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José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), known as Jose Rizal, was a Filipino polymath and nationalist and the most prominent advocate for reforms in the Philippines during Spanish colonial era and its eventual independence from the Spanish Empire. He is considered a national hero of the Philippines and the anniversary of Rizal's death is commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day. Rizal's 1896 military trial and execution made him a martyr of the Philippine Revolution.

The seventh of eleven children born to the Mercado family, a prosperous middle class Filipino and Chinese-mestizo family in the town of Calamba in the Province of Laguna, Rizal attended the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and then traveled alone to Madrid, Spain where he studied medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid, earning the degree Licentiate in Medicine. He earned a second doctorate at the University of Paris and the University of Heidelberg. Rizal was a polyglot conversant in at least ten languages: Spanish, French, Latin, German, Portuguese, French, Italian, English, Dutch and Japanese.<ref name = "Craig">Austin Craig, Lineage, Life and Labors of Rizal, Philippine Education Co., 1913. Rizal also made translations from Arabic, Swedish, Russian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Sanskrit. He translated the poetry of Schiller into his native Tagalog. In addition he had at least some knowledge of Malay, Chavacano, Cebuano, Ilocano, and Subanun.[1]</ref><ref name = "Laubach">Frank Laubach, Rizal: Man and Martyr,Community Publishers, 1936</ref><ref>Rizal's annotations of Morga's Sucesos de las islas Filipinas (1609), which he copied word for word from the British Museum and had published, called attention to an antiquated book, a testimony to the well-advanced civilization of the Filipinos in pre-Spanish era. In his essay The Indolence of the Filipino Rizal stated that three centuries of Spanish rule did not do much for the advancement of the Filipinos; in fact there was a 'retrogression', and the Spanish colonialists have transformed the Filipino into a 'half-way brute.' The absence of moral stimulus, the lack of material inducement, the demoralization--'the native should not be separated from his carabao', the endless wars, the chinese piracy--all these factors, according to Rizal, have made the colonial rulers succeed in placing the native 'on a level with the beast'. (translated from the Spanish by Charles Derbyshire) http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6885</ref> He was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere<ref>His signature book Noli was one of the first novels in Asia written outside Japan and China and was one of the first novels of anti-colonial rebellion.http://newleftreview.org/A2510</ref> and El Filibusterismo, social commentaries on the Philippines under Spanish colonial rule that formed the nucleus of literature that inspired dissent among the European-educated Filipino peaceful reformists and spurred the militancy of armed revolutionaries against 300 years of Spanish colonial rule.

As a political figure, Rizal was the founder of La Liga Filipina, a civic organization that subsequently gave birth to the Katipunan led by Bonifacio and Aguinaldo.<ref>Bonifacio was a member of La Liga Filipina. After Rizal's arrest and exile, it was disbanded and the group splintered into two; the more radical group formed into the Katipunan, the militant arm of the insurrection.[2]</ref> He was a reformer for an open society rather than a revolutionary for political independence; he advocated popular representation in effecting institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution. The general consensus among Rizal scholars, however, attributed his martyred death as the catalyst that precipitated the Philippine Revolution. Historians contend that Rizal's patriotism and his standing as one of Asia's first intellectuals of the post-colonial era have inspired succeeding thinkers and revolutionaries of the centrality of national identity as a social force in the project of nation-building.<ref>He is called by Benedict Anderson as one of the best exemplars of nationalist thinking.[3]</ref>

Contents 1 Family 2 Education 3 Writings 4 Persecutions 5 Legacy 6 Last days 7 Aftermath 8 Controversy 9 Notes 9.1 See also 9.2 References 9.3 External links

[edit] Family

José Rizal was born into a prosperous middle class Filipino and Chinese-mestizo family in the town of Calamba in the Province of Laguna. His parents were Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonzo. He was the seventh child of their eleven children (namely, Saturnina, Paciano, Narcisa, Olympia, Lucia, Maria, Jose, Concepcion, Josephina, Trinidad and Soledad.)

Dominican friar landlords granted the family the privilege of the lease of a hacienda and an accompanying rice farm. However, contentious litigation followed the friars' attempts to raise tenant rental fees which the farmers, led by Rizal, disputed while exposing the non-payment of taxes due on friar land taken over by the Dominicans from the Jesuits after their expulsion. Later, General Valeriano Weyler had the buildings on the farm torn down.

Upon enrolling at the Ateneo, Rizal changed his surname to "Rizal" to escape the opprobrium of the name "Mercado". His brother, Paciano, had been linked to the Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora who had been tried as subversives and sentenced to death by garrote.

