Rizal's views on religion from boyhood to adulthood

Rizal: the boy and
the adult (1)

By: Ambeth R. Ocampo - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 01:40 AM September 14, 2016
IN ANOTHER life, I shed Ambeth Ocampo and my birthday, which is

Aug. 13, to take on a new name Ignacio Maria and a new birthday
(actually feast day), July 31. In the monastery my abbot once
dreamed aloud that I would one day do for Benedictine scholarship
what I did for Philippine history; that instead of Rizal, I would spend
the rest of my life undertaking erudite commentaries on the writings
of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who is best remembered by the public for
the breed of dog that bears his name.
One day in the cloister, I remembered two pieces of sculpture by

Rizal that displayed the wide gap between his thinking as a boy in
the Jesuit-run Ateneo Municipal and his thinking as an adult who had
lived and studied abroad.
The first piece, carved out of soft batikuling wood, is a rather crude
statuette of the Sacred Heart to which the Jesuits maintain a special
devotion. (One of the urban legends in the present Ateneo de Manila
University is that the Loyola School of Theology was supposed to be
named the Sacred Heart Institute of Theologyuntil someone
pointed out its not so holy acronym.)
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Rizals Sacred Heart has been reproduced many times over, and it is
often given as a gift to the select few who are honored by the
traditional Ateneo University Awards.
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The original sculpture now in the Ateneo Archives is flat but quite
competent as a boys effort. It manifested the religious fervor of Rizal
as a Sodalist in school, in a time of innocence before he suffered what
he described as a shipwreck of faith. This Sacred Heart statuette
was brought to Rizals death cell in Fort Santiago by the Jesuits who
had hoped that memory and a miracle might yet rekindle the embers
of his juvenile faith. They were sorely disappointed by Rizal.
In his mature life, Rizal had formed another small statuette in clay,
the original of which is now lost. That one depicted a hefty friar,
identifiable as one by his tonsure and habit with cowl and belt. The
friar held in his right hand a tray with a wine bottle and a glass; on
his belly was a silhouette of a woman that the impious refer to as
Rosario; and at his feet a bulging sack of (presumably) money. Rizal
incised on its base the words Orate fratres! (Pray Brothers!), giving
us a hint as to the satirical sculptures title. This sculpture, which
resembled Rodins depiction of Balzac, is often referred to as Fray
Botod, from an essay written by Rizals contemporary Graciano
Lopez-Jaena.
Who is Botod? Lopez Jaena asks in a long and winding sketch: Look
at him, there he goes, walking on the plaza, that chubby friar talking
with a woman at the foot of the talisay tree. Fray Botod is not his
proper name or his family name. Botod means pot-bellied. Lopez-
Jaena continues his description: fur seal with a moustache short
stature; bloated face forming a disk like a full moon, round
cheekbones, thick prominent lips, small eyes. large reddish nose,
with flaring nostrils hair the color of maize, the crown like a coconut
shell depressed and wrinkled forehead. And those were only the
physical characteristics.
What about Fray Botods character? Gluttonous a usurer, worse

than a Jewish money-lender, fond of women Fray Botod is a well-fed
pig who eats, drinks, sleeps and thinks of nothing else but to satisfy
his carnal appetite.
Like my classmates who first read Fray Botod in college, we were
filled with anger and revulsion. We fused and confused Fray Botod
with the other despicable religious in the Noli Me TangerePadre
Damaso and Padre Salvi on whom we based our stereotype image of
the friar of the Spanish colonial period. Nobody taught us to revisit
the caricature and ask ourselves today: Were Damaso and Botod for
real? And if they were, should we see them more as exceptions rather
than the rule. Perhaps we should ask ourselves how much of the anti-
friar accounts, left as a legacy by the so-called Propaganda
Movement, are accurate or even truthful.
In the Noli Me Tangere is a scene where Maria Clara and her friends
are in a river hunting for herons nests that were believed to make
the bearer invisible. Although they do not wear the skimpy swimming
attire that women of the 21st century wear, their wet bathing attire
emphasized the gracious curves of their bodies as Fr. Salvi, hidden in
the bushes, ogles at them.
The friar gets excited by their bare arms, their loose hair, the
graceful neck ending in a suggestion of a bosom. Their diminutive
rosy feet playing in the water aroused strange sensations and
feelings in his impoverished, starved being and made him dream new
visions in his fevered mind. Few teachers dwell on this part in the
Noli to point out that Salvi is playing with himself all along.
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Contrary to popular belief, it is the Dominican Fr. Salvi, rather than

the Franciscan Fr. Damaso, who is the real villain in the novel, and we
can probably relate this to the agrarian troubles endured by the Rizal
family who were tenants of the Dominican hacienda in Calamba,
Laguna.
The same is true with Marcelo H. del Pilar who published

Frailocracia (Frailocracy in the Philippines), Soberania Monacal
(Monastic Supremacy in the Philippines), and, of course, Dasalan at
Tocsohan (Prayer and Temptation).
More than five years in a monastery gave me perspective. Being

branded once as a friar historian by rabid critics (who didnt know
the difference between religious orders) made me rethink what I
learned in school. Conclusion on Friday
Rizal: the boy and

the adult
(Conclusion)
Students forced by law to read Jose Rizals novels develop a warped

image of friars from a caricature masterfully painted for us by the
propagandists of the late 19th century, namely Rizal, Marcelo H. del
Pilar, and Graciano Lopez-Jaena, who are all revered today as
national heroes. Textbook editions of the Noli rarely provide notes
that will help readers distinguish friars from other religious orders.
Jesuits, for example, are not friars, like the four mendicant orders of
men: Augustinians (including Augustinian Recollects), Carmelites,
Dominicans, and Franciscans. Monks are members of a religious
community of men, usually of a contemplative or semicontemplative
kind: Benedictines, Cistercians (including Trappists), Carthusians, etc.
These fine distinctions between religious not made by the

propagandists lead to some confusion in usage and understanding
today. When I learned about secularization and Gomburza, secular
meant a priest who does not follow a Rule (in Latin, Regla), unlike
regulars who do. Had I known, I would not have confused regla with
a womans monthly period, and would not have snickered when I first
heard of the venerated image of the Virgen de la Regla of Cebu
(Virgin of the Rule). To complicate matters, the word secular can
also refer to something that is neither religious, regular, nor even
remotely ecclesiastical.
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Going over old notebooks recently, I saw data from 1898 that
estimated 1,180 regulars in the Philippines. As many as 439
(depending on the source) were prisoners of the Malolos government;
of this number, 25 died in captivity. The 439 priests were barely 5
percent of the total number of Spanish prisoners held by the
Aguinaldo government, yet they got a lot of attention. Depending on
who was in charge of them, the religious were treated in extremes:
either too well, such that some lay prisoners shaved the top of their
heads in imitation of a tonsure in order to get better treatment and
food, or there were isolated cases of torture, hunger, starvation, and
even execution.
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Race has a lot to do with the way we see friars of the past, with
everything rooted in a failed attempt in the 18th century to turn over
the Philippine parishes from the Spanish regulars to the hastily
ordained Filipino seculars. In revisiting the stereotype image of friars,
we must remember that they were almost all Spanish or European.
Would the propagandists have been as virulent if these friars were
Filipinos?
Being patriotic Spaniards, the friars naturally resisted the legitimate

call for reforms that, unheeded, led to the Revolution and the
Philippines eventual separation from Spain. The friars inculcated in
Filipinos a devotion not just to the Church but also to Spain. In their
zeal they pointed out subversives (real or imagined) to the
authorities. Most infamous was the Augustinian Mariano Gil, who
snitched on the Katipunan in 1896. It is not surprising then that some
friars were present during the interrogation of suspected subversives,
and that some took up arms against Filipinos during the Revolution.
The friars influenced colonial policy, such that their hand was seen in
the appointment of governors-general and other colonial authorities.
In the eyes of the propagandists, Spain meant both the colonial
government and the Church.
When thinking of the friars, we should remember that most of the

Spaniards in 1898 were concentrated in Manila or Intramuros, and its
suburbs. Over three centuries, the friars set up the settlements that
became the barrios, towns, cities, and provinces we have today.
When we look at Spanish colonial churches, we should ascertain if
these were erected on slave or forced labor. How can one friar force a
community to build a church? And if the friars were all bad, why were
they tolerated for so long?
Friars were a necessary evil in the colonial system, and even if church
and state did not always see eye to eye, one source sums it up thus:
It is more important for the preservation of the colony to send 200
religious rather than 2,000 bayonets.
Why did some towns protect their parish priests from the excesses of
the Revolution? A pro-friar source, Telesforo Canseco, documents the
reaction against the expulsion of the friars in San Francisco de
Malabon (now General Trias, Cavite) by quoting someone who said:
Cung umalis ang mga pareng Castila, sinong matitirang pari? Ang
mga Tagalog? Cung ganoon ang caramihan natin ay maguiguing
Judio!(If the Spanish priests leave, who will be left? The Tagalogs? In
that case, many of us will become Jews.)
Reflecting on the two statuettes by Rizalthat of the Sacred Heart

and that of the corrupt friarled me to dig up my notes in 1898 as a
way to revisit the way friars have been negatively represented in
textbooks of Philippine history and literature. K-to-12 reforms require
a lot of revision in taught history, and this is not confined to the
Marcos period but goes all the way back to the American, Japanese,
and Spanish erasperhaps even to what we know about Philippine
prehistory.
***
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A slip in my last column: I misidentified P. Salvi as a Dominican rather

than as a Franciscan like P. Damaso. The Dominican in the novel is P.
Sibyla. It puzzles me that Rizal painted the Franciscans as the
kontrabida in the Noli instead of the Dominicans, against whom his
family was embroiled in an agrarian dispute.
Rizal the little bad

boy
EEKLO, BELGIUMI am here in this small town known for Unesco-

declared heritage structures. It is off the beaten track of tourist
destinations like Brussels or Bruges, but I was brought here from the
airport to stay with Lucien Spittael, a retired Nato officer and now a
Knight of the Order of Rizal.
Spittaels charming home, outside the town center, does not look any
different from the neighbors except that his driveway has a tarpaulin
showing the chronology of Rizals life and works. Inside the home he
shares with his Filipino wife Madeline Acosta Abordo is a veritable
Rizal museum with pictures, busts, memorabilia, etc. Rizal started as
a hobby for him and has grown into an obsession, such that I am sure
he knows more about our national hero than the average Filipino.
This weekend I will deliver a lecture at the Ghent Town Hall to

commemorate the 125th anniversary of the publication of El
Filibusterismo (1891), on the invitation of Philippine Ambassador to
Belgium Victoria Bataclan and the sponsorship of the National
Commission for Culture and the Arts. I will be joined by former
Inquirer publisher Raul Pangalangan, who is commuting from The
Hague for the event.
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Spittael and I have been corresponding by email for some time now,
and finally having the opportunity to meet him and go beyond
pleasantries taught me a great deal about the details of Rizal and his
stay in Belgium, which should lead to some revision of what we know.
For example, all historians studying Rizal have long accepted that he
had a girlfriend in Belgium named Suzanne Jacoby. She does not look
very attractive in an extant photograph; some people have even
commented unkindly that she could have passed for a man!
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There were about a dozen letters of Suzanne Jacoby in the prewar

