José Rizal

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"Laong Laan" redirects here. For the railway station, see Laong Laan (PNR station).
This article uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Mercado and the
second or maternal family name is Realonda.

José Rizal

Born José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda[1]

June 19, 1861[2]

Calamba, Laguna, Captaincy General of the

Philippines[2]

Died December 30, 1896 (aged 35)[3]

Bagumbayan, Manila, Captaincy General of the

Philippines[3]
 Cause of Execution by firing squad

death

Monuments Luneta Park, Manila,

Calamba, Laguna,

Daet, Camarines Norte,

Carson, California

Other names Pepe, Jose (nicknames)[4][5]

Alma mater Ateneo Municipal de Manila

University of Santo Tomas

Universidad Central de Madrid

Organization La Solidaridad, La Liga Filipina

Spouse(s) Josephine Bracken (1896)[6]

 Francisco Rizal Mercado (father)

Parents
 Teodora Alonso Realonda (mother)

Relatives Saturnina Hidalgo (sister)

Paciano Rizal (brother)

Signature

José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda[7] (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse riˈsal]; June 19,
1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the tail end of
the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is tagged as the national hero (pambansang
bayani) of the Filipino people.[8] An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key
member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement, which advocated political reforms for the colony
under Spain.
He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime of rebellion after the Philippine
Revolution, inspired in part by his writings, broke out. Though he was not actively involved in its
planning or conduct, he ultimately approved of its goals which eventually led to Philippine
independence.
He is widely considered one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines and has been recommended to
be so honored by an officially empaneled National Heroes Committee. However, no law, executive
 order or proclamation has been enacted or issued officially proclaiming any Filipino historical figure
as a national hero.[9] He was the author of the novels Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo, and a
number of poems and essays.[10][11]

Contents

 1Early life
 2Education
 3Personal life, relationships and ventures
o 3.1Affair
o 3.2Association with Leonor Rivera
o 3.3Relationship with Josephine Bracken
 4In Brussels and Spain (1890–92)
 5Return to Philippines (1892–96)
o 5.1Exile in Dapitan
o 5.2Arrest and trial
 6Execution
 7Works and writings
o 7.1Novels and essays
o 7.2Poetry
o 7.3Plays
o 7.4Other works
 8Reactions after death
o 8.1Retraction controversy
o 8.2"Mi último adiós"
o 8.3Later life of Bracken
o 8.4Polavieja and Blanco
 9Criticism and controversies
o 9.1National hero status
 9.1.1Made national hero by colonial Americans
 9.1.2Made national hero by Emilio Aguinaldo
o 9.2Critiques of books
o 9.3Role in the Philippine revolution
 10Legacy and remembrance
o 10.1Species named after Rizal
o 10.2Historical commemoration
 11Rizal in popular culture
o 11.1Adaptation of his works
o 11.2Biographical films/TV series
o 11.3Other
 12See also
 13Notes and references
 14Sources
 15Further reading
 16External links

Early life
José Rizal's baptismal register

Francisco Rizal Mercado (1818–1898)