Rizal was descended on his father side from Domingo Lam-co, a Chinese immigrant who sailed to the Philippines from Amoy, China in the mid-17th century (see Chinese Filipino). Lam-co married Inez de la Rosa, a Sangley native of Luzon. To free his descendants from the anti-Chinese animosity of the Spanish authorities, Lam-co changed the family surname to the Spanish surname "Mercado" (market) to indicate their Chinese merchant roots. Their original application was for the name Ricial, apropos their main occupation of farming, which was arbitrarily denied. The name Rizal, originally Ricial, or the green of young growth which also means "green fields", was adopted as an alias with Paciano to enable Jose to travel freely as the Mercados had gained notoriety by their son's intellectual prominence. Rizal was from early childhood already advancing unheard of political ideas of freedom and individual rights which infuriated the authorities.<ref>At age 8 (in 1869) he wrote his first poem Sa aking mga Kabata and had for its theme the love of one's native language [4]</ref>

Aside from his indigenous Malay and Chinese ancestry, recent genealogical research has found that José had traces of Spanish, Japanese and Negrito ancestry. His maternal great-great-grandfather (Teodora's great-grandfather) was Eugenio Ursua, a descendant of Japanese settlers, who married a Filipina named Benigna (surname unknown). These two gave birth to Regina Ursua who married a Sangley mestizo from Pangasinán named Atty. Manuel de Quintos, Teodora's grandfather. Their daughter Brígida de Quintos married a mestizo (half-caste Spaniard) named Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo, the father of Teodora. Austin Craig mentions Lacandula, Rajah of Tondo at the time of the Spanish incursion, also as an ancestor.

[edit] Education

Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan, Laguna. He went to Manila to study. He was accepted at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1877 and graduated as one of the nine students declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education in the Ateneo Municipal to obtain a degree in land surveying and assessor, and at the same time in the University of Santo Tomas where he studied Philosophy and Letters. Upon learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to study medicine (ophthalmology) in the University of Santo Tomas but did not complete it because he felt that Filipinos were being discriminated by the Dominicans who operated the university.<ref>http://www.joserizal.ph/bg01.html]</ref>

Without his family's knowledge and consent, but wholly and secretly supported by his brother Paciano, he traveled alone to Madrid and studied medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid where he earned the degree, Licentiate in Medicine. His education continued at the University of Paris and the University of Heidelberg where he earned a second doctorate. In Berlin, he was inducted as a member of the Berlin Ethnological Society and the Berlin Anthropological Society under the patronage of the famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow. Following custom, he delivered a learned address in German before the Anthropological Society on the orthography and structure of the Tagalog language, a shining moment in the relations between East and West. Ten years later, the society met to honor him in death with a reading of a German translation of his farewell poem and Dr. Virchow delivering the eulogy.<ref>http://www.geocities.com/ufreytag/page17.html</ref> He left Heidelberg a poem, "A las flores del Heidelberg," which was both an evocation and a prayer for the welfare of his native land. Its message presaged the unification of common culture and common values, the melding of East and West which can be said is the hoped-for relations between peoples and the relations of today.

Rizal's multifacetedness was described by his German friend, Dr. Adolf Mayer, as "stupendous."<ref>http://www.joserizal.ph/ch01.html</ref> He developed an uncommon ability to master various skills and subjects. Documented studies show him to be a polymath. <ref name = "Craig"/> <ref name = "Laubach"/> <ref>http://www.joserizal.ph/ch01.html.</ref> He was an ophthalmologist, sculptor, painter, educator, farmer, historian, inventor, playwright and journalist. Besides poetry and creative writing, he dabbled, with varying degrees of expertise, in architecture, cartography, economics, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, dramatics, martial arts, fencing and pistol shooting. He was a Freemason.<ref>http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/the_builder_1916_august.htm</ref>

Judging by the vast and extensive records written by and about Rizal, <ref name = "Rizalino"> Epistolario Rizalino, 4 volumes, 1400 letters to and from Rizal, edited by Teodoro Kalaw, 1930-38</ref> one can safely conclude that Rizal's is the most documented Asian life of the nineteenth century, perhaps of any Asian ever. It seems everything in his short life is recorded somewhere, being himself a regular diarist and prolific letter writer, much of these material having survived. He can thus be seen from many angles with unusual clarity. His biographers have faced the engaging difficulty of translating his writings which switch from one language to another with facility, drawing more from his travel diaries with their insights of a young oriental encountering the occident for the first time. They included his later trips, home and back again to Europe through Japan and the United States, and, finally, through his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong. This period of his education and his frenetic pursuit of life, including his recorded affections--Gertrude Becket of Chalcot Crescent, wealthy and high-minded Nelly Boustead of the English and Iberian merchant family, the idyllic romance with Usui Seiko--'The last descendant of a noble family, true to an unfortunate vengeance, you are beautiful..,'and his earlier friendships with Segunda Katigbak and his cousin, Leonor Rivera--have kindled abiding interest in his story.

He left much more than goodwill among his European friends who kept almost everything he gave them, even doodlings on pieces of paper. In the home of a Spanish liberal, Pedro Ortiga y Perez, he left an impression that was to be remembered by his daughter, Consuelo Ortiga y Rey. In her diary, she wrote of a moment to be cherished for a lifetime of a day Rizal spent there and regaled them with his brilliant intellect, social graces, and sleight of hand tricks. In London, during his research on Morga's writings, he became a regular guest in the home of Dr. Reinhold Rost, head of the India Office Library of the British Museum, who referred to him as "a gem of a man."<ref name = "Rizalino"/> The Ullmers, family of Karl Ullmer, pastor of Wilhelmsfeld [5], and the Blumentritts were aware of the aura of destiny surrounding him that they treasured everything he gave them, even buttonholes and napkins with sketches and notes. They were ultimately bequeathed to the Rizal family to form a treasure trove of memorabilia which today offer a glimpse of the man whom one political essayist calls 'A Man For All Climes.'