National Library, according to a footnote in Rafael Palmas prewar
Biografia de Rizal, but only three have survived in compilations of
Rizals correspondence. I have always wondered why T. M. Kalaw did
not include these letters in the Epistolario Rizalino. You will
understand why when you read the letter to Rizal from Petite
Suzanne (Little Susan), posted from Brussels on Wednesday, Oct. 1,
1890:
My dear Mr. Rizal:
You may not have received yet my letter and I am writing you this
one because the young gentleman from Madrid came to our house.
He arrived at Brussels at one oclock and came to the house at night.
As it was a little late (10:00 oclock), we had gone upstairs to bed.
Aunt Suzanne and I were both in bed. Aunt Marie was still up. When
he first rang, we thought it was a street urchin, but at the second
time Aunt Marie went to open the door and let him in. Then she woke
up Monsieur Fernand for whom I believe Monsieur Baudrio has
brought a letter. All three were in the kitchen and I could hear very
well all that he said. When we heard him speak, we thought it was
you and then the name of Monsieur Rizal puzzled us.
I had a hard time holding back Aunt Suzanne. She maintained that
you had returned, that it was you who were in the kitchen, but we did
not see you. Monsieur Fernand gave him much information and
placed himself at his disposal for other things. All I know about him is
that he is taller than you and combs his hair in a different way. But I
will see him better, for Aunt Marie has invited him to come again.
Then I will ask to talk again about you. He must learn French at once.
Aunt Marie asked him if you have become stout, what you were
doing, and if you liked Madrid very much.
Monsieur Baudrio replied that you have become stout and I

believe he also said that you were counting on coming back, which
made me so happy that I could not sleep.
Here is already one of your compatriots. Come quickly and bring

with you some twenty more and you can hold picnics, too, here in
Brussels.
I hope your courts are open and I shall not have to wait a long time
for your decision.
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Dont 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.
Waiting impatiently for your letter in which you will tell me all that I
want to know, the whole family sends you regards with wishes for
your return.
Your Petite Suzanne
P.S. 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. Tell
us a little about the kind of house in which you are lodged and how
the people are there.
Such an innocent letter on the surface, but on rereading you may

ask: why is Rizal called a little bad boy? What does she mean by
Rizal leaving his courts open? All the Rizal biographers have
identified this Belgian woman as Suzanne Jacoby, but Spittael has
consulted the municipal archives and found that there were two
Suzannes in the house where Rizal stayed: Suzanne Jacoby, aged 46
at the time, and her niece Suzanne Thill, aged 18. Of the three letters
in Rizals collected correspondence, two are signed Petite Suzanne
and one Suzanne T.
Spittael pointed out the obvious. These letters are not from Aunt
Suzanne but from her niece Suzanne Thill! Obviously, Rizal chose
youth over age, and now the quest for Suzanne T. continues.
Present Rizal research continues abroad, undertaken by adoptive

Filipinos like Lucien Spittael, Karl-Heinz Wionzek, and many others
who put Pinoy researchers like me to shame.
Rizal the user

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:18 AM August 19, 2016
If Jose Rizal were alive today, he would probably be found dead on a
Manila street with a crude cardboard sign identifying him as a drug
user. Rizal, after all, admitted taking hashish when he was 18 years
old. But someone should explain to the trigger-happy police or
vigilantes that in Rizals time, hashish, which we know today as
marijuana, Mary Jane, or jutes, was not what it is now: a
prohibited drug. It was considered medicine and was dispensed freely
from a drugstore.
We know that Rizal experimented with hashish from a letter he wrote

to the German anthropologist Dr. A.B. Meyer of Dresden on March 5,
1890, in answer to a query on hashish in the Philippines. Translated
from the original German, the letter reads in full as follows:
My distinguished friend:
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I received your letter of the 27th of last month and excuse me for
not having answered you before this, for I have had to consult some
countrymen and books concerning your question about the hashish.
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No book, no historian that I know of speaks of any plant whose use

is similar to that of the hashish. I myself, though, in 1879, used
hashish, did it for experimental purposes, and I obtained the
substance from the drugstore. I do not believe that its use had been
introduced before or after the arrival of the Spaniards [in the 16th
century]. The Filipinos drank arak, nipa-palm and coconut wine, etc.
and they chewed buyo before the arrival of the Spaniards, but not
hashish.
Neither is a word resembling it found in the language. The is-is or

asis is a kind of wild fig tree.
If I had Fr. Blancos Flora [de Filipinas], I could find out if this plant
exists. I believe therefore that its use is unknown. Opium was
introduced only after the arrival of the Spaniards. We Tagalogs call it
apian.
I am here at Brussels at your disposal as always. If you could give

me an introduction to some employee of the library, I would
appreciate it.
Most affectionately yours, Rizal.
The thought that Rizal could be executed without trial today, based
on his admission made in the letter, made me rethink a position I
have long held regarding the national heros chance of being elected
president of the Philippines. Knowing what Rizal was like as a person,
and how he was first rejected in the election for the leader of the
Filipino community in Spain, when he ran against Marcelo H. del Pilar,
I am of the opinion that he will not even be elected barangay captain
in Calamba or Dapitan: He will be too serious for voters who elect
people who can dance and sing at the drop of a hat. Since he will be
too principled to buy votes or pay poll watchers, this significantly
trims his chances of election victory.
I used to say that if Rizal were alive today he would probably be shot
in Luneta all over again because he would rail against the people and
structures that make life in the Philippines unbearable. Now he may
be killed for simply admitting to experimenting with marijuana.
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I will not speculate on why the 18-year-old Rizal was experimenting

with marijuana, but we see that in the 19th century some things we
consider dangerous drugs todaylike cocaine and heroinwere
medicines dispensed by drugstores.
Opium was confined to the Chinese; its sale and distribution were
regulated because it brought in revenues to the government. When
the First Republic under Emilio Aguinaldo was established, opium was
still considered part of the revenue track. That all changed when the
Americans took over, and it has been banned ever since.
If you take the trouble to read the Epilogue to Noli Me Tangere, you
will see a reference to opium use and how it changed the once jolly
Kapitan Tiago into a shell of his former self:
Not one of our readers now would recognize Kapitan Tiago if they
saw him He already fell into a state of total depression such that he
began to lose weight and became morose and brooding and
suspicious He wanted to live alone. He took to playing liampo and
to cockfighting with such a frenzy that he began to smoke opium If
at any time, when afternoon comes, and you pass the first street of
Santo Cristo, you will see seated in a Chinese store a smallish,
jaundiced man, thin and bent, with sunken sleepy eyes and muddied
lips, and nails, staring at people as if he does not see them. At
nightfall you will see him rise painfully, and leaning on a cane, head
for a narrow alley to enter a filthy hut at the entrance of which there
is a sign in big red letters: Fumadero Publico de Anfion (Public
Smoking Den for Opium).
One other relic of the opium days is Fumadero street in San Nicolas
near Binondo that is classified today as a commercial area, with price
per square meter recorded in the internet at P23,625.
Reflecting on the growing number of corpses of suspected drug

pushers and users found on the streets daily made me ask how long
it will take before people realize that extrajudicial killings are not
right. Despite the glare of the media, both local and international,
and a touching front-page photo in the Inquirer, it seems that most
Filipinos think the victims deserved what they got.
There was a recent high-profile rally in Luneta to protest the planned

burial of Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. But there
has been no such turnout for the victims of the extrajudicial killings,
or even the innocent people killed in the Maguindanao massacre, the
trial of which is still ongoing, and will probably linger on until people
forget or become jaded.
Rizals dumbbell
Anyone who has seen me in person will know that I dont go to the
gym. From my body type it is obvious that my exercise consists of
lifting, not weights, but spoon and fork, to bring food from my plate to
my mouth. It may seem frivolous to be writing about Rizal again
when I should be commenting on the rising incidence of extrajudicial
killings of suspected drug users and pushers. Perhaps I should
comment on the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga
Bayani scheduled on Sept. 18, a date that comes between Marcos
birthday, Sept. 11, and the date that some martial law babies like
myself remember as National Thanksgiving Day, Sept. 21, when
martial law was officially declared. Its actual implementation came
after the historic document was signed, or, at best, antedated, to
comply with Marcos personal numerology that had all significant
dates in his life defined by seven, or multiples of seven.
Two historians recently asked me about the exhibits at the Rizal

Shrine in Fort Santiago. One was Vicente Rafael, who asked about the
heros overcoat displayed in a glass case on which is engraved a
quote from my 1990 book, Rizal Without the Overcoat. The other
was Leloy Claudio, who asked if I knew how much Rizals dumbbell
weighed. I have seen this heavy piece of metal, together with Rizals
fencing equipment, and never attempted to put it on a scale after
reading Angel Andens article on the heros body type that appeared
in the Sunday Times Magazine on Dec. 27, 1959. Lean and mean Dr.
Claudio works out at the gym and was curious about the weight of
the dumbbell and the manner in which Rizal lifted it. I referred him to
the Anden article that stated:
It was not an ordinary five-pounder such that anyone would use for
limbering up; it was an enormous weight almost a foot long and as
thick as a young boys head at the knobs. From my almost four
decades experience in the field of weights, I knew that whoever used
those heavy dumbbells was either a very big man or a small man
trying to compensate for his vertical deficiency.
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Claudio felt that Andens conclusion was unfair and a bit rash in the
context of recent academic works on the history of physical culture. I
asked Claudio about Rizals program of studies for a proposed school
that included Swedish gymnastics first thing in the morning. I was
puzzled by Rizals describing these gymnastics as purely hygienic.
Claudio said these were light exercises that do not make one perspire
profusely, and may very well be what we know in schools today as
calisthenics.
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Rizal also made time for: horseback riding, fencing and swimming
during the day, and ballroom dancing after dinner. When he was a
student at the Ateneo Municipal in Intramuros, his PE equipment
consisted of parallel bars, weights, and Roman rings or argollas, so
it is safe to presume that he would have these in his planned school
of boys in Dapitan.
It is not well known that during his exile in Dapitan, Rizal went back
to his love for sculpture and made some delightful pieces in clay: a
wild boar, a woman cutting grass, etc. He also carved wood reliefs
one a profile of Josephine Bracken and another depicting a man lifting
weights. When I showed this to Claudio, he exclaimed: Thats the
bent press! I didnt have a clue what this was, so he patiently
explained that this way of lifting made it possible to lift more weight:
The bent press is only done for single reps, not like the bicep curl
which you do for more than 10 reps. With a bent press, you struggle
with it for sometimes as long as three minutes. In terms of his
physical attributes, Rizal would have been strong in what Russian
physical culturists call maximal strength, as opposed to strength
endurance, although we dont know if Rizal had good strength
endurance as well. But in laymans terms, his strength would have
been more similar to a power lifters [than] to a bodybuilders. Rizal
gained strength with minimum weight gain.
Although we dont have a photograph of the adult Rizal without his

overcoat, we can guess this from the measurements as noted down
by Anden, who actually tried on Rizals coat in 1957:
Here are the exact measurements of Rizals coats; shoulder width