José Rizal was born in 1861 to Francisco Rizal Mercado y Alejandro and Teodora Alonso Realonda
y Quintos in the town of Calamba in Laguna province. He had nine sisters and one brother. His
parents were leaseholders of a hacienda and an accompanying rice farm by the Dominicans. Both
their families had adopted the additional surnames of Rizal and Realonda in 1849, after Governor
General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa decreed the adoption of Spanish surnames among
the Filipinos for census purposes (though they already had Spanish names).
Like many families in the Philippines, the Rizals were of mixed origin. José's patrilineal lineage could
be traced back to Fujian in China through his father's ancestor Lam-Co, a Chinese merchant who
immigrated to the Philippines in the late 17th century.[12][13][note 1][14] Lam-Co traveled to Manila
from Xiamen, China, possibly to avoid the famine or plague in his home district, and more probably
to escape the Manchu invasion during the Transition from Ming to Qing. He finally decided to stay in
the islands as a farmer. In 1697, to escape the bitter anti-Chinese prejudice that existed in
the Philippines, he converted to Catholicism, changed his name to Domingo Mercado and married
the daughter of Chinese friend Augustin Chin-co. On his mother's side, Rizal's ancestry included
Chinese, Japanese and Tagalog blood. His mother's lineage can be traced to the affluent Florentina
family of Chinese mestizo families originating in Baliuag, Bulacan.[15] José Rizal also had Spanish
ancestry. His grandfather was a half Spaniard engineer named Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo.[16]
From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He learned the alphabet from his mother at
3, and could read and write at age 5.[13] Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he
dropped the last three names that made up his full name, on the advice of his brother, Paciano and
the Mercado family, thus rendering his name as "José Protasio Rizal". Of this, he later wrote: "My
family never paid much attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it, thus giving
me the appearance of an illegitimate child!"[17] This was to enable him to travel freely and
disassociate him from his brother, who had gained notoriety with his earlier links to Filipino
priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora (popularly known as Gomburza) who had
been accused and executed for treason.
Rizal's house in Calamba, Laguna.

Despite the name change, José, as "Rizal", soon distinguished himself in poetry writing contests,
impressing his professors with his facility with Castilian and other foreign languages, and later, in
writing essays that were critical of the Spanish historical accounts of the pre-colonial Philippine
societies. Indeed, by 1891, the year he finished his El filibusterismo, this second surname had
become so well known that, as he writes to another friend, "All my family now carry the name Rizal
instead of Mercado because the name Rizal means persecution! Good! I too want to join them and
be worthy of this family name..."[17]

Education

Rizal, 11 years old, a student at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila

Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan, Laguna, before he was sent
to Manila.[18] As to his father's request, he took the entrance examination in Colegio de San Juan de
Letran but he then enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and graduated as one of the nine
students in his class declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education at
the Ateneo Municipal de Manila to obtain a land surveyor and assessor's degree, and at the same
time at the University of Santo Tomas where he did take up a preparatory course in law.[19] Upon
learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at the medical school of
Santo Tomas specializing later in ophthalmology.

Rizal as a student at the University of Santo Tomas

Without his parents' knowledge and consent, but secretly supported by his brother Paciano, he
traveled alone to Madrid, Spain in May 1882 and studied medicine at the Universidad Central de
Madrid where he earned the degree, Licentiate in Medicine. He also attended medical lectures at
the University of Paris and the University of Heidelberg. 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 an address in German in April
1887 before the Anthropological Society on the orthography and structure of the Tagalog language.
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 and the unification of common values between East and West.
At Heidelberg, the 25-year-old Rizal, completed in 1887 his eye specialization under the renowned
professor, Otto Becker. There he used the newly invented ophthalmoscope (invented by Hermann
von Helmholtz) to later operate on his own mother's eye. From Heidelberg, Rizal wrote his parents: "I
spend half of the day in the study of German and the other half, in the diseases of the eye. Twice a
week, I go to the bierbrauerie, or beerhall, to speak German with my student friends." He lived in a
Karlstraße boarding house then moved to Ludwigsplatz. There, he met Reverend Karl Ullmer and
stayed with them in Wilhelmsfeld, where he wrote the last few chapters of Noli Me Tángere.
Rizal was a polymath, skilled in both science and the arts. He painted, sketched, and made
sculptures and woodcarving. He was a prolific poet, essayist, and novelist whose most famous
works were his two novels, Noli Me Tángere and its sequel, El filibusterismo.[note 2] These social
commentaries during the Spanish colonization of the country formed the nucleus of literature that
inspired peaceful reformists and armed revolutionaries alike. Rizal was also a polyglot, conversant in
twenty-two languages.[note 3][note 4][20][21]
Rizal's multifacetedness was described by his German friend, Dr. Adolf Bernhard Meyer, as
"stupendous."[note 5] Documented studies show him to be a polymath with the ability to master various
skills and subjects.[20][22][22][23] He was an ophthalmologist, sculptor, painter, educator, farmer, historian,
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 also a Freemason, joining Acacia Lodge No. 9
during his time in Spain and becoming a Master Mason in 1884.

