Rizal would have hated the TV

Are we finally done with the commemoration of Dr. Jose Rizal’s 150th birthday?

Media gave our national hero endless tributes and I am satisfied with all the features on him on print.

Disappointing, however, were the documentaries that were shown by most public affairs programs on television. I did not get to watch all, but those that I saw chose to attract viewers by focusing on the trivialities of Rizal’s life.

I love trivia and often write about the lighter side of situations and circumstances. But I’m already up to here with Jose Rizal trivia.

About a month prior to Rizal’s 150th birthday, there was even a public affairs show that tackled in its entire episode the mysterious smile of our hero as captured in an old photograph. A whole hour of merely trying to figure out the mystery behind that Mona Lisa smile!

And last June 19  Rizal’s actual birthday  an independent TV production outfit that had a reputation for churning out only the most insightful docus that had won awards opted to tackle the love life of the national hero.

The Filipino tsismoso that I am, I admit having been interested in Rizal’s romantic life growing up and reading up on history. In fact, I had this unexplainable fixation on Josephine Bracken to the point that when our Spanish professor asked the class to write in the Castilian language a biography of eminent people, I chose the dulce estranjera (sweet foreigner)  maybe because I’ve always found her enigmatic.

On a trip to Hong Kong one time, I even made an attempt to visit Josephine’s grave at the Happy Valley cemetery, except that no one else in our tour group was willing to accompany me and I forever get lost in the former British Crown Colony.

Of course, I eventually grew tired reading up and learning more about Josephine’s life and decided to pursue other interests. At this point, I already have an overload of Josephine Bracken and Rizal’s involvement with other women.

What frustrated me further after watching the TV features on Rizal was that there were no new insights. Sure, the descendants of the national hero’s ex-girlfriends surfaced to talk about their grandmas, but they offered nothing new. Everything they said I already read in the books of historian Ambeth Ocampo and in the columns of Barbara Gonzales. Most of what they shared were mere speculations  conjectures, actually.

Please tell me something I don’t know yet.

In an attempt to make those features more interesting to the viewers, there were even dramatizations that cast the hammiest of performers (all unknown). They were given no dialogue and were only made to go through the motions of acting like they belonged to the time of Rizal. But check out their costumes. There was one male character that wore a barong Tagalog with a visible sando underneath. You don’t do that  not even in today’s very permissive fashion. Walk the streets wearing a sando  fine. But never wear it under a barong Tagalog.

Maybe after I had reached saturation point  when the long list of Rizal’s girls started coming out of my ears  I began thirsting for the concrete achievements of our national hero. But what did these recent TV docus try to instill in the minds of the young viewers? That various monuments dedicated to him were built all over the country on the strength of his being a playboy.

Looking back, Philippine television hardly did a feature on Rizal and his virtues. Even in the ‘70s docu-dramas on the national hero (usually played by Tommy Abuel  with Lotis Key as his Josephine) the focus had always been about Rizal’s love life.

Maybe I expected more from today’s TV. Or maybe I shouldn’t have. After all, the ratings game had never been more ferocious until this new millennium. And so every feature on him had to revolve around his romantic liaisons  the better to pique the viewer’s interest.

Had there already been television during Rizal’s time, I’m sure he would have hated the medium. Falling to the ground after getting mortally wounded by Spanish bullets, I bet his last words would have been: “No TV coverage, please!”