16 inches; armpit to armpit17 inches; base of collar to hem31
inches; arm length24 inches. From the snug fit of the coat on my
38-inch chest, I figured that his chest was around 37 inches, quite big
for a man only 54 or less. His body tapered to a slim waist measuring
only 25 inches, almost as slender was a [modern] womans. Even a
body builder of today would be proud of a 10-inch difference between
his chest and his waist. Rizal had a full 12-inch difference.
Anden couldnt try on the pants, but noted the following

measurements:
Overall length41 inches; waist13 inches (half circumference);

hips18 inches midway9 inches; cuff 7-3/4 inches. No low-waist
pants, these; on the other hand, they extended almost to the
sternum, which explains their undue length, based on the arm length
of the coat.
So for those who really want to know what Rizals height was, based
on his clothing, it is 53, and the body proportions were classical
and near-perfect. It seems there is much more that needs to be
researched, not just on Rizals physique but on the history of physical
culture in the Philippines as well.
Would Rizal have

chosen federalism?
By: Randy David - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:05 AM June 19, 2016
THERE ARE suggestions that, recognizing the archipelagic nature of

the country and the disparate cultures that thrived in it, Jose Rizal
would have proposed a federal system of government for an
independent Filipino nation. Indeed, federalism might have appealed
to those who, in the closing years of Spanish rule, were eager to kick
out the foreigners but did not necessarily wish to come under the
control of a dominant ethnic group.
Rizal was certainly aware of the persistence of strong regional

identities in the country. But, instead of building a political system
along the existing fault lines of ethnic segmentation, he was more
concerned with unit[ing] the whole Archipelago into one compact,
vigorous, and homogenous body. This is the first line under
statement of purpose in the draft constitution he wrote for the Liga
Filipina, a political organization that anticipated the broad structures
of a Filipino government.
The Liga, a cross between a political party and a self-help

cooperative, was overtly reformist in vision, but the organizational
infrastructure it laid out could as easily have served as the vehicle for
revolution. Its ultimate purpose was clearly to prepare the Filipino
people for active citizenship in the modern project of self-
government.
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This meant, in the first instance, cultivating in the people a capacity

to differentiate political roles from ethnolinguistic loyalties, and to
perform duties and rights in a political organization independently of
the diffused norms and obligations that bound them to a feudal social
order.
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Rizal was a modern thinker. The draft constitution of the Liga

contained provisions that might have initially appeared strange to
those to whom he presented it. The seventh paragraph on
organization embodied an emphatic wish for members to rise above
their ethnic or tribal identities: Each provincial council and popular
council should adopt a name different from that of the locality or
region. It was a first step toward building a homogenous nation,
rather than a federation of tribes.
Rizal was quite open about the formation of the Liga. It may be
assumed that he was aware that the Spaniards knew what he was up
to, since he was recruiting influential people into the organization. In
other words, the Liga was not supposed to be an illegal or
underground association. And yet, interestingly, its activities were
supposed to be kept secret. Every member was required to adopt a
new name, while keeping his true name hidden and known only to
the secretary of his council.
The adoption of an alias might have been rationalized as a security

measure. But its latent function, it seems to me, must have been to
encourage members to value their political identity and to keep this
separate and autonomous from their other affiliations in everyday
life.
I doubt if Rizal was a federalist. Nothing in his writings suggests that
he believed in complicating the task of building a unified and strong
nation by making space for the creation of autonomous regional
governments. He was wary that other big powers could easily take
over the islands by exploiting internal dissensions, once Spain
relinquished control over them.
However, he appeared to subscribe to the principle of subsidiarity

the notion that decisions should be made as much as possible at the
level closest to the citizens, and that only those that the local level
cannot meaningfully carry out on its own should be entrusted to the
higher levels.
The Liga constitution provided for three such levels of authority: the
popular councils, the provincial councils, and a Supreme Council. The
Supreme Council is composed of all the chiefs of the provincial
councils, while the provincial council is made up of all the chiefs of
the popular or town councils.
The Supreme Council controls the whole Liga and communicates

directly with the chiefs of the provincial councils and the popular
councils. The provincial council controls the chiefs of the popular
councils. The popular council alone has control over its members.
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More than independence from Spain, the basic impulse that animated
the establishment of the Liga had to do with the protection of the
ordinary citizen from arbitrary poweri.e., from violence and
injustice. Rizal would have resolutely opposed political dynasties and
warlords. At the same time, he intended the organization to be a
laboratory for the emancipation of Filipinos from the scourge of
poverty, illiteracy, and economic stagnation. These were the values
that were uppermost in his mind when he drew the constitution of the
Liga.
One hundred and 24 years after Rizal envisioned the nation that
would be built on the foundations of the Liga, we are nowhere near
the democratic and prosperous society that he imagined our country
could be. This has little to do with the form of government. It has
everything to do with the feudal social structure, at the root of which
is a property system that has consigned more than half of the
population to a life of perpetual deprivation, dependence, and
ignorance.
The unitary nation-state that arose from the dissolution of the

monarchical empires was a fresh idea in Rizals time. Today, it has
lost much of its sheen. In a globalized world where the levers of
meaningful economic power and initiative lie outside the reach of
national governments, it has become fashionable to talk of
subnational states improving their lot by linking up directly with the
global system. It is an illusion.
Federalism will not solve poverty and inequality, simply because it

does not touch the real center. It only redraws the periphery.
Is patriotism pass?
Is the Philippines worth dying for? On June 28, 1892, the eve of his
return to the country, Jose Rizal eloquently stated the affirmative
case on this question.
Aware that he had become controversial and was likely to be

hounded by the Spanish colonial authorities from the moment he
stepped on the shores of the motherland, he wrote: I have always
loved my poor country and I am sure that I shall love her until death
if by chance men are unjust to me; and I shall enjoy the happy life,
contented in the thought that all that I have suffered, my past, my
present and my future, my life, my loves, my pleasures, I have
sacrificed all of these for love of her. Happen what may, I shall die
blessing her and desiring the dawn of her redemption.
Four and a half years later, the colonial government sentenced him to
die before a firing squad. Rizal was the quintessential patriot. But he
had the wisdom to distinguish between the country and its
government. He did not equate the people with the government that
ruled it at any given time. Indeed, even as he attacked the religious
orders in the Philippines, he was conscious of the difference between
religion and the friars.
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Encountering Rizals words today, the generation of young Filipinos

might be awed by the national heros intense love for country. But,
rather than draw inspiration from it, they might just as easily dismiss
it as suitable to a time when the nation was not yet free.
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That would be a misunderstanding of Rizals ideas. More than the

dream of an independent country, it was the vision of a proud,
modern and prosperous nation, where citizens enjoyed equality in
their rights, which spurred him to make the kind of personal sacrifice
he offered to his native land. That vision, I believe, continues to
demand the sacrifices of patriots.
The country is formally free, but the masses of its people remain
shackled to poverty, patronage, ignorance, and superstition. There is
prosperity, but it is shallow and not self-sustaining. There is wealth,
but only a few privileged families control it.
Those who have much to contribute to the nations growth find little
hope in its future. They care even less about its past. They prefer to
seek their personal fortunes abroad, many of them choosing not to
come back. The things that give them shame as Filipinos increasingly
overshadow the things that make them proud.
Is the Philippines worth living for?
This question came to me a few weeks ago when I was invited to

contribute some thoughts to a project that aims to instill a stronger
sense of patriotism among students who are recipients of
government science scholarships.
The government spends enormous amounts of money to educate its

citizens. Somelike its science scholarsare the recipients of special
privileges to turn them into world-class scientists and engineers who
can be useful to their country. A number of them are sent abroad to
pursue higher studies and specialization.
Many choose not to come back. The successful among them become
part of the international community of scholars and scientists, and
the country justly takes pride in their achievements abroad. But, the
governments persistent wish is for them to eventually come home
and lend some of their time and expertise to mentor local scientists
and professionals.
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The question that the project was grappling with was: Does the State
have a moral right to demand return service from the scientists and
engineers whose careers it nurtured in their early years? If so, what is
a fair return for the government support that scholars enjoy during
their period of study? The present arrangement requires one year of
return service for every year of scholarship at a local institution, and
two years return service for every year of study abroad under
government fellowship or sponsorship. Return service typically means
working at a government institution, although, more and more, it
requires nothing more than the obligation to work in the Philippines
for a certain period and share ones training and experience.
Nowadays, the idea of a legally binding contract might not appeal to
students who have been raised in an atmosphere where all education
is regarded as a right or an entitlement. They would probably be
horrified by the thought of pledging a portion of their future to an
anonymous State in exchange for a scholarship. The more they think
government is corrupt, the more they would resist the idea of public
service.
I was the recipient of a similar grant in the late 1960s. I felt so

privileged I didnt care how many years of return service the
University of the Philippines demanded of me. As it turned out, it
didnt really matter; I had no problem spending the rest of my life in
the university.
The idea of a return service contract might not even arise if every
generation thought of its future as basically inseparable from that of
the country from which it is sprung. But, today, we know that is no
longer the case. In a world that is shrinkingwhere barriers of nation
are becoming irrelevantyoung people cannot be faulted for wanting
to seek opportunities for personal growth outside the country.
Abroad, a cosmopolitan ethos calls upon them to set aside narrow
loyalties, so they can assume their responsibilities as citizens of one
universal community.
This, to me, is the dilemma that confronts those of us who think of

Rizals vision as an unfinished task. We continue to rely on the strong
identification and commitment created by patriotism to realize Rizals
dream of a free, democratic and prosperous country. But, we must do
so in full awareness that, elsewhere in the world, patriotic sentiments
are being harnessed to a bellicose and bigoted nationalism.
If Rizal had been a
Moro
The story of a nations birth is the same everywhere. In a landscape

of fragmented and subjugated communities, someone glimpses the
image of a people bound by a common experience of oppression and
a shared aspiration to be free. In Benedict Andersons memorable
words, every nation has its beginnings as an imagined community.
We Filipinos were lucky to have a genius like Jose Rizal who could do
that imagining for us and write about what he saw in a most eloquent
way. In so doing, he made it possible for generations of young people
to grasp the concept of a Filipino nation, giving them a reason to
dedicate their lives to its full realization. No better example is there of
Rizals brilliant articulation of this modern concept than his essay,
The Philippines a century hence.
Below is my abridgement of the first pages of this powerful text, as

translated into English. If Rizal had been a Moro, he might have
written a narrative like this, simply substituting Bangsamoro for
Filipino, and the Philippines for Spain.
ADVERTISEMENT
To predict the future of a nation, it is necessary to look at her past.

