When a people is torn asunder, when its dignity, its honor, and all its liberties are trodden underfoot; when now no legal recourse remains against the tyranny of its oppressors; when its complaints, its supplications, and its groans are not listened to; when it is not even allowed to cry; when its last hope is torn from its heart … then … then … then! … there remains no other remedy but to snatch with delirious [[180]]hand, from the accursed altars, the bloody and suicidal dagger of revolution!
Cæsar, we, who are about to die, salute thee![3]
The judgment of the Filipinos in Europe could hardly have been wrong. There is every reason to hold with them that the writer of this fierce cry of warning was Rizal. [[181]]
[1] “Filipinas dentro de Cien Años,” in “La Solidaridad,” 1889–90.
We note that when Rizal discusses the possibility of future independence for his people he sets it as a century hence. We need not take him literally, nor on the other hand need we say his title was merely hypocritical and he was insidiously inciting his people to think of immediate independence; we shall be fairer to survey his writings as a whole, probably reaching the conclusion that the independence of his people was constantly in his mind, but sober reason warned him to restrain his and their youthful impatience on that subject. Blair and Robertson, “[The Philippine Islands],” Vol. LII, pp. 202–203. [↑]
[2] In his pretty little romance, “Mariang Makiling,” he utters this protest against forced military service in the Philippines and indicates the effect it had on the people:
“Meanwhile, the time of the Spanish army’s conscription came. God knows the young men dreaded it, and how their mothers hated it! Youth, home, family, feelings, and sometimes honor itself, good-bye! Seven or eight years of such soldier life was brutalizing. The military despotism relied upon the lash. Such a prospect seemed to the youth a long night that would sap away the fairest portion of his life. In it would be horrible nightmares, and from it he would awake old, useless, corrupted, bloody, and cruel. So dreaded was the draft that some have been known to cut off their two fingers in order to exempt themselves from military service. Others pulled out their front teeth (in the days when the cartridge had to be bitten off). Still others fled to the mountains and became bandits. Not a few even committed suicide.”—Dr. Craig’s translation. [↑]