Personal life, relationships and ventures

Rednaxela Terrace, where Rizal lived during his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong (photo taken in 2011).

José Rizal's life is one of the most documented of 19th century Filipinos due to the vast and
extensive records written by and about him.[24] Almost everything in his short life is recorded
somewhere, being himself a regular diarist and prolific letter writer, much of the material having
survived. His biographers, however, have faced difficulty in translating his writings because of Rizal's
habit of switching from one language to another.
They drew largely from his travel diaries with their insights of a young Asian encountering the West
for the first time. They included his later trips, home and back again to Europe through Japan and
the United States,[25] and, finally, through his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong.
Shortly after he graduated from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila (now Ateneo de Manila University),
Rizal (who was then 16 years old) and a friend, Mariano Katigbak, came to visit Rizal's maternal
grandmother in Tondo, Manila. Mariano brought along his sister, Segunda Katigbak, a 14-year-old
Batangueña from Lipa, Batangas. It was the first time they met and Rizal described Segunda as
"rather short, with eyes that were eloquent and ardent at times and languid at others, rosy–cheeked,
with an enchanting and provocative smile that revealed very beautiful teeth, and the air of a sylph;
her entire self diffused a mysterious charm." His grandmother's guests were mostly college students
and they knew that Rizal had skills in painting. They suggested that Rizal should make a portrait of
Segunda. He complied reluctantly and made a pencil sketch of her. Unfortunately for him, Katigbak
was engaged to Manuel Luz.[26]

Business card shows Dr. José Rizal is an Ophthalmologist in Hong Kong

From December 1891 to June 1892, Rizal lived with his family in Number 2 of Rednaxela Terrace,
Mid-levels, Hong Kong Island. Rizal used 5 D'Aguilar Street, Central district, Hong Kong Island, as
his ophthalmologist clinic from 2 pm to 6 pm. This period of his life included his recorded affections
of which nine were identified. They were Gertrude Beckett of Chalcot Crescent, Primrose
Hill, Camden, London, wealthy and high-minded Nelly Boustead of the English and Iberian merchant
family, last descendant of a noble Japanese family Seiko Usui (affectionately called O-Sei-san), his
earlier friendship with Segunda Katigbak, Leonor Valenzuela, and eight-year romantic relationship
with a distant cousin, Leonor Rivera (popularly thought to be the inspiration for the character
of María Clara in Noli me tangere).
Affair
In one recorded fall from grace he succumbed to the temptation of a 'lady of the camellias'. The
writer, Maximo Viola, a friend of Rizal's, was alluding to Dumas's 1848 novel, La dame aux camelias,
about a man who fell in love with a courtesan. While the affair was on record, there was no account
in Viola's letter whether it was more than one-night and if it was more a business transaction than an
amorous affair.[27][28][note 6]
Association with Leonor Rivera
See also: Leonor Rivera

