HUMANITIES DILIMAN (JULY-DECEMBER 2013) 10:2, 29-55 M.P.P.

Reyes

El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal

as “Science Fictionist” 1

Miguel Paolo P. Reyes

University of the Philippines Diliman

ABSTRACT

Jose Rizal’s El Filibusterismo famously depicts the diff iculties faced by

adherents of scientif ic thought in the Philippines during the late nineteenth
century. It also contains descriptions of various implements that were
uncommon for the time, from a “time bomb” within a lamp to a “specter
summoner” that apparently projects hologram-like images—the products of
reasonable extrapolations from the known science of the age. These features
are common among the forerunners of the modern Anglo-American genre of
science f iction, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to a number of works by
Edgar Allan Poe. It is far from the objective of this paper to push for Rizal’s
canonization as the Father of Filipino Science Fiction, however. Instead, this
paper seeks to surface the particular ways Rizal chose to depict the conflicts
between knowledge borne of materialist investigation and knowledge from
the earthly emissaries of the divine. It argues that in El Filibusterismo, these
conflicts are somewhat helpful but at the same time dismissible as irrelevant
in the context of a campaign against injustice—helpful in intimidating enemy
oppressors, irrelevant among advocates of the downtrodden. In this way, Rizal’s
novel implicitly contemplates a way to craft “science fiction” that strays from
the imperialistic “science conquers” formula predominant in the West.

Keywords: Jose Rizal, El Filibusterismo, science fiction, Philippines

INTRODUCTION

Hardly anyone writes about science f iction from the Philippines. Among the few
scholarly commentaries on science fiction from our country are critical typological
or historical overviews. Among these are essays by Roberto Añonuevo and Timothy
Montes. Añonuevo asserts that the first work of science fiction written by a Filipino
is Mateo Cruz Cornelio’s Dr. Satan (first published 1945), a novel about a doctor of
medicine who discovers, by means of experimenting on people, an elixir with varying
effects on individuals. Montes, meanwhile, considers “The Apollo Centennial” by
Gregorio Brillantes (f irst published in 1972)—a story set in 2069, wherein the

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El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

Magellan Space Station rises nightly in a sky where “helidiscs” fly about—as “the
f irst successful science f iction story written by a Filipino.” No studies on these
preliminary determinations—competing claims, they seem—are known to yours
truly.

Other critics, such as Baryon Posadas, have written what can be referred to as
“problems and prospects of Philippine science fiction” pieces. Posadas’ 2001 essay,
“Rethinking Philippine Science Fiction,” which deals partly with possible shifts in
Philippine science f iction signalled by and following the creation of the (short-
lived) Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards category “future f iction” in 2000, is implicitly
deemed seminal by at least one other academic (Sanchez 2010). Posadas says that
there can be a Philippine science f iction if Filipino writers can “form [their] own
science f iction mega-text 2 drawn from [Filipinos’] own estranged experiences”
(“Rethinking Philippine” 30). He offers similar advice on how to strategize the
further development of Philippine science fiction in his introduction to the “Writing
the Future” issue of the online journal Literatura, wherein he says:

Perhaps within Philippine science f iction lie the tools to perceive the various
invisibilities of the Philippine context. In the act of rendering the encounter
with the yet absent experiences, perhaps the science f iction writer can
simultaneously deploy his tools to render our own aliens, our own Others.
(“Standing on” n.p.)

Identifying antecedents of Philippine science f iction does not seem to be a main

concern of his based on the works mentioned, seeing as he leaves out Cornelio and/
or Brillantes from his diagnoses and prognostications. Also, his more recent work
has been on Japanese science fiction. 3

What accounts for this dearth of inquiry? One possibility is that over half a century
after the influential literary critic Raymond Williams stated that critics are narrow-
minded if they are dismissive of works of science f iction simply because such
works are “fanciful” or go beyond the bounds of reality (356), science f iction is still
largely seen by the Philippine literati as a vehicle for escapism (Tan; Flores).
Additionally, there are apparently hardly any well-published science f ictionists in
the Philippines who refer to themselves exclusively as science fictionists or science
f iction writers. Take for example the case of writer-critic Emil Flores. While he is
known for writing about science f iction as a singular genre, and has categorized
some of his work science f iction 4, he has unblinkingly discussed the local iteration
of the genre as a subcategory of speculative fiction, “a blanket term used by writers
and scholars for the genres popularly known as ‘science f iction’ and ‘fantasy’”
(Flores)—a term attributed to American science f ictionist Robert Heinlein, which

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has been appropriated by writers like Dean Francis Alfar to refer to f iction with
Martians and/or manananggals (Patke and Holden 211). It seems unavoidable to
discuss current Philippine science fiction without mentioning that it is classifiable
as a subgenre of Philippine speculative f iction because so many Filipino writers of
what can be called science f iction, as well as literary critics, have been using that
umbrella appellation for or in their work. 5

Charles Tan also links the disparagement of science f iction from the Philippines to
the fact that “many modern works haven’t really strayed from the formula of one of
our f irst novels, [Jose Rizal’s] Noli Me Tangere [or the Noli, published in 1887],” a
statement that echoes Resil Mojares’s claim that the novels written by Rizal
“[determined literary] standards no Filipino writer can ignore” (141).

The likes of Tan are, intentionally or unintentionally, segregating “fanciful” science

f iction from “realistic” and “socially relevant” strain of f iction traced back to the
works of Jose Rizal. By science fiction, this paper refers to fiction with a characteristic
“cognitive estrangement” effect that results from placing a fantastic although
scientif ically conceivable object or objects in a milieu reflective of our objective
reality, or in an alternative universe where the same laws of nature (or hypothetical
extrapolations from them) apply. 6 In this paper, I argue that Rizal implicitly calls for
the disavowal of this mutual exclusivity of literary categories, as his novel El
Filibusterismo (or the Fili, published in 1891), while hardly a work of science fiction,
properly speaking, contains elements that show how advances in science and
technology, even the f ictive variety, can play a vital role in writings that are often
heralded as “literary” by our cultural elite—or, more importantly, how “new” science,
existing or imaginary, can f igure in literary works that have or can have
transformative effects on our society. Moreover, this paper shows what, if anything,
the Fili’s representations of scientists or science adherents and their relationships
with their ideological Others can contribute to the formulation of a distinctly
Philippine science fiction tradition.

THE SCIENTIFICALLY SUPERIOR ALIEN

It remains a mystery to me why most visual depictions of Simoun, the Fili’s anti-
hero, share a number of glaring errors. From covers of recent editions of the Fili to
the 1962 f ilm adaptation starring Pancho Magalona, Simoun either resembles a
nineteenth century Anglo-Hispanic with a stovepipe hat, bathed in mystique; a
stereotypical bearded ilustrado with short black hair; or a mestizo version of the
titular character of the Francis Ford Coppola-directed Bram Stoker’s Dracula (released
in 1992) as he appears some forty minutes into that film. I have yet to come across

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El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

an accurate graphic illustration of the Fili’s main character, which is strange because
his outer attributes are vividly described in the f irst few pages of the novel.

I gripe about this because, as both Ante Radai ć (56) and Vicente Rafael (55)
understand, Rizal painstakingly made sure that Simoun, at the very least when he
f irst appears, makes his mark on readers as an uncanny character. He is a foreign
oddity—a tall, sinewy, white-maned, and raven-bearded chimerical creature sporting
enormous blue-tinted eyeglasses (keeping even parts of his cheeks hidden), a tinsin
helmet, a strange accent, and an air of indomitable superiority (see Rizal 5-6; ch. 1
or Lacson-Locsin 6; ch. 1). 7 Is he, as the influential members of Rizal’s f ictive Manila
wonder, an American Mulatto or a British Indian? Simoun conf ides the answer to
only a few of the Fili’s characters; to most, for the majority of the novel, the man
who goes by only one name, the obscenely wealthy jeweler, the conf idante of the
country’s governor-general, is an alien of indeterminate nationality, a purveyor of
foreign beliefs.

