Nowadays an incorporeal José Rizal floats through the Philippines and its diaspora, his very nature hovering somewhere between man and spirit, an ineffable essence permeating the history of a renewed Philippines. He has become the spiritual descendant of Lapu-Lapu, a secular messiah who expels the invaders with the stroke of his mighty pen, a martyr, an avenging saint, an anito in whom one invests the atom of identity.
