I WAS a younger scholar when I participated as a resource person in Howie Severino's documentary Pluma: Si Rizal, ang Dakilang Manunulat, for the 150th birth anniversary of our national hero, José Rizal, in June 2011. But there was one line from another interview there by the Jesuit historian Father José Arcilla, S.J. that irritated me as he was talking about the Noli Me Tangere (Latin for "touch me not"): "Don't touch it, bahala na! He wanted to wake up the Filipinos. Because of this really tremendous letdown in Spain. Everyone is free there, not in my country. Because the Filipinos are patay-patay!"