RIZAL THE SCHOOL DESIGNER, SHAKESPEARE'S GHOST AND THE WOMEN OF BERLIN

As if on cue, a newly discovered architectural drawing by no less than Jose Rizal has appeared, a coded message perhaps intended for the Department of Public Works and Highways.

- LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL

It belongs to the descendants of Rizal's most-devoted sister Narcisa. (She endured Dapitan with him and gave Josephine Bracken shelter.)

It's a detailed "elevation of the facade" of the national hero's dream academy — and may also be something the Department of Education could consider as a peg for its schoolhouses. It's a glorious representation of learning, much more inspiring than the anonymous-looking buildings being built for gazillions by the nation's favorite culprits, the DPWH. Just think of it: schools designed by Jose Rizal.

Not many may recall this, but among Rizal's many multi-hyphenated achievements was being the country's first licensed geodetic engineer. Yes, Rizal was a surveyor of land — trained at the Ateneo de Manila when he was just 17 (but too young to be given a license until age 21). It's a quality that now comes in handy when you think of Senator Ping Lacson's team flying their drone over numerous ghost projects.

It arrives on the market in tandem with another sumptuous marvel — a first edition of Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. This volume is a signed copy dedicated to Rizal's fellow intellectual Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera. He was the older brother of Paz, who married another from their ilustrado circle, the painter Juan Luna. It was T.H. who lobbied hard with the American regime to have Rizal declared national hero.

So few first editions have survived confiscation by the Spanish authorities and the ravages of revolution and two World Wars. Two copies are at the National Library; this is the first to surface in several years still in private hands, where it was lovingly conserved.