The revelation of who Simoun really is should hardly come as a surprise to those
who know their Noli. Simoun is Crisostomo Ibarra, the idealistic hero of the Noli,
now in villainous costume, Edmond Dantes turned into the Count of Monte Cristo,
albeit with a taste for the anarchic. He sees himself as a sower of discord for a
cause; he seeks to return the favor to those who wanted him dead for “subversion,”
who believe that their wish was fulf illed; he desires death for those who greatly
diminished the chances that he would live happily ever after with Maria Clara, his
intended, who is cloistered in a convent when he starts his campaign to foment
chaos. His mission, in brief: 1) cause a revolt fatal to the country’s predominantly
foreign and authoritarian elite; 2) resume relations with Maria Clara after liberating
her from the nunnery.

Vicente Rafael is correct in emphasizing the role of money in Simoun’s mission;

Simoun’s wealth is “an instrument of his will,” necessary to “sow crime and incite
popular uprisings” (57). Money is a means for Simoun to be Mephistopheles in
human form. What Rafael does not mention is that Simoun’s mastery of science
also plays a crucial role in his plans to realize his revenge. “Science” in this paper
refers to the common understanding word, e.g. , the Merriam-Webster def inition:
“knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of
general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientif ic method,
[particularly] such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the
physical world and its phenomena.” I believe that Rizal consistently used the word
“science” to mean the same thing in the Fili.

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 M.P.P. Reyes

An early manifestation of Simoun’s scientif ic superiority can be found in the f irst

chapter of the novel. The Fili’s narrator tells us that Simoun wears enormous tinted
eyeglasses to shield his eyes from the light of the sun (“[para] evitar la luz del sol”
[Rizal 6; ch. 1]). The narrator further tells us that Simoun’s eyewear gives him the
“aspect [aspecto (Rizal 6; ch. 1)] of a blind man or one of defective eyesight”
(Lacson-Locsin 6; ch. 1), implying that Simoun does not wear glasses to address any
particular vision problem. Rizal, who was well-known as an ophthalmologist, may
be in this instance prescribing an alternative use for eyewear with colored lenses,
which during his time were typically of the corrective variety; it was only in the
early twentieth century when tinted eyeglasses made specif ically to shield the
eyes from the negative effects of bright lights were invented. 8

Another display of Simoun’s technological superiority (at least relative to the

majority of his countrymen) can be found in chapter 10, “Wealth and Misery.” In this
chapter, Simoun converses with Cabesang Tales about the bandits (tulisanes) that
abound in the barrios. Tales tells Simoun that these bandits have f irearms that
shoot far (“Tienen fusiles que alcanzan mucho!” [Rizal 59; ch. 10]). Simoun then
shows Tales that his Smith & Wesson revolver can also shoot far; he targets,
thereafter accurately hits the nuts of a palmera de bonga some 200 pasos away
(Rizal 59; ch. 10). Allegedly an excellent marksman—and displaying an extensive
knowledge of f irearms in chapter 11 of the Fili 9 —Rizal likely knew the maximum
effective reach of known ammunition f ired from any revolver produced in his age,
and that 200 pasos—if by the italicized term the novel’s narrator means the Spanish
unit of measurement corresponding to approximately 1.4 meters 10—is remarkable
for a handgun in the Philippines during his time. 11 There is, however, a possibility
that “pasos” in the novel refers to the commonplace def inition of “paces” (as in the
paces taken by duelists before they turn to f ire at each other—200 of those is still
a considerable distance). Consider, however, that in any case, Rizal clearly wanted
Simoun’s revolver (or the ammunition it uses) to elicit amazement among the
characters in the Fili’s diegesis, particularly from the likes of Tales.

Simoun’s sunglasses and revolver are some of the novel’s lesser scientif ic
wonders, 12 decidedly minor achievements when considered alongside the more
remarkable devices described in the novel: the time bomb (of sorts) in the
pomegranate lamp (described in chapter 33, “The Final Argument”) and the
prestidigitator’s “spirit summoning” apparatus (which makes its sole appearance in
chapter 18, “Deceptions”).

Let us f irst consider the former. Simoun’s schemes culminate in a bomb-plot, a

mass assassination of the elite. Mass murder by means of exploding devices was by

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El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

no means unheard of in the late nineteenth century, as will be shown in the

succeeding paragraphs. 13 Simoun’s bomb, however, was quite a curiosity. It was
made up of a vessel that resembles a pomegranate that is “large as the head of a
man, cut slightly to show the inner grains,” which were shaped by “huge carnelians”;
it even featured rinds that “perfectly imitated the corrugations of the fruit” (Lacson-
Locsin 272; ch. 33). Of more interest than the lighting device’s aesthetic properties
is what can be found inside it:

[Below the burner was a vessel] of steel, some two centimeters thick and
capable of holding more than a liter [of what is revealed to be nitroglycerine].
[Also inside the lamp is] an odd and complicated apparatus [as well as a] tube
of crystal [and what Rizal refers to as] the bomb. (Lacson-Locsin 272-273; ch.
33)

As previously stated, the device is, in a way, a time bomb. It is to be a primary source
of light in a house where there is a large gathering of the city’s elite. When it dims
after twenty minutes, someone will (or should) raise the lamp’s wick to relight the
lamp, an act that will cause “a capsule of fulminate of mercury will detonate,
[causing] the pomegranate [to] explode” (Lacson-Locsin 274; ch. 33). The bomb was
made by a primary school teacher (a character from the Noli) who Simoun made
into (taught to become?) a pyrotechnist (“le he hecho pirotécnico” [Rizal 144; ch.
19])—yet another showing of Simoun’s scientif ic prowess.

Benedict Anderson says that “Simoun’s bomb-plot is partly based on the terrorist
group Narodnya Volya’s spectacular bomb-assassination of Tsar Alexander II in
1881, the year before Rizal arrived in Europe for the f irst time” (“In the World-
Shadow” 334). He also says that “imagined in 1890–91, [Simoun’s bomb-plot]
precedes rather than follows the spectacular wave of bomb outrages that rocked
Spain and France in 1892–94" ( “In the World-Shadow” 120). Most importantly,
Anderson states that none of the bombs in the aforementioned events were anything
like Simoun’s pomegranate (“In the World-Shadow” 123). Rizal’s ability to mentally
conjure such a potentially eff icient terrorist device ought to earn him a place
among those who dreamt up realistic devices of mass annihilation in twentieth
century science f iction.

Indeed, the Fili shows how Rizal was considerably talented at imagining grounded-
in-reality frights; besides the bomb, there is the “spirit summoning” device, which is
what Epifanio San Juan Jr. is likely alluding to when he says that

[the novel’s Unconscious or Symbolic/ideological center] foregoes the

language dominated by the exploiters [to dialogue with colonial oppressors,

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i.e. , to discuss progressive reform] resorting to the uncanny, magic, gothic

paraphernalia, the grotesque, hallucinations—the technique of a de-reifying
purpose. (25)

The device is the property of a certain Mr. Leeds, described as an American friend of
Simoun. Mr. Leeds is an illusionist—he overtly makes the audience believe that his
ability to summon the dead is genuine, though there is a tacit understanding that
what he does is simple trickery. However, because of how complicated the trick is,
many believe that he is indeed skilled in necromancy.

