Rizal's relentless fight against corruption

Today is the 129th anniversary of the martyrdom of Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda.

- Atty. Josephus B. Jimenez

If our national hero were alive today, he would either be a senator in the mold of Bam Aquino or Kiko Pangilinan, or a congressman like Chel Diokno. And he would denounce in the harshest terms all the plunders, corruptions and all forms of shenanigans today.His “Noli Me Tangere” was a whole political volume of relentless denunciation against the abuses of the governor-generals and their subalterns, as well as the excesses of the Spanish friars and their underlings. His “El Filibusterismo” was an urgent call to rise against the political, social, and economic injustices committed by the colonizers and their local collaborators. Dr. Jose Rizal has never ceased to stand up against the corruption both by the State and the Church.

Rizal's Crisostomo Ibarra was the returning OFW and ilustrado who arrived in his hometown only to discover that his father was murdered and the prime suspects were both Capitan Tiago, who personified the corruption of the government and Padre Damaso who represented the skeletons in the closets of the Church. Both Capitan Tiago and Padre Salvi were not only oppressors of Sisa, Crispin, and Basilio, but also lustful philanderers who sexually molested women at will.