Was Dr Jose Rizal, the man who inspired the Philippine Revolution 99 years ago, anti-Chinese? New studies say yes. They also say that the Chinese played a far greater part in the revolution than Rizal - if he had lived long enough to know it - would care to admit.
The studies were presented at a forum on Rizal, held to attract attention to the Centennial of the Philippine Revolution which will be celebrated in June 1998, exactly 100 years since revolutionaries declared independence from Spain in 1898.
By the time the Spanish departed, Rizal had been executed by the colonisers in The Luneta (now Rizal Park) on trumped-up charges of rebellion and sedition.
Academics at the Rizal forum made claims that would make the national hero turn in his grave. Rizal, they said, saw Chinese immigrants to the Philippines as shrewd merchants who could not be trusted.
Rizal pledged not to buy goods from the Chinese and opened his own shop in Mindanao, supposedly in an effort to put immigrants out of business.
The claim is controversial. It is made even more so because one researcher claims Rizal was three-quarters Chinese and knew it but chose to disguise the fact.