Benedict Anderson dedicates significant segments of his article “Nitroglycerine in

the Pomegranate” to discuss a complex link between the statue of a sphinx in Joris-
Karl Huysman’s A Rebours, a novel on decadence that the highly educated Rizal
probably knew about, with the use of “sphinx” as the logos where the desired
intersects with the undesired in the Fili (105-111). He notes how there are many
thematic and tropic similarities in the two novels that he f inds difficult to dismiss
as mere coincidence (“Nitroglycerine in the Pomegranate” 106). However, Joe
Nickell’s Secrets of the Sideshows yields the likeliest reason why Rizal referred to
his undead entity as “Esf inge.” The following extract from Nickell’s book describes
a real-life illusion known as the Sphinx, which debuted in 1865—only four years
after Rizal’s birth—at London’s Egyptian Hall (276):

[The magician] entered carrying a small box, which he set on a three-legged

table, the emptiness of the area underneath the table being plainly visible.
Lowering the box’s front, the magician revealed a head of Egyptian appearance,
whose eyes he commanded to open. The Sphinx complied and then, following
other commands, smiled and proceeded to give a speech. Finally, the magician
closed the box and explained that the magical charm, which had enabled him
to revivify an ancient Egyptian’s ashes, lasted just fifteen minutes and had
expired. When he opened the box again, the head had been replaced by a
heap of ashes.

The clever illusion depended on the table, which appeared to be empty

underneath but actually concealed a confederate. This was accomplished by
the use of two mirrors. They f illed the space between the table’s legs in such
a way that they not only hid the accomplice but also reflected the carpeting
on either side; thus, audience members thought that they were seeing the
carpet beneath the table. The actor could insert his head into the box, withdraw
it, and substitute a pile of ashes at the appropriate time. (Dawes and Hoffman,
qtd. in Nickell 276)

Rizal describes the trick, from bluffs to prestige, in a similar fashion. As well-
travelled and well-read as he was, Rizal likely heard or read about the Sphinx

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El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

illusion before or as he was writing the Fili. However, Mr. Leeds’s version of the
Sphinx illusion has a number of innovations. In a footnote, Rizal explains that the
mirrors in Mr. Leeds’s table are concealable; they can slide below the floor,
automatically rising when the box is placed on top of the table (Rizal 137; ch. 18).
Mr. Leeds also allows members of his audience to examine the box, oddly without
worrying about the possibility that the box’s hidden hole will be discovered; either
the hole is well-concealed, or there is no hole. Lastly, it appears that it is unnecessary
for Mr. Leeds to close the box as the talking head disaggregates into a pile of
ashes—indeed, Mr. Leeds only covers the apparatus after the head disintegrates
(“[La] cabeza se habia reducido á polvo y Mr. Leeds colocaba otra vez el paño negro
sobre la mesa” [Rizal 137; ch. 18]). From the way Rizal describes how the trick
works, it seems as if an image of the head is somehow projected into the box, like
today’s holograms. Nickell describes no similarly advanced version of the Sphinx
illusion.

The Sphinx is only one variation of the classic “speaking skull” illusion; in his book,
Nickell describes a number of similar tricks (cf. 295). Perhaps Rizal chose the
Sphinx variety because it alludes to the Ancient Egyptians, who were ruled for
centuries by theocrats, much like Rizal’s people. Indeed, the Sphinx’s monologue
sends chills down the spine of one friar who notes the similarities between the
ghost’s story with that of Crisostomo Ibarra; this friar faints (causing maidens in the
room to follow suit). However, the Sphinx’s monologue contains a statement that
differentiates the rulers of Ancient Egypt from the Castilian colonizers of the
Philippines. The Sphinx describes the rulers of Ancient Egypt as “monopolizers of
science” (“monopolizadores de la ciencia” [Rizal 135; ch. 18]). As will be shown in
the next sections, in Rizal’s novel, science was hardly under the exclusive control
of the Philippine elite.

“THINKING MEN”

The men of science [“los hombres de ciencia” (Rizal 5; ch. 1)], do you know
what they are? There you have in the province the Puente del Capricho,
bridge of caprice, built by one of our brothers, and which was not f inished
because the men of science, citing their own theories, criticized it as frail and
unsafe, and look, it is a bridge that has withstood all the floods and earthquakes!
(Lacson-Locsin 5; ch. 1)

The word “science” f irst appears in the Fili in these declarations by the Franciscan
friar Padre Salvi, in a conversation with the newspaperman Ben Zayb, while they
are aboard the steamship Tabo. The above is a tirade against “the men of science”
issued by a friar, a member of a community where men of the cloth wield the

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authority of absolute monarchs in miniature. He condemns the men of science for

their trust in theories that can, naturally, be falsified, a condemnation exemplary of
decidedly unscientif ic (non-inductive) reasoning, i.e. , making a sweeping
generalization based on a singular, aberrant occurrence. Padre Salvi’s comment is
applauded by his fellow friars. Later, his belief in forces beyond human
comprehension costs him his dignity; he is the friar who fainted during Mr. Leeds’s
séance.

Further along in the novel, the Fili’s readers are introduced to another cleric who
views science negatively, even though he is an instructor of physics and chemistry.
Padre Millon has considerable scientific knowledge, at least in comparison to most
of his colleagues at the Fili’s Pontif ical and Royal University of Santo Tomas. Still,
he was hardly convinced of the veracity of knowledge borne from scientific inquiry.
“Despite being a professor of Geography, he still maintained certain doubts about
the roundness of the earth”; also, like one of Galileo’s condemners, “[he] would
smile when speaking of [the earth’s] rotary and revolutionary movements around
the sun” (Lacson-Locsin 100; ch. 13). The novel’s narrator gives the rationale for
Padre Millon’s lack of trust in science: none of his brethren have excelled in the
f ield, while many from their rival orders have done so (Lacson-Locsin 101; ch. 13).

Thus, Padre Millon forces his students to memorize the contents of the textbooks
he uses in class, though he makes little effort to ensure that they understand what
they commit to memory. Students are not allowed to use the equipment in the
university laboratory, as these are for display only; the laboratory exists solely for
the sake of visitors from Spain, so that they can remark upon how the indios have an
excellent laboratory, yet have yet to produce a local version of famed scientists
Lavoisier, Secchi, or Tyndall, “even in miniature” (Lacson-Locsin 99; ch. 13).

These two friars resemble the Shahryar in Edgar Allan Poe’s “meta-science f iction”
story, “The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” (1850), in that these
characters are dismissive of new scientif ic discoveries, adherents as they are to
what they have long been familiar with. Indeed, both Salvi and the Shahryar staunchly
believe in longstanding textualized myths, while both Millon and the Shahryar
consider the notion of a round earth ridiculous (Poe 689). 14

Others who think of themselves as luminaries of their community seem to have

some knowledge of natural laws, but appear to lack the capacity to think critically
using such knowledge. The aforementioned Ben Zayb, who fancies himself the only
thinking man in Manila, before the aforedescribed séance conducted by Mr. Leeds,
declares that he knows the mechanics behind the apparatus that will allow the

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El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

head of a dead man to appear and speak before them; it is a trick done with mirrors,
he declares (Lacson-Locsin 142; ch. 18). However, when he examines Mr. Leeds’s
table, he is unable to f ind any mirrors, for reasons previously discussed; Mr. Leeds
will have to switch tables, Zayb insists (Lacson-Locsin 144; ch. 18). After the
mayhem following the Sphinx’s manifestation, Don Custodio, one of the
performances’ high society audience members, wishes the trick to be banned because
of its “immorality” (“es altamente impio é inmoral!” [Rizal 137; ch. 18]). In response,
the newspaperman declares that the trick must be banned mainly “because it does
not use mirrors!” (Lacson-Locsin 50; ch. 7).

