IT’s Rizal Day again today. The anniversary of his execution by musketry in Bagumbayan, at the place somewhere in what is now Rizal Park.

More than a century and a half after the national hero’s birth, our country’s definition of what he stood for still needs to be made more accurate and truthful. Books used in schools must not be those telling lies about him.

This is an essential policy issue, not just an irrelevant intellectual exercise. It is an issue as important as what we are doing to improve our Basic Education system or how we should respond to China’s incursions into our sovereign maritime spaces.

It is essential because knowing who Rizal really was, what he stood for, what he dreamed for us Filipinos and for his beloved Philippines, will determine what kind of country we really want ours to be.

The lack of that essential definition¯of what kind of country we want ours to be¯is a large part of the reason we are in the sorry state we are now.

For one reason or another it is taught that one must doubt that Rizal retracted from Masonry and went to confession not once by three times on the night before his execution. Doubt is dishonestly encouraged about Rizal’s marriage to and Josephine Bracken according to the rites of the Catholic Church in his cell.

A historian has written that “There are also not a few people who believe that the autobiography of Josephine Bracken, written on February 22, 1897 is also forged and forged badly. The document supposedly written by Josephine herself supported the fact that they were married under the Catholic rites. But upon closer look, there is a glaring difference between the penmanship of the document, and other letters written by Josephine to Rizal.”

If he had read Romance and Revolution by Luis Lisa and Javier de Pedro, he would not dare say about Josephine Bracken’s very short “Description Of My Life” (which she typically misspelled as “Discription”) that: “There is a glaring difference between the penmanship of the document, and other letters written by Josephine to Rizal.”

Fathers Luis Lisa and Javier de Pedro examined not only “Description” but also precisely the many other letters and found instead of differences, similarities that conclusively witness to the authenticity. But what has become standard Filpino historians’ belief about Josephine Bracken is that she was an unworthy person. That is why those who perhaps willfully lied about her and chose to ignore the truth about her ¯ and Jose Rizal’s retraction and return to the embrace of the Roman Catholic Church¯ and Rizal’s marriage to her before his execution have come to be taken as truthful authors.

Another book that many historians ignore because they are more comfortable with their own biases is Rizal Through a Glass Darkly — A Spiritual Biography by Javier de Pedro. It too gives the truth about the retraction, Rizal’s conversion and his wedding to Josephine.

The historian who likes to reinforce the anti-Catholic and anti-scholarly viewpoint has also written: “Surely, we must put the question of retraction to rest, though Rizal is a hero, whether he retracted or not, we must investigate if he really did a turn-around. If he did not, and the documents were forgeries, then somebody has to pay for trying to deceive a nation.”

Indeed, someone must pay for trying to deceive our nation. But it was not “the friars,” the Jesuits and the Catholic Church, whom Coates and before him many Filipino intellectuals always cast in a poor light, who did the deceiving.

One thing true Rizal scholars know is this: he always valued God and Heaven. He was an honest and extremely truthful person. Yet, the scholars who attribute to the Catholic priests who ministered to him—his soul specially— in his final hours characterize these Jesuits as if they had evidence of their being devious, mendacious persons.

On the contrary, these Jesuits were known to be people of integrity (as most priests, including Jesuit ones, are) and exceptional Christian charity.

When in anger and in the heat of political progandizing, Rizal wrote against friars and their abuses. But you cannot find any writing by him in which he wrote against the fundamental truths and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. When he finally decided to embrace of the Church again, he was presented with the formula: “I declare myself a Catholic and in this religion I want to live and die.” He edited it, adding after the word “religion” the words “in which I was born and educated.”