizal implement it in Dapitan?

“Social entrepreneurship is innovative business activity aimed principally at benefiting and transforming
the community in which it is undertaken (with most of the profit reinvested back into the community). Martin and
Osberg’s description of the modern social entrepreneur, in contrast to the typical capitalist, could very well fit Rizal:
The social entrepreneur neither anticipates nor organizes to create substantial financial profit for his or her
investors...or for himself or herself.
 Instead, the social entrepreneur aims for value in the form of large-scale, transformational benefit that
accrues either to a significant segment of society or to society at large. The social entrepreneur’s project targets
an underserved, neglected, or highly disadvantaged population that lacks the financial means or political clout to
achieve the transformative benefit on its own.” (Quibuyen, 2011).

5. Enumerate some exemplary community service Rizal did in Dapitan?

These were some of Rizal’s projects during his stay in Dapitan:

• Built a school for local boys who he described as mostly “poor and intelligent.”
• Developed Dapitan’s first park, complete with street lamps and a garden/flower relief map of the whole
island of Mindanao.
• Built a one-doctor hospital, and paid with his own money for the medical supplies and instruments.
• Formed Dapitan’s first farmers’ cooperative, the Sociedad de Agricultores Dapitanos (SAD).
• Initiated important public work projects for the benefit of the community. He designed Dapitan’s first
water system—a clay pipeline that delivered spring water from the hilltop to the edge of the town where
people came in bancas to get drinking water.
• Donated 500 duros to Dapitan for public lighting which it did not have.
• Engaged in a joint-venture with a certain Carreon (a Spanish businessman) for the construction and
operation of a lime-burner (for making building mortar).

“Nothing that needed improvement, or offered the prospect of boosting the local economy, escaped
Rizal’s eye. When he saw the inefficient fishing methods of the fisherfolk of Dapitan, he sought to remedy it, using
his personal funds.” (Quibuyen, 2011).

6. What is the significance of Rizal’s legacy in Dapitan? What is its relevance in the 21st century?

“Those fruitful four years in Dapitan have become Rizal’s most unappreciated legacy, yet they are
precisely what make Rizal singularly relevant to the 21st century. Rizal ended up transforming his adopted town
towards his radical vision of human development and social justice and thus resolving the urgent question of how
Filipinos should live and relate to each other, and what sort of nation we should aspire to be.

Rizal gifted the people of Dapitan with his vision, his talents and skills, knowledge and experience to
realize projects that would redound to their well-being; the people, in turn, welcomed and honored his gifts and
gave him the gift of their labor and wholehearted participation in his projects. It was this reciprocity and sharing
that revitalized Dapitan into a thriving community. This, then, is Rizal’s legacy for the 21st century: Dapitan, the
creation of a robust community; a demonstration of what it takes, and how easy it is after all, to pursue the common
good.

Today, as we prepare for the coming storm, we would do well to learn from Rizal’s Dapitan years. And, like
Rizal, we’ll have to be creative about our “grassroots innovations” and “community action.” Actually, we will have
no choice. With the end of cheap oil, soaring commodity prices and financial instability, we have to emulate or
improve on Rizal’s Dapitan. Like Rizal’s exile, the threat of global catastrophes could be a blessing in disguise—
forcing us to rediscover what really matters in our lives.” (Quibuyen, 2011).