[edit] Writings

José Rizal's most famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, social commentaries on the Philippines under Spanish colonial rule. These books, inspired by the ideals in Cervantes's Don Quixote, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Count of Monte Cristo, angered both the Spaniards and the hispanicized Filipinos due to the blatant and insulting symbolism in the books. Rizal's first critic was Ferdinand Blumentritt, the sympathetic Philippine expert, a researcher and scholar, whose first reaction was of grave misgiving. The longest and most arduous argument for the truth contained in his novels was with the Austrian, whose mother was the daughter of Andreas Schneider, Imperial Treasurer at Vienna, an orthodox and defender of the Catholic faith. But this did not dissuade him from writing the preface of El Filibusterismo, after he had translated Noli me Tangere into German. As Blumentritt had warned, these led to Rizal's prosecution as the inciter of revolution and eventually, to a military trial and execution. The intended consequence of teaching the natives where they stood brought about the obverse reaction, as the Philippine Revolution of 1896 took off virulently thereafter. Rizal's trial was regarded a travesty even by the prominent Spaniards of his day. Soon after his execution, the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, in an impassioned and unforgettable utterance, recognized Rizal as a Spaniard raised in the best traditions of the country, "...profoundly and intimately Spanish, far more Spanish than those wretched men--forgive them, Lord, for they knew not what they did--those wretches who, over his still warm body, hurled like an insult heavenward that blasphemous cry, 'Viva Espana!'."<ref>Miguel de Unamuno, epilogue to Wenceslao Retana's Vida y Escritos del Dr. Jose Rizal, Madrid, Libreria General de Victoriano Suarez, 1907.</ref>

It is said that even in death, Rizal's words inspired. When the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 (see Jones Law) was being debated in the U.S. Congress, doubts about the capacity of Filipinos for self-government were swept by a passionate speech by Congressman Henry Cooper of Wisconsin. In it Cooper recited an English translation of the valedictory poem "Adios," and capped by a stirring peroration, "Under what clime or what skies has tyranny claimed a nobler victim?"<ref>Esteban de Ocampo, Why is Rizal our Greatest National Hero? [http://www.jose-rizal.eu/held2e.htm

[edit] Persecutions

After writing Noli me Tangere, among the numerous other poems, plays and tracts he had already written, he gained further notoriety with the Spaniards. Against the advice of his family and friends, he came back to the Philippines to aid his family which was having trouble with the Dominican landlords. He led the townspeople of Calamba to speak out against the friar attempts to raise rent, initiating a litigation which, although backed by overwhelming evidence of tax evasion, only roused their vindictiveness. In retaliation, the Dominicans tormented the Calamba farmers even more, going so far as to evict them from their homes for refusing to pay the exorbitant land rental fees. Rizal's family suffered undue persecutions the most with brother Paciano being tortured by Spaniards trying to extract evidence of Jose's complicity in the revolution to bolster accusations before the tribunal. Two officers took turns applying pins under the fingernails; with his hands bound behind him and raised several feet, he was dropped repeatedly till he lost consciousness. All those who witnessed attested that not a word fell from his lips.<ref name = "Craig"/> Wenceslao Retana had slighted Rizal by a careless reference to his parents and promptly apologized after being challenged to a duel. He survived by issuing an apology, became an admirer, and wrote Rizal's first European biography.<ref> Wenceslao Retana Vida y Escritos del Jose Rizal, Madrid, Libreria General de Victoriano Suarez, 1907. According to Laubach it was Retana more than any other who 'saved Rizal for posterity' (Laubach, op.cit., p. 383)</ref> Memory as a ten-year old of his mother's unjust treatment at the hands of the civil authorities, doubtless with the knowledge and approval of the church authorities, hurt so much as to explain his reaction to Retana. The incident stemmed from an unfounded accusation that his mother tried to poison the wayward wife of a cousin when she only intervened to help. Without as much as a hearing she was ordered to prison in Santa Cruz and made to walk the ten miles from Calamba. Only after two and a half years of costly appeals to the highest court, the Royal Audiencia, was his mother finally released. <ref name = "Craig"/>

Moments before his execution by a firing squad of Filipino native infantry, backed by an insurance force of a squad Spanish infantry, the Spanish surgeon general requested to take his pulse: it was normal. Aware of this, the Spanish sergeant in charge of the backup force hushed his squad to silence when they began raising "vivas!" with the partisan crowd. His last words, consummatum est, Jesus' own, prefigured in ways that he knew but could not exactly foresee that his death would be the end of Spain in the Philippines and she would lose her moral right to rule. He was the best friend Spain had and she failed to see it. Most historians agree the shot the crowd heard that moment was the shot that brought Spanish Rule in the Philippines to an end.<ref name = "Coates">Austin Coates, Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr, Oxford University Press, 1968</ref><ref name = "Laubach"/>

