WOMEN IN THE LIFE OF RIZAL

Women were attracted to Jose Rizal because of to be married to a man who lived in her town,
his intelligence, wit, charm and charisma. and Rizal had to stop pursuing her.

Because of Jose Rizal’s extensive travels around 3. Jacinta Ibardo Laza

the world, he met all sorts of people, ranging
Jacinta Ibardo Laza is a lady from Pakil, Laguna
from scientists, authors, artists, and even fellow
she was a teacher and the third love of Dr. Jose
revolutionists. In his childhood and in his travels,
Rizal. Rizal gave Jacinta his full love and attention
he met and fell in love with numerous women,
for the reason to forget all the heartaches that
who would become the inspiration for his
Segunda Katigbak brought him.
disposition and art.
4. Leonor Valenzuela
1. Julia Celeste Smith
During Rizal’s sophomore year at the University
Julia Celeste Smith a 16-year-old lady. She is the
of Sto. Tomas, he boarded in the house of Doña
first girlfriend of Dr. Jose Rizal. Rizal was only 15
Concha Leyva in Intramuros. The next door
when he first saw Julia by accident in a river
neighbors of Doña Concha were Capitan Juan
named Dampalit in Los Baños a few days after
and Capitana Sanday Valenzuea from Pagsanjan,
Easter in 1877. She was wearing a red
Laguna, who had a charming daughter named,
wraparound skirt. Julia could not catch the
Leonor. Rizal was a welcome visitor in the
butterfly she was chasing. Rizal ever gallant,
Valenzuela home, where he was the life of the
caught two, Trillana wrote. Heart beating with
social parties because of his clever sleight-of-
strange fondness, Rizal offered her the
hand tricks. He courted Leonor Valenzuela and
butterflies and she laughed with innocent
he sent her love notes written in invisible ink.
pleasure. He was instantly attracted to her. But
The ink consisted of common table salt and
for lack of subsequent contact, Rizal eventually
water. It left no trace on the paper. Rizal, who
forgot Julia Celeste Smith.
knew his chemistry, taught Orang (pet name of
2. Segunda Katigbak Leonor) the secret of reading any note written in
the invisible ink by heating it over a candle of
Rizal’s supposed first love, Segunda Katigbak,
lamp so that the words may appear. But, as with
was but a harmless flirtation between a 14-year-
Segunda, he stopped short of proposing
old convent-bred girl and a teen-aged Rizal.
marriage to Orang.
They met when the young hero visited his
5. Leonor Rivera
grandmother with his friend, Mariano Katigbak,
Segunda’s brother. The Katigbaks were close to Rizal sent her love notes to Leonor written in
Rizal’s grandmother, and coincidentally, invisible ink, that could only be deciphered over
Segunda was at the grandma’s house when Rizal the warmth of the lamp or candle. He visited her
and Mariano arrived. It was attraction at first on the eve of his departure to Spain and bade her
sight. Segunda was also a close friend of Rizal’s a last goodbye. Almost simultaneously, Rizal was
sister, Olympia, whom he visited every week at meeting another girl named Leonor. The two
the La Concordia College. The two became very (Leonora Rivera and the other Leonor) were
close. In fact, this was the first time Rizal had a distant cousins. Rivera was to him his ideal
tete-a-tete alone with a girl other than his woman, his model for Maria Clara, one of the
sisters. However, Segunda was already engaged main characters in his first novel, “Noli Me
Tangere.” He was ready to marry her.
Unfortunately, Rivera’s mother disliked Rizal
who was then earning the reputation of being a
dissident. The two last saw each other before
Rizal left for Spain in May 1882. The mother hid
from Rivera all the letters that Rizal was sending
from Spain. After a passage of many years,
thinking that Rizal had abandoned her, Rivera
sadly consented to marry Henry Kipping, an
Englishman who was her mother’s choice. Rizal
was said to have cried shamelessly when news of
the wedding reached him. Rivera never got to
know that Rizal loved her just as much and that
the thought of her prevented him from having a
serious relationship with any of the women he
encountered in Europe.
