Rizal, I Salute You.

Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda, most of the people know him as simply "Jose Rizal" the owner of the head in the one peso coin that we see everyday of our lives. We all know him as our Philippine National Hero but aside that, do we know anything about him? Some will say no, some will say just a little. But aside that he is our National Hero and the face we see everyday embossed on a one peso coin, who is Jose Rizal?

Almost two months ago, it was on the 18^th of January 2013 when we watched the play entitled “Batang Rizal” by PETA.  Since the play was scheduled on the afternoon. In the morning we went to Antipolo Immaculate Concepcion School for the Mtap DepEd Competition. We competed with different schools and luckily we qualified for the next round. After the competition, it was lunch time; we hurried eating because we were so worried, it was already 1:00 and we're already late for the play.

Luckily, we arrived there in time. We thought we were late and the play has started but we were wrong. We were all like (-_____-) because everybody was still in line and waiting under the sun. We waited for almost an hour until they announced that it was already time to enter the Assumpta Theater. The Theater was so big because all the students entered already and there was still many empty sits to be occupied. We waited AGAIN for almost 30 minutes until someone from the stage appeared and told the audience about the reminders and rules to follow while the play is going on.

At last, the play started and everybody was so excited to watch. The play was about a grade school boy named “Pepito” who was studying in Rizal Elementary School. Pepito was a jolly student but at the same time, he’s so naughty. He was blamed that he broke the statue of the young Rizal that was donated by their corrupt mayor. Because of that incident he was reprimanded by his stubborn teacher and told him that he must fix the statue immediately. He went to the library and he found out a mysterious old book.

When he opened the book and read it, he teleported to another place and he was so shocked because he was drifted to a place during the time of Rizal. He met Jose Rizal’s sisters and surprisingly his sisters thought that Pepito was “Pepe” (the nickname of Jose Rizal). After that, unexpectedly, Pepito and Pepe bumped into each other. They spent so much time together and suddenly Pepito remembered that he must fix the statue of Rizal. He went back to the present time and he also brought Pepe with him. Pepito’s classmates won’t believe that Pepe is the real “Jose Rizal”. They even made a joke about Pepe’s introduction of himself. After some time, they faced some problems but eventually they fixed it together. Pepito accidentally told Pepe that he will die. Pepe felt sad because he doesn’t want to die but he still accepted the fact that sooner or later he will die because it is for the people’s sake. 

After the stage play, everybody went out of the theater and went to their respective jeepneys. Since the jeepney of St. Matthew girls was already full, I rode with the jeepney of the boys. They were noisy and naughty but it was fun. We had music on the way home.

The play is not all about comedy and entertainment. Behind these funny scenes there are lessons that everyone will learn. Sometimes there are things that can hurt us but in our hearts we know it is for the better and bad things happen for us to learn. Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda, I salute you! The play was worth the time, money and effort. I’m really hoping to see another play like that.