11. RIZAL @ 120

RIZAL @ 120

Dr. Troy Alexander G. Miano

30 December 2016 

Today, the country commemorates the 120^th Martyrdom of Dr. Jose P. Rizal. After attending a twin Christmas gathering of the Cabatuan Rescue 24/7 and the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (MDRRMC), I passed by Rizal’s monument in front of the MDRRMC Office and paused for a minute of silence. I remember seeing an old photo of the edifice from the files of my maternal grandfather, the first elected mayor of our town, being unveiled on April 19, 1954 (exactly 20 years before I was born) by Provincial Commander Major Jose Alejandro and assisted by my grandmother, mayora Marciana R. Gozum. The concrete statue and pedestal were donated by the Macabebe Peddlers Association, the merchant migrants from Pampanga. We left for Manila only to realize that I need to have a souvenir photo with the Rizal memorial to remember the day. Cruising the AH26 or Pan-Philippine Highway, also known as the Maharlika Highway in Nueva Vizcaya, I decided to stop at the Aritao Municipal Hall and took a “selfie” with the Rizal sculpture and instantly posted the photo on Facebook. This is my simple way of observing the anniversary and my approach in reminding the netizens especially the young that today is Rizal Day.

When I submitted my resume to the two universities in Isabela four years ago, I prioritize the teaching of Rizal Course. Republic Act No. 1425, known as the Rizal Law and authored by Senator Claro M. Recto, mandates all educational institutions in the Philippines to offer courses about José Rizal. The full name of the law is “An Act to Include in the Curricula of All Public and Private Schools, Colleges and Universities Courses On the Life, Works and Writings of Jose Rizal, Particularly His Novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, Authorizing the Printing and Distribution Thereof, and for Other Purposes”. “The Great Malayan” is my personal favourite sobriquet for our national hero. This is the title used by Carlos Quirino for the 1938 Commonwealth Biography contest on the Philippine national patriot. On the numerous biographies and books about Rizal, allow me to use the short life story in Wikipedia.

José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, popularly known as José Rizal; June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), was a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the tail end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain. He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime of rebellion after an anti-colonial revolution, inspired in part by his writings, broke out. Though he was not actively involved in its planning or conduct, he ultimately approved of its goals which eventually led to Philippine independence. He is widely considered one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines and is implied by Philippine law to be one of the national heroes. He was the author of the novels Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo, and a number of poems and essays.

Since the start of my public life in 1996, I have travelled in almost all corners of the archipelago. In every highway, my eyes would always catch the kilometer posts situated at the road shoulder. In front of the historic Gozum Ancestral House where I reside, a kilometer marker once stood with the letter “C 0” and “378” were etched. “C 0” stands for “Cabatuan Kilometer Zero” while “K 378” stands for the distance of Cabatuan from Manila. A marble marker with a “KM 0” label across the famous Rizal Monument in Rizal Park or Luneta Park in the capital-city of Manila is the Philippines’ “Kilometer Zero”. Known to many as the Manila Kilometer Zero, this marker serves as the nation’s starting point when measuring the distance going to the different towns and cities in Luzon Island and the rest of the country. Most of the roads in the Philippines have a marker that has a label of the distance from their local Kilometer Zero as well as a label of the distance to the next municipality, city or province. Unknown to many, the island of Mindanao has its own Mindanao KM 0 which can be seen at the Islamic City of Marawi in Lanao del Sur.

Aside from the kilometer post, another road sign can be seen prominently across the country. The most famous of all sign post is the “AH26” symbol. The "AH" stands for “Asian Highway”, a network of highway routes of international importance within Asia. It covers over 141,000 kilometers of roads across 32 countries. The Asian Highway Network, also known as the Great Asian Highway, is part of the Asian Land Transportation Infrastructure Development (ALTID) project of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) to improve the highway systems in Asia. It is one of the three pillars of the ALTID project, endorsed by the UNESCAP commission at its 48th session in 1992, comprising Asian Highway, Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) and facilitation of land transport projects.

AH26 is the route number given to the 3,517-kilometer Philippine segment of the Asian Highway Network. The main road on the AH26 route is the Pan-Philippine Highway or the Maharlika Highway, stretching from Laoag City, Ilocos Norte in Northern Luzon, to Zamboanga City in Southwestern Mindanao. According to Engineer Madeline Loyola of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Planning Department, the AH26 route markers were first put up in 2013 by the DPWH. These are located at every eight kilometers of the AH26 route. The number "1" on top of the marker means that the AH26 route is the country's primary national road.

Gat Jose Rizal is immortalized in many forms not only in the Philippines but in the nations he resided and visited. One unique way of memorializing the Laguneño is the tradition of using his monument as the landmark of the distance of a town or city from the main Rizal tombstone in Luneta. The “AH26” sign is a symbol of our contribution to globalization and world growth especially in infrastructure and transportation which is a vital component to our progress and development as a nation.