6. Consuelo Ortiga Y. Rey
In Madrid, Rizal courted Consuelo Ortiga, age 18,
the daughter of Señor Pablo Ortiga y Rey, who
was once mayor of Manila and who owned the
apartment where the Circulo Hispano Filipino
met regularly. Rizal, age 23, was then acquiring
and developing his charming ways with women.
He treated them with special consideration and
with gallant courteousness.
She fell in love with him after only a few dates.
He dedicated to her “A la Senorita C.O. y R,”
which became one of his best poems. He
probably fell in love with her and Consuelo
apparently asked him for romantic verses.
Rizal gave Consuelo gifts: sinamay cloth,
embroidered piña handkerchiefs, chinelas
(slippers) -- all ordered through his sisters in
Calamba. Consuelo accepted all the swains’
regalos. Rizal suddenly backed out before the
relationship turned into a serious romance,
because he wanted to remain loyal to Leonor
Rivera and he did not want to destroy his
friendship with Eduardo de Lete who was madly
in love with Consuelo.
She finally rejected Rizal’s attention in favor of
Eduardo’s, who, a year later, dumped her.
7. Gertrude “Tottie” Beckett
While Rizal was in London annotating the
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, he boarded in the
house of the Beckett family, within walking
distance of the British Museum. Gertrude, was
the oldest of the three Beckett daughters. She
fell in love with Rizal. Tottie (Gertrude’s
nickname) helped him in his painting and
sculpture. But Rizal suddenly left London for
Paris to avoid Gertrude, who was seriously in
love with him. Before leaving London, he was
able to finish the group carving of the Beckett
sisters. He gave the group carving to Gertrude as
a sign of their brief relationship.
8. Nellie Boustead
In Paris, Rizal fell in love with Nellie Boustead, a
Filipina whose father (Filipino-Anglo French)
Edward Boustead owned a villa in Biarritz. Rizal
was on the rebound at the time, because he
received news that Leonor Rivera, his arranged
fiancé, had married Charles Kipping, a British
engineer working on the Dagupan railway.
Rizal having lost Leonor Rivera, entertained the
thought of courting other ladies. While a guest of
the Boustead family at their residence in the
resort city of Biarritz, he had befriended the two
pretty daughters of his host. Rizal used to fence
with the sisters at the studio of Juan Luna.
Antonio Luna, Juan's brother and also a frequent
visitor of the Boustead's, courted Nellie but she
was deeply infatuated with Rizal. In a party held
by Filipinos in Madrid, a drunken Antonio Luna
uttered unsavory remarks against Nellie
Boustead. This prompted Rizal to challenge Luna
into a duel. Fortunately, Luna apologized to Rizal,
thus averting tragedy for the compatriots' heir
love affair unfortunately did not end in marriage.
It failed because Rizal refused to be converted to
the Protestant faith, as Nellie demanded and
Nellie's mother did not like a physician without
enough paying clientele to be a son-in-law. The
lovers, however, parted as good friends when
Rizal left Europe.
9. Seiko “O Sei San” Usui
Rizal, age 27, an author and a doctor had
returned to the Philippines in 1887, but because
of his Noli Me Tangere, he incurred the wrath of
the Spanish authorities. He had to leave in 1888
via Japan to the U. S. and then Europe. In Japan,
he met a Samurai’s daughter. They went to
excursions and places together. She taught him
Japanese and her culture. If all he wanted was a
good life, he would have married O Sei San and
stayed on in Japan because a Spanish legation
there was offering him a well-paying job. But he
left Japan because he thought he was destined
for a greater task in the Philippines and had to go
home. In a letter, he said of her: “O Sei San”, O
Sei San, sayonara. No woman, like you, has ever
loved me.