RESOLUTE (?) BELIEVERS

The (self-declared) intellectual elite are def icient in their appreciation of science,
or are unable to solve a quandary scientifically; what about the common folk? One
representative of the lower classes in the novel, Sinong, the cochero (coachman) in
chapter 5, “A Cochero’s Christmas Eve,” asks Basilio, a university student, if the right
foot of King Bernardo (of his countrymen, the Indios) has been freed from bondage;
Sinong is among those who believe that “only [the folk hero’s] right foot remains
chained (Lacson-Locsin 36; ch. 5). Sinong resolutely believes that King Bernardo
will someday be completely freed from captivity in the cave of San Mateo to
“deliver [the indios] from oppression” (Lacson-Locsin 36; ch. 5). The cochero has
even made plans regarding how he can be of service to the mythical king. In answer
to Sinong’s query regarding the state of Bernardo’s bonds, Basilio can only smile
while shrugging his shoulders—the reaction of a man taught to consider such beliefs
as nonsense.

Then there is Juli, the daughter of Cabesang Tales, initially a Marian devotee, who
later decides to take her fate from the hands of Mother Mary’s son into her own. Juli
allows herself to become the servant of the wealthy Hermana Penchang to earn
money to ransom her father from bandits. Hermana Penchang is a woman who
wholly believes that an infallible cure for stomach disorders is putting holy water
on the navel while praying the Sanctus Deus (Lacson-Locsin 250; ch. 30). Hermana
Penchang forces Juli to imbibe such beliefs. Juli gamely agrees to receive such an
education from Hermana Penchang, possibly because she is already a believer in
miracles—for example, Juli trusts that Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ will leave
money underneath a statue of the Virgin Mother if she prays for this to happen.

Juli’s faith in miracles is gradually lost. The money she prays for fails to materialize.
Her father is released by the bandits, but to repay the costs of his release, she must
remain in the servitude of Hermana Penchang. Her father’s lands are “legally” stolen

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by friars, which causes Cabesang Tales to become a tulisan (bandit), becoming the
fearsome, murderous Matanglawin (who had stolen Simoun’s remarkable revolver
for his own use). Even Basilio, the man to whom she has betrothed herself, is later
in the novel incarcerated for supposedly engaging in subversive activities. She is
later released by Hermana Penchang, but becomes Hermana Bali’s charge when her
grandfather, Tata Selo, is thrown into prison to draw her father out of hiding. Tata
Selo’s release is in the hands of Padre Camorra, who, it is implied, wants carnal
knowledge with the virginal Juli in exchange for such a favor. She yields to Padre
Camorra’s lust—gleefully escorted by Hermana Bali to the friar’s abode—after she
learns that Basilio’s immediate release from prison is unlikely. With her belief in
the possibility of divine intervention on her behalf shattered by such successive
tragedies, she takes her own life.

THE CULT OF SCIENCE

Basilio initially adheres to a faith distinct from that of Juli, though his devotion to
his set of beliefs is just as fervent as that of his beloved’s. What makes the belief
system he adheres to atypical is the fact that it is without a godly center, as revealed
in the f irst of many one-on-one conversations that Basilio has with Simoun:

Science is [the primary aim of the most cultured nations;] [within] a few
centuries, when humanity shall have been redeemed and enlightened; when
there shall no longer be races; when all peoples shall have become freed;
when there are no longer tyrants nor slaves, colonies nor empires; when one
justice reigns and man becomes a citizen of the world, only the cult of science
[“el culto de la ciencia” (Rizal 50; ch. 7)] will remain; the word patriotism will
sound as fanaticism, and whosoever will take pride in patriotic virtues will
surely be locked up as a dangerous maniac, as a disturber of the social
harmony. (Lacson-Locsin 55; ch. 7)

These words echo the aff irmation of science’s supremacy over older bodies of
knowledge or methodologies in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). However, while
one mentor of Victor Frankenstein readily admits that belief systems invalidated
by science (i.e. , alchemy) were nevertheless precursors of scientif ic thought, 15
Basilio seems to completely abhor the unscientif ic; for instance, Basilio describes
the holy water in church fonts to be a source of diseases, contrary to the popular
belief that such water is curative (Lacson-Locsin 250; ch. 30).

Simoun agrees that science, or rather scientism, seems to be an ideal dominant

ideology; both he and Basilio would likely agree that it can invalidate any socially
constructed differentiation of humans through the scientif ic method. However,

39
El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

Simoun believes that there are necessary conditions to bring about the nationless
utopian world-state that Basilio envisions—violent revolt, fueled by love of country,
must f irst happen in countries victimized by oppressor nations; many must die “on
the stakes” so as to horrify “the conscience of society,” forcing society to grant
freedom to “the conscience of the individual” (Lacson-Locsin 55-56; ch. 7). Simoun
is thus saying that nationalism can lead to transformative anarchy. He says this to
convince Basilio that the only way for the younger man to achieve his aims is to
become one of Simoun’s men. Basilio initially declines Simoun’s offer.

VOICES IN THE MARGINS

Basilio eventually agrees to become one of Simoun’s lieutenants, another recruit in

the anarchist’s cabal of intellectuals, joining the ranks of the teacher-pyrotechnist
and Mr. Leeds. Basilio’s time behind bars, the death of Juli, and the failure of his
efforts based on scientism to create nonviolent ways to make the colonial masters
realize that their slaves must be liberated, have made him lust for the same chaos
that Simoun ardently desires. Simoun assigns Basilio to lead a revolt by bandits—
headed by Matanglawin—as soon as the bomb explodes.

With advanced armaments, an army of disgruntled bandits, and reserves of

intellectual resources (a surplus of “brain power,” if you will), could Simoun’s
nefarious campaigns fail?

As the novel shows, of course they can. In his f irst attempt to launch a revolt
(without Basilio’s willing assistance) Simoun effectively calls the action off after
he learns that Maria Clara is dead; the news plunges him into grieving inactivity.
His bomb plot also fails because of a fortuitous event. The event which Simoun
seeks to abruptly conclude with mass murder is the celebration of a wedding,
happening in the house of Basilio’s recently deceased adoptive father. As the fiesta
is proceeding, the former lover of the bride, Isagani, learns from Basilio that the
luminous pomegranate will bring death when it loses luster. Before the bomb
could be triggered, Isagani dashes into the house, throwing the pomegranate outside;
the bomb sinks harmlessly to the bottom of a river. A university student who
shares Basilio’s beliefs (though he is more willing to directly engage authorities to
achieve his desires, as can be seen in chapter 27, “The Friar and the Filipino”),
Isagani later learns about the revolt he halted, causing him to regret his rashness. In
short, the failures of Simoun’s schemes are attributable to men’s desires to be with
or protect their beloveds.

Padre Florentino, a Filipino clergyman whom Simoun turns to for refuge after he is
forced to go on the run following his last failure, identif ies another reason for

40
 M.P.P. Reyes

Simoun’s lack of successes. According to the priest, Simoun did not have the support
of the Inscrutable; “the [Heavenly Father will not give the] glory of saving a country
[to] him who has contributed to cause its ruin” (Lacson-Locsin 311; ch. 39). Moreover,
Padre Florentino believes that the Indio race is, at the time, unworthy of sovereignty:

Why independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And
they would be, without doubt, because he loves tyranny who submits to it.
Señor Simoun, while our people may not be prepared, while they may go to
battle beguiled or forced, without a clear understanding of what they have to
do, the wisest attempts will fail and it is better that they fail, because why
commit the wife to the husband if he does not suff iciently love her, if he is not
ready to die for her? (Lacson-Locsin 314; ch. 39)

As translated from Spanish by Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin, Wenceslao Retana says

that the above excerpt is evidence that Rizal was “truly a great nationalist but an
enemy of separatism, and above all [an opponent] of obtaining independence by
force” (in Lacson-Locsin 342). Such a reading is reflective of an erroneous belief
that Simoun categorically failed, or that his forces were soundly defeated. Such a
belief is usually tied to Rizal’s statements to the effect that he is against inopportune
revolution (as in Matibag 251). This conflation of Rizal’s overt views on revolution
and the mass of often contradictory statements that is the Fili can be seen in most
readings of Simoun’s inability to launch a revolt, such as the following from Eugenio
Matibag:

For Simoun fails, everything fails, as everything must, Rizal believed, that is
founded on hate. The novel thus achieves a dual purpose; it is both an
incitement to revolution and a dire warning against it, an exact summing-up,
in fact, of his views on revolution, which because they were completely realistic
contained the element of ambivalence. He now saw no alternative to revolution;
everything else had been tried. But he could not see how a revolution could
succeed. (260)

and, more recently, from Jose Duke Bagulaya:

[as more astute literary critics have shown,] Simoun cannot stand for all
revolutionary strategies but for the anarchist [solution, thus] Simoun’s defeat
does not necessarily mean the hopelessness of any radical or violent means
of changing the etat social [only the impossibility of success for the variety of
uprising directed by an anarchist]. (59)

All three readings are undone by the fact that the colonizers never really “won”
over Simoun’s forces, as a violent struggle for supremacy between them never took
place. As previously detailed, it is the subordination of lofty aims to romantic love

41
El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

(libidinous lust?) that kept Simoun’s revolution from succeeding; why would a
dedicated extremist call off a well-planned destabilization plot to brood over the
loss of his intended? Does the Fili therefore ultimately convey the lesson that
even the most well-calculated schemes are susceptible to being outmaneuvered
by a deus ex machina? This is a feasible way of interpreting Simoun’s failures. Of
more interest than such a hermeneutic exercise is a counter(fictive)factual analysis
concerning what Simoun might have done to better ensure the success of his
schemes; when one considers the existence of other potentially revolutionary
voices in the novel besides the anarchic, one realizes how Simoun could have
significantly increased the probability of successfully overthrowing the fictionalized
colonial master. 16

One of these voices belongs to Sinong, the cochero. As earlier mentioned, Sinong is
waiting for evidence that King Bernardo is ready to retake his kingdom. The cochero
stated that he is willing to f ight to assist in the reclamation of his mythical
sovereign’s birthright. One can imagine that anyone who claims to be sent by King
Bernardo (or be the monarch himself) to enlist Sinong’s services could have made
the cochero—and other myth-believers like him—a fanatical foot soldier. Padre
Florentino’s exhortations are also potential fomenters of violent revolt. One may
justif iably reduce his parting words to Simoun to a rephrasing of the latter’s earlier
declarations of genuine nationalism as a necessary tool for the success of any anti-
colonial movement (minus the anarchic overtones). However, in his words to the
dying Simoun, Padre Florentino is also implicitly saying that a violent revolution
blessed by the Heavenly Father would prosper. Early twentieth century millenarian
revolutionaries in the Philippines, as described in Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and
Revolution, adhered to similar beliefs.

These voices exist only in the margins, playing a barely audible second f iddle to
Simoun’s dominant voice, which is that of a man who has substituted mass wine for
nitroglycerine—that of a man who has forsaken praying for heavenly apparitions for
employing a magician to simulate the undead. Simoun the anarchist-scientist “hogs
the spotlight,” so to speak, in the Fili. The voices previously mentioned hardly
interact with his or with each other (if at all). Sinong’s only detailed interaction
with Simoun’s cohorts is his introductory conversation with Basilio. The cochero is
later reduced to a plot device, as the narrator tells us that Sinong informs Basilio of
Juli’s death while the young man is incarcerated (in chapter 32, “Consequences of
the Posters”). Padre Florentino, meanwhile, only speaks to Simoun when the latter
is near death; only in those closing events of the novel, when Simoun has determined
that his losses are irredeemable, does the clergyman learn about the anarchist’s
campaign. Though seemingly incapable of doing anything beyond their designated

42
 M.P.P. Reyes

supporting roles, these distinctive minor voices share in common one virtue that
would have allowed them to stand in solidarity in the face of their colonial
oppressors—an almost blind, religion or myth-informed nationalistic fervor. Simoun
probably would have been able to entice these other voices to work with him
against colonizers by presenting himself as primarily a nationalist instead of insisting
on the correctness of his brand of revolutionary ideology.

CONCLUSION

However, what should we make of the fact that the notion of nation, from which
springs forth nationalism, is—like scientism—of Western origin?17 What is the virtue
in preferring a foreign ideology that has given rise to (at times violent) factionalism
over another that overtly seeks to unite all under the common rule of our species’
overtly non-sectarian knowledge of the physical world?

At about the same time that nationalism was on the rise, industrial revolutions in
the West were beginning to make science a common facet of everyday life. In The
German Ideology (published in 1845), Marx claimed that “the science of mechanics
perfected by [Isaac] Newton was altogether the most popular science in France and
England in the eighteenth century” (n. pag.; vol. 1, ch. 1). This “popular science”
allowed England—soon thereafter, as a function of competition, all other countries
“that wished to retain [their] historical role to protect [their] manufactures”—to
become an industrial capitalist nation that utilized production-automating, small
industry-destroying machinery to supply the demands of the world market (Marx n.
pag.; vol. 1, ch. 1). Such an inextricable linkage of machinery and manufacture led
to the creation of societies that will readily consume science fiction in the years to
come. In the words of H. Bruce Franklin in an online essay called “Science Fiction:
The Early History”:

Under industrial capitalism, vast numbers of people were soon spending

their lives working for a handful of capitalists who owned everything the
people produced, including the factories, coal mines, railroads, and ships. Not
only were the workers thus alienated from the means of production and their
own products, but they also found themselves increasingly alienated from
nature, from each other, and from their own essence as creative beings.
Human creativity now appeared in the form of monstrous alien forces exerting
ever-growing power over the people who had created them.

While many claim that all f iction depicting such forces is descended from English
Shelley’s Frankenstein (Aldiss 35; Rose 4), some claim that American Edgar Allan
Poe is the father of science f iction, or at least the creator of the genre’s foremost

43
El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

progenitors (Asimov 8; Rose 4). Unsurprisingly, there is at least an almost worldwide

consensus that science fiction first flourished in the industrialized European-Anglo-
American or Western world. 18

The scientist or science-minded hero at odds with the scientif ic-fantastic—from

Ralph 124C 41+ (from Hugo Gernsback’s eponymous 1911 novel) to comic book
scientist-superheroes such as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic and Tony Stark/Iron Man—
is one of science f iction’s hallmarks. Works classif iable under this taxon invariably
aff irm, implicitly or explicitly, that giving such scientist-protagonists the right to
dominate the scientif ically inferior is not objectionable. 19 The French writer Jules
Verne’s Captain Nemo puts the weaponry of his Nautilus (from Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under the Sea, published in 1870, and The Mysterious Island, published in
1874) to use in his campaign to make humanity what he wants it to be. Many works
of Western science f iction concern self-appointed genius caretakers of the great
unwashed. Two famous American works, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series and Frank
Herbert’s Dune saga, tell tales of people with superior scientif ic knowledge and/or
access to technology arrogating unto themselves the task of keeping humanity
from destroying itself. As can be gleaned from all of the examples thus far mentioned,
on the level of individual characters, science f iction has a tendency to reify or
naturalize the ascendancy of scientif ically superior persons.

