Pubdate: Fri, 19 Aug 2016
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer (Philippines)
Column: Looking Back
Copyright: 2016 Philippine Daily Inquirer
Contact:  http://www.inquirer.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1073
Author: Ambeth R. Ocampo

RIZAL THE USER

IF JOSE Rizal were alive today, he would probably be found dead on a 
Manila street with a crude cardboard sign identifying him as a drug 
user. Rizal, after all, admitted taking hashish when he was 18 years 
old. But someone should explain to the trigger-happy police or 
vigilantes that in Rizal's time, hashish, which we know today as 
marijuana, "Mary Jane," or "jutes," was not what it is now: a 
prohibited drug. It was considered medicine and was dispensed freely 
from a drugstore.

We know that Rizal experimented with hashish from a letter he wrote 
to the German anthropologist Dr. A.B. Meyer of Dresden on March 5, 
1890, in answer to a query on hashish in the Philippines. Translated 
from the original German, the letter reads in full as follows: "My 
distinguished friend: "I received your letter of the 27th of last 
month and excuse me for not having answered you before this, for I 
have had to consult some countrymen and books concerning your 
question about the hashish.

"No book, no historian that I know of speaks of any plant whose use 
is similar to that of the hashish. I myself, though, in 1879, used 
hashish, did it for experimental purposes, and I obtained the 
substance from the drugstore. I do not believe that its use had been 
introduced before or after the arrival of the Spaniards [in the 16th 
century]. The Filipinos drank arak, nipa-palm and coconut wine, etc. 
and they chewed buyo before the arrival of the Spaniards, but not hashish.

"Neither is a word resembling it found in the language. The is-is or 
asis is a kind of wild fig tree.

"If I had Fr. Blanco's Flora [de Filipinas], I could find out if this 
plant exists. I believe therefore that its use is unknown. Opium was 
introduced only after the arrival of the Spaniards. We Tagalogs call it apian.

"I am here at Brussels at your disposal as always. If you could give 
me an introduction to some employee of the library, I would appreciate it.

"Most affectionately yours, Rizal."

The thought that Rizal could be executed without trial today, based 
on his admission made in the letter, made me rethink a position I 
have long held regarding the national hero's chance of being elected 
president of the Philippines. Knowing what Rizal was like as a 
person, and how he was first rejected in the election for the leader 
of the Filipino community in Spain, when he ran against Marcelo H. 
del Pilar, I am of the opinion that he will not even be elected 
barangay captain in Calamba or Dapitan: He will be too serious for 
voters who elect people who can dance and sing at the drop of a hat. 
Since he will be too principled to buy votes or pay poll watchers, 
this significantly trims his chances of election victory.

I used to say that if Rizal were alive today he would probably be 
shot in Luneta all over again because he would rail against the 
people and structures that make life in the Philippines unbearable. 
Now he may be killed for simply admitting to experimenting with marijuana.

I will not speculate on why the 18-year-old Rizal was experimenting 
with marijuana, but we see that in the 19th century some things we 
consider dangerous drugs today-like cocaine and heroin-were medicines 
dispensed by drugstores. Opium was confined to the Chinese; its sale 
and distribution were regulated because it brought in revenues to the 
government. When the First Republic under Emilio Aguinaldo was 
established, opium was still considered part of the revenue track. 
That all changed when the Americans took over, and it has been banned 
ever since.

If you take the trouble to read the Epilogue to "Noli Me Tangere," 
you will see a reference to opium use and how it changed the once 
jolly Kapitan Tiago into a shell of his former self:

"Not one of our readers now would recognize Kapitan Tiago if they saw 
him... He already fell into a state of total depression such that he 
began to lose weight and became morose and brooding and suspicious... 
He wanted to live alone. He took to playing liampo and to 
cockfighting with such a frenzy that he began to smoke opium... If at 
any time, when afternoon comes, and you pass the first street of 
Santo Cristo, you will see seated in a Chinese store a smallish, 
jaundiced man, thin and bent, with sunken sleepy eyes and muddied 
lips, and nails, staring at people as if he does not see them. At 
nightfall you will see him rise painfully, and leaning on a cane, 
head for a narrow alley to enter a filthy hut at the entrance of 
which there is a sign in big red letters: Fumadero Publico de Anfion 
(Public Smoking Den for Opium)."

One other relic of the opium days is Fumadero street in San Nicolas 
near Binondo that is classified today as a commercial area, with 
price per square meter recorded in the internet at P23,625.

Reflecting on the growing number of corpses of suspected drug pushers 
and users found on the streets daily made me ask how long it will 
take before people realize that extrajudicial killings are not right. 
Despite the glare of the media, both local and international, and a 
touching frontpage photo in the INQUIRER, it seems that most 
Filipinos think the victims deserved what they got.

There was a recent high-profile rally in Luneta to protest the 
planned burial of Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. But 
there has been no such turnout for the victims of the extrajudicial 
killings, or even the innocent people killed in the Maguindanao 
massacre, the trial of which is still ongoing, and will probably 
linger on until people forget or become jaded.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom