Noteworthy Monuments

✔ A visitor to the Philippines usually sees the José Rizal monument in the Luneta, Manila’s most famous park. However, many visitors pass by without knowing the background of the death of Rizal, the Philippines’ national hero. He was put to death by firing squad in 1895 on the spot where his monument now stands. The execution was in the presence of and at the instigation of the powerful Dominican friars. The friars were angry over Rizal’s writings that exposed the abuses of the Spanish priests in the Philippines. One was the novel “Noli Me Tangere” (English translations, “Eagle’s Flight” and “Social Cancer”), and a second novel “El Filibusterismo” (English version, “Reign of Greed”). Over the strong objections of the clergy, the Philippine Congress has made his two novels, depicting life under Spanish rule and the excesses of the clergy, required reading in all colleges and universities.

Visitors to Manila also often see in a plaza the monument of Andres Bonifacio, one of the heroes of the Philippine revolution that ended more than 300 years of Spanish rule in that country. Around the base of the monument one can see depicted in bronze the suffering of the Filipino people under the clergy-state rule of the Spanish governors-general. The friars, especially the Dominicans, did not escape when the revolution erupted, and many paid with their lives for their greed and bloodstained deeds.