Calamba City broadens 'sister city' ties; tracing Jose Rizal’s trails

CALAMBA CITY, Laguna – Plans are afoot for this city’s expansion of its sister city ties with Jinjiang City of the People’s Republic of China next year and for further studies on Dr. Jose P. Rizal’s historical trail, a city hall official disclosed on Friday. In an interview with PNA, City Cultural Affairs, Tourism and Sports Development Office (CATSDO) head Larissa P. Malinao said that the city tourism, cultural and history council is gearing up next year for identifying historical trails and interesting places that Rizal had visited and places he once spent his younger days in his birthplace. Malinao disclosed that the city has forged ties with Jinjiang City, People’s Republic of China where Calamba City officials have embarked on a goodwill visit to the Chinese city, where a Rizal Monument, an exact replica of the National Hero’s monument in Luneta, now stands. She said that officials from Jinjiang City had slated to embark on a return goodwill visit to Calamba City on Feb. 2 next year in preparation for the establishment of the formal city sisterhood ties. The city cultural and tourism official also said historical trails on Rizal’s life and works have extended beyond the Philippine shores during the Calambeño’s travels to Europe, where he made a mark of excellence in his studies in Spain and Germany and trips to France and the Czech Republic. She added that the city had since forged its sister city ties during the officials’ cultural and historical mission to Heidelberg where a golden plaque marker was built in honor of Rizal at the German city’s 20 Bergheimer Street and another Rizal statue was established at Wilhemsfeld where Rizal used to work as an eye doctor. Historical accounts described how Rizal owed his “best remembrances” in his memoir in his 1886-87 journeys to Germany, particularly in Heidelberg and Wilhemsfeld where he studied ophthalmology and once worked at a university eye clinic. City officials took pride that their Calambeño compatriot wrote the first part of his most famous novel “Noli Me Tangere” in Spain and completed the concluding chapters in Berlin where it was also first published there in 1887. Rizal’s extensive travel to Germany brought him to several places in Koblenz, Cologne, Stuttgart, Bonn and Leipzig. According to Malinao, they are also tracing sites in the National Hero’s historical trails such as Barangay Lecheria in Rizal’s hometown, where he used to spend his pastime and hobby such as kite-flying, fencing and leisure stroll in what used to be the town’s sprawling center producing cow’s and goat’s milk or “leche.” “Rizal used to ascend the Lecheria hills where one could take a breath-taking view of the mystical Mt. Makiling and the beautiful Laguna de Bay” and the hill has been the site of the “Watawat ng Lahi” chapel of the Rizalista congregation,” Malinao described. She also revealed 2018 plans of reviving the olden times “caritela” or the horse-drawn calesa in some city landmarks while e-jeepneys are planned to transport tourists and visitors on a historical trail ride from Dr. Jose P. Rizal plaza fronting the cavernous city hall to the Rizal Shrine. “San Juan River is also one of the sites we are exploring because historical accounts reveal that the child Rizal frequented the area in Bañadero,” a village just a walking distance from the Mercado-Rizal ancestral house,” she said. Rizal was a traveler and a keen observer not only on the social realities of his time but more particularly on the environment like the old shoreline village named Aplaya in Laguna de Bay and ascended the Mt. Makiling heights where the National Hero was ‘enchanted’ by the folklore on the enchantress “Mariang Makiling”. Malinao also disclosed that Rizal must have enjoyed his childhood years in Calamba while most of his teenage and adult years were spent outside the town for studies in Manila and abroad. Calamba folks and descendants revealed that Dr. Jose Rizal’s memoirs pointed to the Christmas scenario in their hometown centuries then as described in his immortal novel “El Filibusterismo” on its Chapter 8 on “Merry Christmas.” Rizal wrote “nearly all led by the hand or carried in their arms a little boy or girl decked out as if for a fiesta” and the barrio old-age quadrille dance known as the “baile” or square dance among townfolks has been revived to this day as part of the city’s annual weeklong “Buhayani Festival” in time for Rizal’s birthday anniversary celebration every June 19. The novel’s episode described “Christmas day in the Philippines is, according to the elders, a fiesta for the children, who are perhaps not of the same opinion and who, it may be supposed, have for it an instinctive dread.” Calambeno senior citizens also confirmed Rizal’s narrative that during the olden times “they are roused early, washed, dressed, and decked out with everything new, dear, and precious that they possess high silk shoes, big hats, woolen or velvet suits, without overlooking four or five scapularies,” reminiscent of the devout Catholic faith practice then. Rizal’s literary works also referred to the “must” hear mass as a religious tradition when he mentioned of the “Simbang Gabi” in his novel describing traditions of this predominantly Catholic town and that children engaged in merry making which traditional custom was likened to an ordeal. According to the elders, the house-to-house visit by families to relatives and children kissing their relatives’ hands and wishing them a “Merry Christmas” are still widely observed here. They remembered during the house-to-house visits that children were also obliged to entertain them with carols, songs, dances, and narrations of humorous, amusing stories or not, and either they get the familial and friendly pinch for not performing well or be rewarded with candies and cakes for their acts. Rizal’s novels described that Christmas Season’s gifts were common though some may be insignificant presents but the usual fare consisted of sweetmeat apparently referring to the ham, delicacies, fruits and a glass of water for the relatives and visitors. (PNA)

http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1020141