Using Caloy: Celebratory or predatory?

August 7, 2024

MANILA – A Filipino book historian would probably know how many copies of Jose Rizal’s novels have been printed from his lifetime to the present. If he were paid, even a peso, for each book printed, he or his estate would be raking in millions in annual royalties from required textbooks. Unfortunately, as a national hero, his works, his name, and his likeness are all in the public domain. Rizal it seems, has always been copyright-free.

By way of brand names, Rizal beats all the other heroes hands-down. There are more Rizal brand names than Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Mabini, Del Pilar, and Lapu-lapu combined. If you want a safe place for your savings, you have RCBC or the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. If you are building a house, there is Rizal Cement. And, before microwave, induction, and vaping, if you needed a light, there were Rizal matches. I haven’t counted but I want to know how many avenues, streets, drives, and eskinitas have been named in Rizal’s honor throughout the archipelago. Rizal is, literally, with us from womb to tomb: one can be born in a Rizal Hospital and later lie in state at a Funeraria Rizal. It is not well-known that San Miguel discontinued a Cerveza Rizal from its product line, leaving two legacy products Pale Pilsen and Cerveza Negra. The latter, I am told, was marketed to expectant mothers.

Copyright as we know it today did not exist to protect Rizal’s works from 1896 to 1946, that’s 50 years after the creator’s death. In the wake of Rizal’s celebrity, the family took their cue from Teodora Alonso, the hero’s mother, who flatly refused the offer of a government pension, saying: “My family has never been patriotic for money. If the government has plenty of funds and does not know