The Filipino past may be summarized as follows: Soon after its
incorporation into the Spanish crown, the Philippines had to support
with the blood and strength of her sons the ambitions and wars of the
Spanish nation. Its people were made to change their government,
laws, usages, customs, religion and beliefs. The islands were
depopulated, impoverished, and retarded, and the people left with no
confidence in their past, with no faith in their present, and no hope
for the future. Their traditional rulers, who used fear to dominate
their subjects and accustomed them to bondage, fell like leaves from
a dried tree. They had no love for their people and no notion of
liberty. They quickly switched masters, hoping to gain something
from the new order.
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Thus began a new era for the Philippines. Its inhabitants lost their
old traditions and memories of their past. They gave up their writing,
their songs, their poems, their laws, and began to learn by rote other
doctrines they did not understand, another morality, art forms that
were different from those inspired by their climate and their manner
of thinking. Thus they declined, lowered in their own eyes, ashamed
of what was their own. They began to admire and praise whatever
was foreign. Their spirit was broken.
Having reached this stage of degradation, the people of these

islands were ready for the coup de grace aimed at totally crushing
their willpower and their dormant minds, and transforming them into
beasts of burden, humans without brains and hearts. They were
openly insulted, stripped of any virtue or human quality. Some writers
and priests went so far as to say that these people were bereft of any
capacity not only for virtue but also for vice.
This blow, far from being mortal, became a source of salvation, a

strong medicine to enable dying men to recover. The insults and
sufferings woke up their lethargic spirit. If they once had the patience
to suffer and die at the feet of a foreign flag, they soon lost it when
they were paid with insults and inanities.
The Filipino slowly examined himself and realized his misfortune,

surprising his despotic masters, who treated every complaint as an
offense and punished every misdeed with death. Though this
awakening initially occurred only in a few hearts, its flame rapidly
spread.
Undoubtedly, there have been generous and noble spirits who, while
they belong to the ruling race, have stood for justice and humanity
just as there have been cowardly men among the subject people who
have participated in the debasement of their native land. But they
are the exceptions.
This is a sketch of her past. Lets understand her present. And now,
what will her future be? Will the Philippines remain a Spanish colony,
and in this case, what kind of colony? Will she become a Spanish
province with or without autonomy? And, in order to attain this
status, what kind of sacrifices must she make? Will she eventually
separate from the mother country, Spain, to live independently, to
fall into the hands of other nations, or to ally herself with other
neighboring powers?
Its impossible to answer these questions, for the answer depends

on the time one has in mind. If theres no permanence in nature, how
much less there must be in the life of peoples, endowed as they are
with mobility. To answer these questions, it would be necessary to fix
a limited space of time and, using this as reference point, attempt to
foresee future happenings.
ADVERTISEMENT
Rizal goes on to examine different scenarios and their varying

conditions of possibility. At some points, he writes, the impulse for
freedom may be strong, but the people are not ready. There might be
too much dissension at the top, and general apathy below. If Spain
refuses to grant substantial reforms, and the country further
retrogresses, it will force Filipinos to gamble away the miseries of an
insecure life for the hope of obtaining something uncertain.
But three centuries of colonial rule altered the terrain. Today there is
a factor which did not exist before. The national spirit has awakened,
and a common misfortune and a common abasement have united all
the inhabitants of the Islands. It counts on a large enlightened class
today constitut[ing] the brains of the country, [and] within a few
years its entire nervous system
Rizal became an inspiring figure to Indonesians and Malaysians as

well. It would not be surprising if his prophetic words still reverberate
in Southern Mindanao, where the struggle for emancipation of an
imagined Moro nation continues to be waged.
***
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Rizal and Josephine

outside of marriage
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:50 AM February 19, 2016
The reaction to my Valentines Day column on Jose Rizal and

Josephine Bracken was quite encouraging because people want to
know more about their relationship. I often wish that Filipinos would
be as interested in Rizals writings as they are in his love life, but that
is probably demanding too much. Some people were shocked at the
way Rizal described Josephines learning of domestic choreslike
darning his socks, minding his nephews, or making bagoong
because these seem out of tune with the modern Filipino woman.
After reading Rizals glowing description of Josephines talents,
someone asked if he wanted a wife or a domestic helper.
One must not forget that Rizal grew up in a house full of women. He
was the seventh child in a brood of 11; he only had one elder brother,
Paciano, and nine sisters: Saturnina, Narcisa, Olimpia, Lucia, Maria,
Concepcion, Josefa, Trinidad and Soledad. Add to this mix a strong
mother, Teodora Alonso, and equally strong-willed elder sisters he
had to address politely as ora (short for seora)and it may
explain why the docile Josephine was a natural companion during his
Dapitan exile.
Their relationship was not easy because Rizals mother did not
approve of the fact that they were living together outside of
marriage. Josephine tried to leave him once in 1895 and again in
1896. She wrote to him while he was imprisoned on board the ship
Castilla moored on Manila Bay shortly before the outbreak of the
Philippine Revolution against Spain that would, in part, be blamed on
him. In the letter dated Aug. 13, 1896, Josephine says:
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My dear Joe,
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This morning at half past eight Sra. Narcisa received a letter from
you, I am very sorry that I have made a mistake of your [clothing,]
not sending your pants and waistcoat, but as you said you are not in
great need of it. I only send you some more collars and cuffs. You ask
in your letter for mangoes, cheese, tyrines and some lansones. I hope
I can fulfill your wishes in sending the things, mangoes I am sure I
can send to you, but the other things I am not very sure. Yet we send
Antonio to see if we can get the cheese, lansones and tyrines.
After the catalogue of requests, she states her difficulty with Rizals
family and says she is breaking off their relationship:
Ah; my dear, I am suffering a great deal with them in Trozo (house

of Teodora Alonso), it is quite true they ought to be ashamed of me
as they say in my face & in the presence of Sra. Narcisa & their
children because I am not married to you. So if you hear that I dont
go to Trozo any more dont be surprised. If you like me to send all
your things on board of the man of war I can do so. If you go to Spain
[and] you see any one of your fancy you better marry her, but dear,
hear me, better marry than to like what we have been doing. I am
ashamed to let people know my life with you, but as [your] dear
Sisters are ashamed, I think you had better get married to some one
else. [Your] Sister Narcisa and your Father, they are very good and
kind to me. Yours Affect. Josephine Bracken.
In a postscript she adds that she will send foie gras, cheese and 100
sweet santol, saying: If you are not ashamed of me alright the
same.
Then, on Aug. 17, 1896, Josephine writes:
My darling Love,
I received your most kind and most welcomed letter dated the 10th
Wednesday. I am very much surprised not hearing anything about if
you have received the three tyrines of foie gras: well! Perhaps you
have not received any other letters that I have written to you. I went
to the Governor General today but unfortunately he is laid up with a
severe cold but his aide came [and] told me to go back in three days
to receive an answer from him.
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Dear I would like very much to go with your dear family, but; you
know what I have written to you, I would like to go alone, so I can
speak to you better for in your familys presence we [cant] be very
free to each other.
I know my dear it breaks my heart to go and bid you good bye! But!
Dear what can I do; than to suffer until the Good God brings you back
to me again? Your sister Choling came to visit me yesterday and she
wants to give me her daughter Maria Luisa [S]he says she had
great confidence in me, well I told her for my part I am quite willing,
and satisfied but I have to communicate with [you] first if you are
willing, I have also many pupils about fifteen three dollars each and I
am also studying Piano 4$ a month in Sra. Marias house one of my
pupil, Dear. I have to do something like that because I am always
sorry thinking of you oh! Dear how I miss you. I will always be good &
faithful to you, and also do good to my companions so that the good
God will bring you back to me. I will try all my best to be good to your
family especially to your dear old parents the hands that we cannot
cut lift it up and kiss it or adore the hand that gives the blow How it
made the tears [flow] in my eyes when I read those few lines of you.
Say darling say it makes me think of our dear old hut in Dapitan and
the many sweet [hours] we have passed there.
Love I will love you ever, love I will leave thee never, ever precious
to thee never to part heart bound to heart or never to say good bye.
So my darling receive many warm Affection and love. From Your Ever
faithful and True till death Josephine Bracken.
Its a pity that we learn about Rizal only through textbooks and
hearsay, because he left 25 volumes of writings for a nation that does
not read him.
Rizal in love
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:30 AM February 12, 2016
Valentines Day is just around the corner. This weekend the prices for
long-stemmed roses and other flowers will spike, there will be few
vacancies in motels, and boxes of imported chocolates will fly out of
store shelves. Why should one wait for one day in a year to make a
show of love and affection instead of expressing these all year round?
Why should I wait for February to write about Rizals love life when I
can do so even during Holy Week?
The other day, Instituto Cervantes director Carlos Madrid asked me if

I had tracked down Josephine Brackens grave in the Roman Catholic
part of Happy Valley Cemetery in Hong Kong, and I sadly had to
admit that it is an ongoing quest. Josephine was allegedly buried in a
paupers plot in the cemetery in 1902, after she succumbed,
according to her death certificate, to miliary tuberculosis and
ulceration of the breast. There must be a record of the burial
somewhere, an indication of the location of the plot, but after more
than a decade of sleuthing I still hope to find her grave.
Every schoolboy knows that Rizal immortalized Josephine in the

Ultimo Adios that was circulated widely after his execution on Dec.
30, 1896. Here she is remembered and bade goodbye with the words:
Adios, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegria. (Farewell, sweet
foreigner, my darling, my delight)
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Not many are familiar with a poem Rizal wrote for Josephine in July
1895, shortly before she sailed from Dapitan to Manila. A Josefina,
translated from the original Spanish by Nick Joaquin, reads:
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Josefina, Josefina/ to these shores you came in quest/ of dwelling

place, a nest/ like an emigrating swallow
If your fortune you must follow/ to Shanghai, China, or Japan,/ dont

forget that on these shores/ beats for you the heart of one.
Why Josephine left for Manila is unclear from the poem, but there
seems to have been trouble in Dapitan because Rizal is unsure if she
will return to him or travel onward to Shanghai, China, or Japan.
Josephine did return, to Rizals relief, because the rumor in Manila
was that she had been sent away. They should have lived happily
ever after, but more troubles were to come. They were not married,
yet they were living together in a small, gossipy, conservative town.
Worse, the domestic arrangement did not sit well with Rizals mother
and other members of the family, who may not have expressed their
disapproval openly but showed it in other ways. When Rizals
younger sister Trinidad planned a visit in August 1895, he reminded
her of his domestic situation and told her frankly that if she could
accept it, she was welcome to stay in his home; if not, he would rent
a house in town for her. In this letter he complained that he was
being treated like a child rather than an adult.
In the compilation of Rizals correspondence published by the Jose

