STUDYING Jose Rizal’s life is significant in rediscovering the Filipino identity.
This was the message of Thomasian historian Jose Victor Torres in a lecture at the Brother Andrew Gonzales Hall of De La Salle University on Friday.
“[Our identity] is answered by Rizal when it was shown that we had an identity before,” Torres said. “He have to have that identity again in order to develop our identity as a nation, which also becomes a way for nation building,” he said.
“The nationalism that he taught is the recognition of oneself. [This is] the value that one should have for one’s country in order for it to develop,” he added.
Torres taught history at the UST Graduate School and Faculty of Arts and Letters.
He received the Best Book of Historical Essays award during the 36th National Book Awards for his “To the People Sitting in Darkness…and Other Footnotes of Our Past,” published by the UST Publishing House.
