Template text in JSF element still output when rendered="false"?

Question

I was thinking about trying the following to optionally output some components and template text.
<h:panelGroup rendered="#{! empty courseSiteRequestBean.comments}">
<p>
<h:outputLabel value="Comments:"/>
<h:outputText value="#{courseSiteRequestBean.comments}"/>
</p>
</h:panelGroup>
However, I found that while the components were supressed from being rendered if rendered="false", the template text was not. Why?
I was hoping that I could find a solution to doing this kind of thing without having to use JSTL. Why? Because the fact that JSF isn't fully compatible with JSTL makes it's use seem inelegant IMHO. If the theory is that this is supposed to be easier for HTML coders, I'm not so sure...
I can get it to work if I use h:outputText elements to output the template text, but, that seems excessive. I don't understand why it doesn't just work the same way the <c:if> statement does.

Answer 1

for displaying things in the right order, try this
<h:panelGroup rendered="#{! empty courseSiteRequestBean.comments}">
<f:verbatim><p></f:verbatim>
<h:outputLabel value="Comments:"/>
<f:verbatim><br/></f:verbatim>
<h:outputText value="#{courseSiteRequestBean.comments}"/>
<f:verbatim></p></f:verbatim>
</h:panelGroup>