A well-known story about the National Hero of the Philippines Jose P. Rizal involves a tsinelas. According to the story, when Rizal was just a boy, he went on a boat ride with his older brother in Calamba, Laguna. During the said trip, one of his tsinelas fell into the river and was swept away by the current. Unable to recover the lost slipper, the young Rizal threw the remaining pair into the river, hurling it as close to the first one as he can. His older brother, puzzled with the move, asked him why he threw the other pair. Rizal told his older brother that just as it is pointless for him to keep only one pair, anyone who finds the other pair in the river will have no use for it. For Rizal, the best thing to do is to provide anyone who finds the first pair a chance to use it, so he threw away the second.