A crayon portrait of Leonor Rivera by José Rizal

Leonor Rivera is thought to be the inspiration for the character of María Clara in Noli Me
Tángere and El Filibusterismo.[29] Rivera and Rizal first met in Manila when Rivera was only 14 years
old. When Rizal left for Europe on May 3, 1882, Rivera was 16 years of age. Their correspondence
began when Rizal left a poem for Rivera saying farewell.[30]
The correspondence between Rivera and Rizal kept him focused on his studies in Europe. They
employed codes in their letters because Rivera's mother did not favor Rizal. A letter from Mariano
Katigbak dated June 27, 1884, referred to Rivera as Rizal's "betrothed". Katigbak described Rivera
as having been greatly affected by Rizal's departure, frequently sick because of insomnia.
When Rizal returned to the Philippines on August 5, 1887, Rivera and her family had moved back
to Dagupan, Pangasinan. Rizal was forbidden by his father Francisco Mercado to see Rivera in
order to avoid putting the Rivera family in danger because at the time Rizal was already labeled by
the criollo elite as a filibustero or subversive[30] because of his novel Noli Me Tángere. Rizal wanted
to marry Rivera while he was still in the Philippines because of Rivera's uncomplaining fidelity. Rizal
asked permission from his father one more time before his second departure from the Philippines.
The meeting never happened. In 1888, Rizal stopped receiving letters from Rivera for a year,
although Rizal kept sending letters to Rivera. The reason for Rivera's year of silence was the
connivance between Rivera's mother and the Englishman named Henry Kipping, a railway
engineer who fell in love with Rivera and was favored by Rivera's mother.[30][31] The news of Leonor
Rivera's marriage to Kipping devastated Rizal.
His European friends kept almost everything he gave them, including doodlings on pieces of paper.
In the home of a Spanish liberal, Pedro Ortiga y Pérez, he left an impression that was to be
remembered by his daughter, Consuelo. In her diary, she wrote of a day Rizal spent there and
regaled them with his wit, social graces, and sleight-of-hand tricks. In London, during his research
on Antonio de Morga's writings, he became a regular guest in the home of Reinhold Rost of
the British Museum who referred to him as "a gem of a man."[24][note 7] The family of Karl Ullmer, pastor
of Wilhelmsfeld, and the Blumentritts saved even buttonholes and napkins with sketches and notes.
They were ultimately bequeathed to the Rizal family to form a treasure trove of memorabilia.

Josephine Bracken was Rizal's common-law wife whom he reportedly married shortly before his execution

Relationship with Josephine Bracken

Further information: Josephine Bracken
In February 1895, Rizal, 33, met Josephine Bracken, an Irish woman from Hong Kong, when she
accompanied her blind adoptive father, George Taufer, to have his eyes checked by Rizal.[32] After
frequent visits, Rizal and Bracken fell in love with each other. They applied to marry but, because of
Rizal's reputation from his writings and political stance, the local priest Father Obach would only hold
the ceremony if Rizal could get permission from the Bishop of Cebu. He was unable to obtain an
ecclesiastical marriage because he would not return to Catholicism.[6]
After accompanying her father to Manila on her return to Hong Kong, and before heading back
to Dapitan to live with Rizal, Josephine introduced herself to members of Rizal's family in Manila. His
mother suggested a civil marriage, which she believed to be a lesser sacrament but less sinful to
Rizal's conscience than making any sort of political retraction in order to gain permission from the
Bishop.[33] Rizal and Josephine lived as husband and wife in a common-law marriage in Talisay
in Dapitan. The couple had a son who lived only for a few hours after Josephine suffered a
miscarriage; Rizal named him after his father Francisco.[34]

In Brussels and Spain (1890–92)

