Historical Palimpsests in Revolutionary Works like Rizal and Reyes

6 min readNov 16, 2021

A short paper on intertextuality and subversion of Western/Colonial Form by Filipino Writers by Sean Marie Prythyll A. Patnubay | October 12, 2021

Last modified: October 14, 2021

Rizal and Reyes make up two sides of a coin. The former is the glorified face of Philippine Literature while the latter is the underappreciated and often forgotten back part of the coin. I mean, in real life, Rizal *is* the actual face of our one peso coin, the country’s most widely distributed legal tender while Reyes…

Regardless of whether or not they have a coin now, back then, they made up what we can call the R coin as both their last names start with the letter R. R stands for revolution and the R coin duo made it our revolution. When you flip them in the air, you would hear the sounds of the Philippine Revolution. They were more alike than we gave them credit for which is why I would dare to say that they make up the same coin.

This is because a battle is, almost always, written down before execution and they were the writers of this prelude. They made use of historical palimpsests and the art of subversion to evade censorship from the ruling power. This was Sun Tzu’s Art of War in Philippine terms. Hence, before the battle of swords, there was a battle of pens and their breed or our breed of writers proved that mighty is the warrior who wields both the pen and the sword for we needed to shed blood on paper and later to win both the battle and the war in the long run. However, this was not the original intention of the Propagandists as they were after Philippine representation at the Cortes and/or social reforms. At that point, some still regarded Spain as “Mother Spain” while others developed an image of a separate Filipinas.

Both Rizal and Reyes’ works utilize historical palimpsests or in simpler terms, the concept of intertextuality. Palimpsests are often seen in textual studies and is defined by Merriam Webster as a “writing material used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased”. This ties up with the original concept from Julia Kristeva called intertextuality which as defined by the Literary Encyclopedia is the fundamental truth where “no text is original or unique” in and of itself.

Rizal’s writing material wanted to reveal the social conditions of the Philippines under Spain but was eventually erased in a way that covered up this message with a veil that can only be pierced by his fellowmen. Well not quite since it was eventually banned in some parts of the country. Spain saw through his intentions but its damage was irreversible as the ban only served as a means to popularize it further. He talked about class inequality by depicting it in the levels in the Bapor Tabo and through his allegorical characters as to the status of the country. This was nothing new and can even be attributed to the influence of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment during that period and Rizal’s exposure to such. In fact, you can see parallels of his work with Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo that used humanist and libertarian ideas to expose the hypocrisy of the clergy. They even had similar satirical prose and dialogue in their pages. Of course, Rizal’s works had their own flavor and are still commendable.

However, Rizal’s choice of writing in Spanish did not appeal to me greatly as this reminds me of Otso Diretso’s failed campaign or to follow the order of things, Otso Diretso’s campaign reminds me of Rizal’s so-called successful work. Because Spanish was only accessible and understandable to the educated/elite class back then, he was simply talking to those who were already enlightened. Despite this, it can be argued that by writing in Spanish, he wanted to show that Filipinos were capable of success in fields that were gatekept by the Spaniards, i.e. literature and language and such argument can excuse his use of the language because his message is still there, veiled but not impossible to pierce. Still my criticism stands that like Otso Diretso who campaigned in places they knew they would win, Jose Rizal wrote to those who could already understand him and/or taught those who were already aware.

On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Severino Reyes’ Walang Sugat was set in a church to allude to a game. Here we can see several forces at play, particularly the social, political, and religious subjugation by the ruling regime and how Reyes combatted it underhandedly. [1] So, when Tenyong barges in Julia and Miguel’s wedding and the story ends with his declaration of unwounded, he played with the colonizer’s game and won because it became a mockery of the very ideals they held dear. Like Rizal’s work, there was romance, humor, and conflict in its storyline making it a palimpsest over a palimpsest and a frame narrative which is very Western.

However, unlike Rizal, props should be given to Reyes who wrote this in Tagalog even if I myself am not a fan of the language. He was able to communicate more to the common people in a language that was more digestible and I am not just speaking about the use of Tagalog here. Because his appeal was more to the common people, that may or may not be attributed to his chosen literary form, the zarzuela, it was easier for me to understand and remember.

To sandwich this comparison of Rizal and Reyes, it can be said that both their works, particularly Noli and El Fili plus Walang Sugat are very subversive. Ciaran Ross in Sub-Versions: Trans-National Readings of Modern Irish Literature defines subversion as a “[suggestion of] revolutionary and radical changes in the treatment of any number of literary issues”. This involves but is not limited to tradition, style, language, and character where satire and parody are some of the most celebrated techniques of subversion.

In these particular works, they employed allegories. I mentioned earlier that characters in Rizal’s Noli and El Fili represented the status of the country during the Spanish regime. He also criticized the priests and the Church through his portrayal of these in his books as dirty old men and rife with corruption. To expound on the allegory in Walang Sugat, Reyes was able to show Julia as the Philippines, Miguel as America, and Tenyong as the Philippine Revolution while having a strong element of romance. Embodied in Tenyong, Reyes showed that the revolution would triumph and through Julia, that our country would gain its freedom.

[1] First and foremost, society, back then and dare I say even now, pressures us to get married in accordance to the popular timelines of said period and often to whiter beings. Secondly, white supremacy was and is still prevalent. Last but not the least, religion, particularly the Catholic Church, plays a big role in determining the former two because marriage is a sacrament of the Church and the portrayal of Jesus in popular media is a WASP or a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

[2] It makes me wonder what with the recent government-mandated purge of “subversive” material in universities is being disposed of. It is too loose of a definition and if we are strict about it, shouldn’t the works of Rizal and Reyes’ be part of those that are surrendered as they are also considered as subversive work? But then again, learning/studying about their works are mandated by the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education. Which then takes precedence? If it is the former over the latter, then why do we still use his face on our currency? If it is the latter by order of promulgation, then why was the separability clause not employed for that specific provision in our legislation? See: https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1154646?fbclid=IwAR1MWmNJ1brBU5MY8f26FPl0Iv8xDujoj10sg2I9NRr-OJBQlZ-Z3Dc4BkU

Historical Palimpsests in Revolutionary Works like Rizal and Reyes

Written by Sean Marie Prythyll Patnubay