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Rizal, a Noble Alonzo
Physician. Poet. Linguist. Novelist. Artist. Scientist. Historian. Educator Nationalist
and internationalist. The multi-faceted Jose Rizal was recognized as the leading
Filipino of his time: by Blumentritt ("Rizal was the greatest product of the
Philippines and that his coming to the world was like the appearance of a rare comet,
whose rare brilliance appears only every other century"), Napoleon M. Kheil
("Admiro en ud. a un noble representante de la Espana colonial"). Dr. Reinhold
Rost ("una perla de hombre"), and Vicente Barrantes ("the first among the
Filipinos").
Rizal learned twenty-two foreign languages, using five effectively - his mother
tongue Tagalog, Spanish, English, French and German. He traveled extensively, winning
numerous friends of different races, creeds, social classes and vocations. He fraternized
with statesmen, scholars, writers and scientists - he was made a member of both the
Anthropological Society and the Geographical Society of Berlin.
An avid student of world affairs, Rizal predicted the downfall of Spanish power in the
Orient, the emergence of the United States as a Pacific power and the rise of the
Philippine Republic.
Rizal believed in the brotherhood of men, irrespective of creed and nationalities, in
universal peace and justice, and in the happiness and welfare of humanity. He envisioned a
new world order in which men are free of tyranny, bigotry and slavery, where justice
reigns and where all nations live together in fraternal harmony. Rizal himself, the
quintessential universal man, put it so well in a speech he made honoring two compatriots:
"Genius has no country, genius bursts forth everywhere, genius is like light and air,
the patrimony of all: cosmopolitan as space, as life, as God."
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