[edit] Legacy

Rizal's advocacy of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution makes him Asia's first modern non-violent proponent of political reforms. Forerunner of Gandhi and contemporary of Tagore and Sun Yat Sen, all four created a new climate of thought throughout Asia, leading to the attrition of colonialism, sapping the colonial powers' self-confidence, and brooking the emergence of new asiatic nations by the end of World War II.<ref>http://www.schillerinstitute.org/educ/hist/rizal.html</ref> Rizal's place in Asian history is assured. His appearance on the scene came at a time when European colonial power had been growing and spreading, mostly motivated by trade, some for the purpose of bringing Western forms of government and education to peoples regarded as backward. Coinciding fortuitously with the appearance of those other leaders, Rizal from an early age had been enunciating in poems, tracts and plays, ideas all his own of modern nationhood as a practical possibility in Asia. In the body of written works for the period nothing compares to the outright statement in the Noli that if European civilization had nothing better to offer, colonialism in Asia was doomed.<ref>Also stated in his essay, "The Philippines: A Century Hence": The batteries are gradually becoming charged and if the prudence of the government does not provide an outlet for the currents that are accumulating, someday the sparks will be generated. (translated by Charles Derbyshire)[6]</ref> Such was recognized by Gandhi who regarded him as a forerunner and as a martyr in the cause of freedom. Nehru, in his prison letters to his daughter Indira, acknowledged Rizal's significant contributions in the Asian freedom movement. These Asian leaders regarded these contributions as keystones. Thus, his role in the movement is as foundation layer.

As a leader of the Propaganda Movement of Filipino students in Spain, he contributed newspaper articles to La Solidaridad in Barcelona with the following agenda:

• That the Philippines be a province of Spain
• Representation in the Cortes (Parliament)
• Filipino priests instead of friars Augustinians, Dominicans, or Franciscans in parishes and remote sitios
• Freedom of assembly and speech
• Equal rights before the law (for both Filipino and Spanish plaintiffs)

The colonial authorities in the Philippines did not favor these reforms, even if they were more openly endorsed by Spanish intellectuals like Morayta, Unamuno, Pi y Margal and others. Upon his return to Manila in 1892, he formed a civic movement called La Liga Filipina. This league advocated these moderate social reforms through legal means, but was disbanded by the governor. At that time, he had already been declared an enemy of the state by the Spanish authorities because his incendiary novels. Noli me Tangere, in particular, had portrayed the friars in a very bad light with little or no hope of redemption.

As a political reformer, he is considered the peer of Gandhi, Tagore and Sun Yat Sen as pioneers who remoulded thinking on the Asian continent However, as a modernist who accepted the best that European civilization could offer, historians believe he transcends both nation and continent, a far-seeing visionary with a relevant message for our time.<ref> http://www.jose-rizal.eu/held2e.html</ref>

The Taft Commission in June 1901 approved Act 137 renaming the District of Morong into the Province of Rizal, and Act 346 authorizing a government subscription for the erection of a monument in Rizal's honor. Republic Act 1425 was passed in 1956 by the Philippine legislature that would include in all high school and college curricula the study of his life, works and writings. The wide acceptance of Rizal as a revered figure is partly evidenced by the countless towns, streets, and numerous parks in the Philippines named in his honor, and monuments in the most unlikely places such as Madrid,Spain<ref>http://www.artehistoria.com/tienda/banco/cuadros/20647.htm</ref>, Wilhelmsfeld,Germany<ref>http://www.geocities.com/ufreytag/page5.html</ref>, Jinjiang,China<ref>http://www.inq7.net/globalnation/sec_new/2003/feb/01-05.htm</ref> Chicago<ref>http://www.Knightsofrizal.org/content/</ref>, and Seattle,U.S.A.;<ref>http://www.cityofseattle.net/Seattle/parks/parkspaces/joserizal.htm</ref> and many poetic titles and appellations bestowed on him: "Pride of the Malay Race," "the First Filipino", "Messiah of the Revolution," "Greatest Man of the Brown Race," among others. There are some remote-area religious sects who claim him as a sublimation of Christ.

[edit] Last days

Rizal was implicated in the activities of the nascent rebellion and in July of 1892 was deported to Dapitan in the province of Zamboanga (in Mindanao). There he built a school, a hospital and a water supply system. He taught and engaged in farming and horticulture. Hemp, then the vital raw material for cordage, and abaca were a memorial.

The boys' school, in which they learned English, a prescient if weird option then, was considered light years ahead of its time.<ref name = "Rizalino"/> It was much along the lines of Gordonstoun and wholly in tune with Baden Powell in its aims of inculcating a resourceful and self-sufficient character in young men. They would later enjoy successful lives as farmers and honest government officials. One, a Muslim, became a Datu, and another, Jose Aseniero, who was with Rizal throught the life of the school, became Governor of Zamboanga.