10. Suzanne Jacoby Thill
In 1890, Rizal moved to Brussels because of the
high cost of living in Paris. In Brussels, he lived in
the boarding house of the two Jacoby sisters,
Marie and Suzanne. In time, Rizal and Suzanne
fell deeply in love with each other. Suzanne cried
when Rizal left Brussels and wrote him when he
was in Madrid saying, in effect: “I wear out the
soles of my shoes going to the mailbox waiting
for a letter from you. Why don't you write, you
naughty boy? ”
11. Pastora Necessario “Inday Torak” Carreon
A few months after his four-year exile started
with his arrival in Dapitan on June 17, 1892, Rizal
and his Spanish warden Capitan Ricardo
Carnicero, who was also Dapitan's politico-
military governor, transferred to the house of
Don Ramon Carreon while Carnicero's home
near the Catholic Church was undergoing
renovation.
Inday Torak narrated to Cad the grandfather that
she was still in her early teens when she first saw
Capitan Cernicero's groovy prisoner. She said
that from the window of Don Ramon's house
facing their house, Rizal would always take a
peek at her while weaving at her loom.
One day the surprise of her life came, Inday
Torak told Cad the grandfather, when that
strange but handsome face she used to see at
her neighbor's window suddenly showed up on
top of a luscious and well-carved lean body.
Rizal introduced himself first to the parents, and
then to Inday Torak. Then our national hero gave
her a six-inch statuette of a girl in the act of
weaving, which shocked the Dapitanon leading
lady because she saw herself in the image made
of clay known here as "pekpekon." "Rizal
became a regular visitor of the Necessario
household," Cad the grandfather said in his
memoir. "According to Inday Torak, Rizal never
spoke about his personal feelings for her
although she would always see admiration and
affection for her in his eyes."
Inday Torak also revealed that Rizal gave her
several poems, which unfortunately she did not
understand because it was written in Spanish.
Rizal did not tell Inday Torak what the poem
meant. But in at least one of his letters to his
sister Trinidad, Rizal revealed that she liked
Inday Torak for being homey yet had strong
social concern.
Their relationship did not last because
Necessario is a pastor and she want to give her
full love to the church.
12. Josephine Leopoldine Bracken
Rizal was already 34 when he met Josephine. She
accompanied her stepfather, George Tauffer of
Hong Kong, who sought Rizal’s expertise as an
eye doctor in Dapitan. This European woman
brought back memories of his European sojourn.
At first, Rizal pitied the young Irish girl, but their
proximity sparked their love. Rizal was an exile, References:
deprived of many liberties and conveniences. His
Abellon, B. (2018). All the girls rizal loved before.
future was uncertain. Josephine was there. She
December 1, 2019 from https://news.abs-
was kind, loving and served Rizal hand and foot.
cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/12/30/18/all-
Rizal wrote in his journal that she had fulfilled his
the-girls-rizal-loved-before
needs more than any Filipina girl could ever give
him. Alvarado, P. (n.d.). Mga pag-ibig ni dr. jose rizal.
Retrieved on December 1, 2019 from
They pledged themselves to each other, but not
https://www.scribd.com/doc/133076432/Mga-
canonically as husband and wife. They planned
Pag-Ibig-Ni-Dr-Jose-Rizal
to marry within the church, but couldn’t. The
Archbishop of Cebu demanded that Rizal sign a Flores, P. (2013). Rizal’s great loves. Retrieved on
retraction letter prepared by the diocese. Rizal December 1, 2019 from
refused. The couple conceived a (boy) who died http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/20
a few hours after birth. Rizal named his son after 13/6/rizals-great-loves
his father, Francisco. Rizal buried him in Dapitan.
Laput, G. (2012). Rizal: celebrity forgotten.
Rizal’s letters were constantly praising Josephine Retrieved on December 2, 2019 from
for her character and attributes. Rizal’s sisters https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/33-editors-
suspected Josephine of being a spy for the pick-moveph/18819-celebrity-forgotten
Spanish authorities and a threat to his security.
But Rizal begged his sisters to be nice to her.
Josephine Bracken was the dulce extranjera
(sweet foreigner) whom he loved dearly, of
whom he made a sculpted face, left sketches and
dedicated a book before he was executed.