IT is not the easiest question to ask, but after the passage of more than 100 years, I believe someone should ask it on behalf of this predominantly Catholic nation. This involves elevating mere heroes into canonized saints. A question primarily, if not exclusively, addressed to the Church, and one it has not dealt with before.
On Dec. 30, 1896, Dr. Jose Rizal, our national hero, was executed by a Spanish firing squad for his body of work denouncing Spanish abuses in the Philippines and calling for freedom of all Filipinos. Twenty-four years before that, on Feb. 17, 1872, Fathers Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora — otherwise known as Gomburza, the portmanteau of their surnames — were executed by the same regime for allegedly instigating the short-lived Cavite mutiny at the Spanish arsenal, involving 200 Filipino military personnel and workers, on Jan. 20, 1872. The priests were garroted on orders of Spanish Governor-General Rafael Izquierdo without a fair trial.
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