In Dapitan, the Jesuits, some of the best minds of the Church in the Philippines, mounted a great effort to secure his return to the fold, led by Father Francisco de Paula Sanchez, his esteemed former professor, who failed in his mission. The task was resumed by Father Pablo Pastells, the most illustrious member of the Order, in correspondence with the prisoner on profound philosophical questions. In what a theologian<ref>Raul J. Bonoan, S.J., The Rizal-Pastells Correspondence, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996</ref> considers a magnificent, timeless and revealing letter, Rizal sails close to the ecumenism familiar to us today:

"We are entirely in accord in admitting the existence of God. How can I doubt his when I am convinced of mine. Whoso recognizes the effect recognizes the cause. To doubt God is to doubt one's own conscience, and in consequence, it would be to doubt everything; and then what is life for? Now then, my faith in God, if the result of a ratiocination may be called faith, is blind, blind in the sense of knowing nothing. I neither believe nor disbelieve the qualities which many attribute to him; before theologians' and philosophers' definitions and lucubrations of this ineffable and inscrutable being I find myself smiling. Faced with the conviction of seing myself confronting the supreme Problem, which confused voices seek to explain to me, I cannot but reply: 'It could be; but the God that I foreknow is far more grand, far more good: Plus Supra!...I believe in (revelation); but not in revelation or revelations which each religion or religions claim to possess. Examining them impartially, comparing them and scrutinizing them, one cannot avoid discerning the human 'fingernail' and the stamp of the time in which they were written... No, let us not make God in our image, poor inhabitants that we are of a distant planet lost in infinite space. However brilliant and sublime our intelligence may be, it is scarcely more than a small spark which shines and in an instant is extinguished, and it alone can give us no idea of that blaze, that conflagration, that ocean of light. I believe in revelation, but in that living revelation which surrounds us on every side, in that voice, mighty, eternal, unceasing, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as is the being from whom it proceeds, in that revelation which speaks to us and penetrates us from the moment we are born until we die. What books can better reveal to us the goodness of God, his love, his providence, his eternity, his glory, his wisdom? 'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork'."<ref name = "Rizalino"/>

It was delicadeza in the sternest argument.

In nature's realm and in deep contemplation, he indulged his passion for poetry, which as 'a musical zero' was his music. As a gift to his mother on her birth anniversary he wrote the other of his poems of maturity, "Mi Retiro," with a description of a calm night overlaid with a million stars:

...the breeze idly cools, the firmament glows,
the waves tell in sighs to the docile wind
timeless stories beneath the shroud of night.

Say that they tell, of the world, the first dawn
of the sun, the first kiss that his bosom inflamed,
when thousands of beings surged out of nothing,
and peopled the depths, and to the heights mounted,
to wherever his fecund kiss was implanted.<ref>Mi Retiro, stanzas 7 and 8 (Craig, op.cit., p. 207)</ref>

This stanza, with its concept of a spontaneous creation of the universe and speaking of God as Plus Supra to be known by his works, being otherwise beyond human discussion, was his accommodation of evolution.

Ever the best friend, Blumentritt sustained him, keeping him in touch with European friends and fellow-scientists who wrote a steady stream of letters which arrived in Dutch, French, German and English and which baffled the censors no end, often delaying their transmittal. Those four years of his exile coincided with the development of the Philippine Revolution from inception and to its final breakout, which, from the viewpoint of the court which was to try him, suggested his complicity in it.<ref name = "Rizalino"/> He condemned the uprising, although all the members of the Katipunan made him honorary president and used his name as a war-cry. But he was to face a court not of reason but one of emotion. Near the end of his exile he met and courted the step-daughter of a patient, an Irishwoman named Josephine Bracken. He was unable to obtain an ecclesiastical marriage because he would not return to the religion of his youth and was not known to be clearly against revolution. He nonetheless considered Josephine to be his wife with a special place in his heart to the end, the only person mentioned in the poem, Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, my joy...<ref>Mi Ultimo Adios, stanza 14</ref> To dissociate himself from a bloody revolution Rizal volunteered and was given leave by the Spanish Governor General Ramon Blanco y Erenas to serve in Cuba to minister to victims of yellow fever. Blanco later was to present his sash and sword to the Rizal family as an apology.

By 1896, the rebellion fomented by the Katipunan, a Nationalist secret society, had become a full blown revolution, proving to be a truly nationalist uprising and leading to the proclamation of the first truly democratic republic in Asia.<ref>Benedict Anderson, http://newleftreview.org/A2510</ref> Rizal was arrested en route, imprisoned in Barcelona, and made to stand trial. He was implicated in the revolution through his association with members of the Katipunan and was to be tried before a court-martial for rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy. During the entire passage, he was unchained and had many opportunities to escape but refused to do so. It was a signal emblem of his character that no Spaniard ever laid a hand on him. Rizal was convicted on all three charges and sentenced to death. The level-headed Governor General Blanco had been forced out of office, and the willful friars had 'intercalated' Polavieja in his stead, sealing Rizal's fate.

With his execution nearing, Rizal wrote his last poem which, though untitled, eventually came to be known as "Mi Último Adiós" (My Last Farewell). The poem is more aptly titled, "Adios, Patria Adorada" (literally "Farewell, Beloved Country"), by virtue of logic and literary tradition: the words come from the first line of the poem itself. Written during the early hours before his execution in his fine handwriting in two small pieces of paper, it was hidden in an alcohol burner and later handed to his family with his few remaining possessions, including the final letters and his last bequests. On the eve of his execution within hearing of the Spanish guards he reminded his sisters in English, "There is something inside it," referring to the alcohol stove given by the Taveras which was to be returned after his execution, thereby emphasizing the importance of the poem. This instruction was followed by another, "Look in my shoes," in which another item was secreted. Exhumation of his remains in August, 1898, under American rule, revealed he had been uncoffined, his burial not on sanctified ground granted the 'confessed' faithful, and whatever was in his shoes had disintegrated.<ref name = "Craig"/>

