Drawing exercises

HAVING taught courses on Jose Rizal and Philippine history for two decades, I have gathered a bag of tricks to make the lessons both enjoyable and memorable. One exercise that never fails to elicit response is a drawing exercise: I divide the class or seminar participants in groups and ask them to draw Rizal and Andres Bonifacio. I have noted that the older the participants, the louder the groan after the instructions are given. If the group is composed of teachers, not only is the audible groan the loudest, there will always be a few who complain that they cannot (will not?) draw. At this point, I suggest that those who cannot draw human figure or likeness just make out a simple stick figure, but to make sure that there are certain things, certain symbols that will be associated with the stick figure to let the viewer know whether it is Rizal or Bonifacio.

After the initial grumbling, there is a change in the air. People start to giggle and laugh as they discuss how to do the drawing. Most people would have dug into their pockets and produced the one-peso coin that has Rizal's likeness. The problem is that the image is small. Worse, he is depicted in profile. So Rizal is often drawn as he appears in the coin, the industrious ones copy out the coin on a bigger scale, while the lazy ones bring out a pencil and make a rubbing of the coin on the huge cut of manila paper distributed for this diagnostic test.

Bonifacio can be found on a bigger coin, the P10 coin, but he is also in profile and has someone else with him. On the paper money, Bonifacio sometimes shares space with Apolinario Mabini, leading some people to draw the Sublime Paralytic instead of the Great Plebeian or Supremo of the Katipunan.

When all the drawings are done, I ask these to be brought to the front and, depending on the time allotted, to explain their work to the body.

From long experience, it is common to see Rizal or Bonifacio drawn like Japanese anime characters. It is also normal to see both heroes depicted with their iconographic symbols. Rizal wears a black coat, black pants and a black bowler hat. He has a moustache and his hair is parted on the side. In his right hand, he often holds a quill, or clutches two books marked: "Noli me tangere" and "El Filibusterismo." He rarely, if ever, smiles

In contrast, Bonifacio wears a white "camisa de chino," a red neckerchief and red pants and is often barefoot. On his head is a straw hat whose wide brim is folded on the front and kept in place with a small triangular clip with three "Ks" one on each angle of the triangle. In his hand, he would either have a bolo, a bamboo lance, or a pole on which waves the red flag with three white "Ks." If Rizal is quiet and reserved, Bonifacio is almost always angry, with his mouth wide open in a silent scream. Sometimes torn cedulas are flying around him or at his feet.

The above are standard images we have of Rizal and Bonifacio. When you go around elementary schools, and even kindergarten schools, throughout the country during August, you will find posters and drawings by the students that are supposed to represent the National Language, so we must have a lot of drawings of Manuel Quezon but there are more depicting Rizal and Bonifacio.

Two conclusions can be drawn from this exercise: first, the quality of the drawings reveals that children draw better than adults; second, the level of understanding and knowledge of these two heroes has remained static since kindergarten.

Many adults have gone through numerous history classes and yet their understanding of history, as reflected in their drawings, remains, at best, childish or maybe we can be polite and describe it as child-like.

Because we have photographs of his execution, Rizal is the easiest to draw, but the symbols are problematic. Contrary to popular belief, he used a metal-tip wooden pen to write, not a quill, which may appear correct but is historically inaccurate. While he did publish two novels, Rizal should actually be holding three books because he also wrote the seldom-read annotated version of Antonio de Morga's "Sucesos de las islas Filipinas." We would like to think we know Rizal as well as the back of our hand, yet these two examples alone show we have a lot more to learn.

Bonifacio may have used the iconographic bolo in battle, but he probably preferred a pistol. To prove that common sense is not common: Imagine Bonifacio leading his men to the disaster at Pinaglabanan (some would rather call it Pinagtalunan) in 1896. It must have been a wooded area at the time, so they should have worn clothes to blend with the background. Was it practical to go into battle wearing that gleaming white camisa de chino and screaming red pants? He would have been a nice target in such an outfit. Yet, that image persists.

What do you think he shouted in battle? "Sugod mga kapatid!" or maybe "Kalayaan!" How can we tell our children that Bonifacio might have shouted an unprintable cuss word that begins with "p"?

History can only form a people if they have a mature knowledge and understanding of their past. To persist in the fairy tales we were given in kindergarten dooms us to repeat history.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.