Memorial to Dr. José Rizal honours fight for independence for Filipino Heritage Month

Brampton has paid tribute to a hero of the Filipino community and the fight for that country’s independence for Filipino Heritage Month.

June is Filipino Heritage Month with June 12 marking Philippine Independence Day, celebrating the island nation’s escape from the more than 300-year rule of the Spanish Empire.

The City of Brampton honoured that struggle on Sunday (June 18) with the official unveiling of a memorial to Dr. José Rizal, a key player in the Philippines’ fight for independence from Spanish rule.

Coun. Rowena Santos, who is the first Filipino to sit on Brampton City Council, was at the event alongside
Mississauga—Streetsville MP Rechie Valdez, the first Filipino woman elected as a Member of Parliament in Canada.

“We are very mahiyain,” Santos said in Filipino. “Very humble, very shy. But we have been working and contributing so hard in this country…and we are now starting to grow rapidly because of many generations like MP Rechie Valdez, myself, and our children who are now in Brampton and calling it their home.”

The fight for Philippine independence was a generations-long battle which saw forces grappling for control of the island nation in a conflict that stretches back 500 years.

A doctor and a writer, Rizal was part of a growing Philippine independence movement during the late 1800s.

His works Noli Me Tángere (1887) and El Filibusterismo (1891) were sharply critical of Spanish colonialism and his writings are credited with healing spur a sense of Philippine nationalism.

Rizal was arrested on rebellion charges and executed by a firing squad in 1896 in Bagumbayan, an area now known as Rizal Park or Luneta Park. It would take another 50 years before the Phillipes would gain independence following their freedom from the Japanese at the end of World War II.

“The extraordinary success of the Philippines and Filipinos across the world is part of his legacy,” Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said of Rizal and the bust of him in the park which also bears his name at Mayfield Rd. and Dixie Rd.

The motion to rename the park was brought forward in 2019 by Brampton’s Filipino community and the Knights of Rizal, a group created to honour and uphold Rizal’s ideals. Dr. José P. Rizal Park is also one of eight parks that could be getting portable washrooms under a City pilot program as Councillors are looking to make parks more accessible and improve sanitation.