When the same scientific ascendancy is made to characterize particular nations—or,

say, the entirety of humanity as represented by a largely Western group with token
“diversif iers”—such characterizations echo the logic underlying the notions of
“manifest destiny” and “benevolent assimilation.” 20 Since the genre’s birth, a large
number of works of Western science f iction, such as the Robert Wise-directed f ilm
The Day the Earth Stood Still (released in 1951), Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s
End (published in 1953), Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen (collected in 1987),
the Roland Emmerich-directed blockbuster Independence Day (released in 1996),
and the Wachowski Brothers’ f ilm The Matrix (released in 1999), have shown how
scientif ically advanced extraterrestrials or self-aware computing devices can unite
humanity against a common enemy—if they are malevolent and/or bent on the
extermination of the human race—or otherwise force humanity to unite, permitting
us to disregard persisting causes of inequality among members of our species, or at
least give us reason to temporarily ignore the categories we use for stratifying
society. Such forces remain nonexistent (or undiscovered). Thus, works of f iction
featuring such forces are often seen by literary critics as works casting enemy
humans in nonhuman form. 21 The ideology that underlies such f iction is the same
as the science-based humanism that Basilio initially adheres to. As explained
previously, while such f iction ostensibly pushes for the genuine unif ication of the

44
 M.P.P. Reyes

human race, they implicitly reinforce the domination of those who can best harness
science. In virtually all of the works of science f iction mentioned in this paper, one
can locate beliefs that are overtly racially unifying in aim, but have the
aforedescribed “natural law”-based fascistic undercurrent.22

The Fili implicitly admonishes such beliefs. In looking closely at the interactions
of the various revolutionary and potentially revolutionary factions in the Fili,
nationalism—indigenized in various ways, devoid of scientif ic basis, even reveling
in the ambiguity of what constitutes a nation—appears to be the one notion that the
novel wanted Rizal’s contemporary countrymen to rally under, especially given the
novel’s undercurrent of skepticism concerning the variety of humanism described
above. Rizal knew that there were many believers in mythic monarchs or followers
of earthly emissaries of Jesus Christ among his countrymen during his time. 23
Displacing such beliefs with scientism under a regime that stifles efforts to educate
the masses would have been an insurmountable task. According to Warwick Anderson,
most of the local scientists from the 1870s were “not in the religious orders
(although many were peninsulares [Spanish residents of the colonies who were
born in Spain])” (296); “the most impressive [scientif ic] research [during the late
nineteenth century] took place at the Jesuit Observatory” (297), and it was only in
the 1890s (perhaps after the publication of the Fili?) that the real Pontif ical and
Royal University of Santo Tomas allowed students to use microscopes (296)—in
other words, science had virtually no penetration across the local social strata in
the Philippines when Rizal was writing the Fili, as is accurately depicted in the
novel. Rizal made no attempt to impose upon the majority of the Fili’s f ictive
Philippine populace the same appreciation of science of industrial/industrializing
societies.

However, if Rizal in the Fili disabuses those who excessively valorize science, he
does so only after thoroughly demolishing the authority of the Spanish frailocracy
to determine the fate of his countrymen in the Noli. Arguably, the novels in tandem
seek to keep Rizal’s countrymen from dwelling on the subject of science versus
religion, an aim that becomes particularly evident in the latter novel’s attempts to
exhaustively portray—without showing any clear resolution—the manifestations
of this conflict in the late nineteenth century Philippine setting vis-à-vis the same
novel’s employment of cognitive estrangement to attach triggers of awe and wonder
to the portrayal of (potential) technological advances of the time, which can be
seen as evidence of a scheme to pragmatically isolate tool from theory. In short, in
challenging scientism yet showing what effective advanced weapons local
revolutionaries should seek or develop, the Fili is asking those who will f ight the
colonizer to think of a bomb as a device for achieving national sovereignty, not a

45
El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

statement of allegiance to the power of science. While the Fili echoes the alchemy-
science or myth-science dichotomies in Frankenstein and “The Thousand-and-Second
Tale of Scheherazade,” unlike those two Anglo-American texts, no attempt is made
in the Fili to consistently devalue the Others of science.

Furthermore, consider this: if Simoun ended up victorious, the Fili would likely be
seen by critics as a mere wish-fulf illment fantasy, dismissed the same way that
science fiction is often dismissed. It would be seen as a work of fiction that telegraphs
the message that a man with advanced weaponry is the key to a nation’s salvation
from foreign tyranny—that “superior science” alone can liberate Simoun’s countrymen
from oppression. Thematically, it would be similar to the biblical story of the
liberation of the Israelites under Moses’s leadership, with a key difference being
the source of bond-breaking power.

By stopping short of producing what I think may have become the Philippines’ first
science f iction novel, Rizal is inadvertently signaling his literary descendants to
reflect on whether or not what they are writing amount to tools for the reif ication
of the unquestionable dominance of those whose guns shoot the farthest, or if what
they are producing are in support of the “natural” rule of those whose bombs kill the
most. In reading the novel in the manner herein presented, echoing (if not completely
agreeing with) Posadas’s search for the Philippine science f iction mega-text, at
least one other matter for reflection arises: should the science f ictionists of the
Philippines focus on writing about some scientif ic marvel that benef its (or can
potentially destroy) all of humanity—that is, exert effort in producing science
f iction that readily has the potential to transcend national boundaries and f ind
audiences worldwide—instead of describing extrapolations from existing science
that have peculiarly local applications? 24

“¿Donde esta la juventud ha de consagrar sus rosadas horas, sus ilusiones, y

entusiasmo al bien de su patria?” 25 Padre Florentino thinks to himself as Simoun
lays dying (Rizal 1990, 284). Within the f inal paragraphs of the Fili containing that
sentence, the novel’s last speaking character delegates to the youth—descendants
of Rizal’s generation, including both scientists and science fictionists—driven solely
by love of country the task of achieving what a vengeful man with an almost
fantastically well-armed force could not.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to the U.P. Third World Studies Center for providing support for my
attendance in the conference for which this paper was f irst drafted (see end note 1),

46
 M.P.P. Reyes

and to the anonymous reviewers who helped improve this paper. All errors are my
responsibility.

END NOTES

1
This is an expanded version of a paper presented by the author at the “Rizal in the 21st
Century: Local and Global Perspectives” International Conference (22-24 June 2011,
Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman).

2
Posadas, quoting Damien Broderick in “Rethinking Philippine Science Fiction,” def ines
mega-text as “an inter textual mass where contemporary science f iction draws its
language from resulting in the absence of any need, for example, for writers in the
present to explain every novum [novelty] introduced in their works to be understood by
the well-versed science f iction reader”(25).

3
Before his Humanities Diliman essay, his article, “In the Spotlight of Misperception: Japanese
Science Fiction vis-à-vis Western Science Fiction Set in Japan,“ was published in 2000.
The recent work I am referring to seems to be more in line with that earlier essay (cf.
“The Sky Crawlers and the Transmediation of Science Fictional Worlds”(2012) and a
2012 conference paper entitled “Remakes and Retroactive Continuities: Intertextuality
and Empire in Japanese Science Fiction Cinema.”)