His letter to his family was quintessentially Filipino; "Treat our aged parents as you would wish to be treated...Love them greatly in memory of me...Bury me in the ground, and set me a tombstone and a cross...name, date of my birth and that of my death...no anniversaries..." And to his mother, in which there are no words a son can say, only his signature, 'At 6 in the morning of 30 December, 1896.' <ref name = "Rizalino"/>

In his final letter, of a voluminous exchange unparalleled in Asian letters, to the Sudeten-German professor Fernando Blumentritt - My dear Brother, when you receive this letter, I shall be dead by then. Tomorrow at 7, I shall be shot; but I am innocent of the crime of rebellion... <ref name = "Rizalino"/> He had to reassure him that he had not turned revolutionary as he once considered being, that the ideals they both had fought for were his to the very end. He also bequeathed a book personally bound by him in Dapitan to his 'best and dearest friend.' When the Austrian received it he broke down and wept.

After Rizal's execution, doubts about the account of the events surrounding his death surfaced. Many continue to believe that Rizal neither married his sweetheart Josephine Bracken in Roman Catholic rites hours before his execution nor ever retracted those parts of his writings that were anti-Roman Catholic. This is a controversy which has not abated, with the Church still locked, as it were, trying to defend the marriage and retraction, but with decreasing vigor.<ref name = "Pascual">Ricardo Roque Pascual, Jose Rizal Beyond the Grave, Manila, P. Ayuda & Co., 1962</ref> Rizal's prescience would be his own defense after life. Tucked in 'Adios' is a revealing clue, I go where there are no slaves, no hangmen or oppressors, where faith does not kill...<ref>Mi Ultimo Adios, stanza 13</ref>. It was his final comment on the Catholic Church of his day, which he believed precious few of its colonial missionaries were at all men of character and probity, men of the cloth who were the real rulers and the real government, in effect a frailocracy, whose ire demanded his martyrdom. Much of the Church's case rests on priestly claims of a signed retraction, a copy of which could not even be produced and shown to the Rizal family despite their repeated requests. Besides, his deeply religious mother and sisters would have been greatly unburdened and relieved if he had assured them so. Rizal was all too wary of friar duplicity, hence the importance he gave to his poem.

Reflection on the Spanish character of Rizal's era may disparage the monumental efforts of their predecessors over three hundred years of religious and humanizing influences on the Philippines on whose Hispanic soil Jose Rizal was nurtured and whose civilization he had earnestly and justly embraced. But he knew Morga's words conveyed a genial image of the land and its people,<ref>Jose Rizal, Indolence of the Filipino http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6885</ref> quite apart from the failed nature of Spain's later generation which gave rise to Gomburza and the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

Jose Rizal stands among a few belonging to no particular epoch, who belong to the world, and whose lives have a universal message.<ref>Benedict Anderson, Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination, Verso Pub. Co., 2005</ref> Although his field of action lay in politics which he bore in the cause of duty--rendering him a rarity in human affairs, a leader without ambition and a revolutionary without hatred--his real interests lay in the arts and sciences, in literature and in his profession as an ophthalmologist. Filipino and foreign biographers maintain few people have had a leader who so entirely gave of himself as he did and who asked so little for himself.

A statue now stands at the place where he fell, designed by the Swiss Richard Kissling of the famed "William Tell" sculpture.<ref>Interestingly, Rizal himself translated Schiller's William Tell into Tagalog in 1886.[7].(See also Schiller's influence on Rizal [8])</ref> The statue carries the inscription I want to show to those who deprive people the right to love of country, that when we know how to sacrifice ourselves for our duties and convictions, death does not matter if one dies for those one loves – for his country and for others dear to him.<ref name = "Rizalino"/>

[edit] Aftermath

He was secretly buried in Paco Cemetery in Manila with no identification on his grave. His sister Narcisa painstakingly toured all possible gravesites and found freshly turned earth at Paco Cemetery with civil guards posted at the gate. Assuming this could be the most likely spot, there being no ground burials in that cemetery, she made a gift to the cemetery guardian to mark the site "RPJ."

That his burial was not on holy ground and that the Jesuits who accompanied him to his death did not bother to make certain that he got a Christian burial has led to many issues raised on the veracity and the probity of accounts of his 'retraction,' which the Church ever since has been vigorously defending. Both sides of the controversy aver equal admiration of Rizal.<ref>Jesus Cavanna, Rizal's Unfading Glory: A Documentary History of the Conversion of Dr. Jose Rizal, 1956</ref> <ref name = "Pascual"/>

The printed account of his final hours first appeared in Barcelona sixteen days after his death with a time line corresponding to what the anonymous author had laid out--Rizal is prepared for marriage and retraction, confessing several times, reciting the rosary, in deep contrition and in tears. The morning after the execution Manila and Madrid newspapers announced that on the eve of his death Rizal had retracted his religious errors, abjured freemasonry, and married Josephine Bracken. A text of a letter of retraction was even printed in full, which was given by the government wide publicity abroad. The Rizal family were in disbelief that he had not intimated his intention of retracting and marrying Josephine when he knew what great relief it would have meant especially to his deeply religious mother. In his account, the Jesuit Father Balaguer--who later claimed authorship--stated that between 6 and 6:15 a.m. on December 30, within an hour of the execution, he performed, in a very short ceremony, the canonical marriage of Rizal and Josephine Bracken in the presence of one of Rizal's sisters. This was enough to condemn the statement since none of his sisters went to the fort that morning.