Rizal National Centennial Commission in 1961, the 954 letters
exchanged between Rizal and others were sorted and chronologically
arranged into four volumes: Correspondence with Family Members
(Vol. 1), Correspondence with Colleagues in the Propaganda
Movement (Vol. 2), Correspondence with Ferdinand Blumentritt (Vol.
3), and Miscellaneous Correspondence (Vol. 4). Everyone who could
not be classified in the first three volumes are lumped into
Miscellaneous, and all the women romantically associated with
Rizal are in this volume.
The letters between Rizal and Josephine, and the letters to his family
with references to Josephine, give us an idea of their domestic life:
She kept him company, darned his socks, and tended to his nephews
and the chickens. Rizal added:
She cooks, washes, sews, and takes care of the chickens and the
house. In the absence of miki for making pancit, she made a kind of
long macaroni noodles out of flour and eggs that served the purpose.
If you could send me a little ankak, I would be grateful to you, for she
makes bagoong; she also makes chile[?] miso, but it seems to me
that what we have will last us for ten years!
In a letter to his mother, dated Jan. 15, 1896, and sent with a
package of dried fish, Rizal tried to explain his relationship:
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You will receive a small quantity of salted fish that was prepared by
the person who lives in my house. She is good, obedient, and
submissive. We lack nothing, except that we are not married, but as
you yourself say: It is better to live in the grace of God than being
married in mortal sin. Until now we have not quarreled and when I
advise her, she does not answer back. If you come and accept her I
expect that she will get along with you. Besides, she has nobody in
the world except me. I am all her kinsfolk.
To his sister Trinidad he wrote:
Miss J. is better than her reputation, and since she has been staying
with me her little defects are being corrected. She is meek and
obedient, and not hard-headed, besides she has a good heart. What
we only need is to pay a curate, that is to say it is not necessary to
us. Until now we have not quarreled; we are always gay, jesting. The
public can say it is a scandal; without doubt it is very scandalous to
live better than many married people. We work and are contented.
She will do everything to be your friend, but what will people say?
Rizals correspondence reveals that their relationship was not all

roses and chocolates. The real challenge was staying together in a
difficult situation.
Rizal for President:

Can he win?
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 03:49 AM December 30, 2015
HERO REMEMBERED A lights display at Rizal Park brightens up the

night for the commemoration of Rizal Day today and for the New
Years Eve celebration. JILSON SECKLER TIU
With the presidential election coming up in 2016, the nation weighs

the frontline candidates against each other in coffee shop debate
that is sometimes reduced to the absurd when someone throws Jose
Rizal into the equation to leave all the presidential candidates
wanting by comparison. Tinimbang ka ngunit kulang (Youve been
weighed and found wanting).
Presuming that Rizal is alive today, if he is not declared a nuisance

candidate, and if he has the money and machinery to mount a
national campaign, what are his chances of winning? While Rizal has
an enviable name recall and is revered as the national hero, will
people vote him into Malacaang?
Textbook history tells us that there was once a Filipino propaganda
paper in Spain called La Solidaridad (Solidarity) that ran from 1889
to 1895 in a futile attempt to campaign for reforms in the colonial
Philippines.
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Rizalistas vs Pilaristas
Graciano Lopez Jaena was the first editor, succeeded by Marcelo H.

del Pilar, who became both editor and publisher in December 1889.
What is swept under the rug of textbook history is the disagreement

in the way Del Pilar managed La Solidaridad, sometimes referred to
by the affectionate nickname Sol (Sun). A move for changes in
editorial policy caused a split in the Filipino community that required
the election of a responsable.
This resulted in pitting Rizalistas or Rizal and his supporters,

against Pilaristas, those allied with Del Pilar. From experience we
know that elections tend to bring out the worst in Filipino nature, and
this goes way back to our Founding Fathers.
No unanimity
While Rizal enjoyed the respect of his countrymen in Spain, this was
far from unanimous. According to Del Pilar, who recounted what
transpired in a letter to
Deodato Arellano, the assembled Filipinos discussed the rules and

agreed that a leader be elected by a two-thirds majority. When the
votes were cast:
The majority required was not secured. Rizal and I were the
candidates. The balloting was repeated three times with the same
result, and Rizal and I parted with the greatest cordiality, so much so
that he told me that, since the balloting would be resumed the next
day, it would be advisable for us to join in voting for a third person so
as to avoid the formation of factions, to which I agreed.
ADVERTISEMENT
The balloting again took place in the afternoon of the following day; I
had to go out and could not be present, so I authorized Naning
[Mariano Ponce] to vote and make any agreements for me. On my
return home I found the following news: that on the first balloting a
majority had once again been lacking; that in view of this Naning
conferred secretly with Rizal, proposing a coalition third candidate
recommended by the two opposing parties; that Rizal without
accepting or rejecting the proposal, replied that he was going abroad
to work by himself because there was no unity possible where there
were two Filipinos; that the balloting took place a second time, and
again failed to produce a decision; that in view of this, Rizal counted
the votes in his favor in everyones presence and said: Well, I see
that I have 19 friends in the colony; goodbye, gentlemen, I am going
to pack my bags, see you later, and, seizing his hat, went off.
Since Naning had instructions from me to prevent my election, he

conferred with those whom he knew were voting for me and asked
them for the sake of harmony to make the sacrifice of changing their
votes to favor Rizal. Dominador Gomez, once this agreement had
been made, took the floor and announced that his party desired
harmony in the colony and were ready to sacrifice their votes in favor
of Rizals candidature. The balloting was then repeated and Rizal was
elected.
Moral leader
Rizal saw himself as the moral leader of the Filipinos in Spain and was
encouraged in this belief by partisans in Manila, who sent funds for
the publication of La Solidaridad and offered him editorship of the
paper.
He declined in 1889, saying he was busy researching in the British
Library and working on his annotations to the 1609 book Sucesos de
las islas Filipinas (Events of the Philippine Islands) by Antonio de
Morga.
Friends who urged Rizal to challenge Del Pilars leadership set him up
for a major disappointment. Del Pilar, de facto leader of the Madrid
group, would not yield his position as well as editorial control of La
Solidaridad to Rizal easily.
3 ballots
Three inconclusive ballots one day in February 1891 show that

neither Rizal nor Del Pilar had a clear majority. Next day, after two
more inconclusive ballots, the Pilaristas delivered their votes in favor
of Rizal, only for Rizal to refuse on the grounds that he demanded
unanimity.
In his letter to Arellano quoted above, Del Pilar claimed he did not
want to be elected yet his actions spoke louder than his words
because he refused to withdraw nor yield his votes to Rizal.
On the other hand, Rizal kept threatening to leave Spain and the
Reform movement to complete his second novel El Filibusterismo
but he did not withdraw or deliver his votes to Del Pilar, either.
Filipinos election behavior
This is a clear case of mixed signals and the Filipino trait of saying
something but meaning anotherjele jele bago quiereof making an
outward show of humility to fish for compliments or support, of
saying he wants to leave when he actually wants to be asked to stay.
This minor episode in Philippine history is a glimpse into Filipino
election behavior; it makes us ask ourselves: Rizal for president?
Maybe not.
One thing is certain, though. If Rizal were alive today, his idealism,
his seriousness, his sharp pen, would get him shot in the Luneta all
over again.
Rizal tried hashish

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:17 AM January 15, 2014
Marijuana is a prohibited substance in most parts of the world. In

some places it is tolerated for medicinal use by patients suffering
from lingering and painful illness. In the Netherlands marijuana and
some special mushrooms remain illegal but are tolerated in small
quantities. In Amsterdam you can order marijuana and light up inside
a coffee shop. Be warned, however, that you cannot do the same in
Maastricht.
When I was in high school I heard of people who experimented with

marijuana from the Cordilleras using pages from the Gideon Bible
distributed to students as rolling paper. In retrospect, I guess one
could literally call those joints holy smokes. But I doubt if marijuana
for recreational or medicinal use will ever be legal in the Philippines,
where something as basic as giving married couples choice in
planning their families is such a contentious issue.
The issue of the legalization of marijuana reminded me of a work in

progress: my Q&A with Jose Rizal where the conversation runs like
this:
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Ambeth R. Ocampo (ARO): I just remembered, is it true you used
hashish?
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Jose Rizal (JR): I myself, though in 1879, used hashish; I did it for
experimental purposes and I obtained the substance from a
drugstore.
ARO: You were 18. Being that age in our times means you can drive,
you can get married, you can vote, but you cannot smoke hashish. So
hashish was for medicinal use rather than recreation? Or maybe you
needed it for historical research?
JR: I do not believe that its use was introduced either before or after
the arrival of the Spaniards. The Filipinos drank arak, nipa-palm and
coconut wine, etc., and they chewed buyo before the arrival of the
Spaniards, but they did not smoke hashish. Neither does the word
hashish exist in our language.
ARO: Maybe you needed it for a medical condition? Ive read that you
were a frail and sickly child, that you had an oversized head, that
your left shoulder was lower than the right, that you spoke with a
slight lisp. I dont quite like the big head story because translated
into Filipino, malaki ang ulo can mean you were arrogant.
JR: As a boy, I suffered from torticollis, a rheumatism of the muscle,

which I fought with sinapism (mustard plasters) and by taking some
sudorific (something to induce sweating). In 1886 I was sick, suffering
from pains in the chest, and by the symptoms that I had, I feared that
I am liable to have a serious ailment. When I was still a small boy, the
physician of the Ateneo Municipal said that I had incipient
tuberculosis.
Often I got sick with fever despite the gymnastic exercises that we
had, in which I was very much behind, though not so in drawing
under Agustin Saez, a teacher worthy of his name and under whose
guidance I still continue to study.
ARO: Yes, aside from verse your pen was also good at drawing, you
having studied under Agustin Saez who was also the teacher of Juan
Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Your selfie actually shows you
shirtless, but unfortunately the original is believed to be one of the
casualties of the Battle for Manila in 1945. Sayang!
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So you studied drawing and did watercolors while you were in the
Ateneo and continued to paint in oil when you were a medical
student at the University of Santo Tomas?
JR: I continued studying painting. I copy heads from nature in oil. I

have an ambition to become a landscape painter. I am among
corpses and human bones, having become inhuman, a quack;
formerly I was very finicky. My hand is trembling for I have just played
moro-moro, for you must know that I aspire to become a sort of
swordsman.
ARO: What about music?
JR: For a month and a half I studied solfeggio, piano, and singing. If
you hear me sing, you would say that you were in Spain, for you
would hear the braying of an ass.
ARO: Do you remember what books you read in the Ateneo? Authors
you liked?
JR: In 1873 I began to dedicate my leisure hours to the reading of

novels, years before I had already read El Ultimo Abencerraje, but I
didnt read it with much interest. Figure out the imagination of a 12-
year-old reading Alexandre Dumas peres Count of Montecristo,
enjoying sustained dialogues and delighting in its beauties and
following the hero step by step in his revenge. Under the pretext that
I had to study universal history, I importuned my father to buy me
Cesare Cantus multivolume work Historia Universal, and God alone
knows the benefit I got from its perusal, for despite my average
studiousness and my little practice in Castilian, in the following year I
was able to win prizes in the quarterly examinations and I would have
won the medal were it not for some mistakes in Spanish, that
unfortunately I spoke badly, which enabled the young man M.G., a
European, to have an advantage over me in this regard.
By cultivating poetry and rhetoric, my sentiments were further

elevated. Virgil, Horace, Cicero, and other authors showed me
another road through which I could walk to attain one of my
aspirations.
***
Reading Rizals own writings brings out a more human and

sympathetic figure buried in textbook history, fossilized in
monuments of marble and bronze.
Rizals self-portraits
late 19th centurys
selfies
RIZAL MORE THAN EVER On his 154th birth anniversary Friday, the
countrys national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, remains very much a part of
not just the Philippine landscape, with major roads across the nation
named after him and his monument gracing parks, public schools and
plazas, but also an inspiration for the nation. Here, a statue of Rizal in
a scholarly pose is outlined against the sky at dusk in Intramuros,
Manila. JILSON SECKLER TIU
It may interest the digital generation that Jose Rizal took two selfies
without a cell phone or digicam.
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inRead invented by Teads
He did the next best thing in the late 19th centuryhe drew himself
with a pencil on paper. The first selfie remains unlocated and is
believed to have been one of the cultural casualties of the Battle of
Manila in 1945. The other is in a museum north of Prague in the
Czech Republic.
If Rizal had a cell phone, he would have taken selfies. If Rizal had a
cell phone, he would not have churned out the 25 volumes of writing
that fueled the academic cottage industries more than a century
after his death.
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Rizal is perhaps one of the most photographed historical figures of

