Of all the legends that have sprung around the towering figure of Dr. Jose Rizal, the most awkward and unpleasant to contemplate is the story that spread and persisted for a time that it was the Americans who invented tomorrow’s day of veneration of the memory of Jose Rizal, as a tool for their colonial project.

This tale has spread and persisted for over a century, sometimes spurred by American historiography and journalism, and sometimes by nationalist-leftist scholars who accuse Rizal of being a counter-revolutionary for not supporting the Philippine Revolution of 1896, and find other heroes like Bonifacio as more worthy of veneration.

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