The poem first appeared in print not in Manila but in Hong Kong, when a copy of the poem and an accompanying photograph came to J. P. Braga who decided to publish it in a monthly journal he edited. There was a delay when Braga, who greatly admired Rizal, wanted a good job of the photograph and sent it to be engraved in London, a process taking well over two months. It finally appeared under 'Mi ultimo pensamiento,' a title he supplied and by which it was known for a few years. Thus, when Balaguer's anonymous account was appearing in Barcelona, no word of the poem's existence reached him in time to revise what he had written. His account was too elaborate that Rizal would have had no time to write "Adios."

Josephine Bracken promptly joined the revolutionary forces in Cavite province, making her way through thicket and mud, and helped operate a reloading jig for Mauser cartridges at the arsenal at Imus. The short-lived arsenal under the Revolutionary General Pantaleon Garcia had been reloading spent cartridges again and again and the reloading jig was in continuous use, but Imus was under relentless threat of recapture that the operation had to move, with Josephine, to Maragondon, the mountain redoubt in Cavite. She witnessed the Tejeros Convention prior to returning to Manila and was summoned by the Governor-General but owing to her stepfather's American citizenship, she could not be forcibly deported. She left voluntarily, returning to Hongkong. She later married another Filipino, Vicente Abad, a mestizo acting as agent for the Philippine firm of Tabacalera. She died shortly and never knew how a line of verse had rendered her, as only a poet can, immortal.

Polavieja faced condemnation by his own countrymen. When he visited Giron years after his return to Spain, circulars were distributed among the crowd bearing Rizal's last verses, his portrait, and the charge that to Polavieja was due the loss of the Philippines to Spain.

[edit] Controversy

Attempts to demythologize Rizal and debunk legends surrounding him, and the tug of war between free thinker and Catholic, have served to keep him a living issue. While some leaders, Gandhi for one, have been elevated to high pedestals and even deified, Rizal has remained a controversial figure. Some have succeeded in depicting his fallibility, such as the case of the numerous women in his life. In one recorded fall from grace, he had succumbed to temptation by a 'Lady of the Camellias' in Austria, leading to a presumption that he had patronized "ladies of the night" while he was in Europe.<ref>Ambeth Ocampo, Rizal without the Overcoat, Anvil Publishing Co., 1990. Rizal's third novel Makamisa was rescued from oblivion by Ocampo.[9] [10]</ref>

Others present him as a man of contradictions. Miguel de Unamuno in "Rizal: the Tagalog Hamlet", said of him, "a soul that dreads the revolution although deep down desires it. He pivots between fear and hope, between faith and despair."<ref>Miguel de Unamuno, "The Tagalog Hamlet," in Rizal: Contrary Essays, edited by D. Feria and P. Daroy, Manila, National Book Store, 1968.</ref> They assert that this character flaw is depicted in Noli me Tangere and its sequel El Filibusterismo. He opposes violence in Noli and appears to advocate it in Fili, contrasting the idealism of Ibarra in the first novel and the cynicism of Simoun in the second. However, this ambivalence was trounced when Simoun is written off as a tragic, unfulfilled hero: bent on revenge, his attempt to kill his enemies at the cost of a few innocent lives is thwarted and he is struck down by the author in the sequel's final chapters, reaffirming Rizal's resolute stance, Pure and spotless must the victim be if the sacrifice is to be acceptable.<ref name = "Fili">Jose Rizal, El Filibusterismo, chap.39 (translated from the Spanish by Charles Derbyshire) [11]</ref> In the same tone, Rizal condemned the uprisings of the Katipunan when Bonifacio asked for his support. Bonifacio, in turn, openly denounced him as a coward for his refusal.<ref>Bonifacio denounced him, at the same time, he mobilized his men to attempt to liberate Rizal while in Ft. Santiago (Laubach, op.cit., chap. 15)</ref> Rizal whose desire for his country's freedom was just as passionate as Bonifacio's, firmly believed that his country was not ready for independence from Spain. Again Rizal, speaking through Fr. Florentino, confirms his consistency, ...our liberty will (not) be secured at the sword's point...but that we must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it. And when a people reaches that height God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards and liberty will shine out like the first dawn.<ref name = "Fili"/>

Rizal never held a gun or sword in the battlefield to fight for freedom. This fact leads some to question his ranking as the nation's premier hero, with a few who believe in the beatification of Bonifacio in his stead. In his defense, the historian, Rafael Palma, contends that the revolution of Bonifacio is a consequence "wrought by the pen of Rizal"<ref>Rafael Palma, Pride of the Malay Race, N.Y. Prentice Hall, 1949. p. 367</ref> and that although the sword of Bonifacio produced an immediate outcome, the pen of Rizal generated a more lasting achievement. Austin Coates, considered his best biographer, believes that Rizal gave the Philippine Revolution a genuinely national character.<ref name = "Coates"/>