19th-century Philippines.
From his earliest photograph at age 13, when he was a schoolboy at

Ateneo Municipal, to the time he was executed at 35 in Bagumbayan,
the national hero left us with visual images from his youth to
manhood, from indio to Filipino.
Most reproduced photo
His most reproduced photo, the one from which all Rizal monuments
throughout the archipelago are based, was taken by Enrique Debas in
Madrid in 1890 when he was 29.
It seems to have been Rizals favorite, among a handful of studio

portraits taken while he was abroad, so he planned to publish this on
the title page of his second novel, El Filibusterismo (1891), but he
changed his mind to save on printing costs.
While all of Rizals photographs are in black and white, we are

fortunate that his portrait was painted by his friends Juan Luna, Felix
Resurreccion Hidalgo and Telesforo Sucgang, providing us with a
likeness in color.
Rizal as teenager
What is not well known is that Rizal took two selfies.

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The first was drawn sometime in his last years as a high school
student at Ateneo Municipal or his early years as a college student at
the University of Santo Tomas.
Teenaged Rizal posed shirtless in front of a mirror and drew an

idealized self-portrait that has only survived in photographic
reproductions because the original was lost or destroyed during the
Battle of Manila in 1945.
The second selfie is preserved in the South Bohemian Museum in

Cesk Budejovice, in the Czech Republic. The existence of this selfie
was first documented by the late former Philippine Ambassador to
Switzerland Modesto Farolan in the mid-1960s.
Blumentritts collection
In the 1930s, the heirs of Ferdinand Blumentritt sold their fathers

collection of Rizaliana to the National Library of the Philippines but
kept a few souvenirs. These included the Rizal selfie and a sketch of
Blumentritt by Juan Luna.
The Rizal selfie was drawn for Blumentritt sometime in late
November or early December 1886 when Rizal was 25 years old.
After completing his medical studies in Madrid, Heidelberg and Paris,

Rizal traveled around Europe with his friend Maximo Viola before he
returned to the Philippines in the summer of 1887. The itinerary of
this tour included five days in Litomerice, then part of Austria.
Sketch of myself
Rizal was to meet his friend Blumentritt face to face for the first time
in May 1887 so he sent this selfie ahead of his arrival, in a letter on
Dec. 9, 1886, saying:
Enclosed is a sketch of myself that I am sending you as an advance.

It is said that it has a certain resemblance to me, but I am not sure if
it really has. As soon as I have a good photograph, I will send it to
you. Those that I have are all retouched or badly taken.
To celebrate the friendship between the Czech Republic and the

Philippines, a full documentation of the Blumentritt collection can be
made available to Filipino scholars, or perhaps an exhibit of the
originals in Manila will materialize soon.
Jose Rizal, my
dream guy
By: Khanna Blithe O. Cortes - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 08:22 PM October 23, 2011
(Editors Note: The following won second prize in the recently

concluded Anvil-PDI Essay Writing Contest to commemorate the
150th birth anniversary of Dr. Jose Rizal. The author is a fourth-year
student of the Mandaue City School for the Arts.)
I wish Jose Rizal was my boyfriend. Dont be surprised or judgmental.
I have thought about it long enough to consider him as my Dream
Guy. Besides, who in the entire universe would not have wanted to
date him? He was a rarity.
I have thought long and hard about Rizals attributes and qualities
that made him a suitable boyfriend. His humor and sense of
formality, the way he captured a ladys heart with his wit and
charisma got me thinking.
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The many-sided persona of Jose Rizal made him a curious person. Not
to mention his mastery of more than 20 languages and his
outstanding writing.
He was very knowledgeable, a polymath who, in his spare time, loved

to discover and ponder the concerns of life.
Another trait of his that I truly liked was the different way he looked
at the worldwith unselfishness and great fervor. He was not
absorbed in his own convictions and anxieties. He found the time for
his family and friends.
This might mean that his notion of time was precious and he would
really find the time for me.
There are just two problems about being his girlfriend. One is that he
was such a charmer that other women would run after him. And two,
being an eloquent writer and all, Rizal would express his opinion
through whatever medium. This might mean that he would blog if
there wasnt any other way to be heard.
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If Rizal was a blogger in his time, he would be famous for the depths
of meanings captured in his words. He would be a prolific blogger
with a talent for changing the perspectives of people who would read
his blog. His commentaries would be controversial pieces.
This would have been so annoying. Who would want a boyfriend

known for being notoriously opinionated? Well, this defect led me to a
further analysis of Rizal to see if he was really worthy to be my
Dream Guy.
Rare gem
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But, looking at his works, I realized that he was a gem that was really
hard to find. He would write about the injustices and discriminations
against the Filipino people. But he would not only dwell on his love for
the country but also the philosophies he had learned in life.
The lessons he learned from his mother, his friends and his family
strengthened his ideals. For what defines a person? It is his
philosophies that shape him and form his ideals.
His love for knowledge paved the way to many other things, things
that won the hearts of the Filipinos and sparked a revolution.
I imagine Rizal writing his tenth entry in his website with the blog
title: The Pen Is Mightier than the Sword. For he believed in
attaining freedom through peaceful reform rather than violence. He
would have written that good always conquered evil and only the
restoration of the dignity of the people was real justice.
Rizal would have expressed his progressive ideas on the rights and
liberty of the people and his anger at corruption. He would ask
questions that would be haunting and thought-provoking. He would
ask why, instead of Filipinos ruling their motherland, a foreigner
claimed to own it.
Rizal was not only centered on politics and inequality but also had his
own outlook on the sciences and arts. Education for him vanquished
ignorance and enlightened minds. Rizal would write in his blogs about
the Triumph of Science over Death. About how, through scientific
advancements, the ignorance of humankind was slowly fading, how
science helped us conquer our fear of death. He would have told us
to face life with wisdom and understanding.
But nobody escapes death, even Jose Rizal. As I review his writings, I
realized it was not his brilliant ideas or his love of country that made
him great. It was his willpower.
He said, 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 lovesfor his country and for others dear to him.
Maybe Rizal would not be so bad when it came to love. If you really
think about it, he was really one of a kind and just about perfect. Its
sad that he is just a Dream Guy, my Dream Guy.
Rizals SALN
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:50 AM May 20, 2015
Reading about the alleged Binay billions and the paper trail that leads
to Canadian banks reminded me of an inquiry made, shortly before
the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution in August 1896, regarding
assets of Andres Bonifacio in Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp.
and Chartered Bank. I was disappointed that the Manila
representatives of these banks replied to my query that Bonifacio did
not maintain accounts with them, though I presume that funds had
been withdrawn and the accounts closed by then.
Emilio Aguinaldo is mentioned in the four-volume HSBC history

because he deposited part of the money from the 1897 Pact of Biak-
na-Bato in HSBC and lived on the interest. Some colleagues insisted
that the funds be split and distributed so they could go on their merry
way, and when Aguinaldo refused he was sued in court. The original
documents are extant in London waiting for a Filipino historian to
work on them.
HSBC once put out an advertisement in the Philippines using Jose

Rizal as a product endorser, because he had written his brother
Paciano to send his allowance through the bank as it had better rates
than anyone else in the market. I checked this out and found Rizals
recommendation to be true. However, HSBC was silent over Pacianos
reply that he checked out the rates and found better exchange with
Chartered Bank.
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The 2015 list of millionaires in the Senate based on their statements

of assets, liabilities and net worth show Cynthia Villar as the richest
senator and Antonio Trillanes the poorest. This list reminded me of
Rizals own SALN at the time of his trial for sedition in December
1896. His declared property was ordered confiscated for damages to
the state in the amount of P1 million, later reduced to P100,000.
According to the trial records, Rizal declared that his assets and
property in Dapitan included his professional books and medical
instruments, and a letter of credit amounting to P73.76. He also
turned over a gold tiepin with a bee in the design, and a pair of gold
cufflinks with little pearls and two amethysts. After his execution the
family requested the return of this tiepin and cufflinks; these were
turned over to his mother as souvenirs only on Jan. 20, 1898.
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The Register of Deeds in Laguna certified that Rizal owned no land
there, but from the practice of his profession in Dapitan and his
winnings from lotto, he acquired pieces of land in his place of exile.
He paid Sixto Carreon P110 for the following:
A piece of land in the sitio of Daanlungsod, of the town of Lubungan,

bounded on the North by lands of Don Santos Daimiel; on the South
by lands of Moises Adverulos y Arroyo, alias Mangulong; on the East
by the river of the old town of Lubungan; on the West by hill country
of the public domain. It has an area of approximately 34 hectares, 47
ares and 50 centiares, and a stand of more or less two thousand
abaca plants.
Another piece of land in the same sitio, bounded on the North by

lands of Angelo Alamang; on the South by and of Feliciano Eguia; on
the East by the river of the old town of Lubungan; and on the West by
land of Dionisio Adveruelos. It has an area of approximately 58 ares
and 58 centiares, and a stand of one thousand abaca plants more or
less.
The total area of both pieces is thus approximately 25 hectares, 6

ares and 8 centiares, with a stand of 3,000 abaca plants, more or
less, the greater part of which is ready for stripping. (This does not
seem to add up correctly but is copied directly from the trial records
translated from the original Spanish by Horacio de la Costa, SJ.)
Rizal also declared land acquired from public domain with the
exception of a small part acquired from the property of a certain
Lucia Pabangon at P8. Here is a description of the land and what was
found on it:
A piece of hilly and stony land whose area is estimated to be

approximately 18 hectares; bounded on the North by land of
Celestino Acopiado and in part by hill country of the public domain;
on the East by hill country of the public domain; and on the South
and West by the Day of Dapitan on which is found the following:
A house of light materials, of bamboo and palm-leaf thatch with

wooden posts and plank flooring, measuring ten meters and 5
centimeters long and 11 meters and 40 cms wide.
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A light material shed of bamboo and palm-leaf thatch with wooden

posts and plank flooring, measuring 15 meters long and 7 meters and
10 cms wide. Both house and shed are in good condition.
31 coconut trees, 10 bamboo trees, and a number of fruit trees.
Rizal also owned a vessel of the kind called vilus, unfinished,