In 1890, Rizal, 29, left Paris for Brussels as he was preparing for the publication of his annotations
of Antonio de Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (1609). He lived in the boarding house of the
two Jacoby sisters, Catherina and Suzanna, who had a niece Suzanna ("Thil"), age 16.
Historian Gregorio F. Zaide states that Rizal had "his romance with Suzanne Jacoby, 45, the petite
niece of his landladies." Belgian Pros Slachmuylders, however, believed that Rizal had a romance
with the 17-year-old niece, Suzanna Thil, as his other liaisons were all with young women.[35] He
found records clarifying their names and ages.
Rizal's Brussels stay was short-lived; he moved to Madrid, giving the young Suzanna a box of
chocolates. She wrote to him in French: "After your departure, I did not take the chocolate. The box
is still intact as on the day of your parting. Don’t delay too long writing us because I wear out the
soles of my shoes for running to the mailbox to see if there is a letter from you. There will never be
any home in which you are so loved as in that in Brussels, so, you little bad boy, hurry up and come
back…"[35] In 2007, Slachmuylders' group arranged for an historical marker honoring Rizal to be
placed at the house.[35]
He published Dimanche des Rameaux (Palm Sunday), a socio-political essay, in Berlin on 30
November 1886. He discussed the significance of Palm Sunday in socio-political terms: "This entry
[of Jesus into Jerusalem] decided the fate of the jealous priests, the Pharisees, of all those who
believed themselves the only ones who had the right to speak in the name of God, of those who
would not admit the truths said by others because they have not been said by them. That triumph,
those hosannas, all those flowers, those olive branches, were not for Jesus alone; they were the
songs of the victory of the new law, they were the canticles celebrating the dignification of man, the
liberty of man, the first mortal blow directed against despotism and slavery".[36] Shortly its publication,
Rizal was summoned by the German police who suspected him of being a French spy.[37]
The content of Rizal's writings changed considerably in his two most famous novels, Noli Me
Tángere, published in Berlin in 1887, and El Filibusterismo, published in Ghent in 1891. For the
latter, he used funds borrowed from his friends. These writings angered both the Spanish colonial
elite and many educated Filipinos due to their symbolism. They are critical of Spanish friars and the
power of the Church. Rizal's friend Ferdinand Blumentritt, an Austria-Hungary-born professor and
historian, wrote that the novel's characters were drawn from real life and that every episode can be
repeated on any day in the Philippines.[38]
Blumentritt was the grandson of the Imperial Treasurer at Vienna in the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire and a staunch defender of the Catholic faith. This did not dissuade him from writing the
preface of El filibusterismo after he had translated Noli Me Tángere into German. As Blumentritt had
warned, these books resulted in Rizal's being prosecuted as the inciter of revolution. He was
eventually tried by the military, convicted and executed. Teaching the natives where they stood
brought about an adverse reaction, as the Philippine Revolution of 1896 took off virulently thereafter.
Leaders of the reform movement in Spain: Left to right: Rizal, del Pilar, and Ponce (c. 1890).

As leader of the reform movement of Filipino students in Spain, Rizal contributed essays, allegories,
poems, and editorials to the Spanish newspaper La Solidaridad in Barcelona (in this case Rizal used
a pen name, "Dimasalang", "Laong Laan" and "May Pagasa"). The core of his writings centers on
liberal and progressive ideas of individual rights and freedom; specifically, rights for the Filipino
people. He shared the same sentiments with members of the movement: that the Philippines is
battling, in Rizal's own words, "a double-faced Goliath"—corrupt friars and bad government. His
commentaries reiterate the following agenda:[note 8]

 That the Philippines be made a province of Spain (The Philippines was a province of New
Spain – now Mexico, administered from Mexico city from 1565 to 1821. From 1821 to 1898 it
was administered directly from Spain.)
 Representation in the Cortes
 Filipino priests instead of Spanish friars – Augustinians, Dominicans, and 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. Such Spanish intellectuals as
Morayta, Unamuno, Pi y Margall, and others did endorse them.
Wenceslao Retana, a political commentator in Spain, had slighted Rizal by writing an insulting article
in La Epoca, a newspaper in Madrid. He implied that the family and friends of Rizal were evicted
from their lands in Calamba for not having paid their due rents. The incident (when Rizal was ten)
stemmed from an accusation that Rizal's mother, Teodora, tried to poison the wife of a cousin, but
she said she was trying to help. With the approval of the Church prelates, and without a hearing, she
was ordered to prison in Santa Cruz in 1871. She was made to walk the ten miles (16 km) from
Calamba. She was released after two-and-a-half years of appeals to the highest court.[23] In 1887,
Rizal wrote a petition on behalf of the tenants of Calamba, and later that year led them to speak out
against the friars' attempts to raise rent. They initiated a litigation which resulted in the Dominicans'
evicting them from their homes, including the Rizal family. General Valeriano Weyler had the
buildings on the farm torn down.
Upon reading the article, Rizal sent a representative to challenge Retana to a duel. Retana
published a public apology and later became one of Rizal's biggest admirers, writing Rizal's most
important biography, Vida y Escritos del José Rizal.[39][note 9]

Return to Philippines (1892–96)