WHEN I talk to kids about José Rizal, whose 163rd birth anniversary we are celebrating today, I always begin with their favorite question: Why is he our national hero?

Careful to also emphasize that Rizal was not the only one responsible for the birth of the nation, I explain that before that generation of propagandists and revolutionaries, there were about a hundred revolts that were waged by Filipinos from Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao in the three centuries of Spanish colonization, but except for Dagohoy's revolt in Bohol, not a single one succeeded. You cannot win a war against an archipelagic colonizer if the revolts are localized.