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• El Filibusterismo
• Ferdinand Blumentritt
• José Rizal (film)
• La Liga Filipina
• Mi Último Adiós
• Noli Me Tangere (novel)
• Philippine Revolution
• Rizal Day bombings, 2000
• Rizal Park
• Rizal Shrine

[edit] References

• Anderson, Benedict (2005). Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination. Verso Pub. ISBN 1844670376
• Cavanna, Jesus (1956). Rizal's Unfading Glory, A Documentary History of the Conversion of Dr. Jose Rizal.
• Coates, Austin (1968). Rizal, Philippine Nationalist and Martyr. Oxford University Press.
• Craig, Austin (1913). Lineage Life and Labors of Jose Rizal. Philippine Education Company.
• Dahm, Bernhard (1988). Jose Rizal: Der Nationalhed Der Filipinos ISBN 3788101342
• Guerrero, Leon Ma (1963). The First Filipino: A Biography of Jose Rizal. National Historical Institute. ISBN 9712709175
• Hessel, Eugene (1961). The Religious Thought of Jose Rizal. Philippine Education Company
• Hilario, Frank A (2005). indios bravos! Jose Rizal as Messiah of the Redemption. Lumos Publishing House.
• Joaquin, Nick (1977). A Question of Heroes: Essays and criticisms on ten key figures of Philippine History. Ayala Museum.
• Laubach, Frank C. (1936), Rizal: Man and Martyr. Community Publishers
• Ocampo, Ambeth (1990). Rizal without the Overcoat. Anvil Pub. Co ISBN 9712700437
• Palma, Rafael (1949). Pride of the Malay Race. New York, Prentice-Hall. Inc.
• Quirino, Carlos P. (1940). The Great Malayan. Philppine Education Co.ISBN 9716300857
• Retana, Wenceslao (1907). Vida y Escritos del Dr. Jose Rizal. Madrid, Libreria General de Victoriano Suarez
• Rizal according to Retana: Portrait of a Hero and a Revolution (1998), Virtual Multimedia. ISBN 9567483094
• Rizal, Jose. Noli me Tangere translated by Soledad Locsin (1996). Ateneo de Manila. ISBN 9715691889
• Rizal, Jose. El Filibusterismo translated by Andrea Tablan and Salud Enriquez (2001). Marian Publishing House ISBN 9716861540
• Rizal, Jose. Sa mga Kababayang Dalaga ng Malolos. Escritos Politicos y Historicos de Jose Rizal. Manila, National Centennial Commission. 1961
• Rajaretnam, M. (1996). Jose Rizal and the Asian Renaissance. Institut Kajian Dasar, Malaysia ISBN 9838840513
• Runes, Ildefonso (1962). The Forgery of the Rizal 'Retraction'. Community Publishing
• Zaide, Gregorio F. (2003) Jose Rizal: Life, Works and Writings of a Genius, Writer, Scientist and National Hero. National Bookstore ISBN 9710805207
• One Hundred Letters of Jose Rizal to his parents, brothers, sisters and relatives. Manila, Philippine Historical Society, 1959.
• Epistolario Rizalino. 5 volumes, 1400 letters to and from Rizal. edited by Teodoro Kalaw, 1930-38. Manila, Bureau of Printing

[edit] External links

• The Life and Writings of Jose Rizal, host: Dr. Robert L. Yoder
• Works by José Rizal at Project Gutenberg
  • Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, available freely at Project Gutenberg
  • Ang Liham ni Dr. Jose Rizal sa mga Kadalagahan sa Malolos, Bulakan, available freely at Project Gutenberg
  • El Consejo de los Dioses, available freely at Project Gutenberg
  • Filipinas Dentro De Cien Años (Estudio Politico-Social), available freely at Project Gutenberg
  • The Indolence of the Filipino, available freely at Project Gutenberg
  • Junto Al Pasig, available freely at Project Gutenberg
• Jose Rizal Website
• dedicated to the ideals of Jose Rizal
• José Rizal's Chinese ancestors
• Rizal's Little Odyssey
• 22 languages reference 1
• 22 languages at 3rd paragraph reference 2
• 22 languages at 3rd paragraph reference 3
• Review of Dimasalang: The Masonic Life Of Dr. Jose P. Rizal
• Jose Rizal information and collected book summaries
• Jose Rizal as a Mason
• Benedict Anderson, ‘José Rizal’, I, II, and III
• Jose Rizal, a revolutionary friend of Don Quixote.Language, a weapon against oppression.
• (Spanish) Comparison between Jose Rizal and Jose Marti
• Caiñgat Cayo! The pamphlet written by Fr. Jose Rodriguez criticizing Dr. Rizal and advising the people that reading the book is tantamount to committing mortal sin.
• Caiñgat Cayo! English Translation and original image scans of the pamphlet written in 1889.
• A La Juventud Filipina / To The Philippine Youth / To the Filipino Youth by Jose Rizal
• Rizal: the Perfect Hero?
• Why is Rizal the greatest Filipino hero?
• Our national hero
• Anatomy of the Anti-Hero by Nick Joaquin
• Jose Rizal and the challenge of Philippine Independence by John Morris
• Veneration without Understanding by Renato Constantino

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