measuring 19 meters 85 cms. from stem to stern, 1.65 m breadth of
beam and 1.30 m depth of hold, and two masts containing : one-
half jar of white lead; one bamboo container of balao (?); three
lengths of abaca cable, one of ten fathoms, two of eight; a pile of
lumber; 58 buri mats for the sail; and an anchor.
In themselves these pieces of information are trivial and useless, but

they provide a glimpse into how Rizal lived out his exile. A lesser man
would have sulked and despaired, but it is clear from the data that he
made good use of his time and talent to profit himself and the
community around him. The SALN of our heroes help us to
understand their background and motivation to help us become
heroes ourselves.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/85042/rizals-

saln#ixzz4hJMSR87l
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Rizal on trial
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:24 AM July 04, 2014
Jose Rizal knew he was a marked man when he disembarked from the
steamer that brought him from Hong Kong to Manila in 1892. He
chose to stay in a hotel and told relatives and friends who had offered
their hospitality that this was not a snub but for their own good.
Agents from Cuerpo de Vigilancia had trailed him, noting every place
he visited, whom he met, and what he did. I have not seen the actual
documents, but I presume these would be so detailed to contain: the
color of his hat or the food he had for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and
merienda in between. The surveillance reports can be deduced from
the questions Rizal was asked at the beginning of his trial for treason
four years later.
On Nov. 26, 1896, Rizal was sworn in and the court records listed him
as a native of Calamba, Laguna, of legal age, single, physician,
never been tried before. Here is a list of names that began with Pio
Valenzuela. Rizal was asked if he knew the suspected rebels, namely:
Martin Constantino Lozano, Jose Reyes Tolentino, Antonio Salazar (the
owner of the bazaar where Rizal bought his shoes), Jose Dizon (an
engraver), Moises Salvador, Domingo Franco (a tobacco dealer from
Nagtahan), Ireneo Francisco, Deodato Arellano (a brother-in-law of
Marcelo H. del Pilar with whom Rizal did not see eye to eye),
Ambrosio Flores (a Mason), Timoteo Plata, Ambrosio Salvador,
Bonifacio Arevalo (a sculptor and dentist Rizal had met for dinner),
Timoteo Paez, Francisco Cordero, Estanislao Legaspi (from Tondo),
Alejandro and Venancio Reyes (brothers who own a shop on Escolta
where Rizal had a suit made), Arcadio del Rosario, Apolinario Mabini
and Pedro Serrano.
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From the list presented to him, Rizal said he knew some but not all,
some of the names he neither recognized by name nor by sight.
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Earlier, on Nov. 21, Rizal was asked if he knew Andres Bonifacio,

president of the Supreme Council of the Katipunan. The transcript of
the trial recorded Rizals reply as follows: He does not know this
person by name, and in fact this is the first time he hears of him. Nor
does he know him by sight although [Bonifacio] might have been
present at the meeting in the house of Doroteo Ong-junco, where
[Rizal] was introduced to many persons whose names and
appearance he no longer remembers.
Then Rizal was asked: How does the prisoner explain the fact that his
portrait is included among those of the members of the said
association (Katipunan)?
His reply: As to the portrait, since the prisoner had one of ordinary
size made in Madrid, they might have secured a copy of the portrait.
As to their using his name as a rallying cry, the prisoner has no idea
why they should do this, as he has given them no pretext whatever
for it, and he looks upon it as unqualified presumption on their part.
He did indeed learn from his family that his name was being used to
collect funds for him. [He brought this matter to the military governor
of Dapitan for transmittal to the Governor General in Manila and] got
his family to spread the word around by means of their
acquaintances that he was not asking for alms and that he had
sufficient funds for all his needs with what he earned by the practice
of his profession and what he had won in the Lottery.
Rizal was asked about plans to escape from Dapitan and go to Japan.
He was asked to explain his plans to establish a Filipino settlement in
Sandakan. He was also asked to explain a note found in his papers on
the deflection of a magnetic needle of a compass in Dapitan. All
these details are often left out of our textbooks when they actually
flesh out, in part, a picture of what Rizal was likewhat he was doing,
who his friends or acquaintances were, etc.
When I first read the transcript of the trial of Rizal, I was surprised by
the details about his picture being in the meeting hall of the
Katipunan, and about his name being used as a rallying cry, as a
password, and as a means to solicit funds. Werent we taught to look
down on Rizal because he denounced the Philippine Revolution?
Some teachers go so far as to paint him as a traitor to the revolution,
when it seems from the trial that Rizal was not against the revolution
but, rather, advised that it be postponed for a better timea time
when the Katipuneros had arms, funds, and support from a foreign
power to see the revolution to its successful conclusion.
My reply to those who want to push for Andres Bonifacio as national

hero in place of Rizal is that they should read the trial documents
where the investigating officer made this conclusion: The accused
Jose Rizal Mercado is the principal organizer and the very soul of the
Philippine insurrection; the author of associations, periodicals and
books dedicated to the cultivation and dissemination of ideas
instigating the people to rebellion and sedition; and supreme head of
the national revolutionary movement.
We have room for both Rizal and Bonifacio in the pantheon of heroes,
and it is unfortunate that some people refuse to appreciate the fact
that while Rizal did not raise a bolo, or fired a gun, he did inspire
Bonifacio into action that led to the Philippine Revolution. I hope that
by including more primary sources in the history curriculum, young
people may see beyond the opinion and ideology and form their own
conclusions.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/76237/rizal-on-

trial#ixzz4hJMz7lxA
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Rizal is hardly
gasgas
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:36 AM December 11, 2015
DONT THINK you have written everything on Rizal already, warned

my supervisor at the University of London, because if you look hard
enough there will always be an obscure German academic who has
beaten you to it! In my case, the Rizal surprises do not come from
obscure foreign scholars and academic journals, but overlooked
sources in Manila. They say that if you ask a fish to describe its
surroundings, the last thing it will mention is the water in which it
swims.
Over two decades ago, on my first visit to the Philippine National

Archives, a researcher sneered at me when he spotted my request to
examine a bundle of documents on Rizal. What can you write on
Rizal that can even be considered new? he said before declaring the
hero sufficiently well-worn: Rizal? Gasgas na yan! Had I heeded his
unsolicited sarcasm, I would not be where I am today.
That day in the National Archives, I came across a bundle of letters

written by Rizals sisters that had not been published or cited
anywhere. Those letters came to mind this week when yet another
batch of unpublished letters from Rizals relatives turned up in
another archive. Ignored by most scholars because they are not
letters by or to Rizal, they may provide additional context to the
Epistolario Rizalino, the first compilation of Rizals correspondence
compiled by T.M. Kalaw in the 1930s. Just when I was starting to think
that Rizal was truly gasgas, the Lopez Museum provided the boost to
look into him again.
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My current interest in the early relations between the Philippines and

Japan includes Rizals trip to Japan from Feb. 28 to April 13, 1888,
that is commemorated with a small bust in Hibiya Park, Tokyo (across
from the Imperial Hotel), which marks the spot of the hotel in which
he stayed. It is unfortunate that Rizal wrote very little during his stay
in Japan, or maybe those writings have not survived, or are waiting to
be discovered somewhere.
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Nevertheless, preserved in the Lopez Museum are: two original

letters written from Tokyo describing Japan to his family, a small
pocket diary marked Travel Diary from Manila to Japan via Hongkong
and Macau, and a pocket notebook of stitched Japanese paper with
Japon 1888 on the cover. The latter contains notes and sketches
that have yet to be fully deciphered. Offhand there are addresses in
Kobe, as well as train routes and schedules that document his trip to
Nikko, the lake of Chuzen, Fuji, Hakone, Nagoya, Kyoto, Nara and the
lake of Biwastaples in package tours of Japan today. This notebook
also contains shopping lists, book titles, and the addresses of a tailor
and a photographer.
Rizal tried his hand at writing Japanese characters, and even drew
and painted in the Japanese style. I think one or two of the women
sketched are of O-Sei-san, with whom he had a brief romance.
On a previous trip, Prof. Takefumi Terada of Sophia University took me

to visit Zoshigaya cemetery, where O-Sei-San is buried beside her
husband, an Englishman named Alfred Charlton. Until more material
turns up, all we know about her and her background is:
Her full name was Usui Seiko, and her nickname was O-sei. The
Usui family came from Chiba, a prefecture near the present Narita
International Airport. Her father was a samurai who turned to
business and ran a trading store in Yokohama. Her older brother was
killed in Ueno during the Shogitai revolt against the Meiji
government.
Seikos parents provided her with a playmate by adopting an orphan

from Nagasaki named Yoshi. She spoke fluent English and a bit of
French, and I assume that is how she communicated with Rizal.
Although described as a shy girl, she did serve as Rizals interpreter,
and accompanied him on sightseeing trips around Japan. Being a
woman of high culture, she introduced Rizal to Japanese culture,
and taught him to write simple words in Japanese characters and to
paint in the Japanese style.
She was married to Alfred Charlton (born Aug. 13, 1859, in Liverpool;
died Nov. 2, 1915), an English teacher in the First High School, then
the Yamaguchi High School, in Imaguchi. He later taught chemistry in
the prestigious Gakushuin High School. He was decorated with the
Japanese Order of Merit, fifth class, as indicated on his tombstone.
The couple had a daughter named Yuriko, who married the son of a
senator named Yoshiharu Takiguchi. Seikos grandson (no name
provided) was a Japanese diplomat posted in Geneva.
Seiko never told anyone about her friendship with Rizal, and all we
know comes from her stepsister Usui Yoshida, who was tracked down
by Filipino historians in the 1950s. Yoshi said Seiko collected
Philippine stamps and cherished those which had Rizals picture. Her
stamp collection and any mementos left by Rizal were destroyed
during the bombing of Tokyo in 1944. After her home in Shinjuku was
destroyed, Seiko moved to Hagi, west of Yamaguchi, where she died
on May 1, 1947, at the age of 80.
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Hans Sirban, former cultural officer of the Philippine Embassy in

Tokyo, gave me a photocopy of a page from the 1888 registry of
foreigners that lists Rizal and gives his place of residence as
Kojimachi. Surely, there is more material waiting to be found. Just
when I thought I could retire from Rizal and embark on a new topic, I
have realized there is more to Rizal to fill two lifetimes.
Rizal: Icon of Malay

race
By: Pablo S. Trillana III - @inquirerdotnet
05:52 AM June 19, 2014
RIZAL BIRTHDAY A couple takes a selfie with the monument of Dr.