4
In the Eighth International Conference on Philippine Studies in 2008, Flores presented
a paper entitled “Future Visions and Past Anxieties: Science Fictions in the Philippines
from the 1990s Onwards.” According to the paper’s abstract, as the title suggests, the
paper focuses on how science f iction from the timeframe covered by Flores’s study has
represented Philippine society. Flores is also a contributor to science f iction-only
anthologies such as Diaspora ad Astra: Science Fiction from the Philippines (published
online in 2010), which he co-edited with Joseph Nacino.

5
The long-running series of Philippine Speculative Fiction collections—a number of which
were edited by Alfar (Patke and Holden 211)—features works that can be classif ied as
science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the like. The previously mentioned article by Sanchez
(2010), while heavily referencing Posadas’s 2001 essay, is concerned with the possibility
of formulating a distinctly Philippine speculative fiction tradition.

6
This def inition is based mostly on Darko Suvin’s def inition—”[science f iction] is a literary
genre or verbal construct whose necessary and suff icient conditions are the presence
and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main device is an imaginative
framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (Positions and
Presuppositions 37)—as well as Mark Rose’s description of the genre: “science-f iction
stories either portray a world that is in some respect different from our own, as for
instance in stories set in the future or on other planets, or, alternatively, they describe
the impact of some strange element upon our world, as in alien-invasion stories or
evolutionary fables. Science f iction stories, in other words, always contain an element
of the fantastic” (2).

7
In this paper, I rely primarily on Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin’s 1996 translation, though I
occasionally refer to the 1990 republication of the text in the original Spanish by the

47
El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

National Historical Institute—notwithstanding my poor command of the language—

particularly when Rizal’s exact wordings better bolster my statements.

8
Eyewear company Foster Grant credits its founder, Sam Foster, with the “introduction” of
“inexpensive, mass-produced sunglasses” in 1929, after their use became widespread
among f ilm actors who needed to protect their eyes from very bright f ilm studio
lighting (Foster Grant). As to the invention of sunglasses, Stephen Dain states that tinted
glasses were f irst recommended to protect the eyes from sunglare by James Ayscough
as early as 1752 (77), but the purpose of the glasses he was talking about was to correct
vision problems (Ayscough), not specif ically to shield the eyes from sunlight—Ayscough
believed that regular “white glass” spectacles produced an “offensive [glaring] light,
very prejudicial to the Eyes,” and that glasses tinged with blue “renders every Object so
easy and pleasant, that the tenderest eye, may thro’ it view any thing intently, without
pain” (13). An article by William H. Brock published in the Notes and Records of the Royal
Society of London narrates how sunglasses as we now know them were developed
between 1908-1915 by William Crookes, who was tasked by the Royal Society’s Glass
Workers’ Cataract Committee to develop protective eyewear for glassworkers that needed
to be opaque to the ultraviolet light from glass furnaces (which caused what was then
known as “glassworker’s cataract” (Brock 304, 306)) but did not compromise “optical
definition” (Brock 305, 306). In 1911, Crookes presented his findings before the Committee,
which thereafter gave him funding for several years to continue ref ining what would
later be known as “Crookes Lenses” (Brock 306), glasses that could be fashioned into
spectacles that shielded the eyes from the glare of bright light but, in Crookes words,
“did not appreciably alter the natural colours of objects” (Brock 306). Brock asserts that
“[the work Crookes] published in 1914…led to the creation of the sunglasses industry
after his death in 1919" (309).

9
Erwin Castillo describes how both Rizal and his compatriots found Rizal’s skill to be
excellent, of a duellist’s caliber. Rizal was also known for “[badgering] friends for
original American Smith & Wesson catalogs” (Castillo).

10
According to Sizes.com (which features well-documented content), the paso is “a unit of
length, 1.39 meters (about 1.52 yards).“

11
Castillo states that the gun Rizal most wanted to own—and likely (the basis of ) Simoun’s
revolver—is “the Smith & Wesson New Model No. 3 large-framed, single-action revolver,
break-top, with automatic ejectors, in .44 Russian caliber,” a gun ordered specif ically“for
the Tsarist officer corps.” Also called New Model Russians, (Ezell 118), these guns were
used by the belligerent factions of the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War (Ezell 120) and
were indeed the most advanced Smith & Wesson handguns during Rizal’s time (Ezell
124). Given that Rizal probably never used a pistol like this (Castillo), the range and
power of ammunition f ired from Simoun’s pistol were perhaps only extrapolated from
Rizal’s knowledge of firearms—that, or he was purposely exaggerating his f ictionalized/
f ictive weapon’s capabilities. Certainly, if 1 paso=1.39 meters, given that the muzzle
velocity, or the velocity the projectile reaches to exit the gun’s barrel (WebPath
Contributors), of an actual New Model Russian is 229 meters/second (Ezell 129), and
that even most bullets from modern handguns lose a signif icant amount of kinetic
energy at only 100 yards (or 91.4 meters) because of drag and air resistance (WebPath
Contributors), the ability of Simoun’s gun to shoot a bullet almost 280 meters away and
still knock off bunga/betel nuts hanging from a palm tree is unbelievable.

48
 M.P.P. Reyes

12
There is also the toxic substance Simoun takes towards the novel’s conclusion, which, the
jeweler asserts, none of the learned, wealthy Padre Florentino’s antidotes could neutralize
(Lacson-Locsin 310; ch. 39).

13
Nor were they unknown even centuries earlier (remember Guy Fawkes?).

14
According to the narrator of Poe’s story, after consulting the Tellmenow Isitsöornot (an
ancient Ripley’s Believe It or Not perhaps?), the narrator found out that the Arabian Nights’
protagonist-storyteller, Scheherazade, was not saved from execution by the Shahryar by
her literally life-prolonging stories. According to the narrator, Scheherazade’s previously
unknown “thousand-and-second tale” is about a journey by Sinbad to the West, i.e. , the
United States, where he encountered all the natural peculiarities and technological
innovations, such as trains (695) and the telegraph (696), known during Poe’s time—i.e.,
anachronisms left and right, described in a fantastical manner by Scheherazade but
clarif ied via the author’s extensive footnotes. The Shahryar found almost the entire
story preposterous—completely breaking his enchantment with and leading to the
execution of his companion of a thousand-and-two nights—only remarking, “[that], now,
I believe,” when Scheherazade makes a reference to the claim that the earth is “upheld
by a cow of a blue color, having horns four hundred in number” from Sale’s Koran (694).

15
According to this “natural philosopher,” M. Waldman, alchemists such as Cornelius Agrippa
and Paracelsus were “men whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted
for most of the foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task to
give new names, and arrange in connected classif ications the facts which they in a
great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light. The labours of men of
genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the
solid advantage of mankind.” (Shelley 28)

16
The analysis that follows attempts to operationalize the method of analysis teased at by
Suvin in his essay, “Can People be (Re)Presented in Fiction?: Toward a Theory of Narrative
Agents and a Materialist Critique beyond Technocracy or Reductionism.” In that essay,
Suvin states that “people in the bourgeois individualist sense, cannot be represented in
f iction; they necessarily become, on the one hand, exempla ([W.H.] Auden’s paragons)
and, on the other hand, shifting nodes of narration” (“Can People” 690). Furthermore, he
says that “pertinent and crucial relationships among people—not atomic or pointlike but
as a rule dyadic or differential—nonetheless can be represented in f iction; in fact,
f iction consists in their representation and reformulation, which allows the reader to
pleasurably verify old and dream up new alternative relationships, to re-articulate (in
both senses of the word) human relationships to the world of people and things” (Suvin,
“Can People” 690). Here, I deemed it necessary to f irst examine the characters as one
would individuals in the “bourgeois individualist sense” before the relational-typological
analysis focusing on “narrative agents” (Suvin, “Can People” 686) that Suvin suggests.

