Knights of Rizal – Aloha Chapter to Celebrate Dr. Jose Rizal’s Birth Month
by Serafin Colmenares Jr.
Dr. Jose P. Rizal, the Philippines’ foremost national hero, will be celebrating his 160th birth anniversary on June 19, 2021. To commemorate this milestone, the Knights of Rizal – Aloha Chapter will be holding a series of events during four Saturdays of the entire month of June.
The month-long event kicked off on June 5 with the Chapter holding a clean-up of the Rizal statue at the Filipino Community Center in Waipahu. The clean-up involved power-hosing of the statue as well as re-sanding and polishing of the bronze plaques on the base of the monument. Members of the Rizalian Youth Council joined the Knights of Rizal in this undertaking.
On June 12, which coincides with the 125th anniversary of the declaration of Philippine independence, a virtual lecture on the topic “Rizal and Red-Tagging: Blasts from the Past” will be given by Patricio “Jojo” Abinales, PhD, Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
The lecture is from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. (Hawaii time). Those attending the lecture are required to register first. To register, go to: tinyurl.com/virtualrizalianlecture3. Raymund Liongson, PhD, KGCR, will give a reaction to the lecture.
On June 19, Rizal’s birthday, Clement “Clem” Bautista, MPP, KGOR, Educational Specialist and former Director of the University of Hawaii Office of Multicultural Student Services, will be presenting a virtual lecture titled “Reading Rizal and Beyond: An Exploration in Making Sense of Rizal and His Legacy.”
The lecture also starts at 5:00 p.m. Those attending are required to register at: tinyurl.com/virtualrizalianlecture5. Reactions to the lecture will be given by Raymund Liongson, PhD, KGCR and Serafin Colmenares Jr., PhD, KGCR.
For June 26, another virtual lecture will be given by Federico “Fred” Magdalena, PhD, KOR, Faculty Specialist and Associate Director, Center for Philippine Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
His topic is “Rizal’s Legacy in Mindanao.” Those attending the lecture, which starts at 5:00 p.m., are required to register at tinyurl.com/virtualrizalianlecture4. Jayson Parba, PhD, Coordinator of the Filipino Language and Culture Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, will be giving the reaction.
A question and answer period will follow after each of the lectures.
The lectures are part of the ongoing Rizalian Lecture Series project of the Knights of Rizal – Aloha Chapter which aims at educating the public on the life, works and ideas of Dr. Jose Rizal. All lectures will be published later as an anthology.
For more information about the events and projects of the KOR-Aloha Chapter, please contact Jun Colmenares at 808-838-9775 or email at juncolme@yahoo.com, or Raymund Liongson at 808-381-4315 or email at rliongson@gmail.com or okor.aloha@gmail.com.