17
Anderson says as much in his landmark Imagined Communities. According to Anderson,
the conceptualization of truth being inscribed in particular written texts, the naturalization
of social hierarchy of the divine monarchical variety, and the “conception of temporality
in which cosmology and history were indistinguishable” had a “slow, uneven decline…f irst
in Western Europe, later elsewhere” due to economic shifts and new discoveries and
inventions that necessitated “a new way of linking fraternity, power and time meaningfully

49
El Filibusterismo and Jose Rizal as “Science Fictionist”

together” (Imagined Communities 36), which eventually led to the development of

nationalism in Europe during the nineteenth century (Imagined Communities 81, 86).

18
The following is a brief survey of science fiction commentaries by non-Western scholars
to support this claim. Wu Dingbo and Koichi Yamano, from China and Japan, respectively,
both agree that the precursors of their respective science f iction traditions are Western.
“[Science f iction] emerged f irst of all in the West,” the f irst region in the world to
industrialize, says Wu (xii); Anglo-American science f iction writers were the makers of
the prefabricated houses that Japanese science fiction writers moved into, so to speak,
says Yamano (70). Russians Evgeni Brandis and Vladimir Dmitrevsky think Jules Verne
was the founding father of science f iction (4-5). Latin American science f iction scholar
Rachel Haywood Ferreira says that “While the influence of Latin American writers is
surely important [to works of early Latin American science f iction], that of Northern
writers is at least as strong… .[The] works of [Johannes] Kepler, [Louis-Sébastien] Mercier,
Poe, and Verne, among others, likely influenced our writers in terms of the use of the
fantastic voyage, of a specific future setting for utopia, of travel through time and space
via medium or spiritist, of scientif ic detail and didacticism, of extrapolation from the
present, and the combination of real and fictitious characters and events” (436-437).

19
Jameson describes aliens in the Western science f iction as generally “[manifesting] a
characteristic and virtually omnipresent “paranoid” suspicion of the hostility, bellicosity,
and imminent menace of the Alien in general (a topos [type] which largely transcends
the limited years of the “off icial” Cold War period)” (199). Jameson also describes a
Western motif of “the super-intelligence who will solve all of our problems” (199).

20
Warwick Anderson might agree, as he says that “[in the twentieth century, the laboratory
functioned as both index and generator of civic responsibility. The more laboratory-like,
or scientif ically-minded, the Philippines became, the more elevated in civilization
Filipinos might appear to Americans and the more modern and responsible Filipinos
might appear to themselves. Conversely, Americans, in detecting a failure in local science,
often aff irmed a continuing need for colonial supervision and training” (311).

21
Examples: Cyndy Hendershot’s “From Trauma to Paranoia: Nuclear Weapons, Science
Fiction, and History,” which explains that the aliens of the 1956 film Earth vs. The Flying
Saucers are articulations of collective anxiety over nuclear weapons, as well as a means
of transferring the Americans responsibility for the escalation of nuclear weapon
development to “ancient forces beyond human control” (82); and Ingo Cornils’s “The
Martians Are Coming! War, Peace, Love and Scientif ic Progress in H.G. Wells’s The War of
the Worlds and Kurd Laßwitz’s Auf zwei Planeten,” which focuses on the allegorical
function of aliens in science f iction, saying that the faction the alien Other signifies
may be a specif ic nationality. Probably nowhere is this predilection for substituting
nationalities and other socio/ethno-cultural labels with alien races more evident than
in the first, Cold War-era Star Trek series (cf. H. Bruce Franklin’s “Star Trek in the Vietnam
Era” and Daniel Bernardi’s “‘Star Trek in the 1960s: Liberal-Humanism and the Production
of Race”).

22
Walter Benn Michaels’ essay “Political Science Fictions” argues that while post-Cold War
“science f iction would seem to be almost generically committed to noncultural, in other
words, physical difference” (650-651), science fiction that feature both alien life forms
and a universalized human race are only “relatively uninterested” in the categories of

50
 M.P.P. Reyes

racial and cultural differences but “absolutely uninterested in the categories of ideological
differences that dominated the cold war” (655)—in other words, such f iction is only
highlighting one essentializing socially stratifying category over another. Arguably, when
the alien/Other is a foreigner like Simoun, the category highlighted is nationality;
ideology in dystopian science f iction; and so on. Certainly, a large study (more extensive
than Michaels’s, even Rose’s) will be necessary to show that identity essentialization is
a key function of science f iction as a genre the world over.

23
Reynaldo Ileto retells an anecdote showing how Rizal dealt with the mythology about
him that was growing within his lifetime: “On one occasion [after his return to the
Philippines from abroad in 1892], a particularly excitable old man praised Rizal so
much that the latter felt obliged to reveal himself, if only to put a stop to it. ‘When he did
so,’ narrates [Austin] Coates, “the old man stared at him, unbelievingly, then kissed his
hand, calling him a hero and redeemer. Everywhere, too, he found his tricks of sleight-
of-hand recalled, people averring that he had supernatural powers’” (“Rizal and the
Underside of Philippine History” 69). Thus, apparently, Rizal never made any attempt to
vehemently deny the fantastic abilities many people believed he had.

24
According to Posadas, “[by] emphasizing science f iction’s metaphorical rather than its
futuristic nature, we might perhaps be able to form our own mega-text and produce
credible, relevant science f iction (“Rethinking Science Fiction” 28).” Sanchez suggests
that “one icon that is beginning to surface as part of a possible Philippine mega-text is
water” because it recurs in one of Alfar’s Philippine Speculative Fiction anthologies (45).
I am not thoroughly convinced of the value of pushing for greater emphasis on science
f iction’s allegorical capabilities among Philippine science f iction writers, as this makes
science f iction hardly any different from all other genres classified under “speculative
f iction” (the aforedescribed popularity of that umbrella genre seems to verify the
widespread acceptance of Posadas’s view). I think we can learn from Rizal and emphasize
the distinctly “futuristic nature” of science fiction, but without harboring any illusions of
the Philippines having undergone any age of national industrialization and technological
innovation. The advanced science and technology depicted can be foreign, but their
utilizations should be localized. In any case, I think the juxtaposition of the observable
current and the plausible future—another thing the Noli and the Fili do well together—
can make science fiction more, for lack of a less clichéd term, socially relevant in the
Philippine setting.

25
“Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden hours, their illusions, and
enthusiasm for the welfare of their country?” (Lacson-Locsin 314; ch. 39)

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_______________
Miguel Paolo P. Reyes <mppreyes@gmail.com> has been a University Research
Associate at the Third World Studies Center (TWSC), College of Social Sciences
and Philosophy, University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) since 2010. He is also
an associate editor of Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies and a
managing editor of The Asian Democracy Review. His most recent publications appear
in both journals. He has a bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in Comparative Literature
from the Department of English and Comparative Literature (DECL), College of Arts
and Letters, UPD. Briefly, he was also a DECL graduate student. He was then a
student for a couple of years at the UP College of Law. He has since focused his
energy on doing research and publications work in TWSC, where he has been involved
in research projects concerning memory and protest literature, democratization,
and academic and authorial integrity.

55