Jose Rizal as background at Luneta Park, also named after the
national hero, in Manila. The country will commemorate Thursday
Rizals 153rd birthday. RICHARD A. REYES
The nation commemorates two historical events this month: the

116th anniversary of the declaration of Philippine independence on
June 12 and the 153rd birth anniversary of Dr. Jose Rizal Thursday,
June 19. The saga of Philippine nationhood connects the two with
Rizal at the racial center.
History has a roster of names that, for better or for worse, are
deemed to embody racial character. To mention a few: in the West,
theres George Washington, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill,
Charles de Gaulle, Karl Marx and Franklin Delano Roosevelt; in the
East, theres Mahatma Gandhi, Sun Yat Sen, Mao Zedong, Hirohito
and Ho Chi Minh; in Africa, theres Nelson Mandela. I believe that the
Filipino national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, is among those who qualify.
Rizal has been called the Great Malayan. But what in his persona
deserves this attribution? To me, it is his being Filipino.
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Rizal, declares the writer Leon Ma. Guerrero, is the First Filipino.
The archipelago had other sons who came before him and who like
him gave their lives to defend the land of their birth.
Lapu-Lapu struck Magellan down and ended the dream of the first
Spanish conquista less than a month after its landfall on the future
colonial soil.
But he didnt call himself Filipino; he was the proud chief of Mactan,
an islet of a petty kingdom.
The next wave of Spanish conquerors, though more successful, would

be equally besieged.
For 300 years, tribe after tribe took up arms against the colonial
regime for one reason or anotherthe friars, the Church, forced
labor, a wine tax, the tobacco monopoly.
Whether the rebellion was long-drawn-out or short-lived, the rebels
fought for the same cause: to regain the freedom they used to enjoy.
Yet, they didnt call themselves Filipinos. They identified themselves

as Pangasinenses, Ilocanos or Tagalogs.
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Even the Muslims of Mindanao, the most unbending of the islanders,

launched the Moro wars not as a nationalist campaign but as a jihad
against infidels.
Even at a later time, when the winds of European Enlightenment

wafted over the archipelago and created the ilustrado, the educated
class, no one called himself Filipino in the sense that the word is
regarded today.
While the Tagalogs, Visayans, Pampangos and Bicolanos were

beginning to call the archipelago Philippines and its inhabitants
Filipinos, both terms were associated merely with geography, never
for natural affections for the land or the people.
The Spaniards who were born in the Philippines, who were snubbed
by Spaniards from Spain, called themselves Filipinos, but only to
assert an equal superiority.
To the very end all the Spaniards, regardless of origin, called the
natives by the derogatory name they had always usedindios.
Rizals contemporaries
Rizals contemporaries were no better. Their hearts might have been

in the right place, but their visions didnt transcend the colonial
horizon.
Marcelo H. del Pilar called his newspaper Diariong Tagalog and
concluded his satirical tirades against the Spaniards Long Live
Spain!
Pedro Paterno wished to be named duke or grandee of Spain. His

ambition was perhaps inspired by the Spanish Constitution, which
stated that any free man born on Spanish soilwhich the Philippines
waswas a Spaniard. And a Spaniard, as a Spanish governor general
proclaimed, is one who can be nothing else.
Rizal thought otherwise. He showed his countrymen they could be

something less than merely brown Spaniards. They could be Filipinos,
a people sharing common roots in a common land.
The urge to be Filipino became an obsession when Rizal lived abroad.

As many of us know from our own experience, nothing evokes love of
country more than an extended stay in a foreign land.
Rizal was no exception. Absence made his heart grow fonder for his
native soil, and he wore his heart on his sleeve.
Everything Rizal did from about 1882, the year he left for Madrid at
age 21, was dedicated to extolling the land and people of his
affections.
Los Indios Bravos
As an in-your-face retort to the European conceit, he gathered the

Filipino expatriates in Europe into an organization that proudly
announced their origins. They called themselves Los Indios Bravos,
thus turning around what was once a word of insult into a word of
praise.
To help Filipinos rediscover the richness of their race, Rizal published

his annotations on Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. The original
monograph, written by the Spaniard Antonio de Morga, is an account
of the lively Philippine society in the late 16th century.
Rizals notes emphasized that the people of the archipelago had a

culture of their own before the coming of the Spaniards. And to show
the contrast between the past and the present, his two novels, Noli
Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, demonstrated how Filipinos were
decimated by Spanish colonization and that the countrys present
state was not necessarily superior to the past.
La Liga Filipina
Through Noli and Fili, Rizal forced his countrymen to confront their
tragic lot and then taught them what they could do and be if they
loved what is just to the point of dying for it.
La Liga Filipina was Rizals most significant and far-reaching attempt

at nation-buildingat least in spirit for La Liga had a short life. The
indios, he proposed, could be not only Filipinos but also citizens of a
Filipino nation.
La Liga was the first organization in Philippine history to unite the

whole archipelago and to create a compact and homogenous
society of the old tribal communities from Batanes province to Sulu
province, based on common interests and mutual protection.
Most historians peg the birth of Filipino nationalism to the secular

priests Burgos, Gomez and Zamora, who demanded that the friar-
controlled parishes be placed in the hands of native priests. But as
Guerrero points out, the plight of the three martyrs was mainly
religious and, therefore, had to do with the wider universal Catholic
Church, not the narrower, more exclusive Filipino nation.
The intellectuals of that generation who shared the fates of the

priests were equally oblivious of the concept of a Filipino nation. They
worked for the rights guaranteed by the Spanish constitution to all
subjects of the Spanish crown.
National catharsis
Rizals concept of nationalism and nation was based on loyalty to the

archipelago, not to Spain. And its demands were rigid: an unselfish,
responsible and moral allegiance governed by mutual rights and
duties. Nothing less, or, as Rizal had asked, What is the use of
independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?
Rizals life fulfilled the spiritual and political aspirations of his people.
His death brought on a national catharsis that underscored the
primacy of sacrifice.
In the eyes of others, Rizal died a failure, just another casualty of a

brutal regime. In the eyes of the Filipinos, he died in the manner
Christ had died. Rizal gave his life to redeem the Philippines and the
Filipinos.
And in being Filipino, Rizal paid tribute to the Malay race. His
annotations to Morgas Sucesos was a call to awareness of the old
Malay legacy. His vision of racial unity in the region would be taken a
step further by future statesmen.
President Carlos P. Garcia, along with the Malayan Prime Minister

Tunku Abdul Rahman, established the Association of Southeast Asia
(ASA) in 1959. In 1962, President Diosdado Macapagal initiated the
creation of Maphilindo (Malaya, the Philippines and Indonesia) to
bring together the peoples of Malay stock. President Ferdinand
Marcos played an active role in the founding of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 1967.
These alliances were preceded by the Southeast Asian Treaty

Organization (Seato), which was organized in 1954. But Seato was
essentially a creation of the West, implemented to stop the spread of
communism in Asia. Its Asian membersThailand, Pakistan and the
Philippineswere outnumbered by the Western membersthe
United States, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Franceand
it was the West that set and controlled its policies.
By contrast, ASA, Maphilindo and Asean rose from the region and
clearly promoted regional interests.
ASA sought to find ways and means to elevate the standards of

living and improve the material welfare of Southeast Asians.
Maphilindos agreement, known as the Manila Accord, reaffirmed a

common goal to achieve economic, social and cultural progress in the
region and to combine efforts in the common struggle against
colonialism and imperialism.
Unfortunately, both organizations were plagued by diplomatic crises.

But although they didnt develop beyond the paperwork, they
became the forerunners of the more productive Asean, which
exhorted its members to rise up from the confines of their colonial
past and approach the challenges of regional development with
more pragmatic solutions that go beyond politics.
The Asean is now in its 47th year and, next year, will integrate into a
single bloc called the Asean economic community. Its original five
nationsIndonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand
have been joined by Brunei, Laos, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia
and Vietnam, bringing the total number of member states to 10.
Wherever he is, Rizal must be smiling as only the Malay could.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/75745/rizal-icon-of-

malay-race#ixzz4hJNEHP5Q
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Rizal in Paris
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:11 AM November 18, 2015
Worldwide sympathy for the victims of the recent terrorist attacks in

Paris reminded me that Jose Rizal had just turned 22 when he wrote a
series of lengthy letters to his family describing the sights in the city.
In Rizals time, the fastest train from Madrid to Paris took all of 36
hours, which he mostly spent looking out the window. He noted that
from the barren land of Castille, the landscape turned green in the
Basque country. His first stop in France was Hendaye, whose
landscape he found most pleasing. He arrived in Paris on a Sunday
and checked in at the Hotel de Paris (on 37 Rue de Maubeuge), which
had been recommended by Filipino friends. His only complaint, if any,
was that everything in Paris was expensive.
Rizals preconceived ideas of France and the French came from

reading Alexandre Dumas as a high school student, and as the train
made its way to the French capital he recalled scenes from the
Three Musketeers. Paris did not disappoint:
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The environs of Paris are very beautiful and very picturesque. There
are little houses with gardens and the churches, like all those we
have seen along the road, are of Gothic style, so pure, so tall are their
turrets that with the landscape they form and constitute the
enchantment of the traveler. From Hendaye onwards, the politeness
and urbanity of the people are noticeable; if you address anyone, he
replies amiably and takes off his hat, and when you pay or give them
anything, they dont fail to thank you, just as for the slightest collision
or stumbling, they ask you for pardon or excuse. In Paris it is even
more so. What Grant says that the English in comparison with the
French are barbarians, I can apply to myself. Having been
accustomed to a certain kind of treatment for many months, now
that Im in Paris, I find myself and I consider myself almost rude.
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The original letters preserved in the Lopez Museum and Library are
an interesting read even if Rizals long, detailed description of Paris
landmarksChamps Elyses, Place Vendome, Place de la Concorde,
Opera, Madeleinewere all drawn from the Baedeker Guide. He
dined at the brasserie Duval and visited the shopping mallsBon
Marche, El Louvre, Le Printemps, Jardiniere, etc. But not all was
sightseeing, because he also spent time in the Laennec hospital to
observe. Then as now, the best way to explore Paris is on foot:
Early in the morning I went out for a stroll, and by the long time that
I walked and the little I covered, I can imagine how big is this city that
they call Babylon. Fill with magnificent houses the entire area of
Calamba, Cabuyao and Santa Rosa and youll have Paris more or less.
That is the way I figure it out because to traverse it in a coach from
one extreme to the other takes more than an hour and a half. Here
man is a real ant; there are streets whose ends cannot be seen and
nevertheless they are straight, wide and very well laid out, shops and
department stores everywhere; coaches for hire are said to reach
25,000. Passersby animate and throng the streets, the restaurants,
cafs, bouillons, beer halls, parks and monuments.
On every street, however small it may be, there is at least one hotel,
and these hotels are filled with travelers from all parts of the world
who come and go, so that there are always seen new faces, trunks,
and suitcases everywhere, different attires, strange types, including
us. Here they call us Japanese, because there are a large number of
them around.
On the first day I did nothing else but walk and walk. I saw the
Champs Elyses is an extensive park from the Place de la Concorde
to the Arch of the Carousel, wide and long, filled with trees, with
theaters on both sides in which plays and concerts are held at night,
with cafs, exhibitions, flowers and plants. There many persons go to
sew under the trees or to read. There are children with their nurses,
etc., etc. The Champs Elyses at night is full of people.
The original Rizal letters from Paris in the Lopez Museum are
incomplete, and he wrote in a series on the sights. Unlike Spain,
where Asians were mistaken for Chinese, in France Asians were
mistaken for Japanese. In an exhibit of Japanese art at the Palace of
Industries, Rizal impersonated a Japanese. In the Museum of Orfila,
he saw a table made of human organs and a painting of a noble
dwarf. He described public parks and gardens, also the Jardin des
Plantes, the Luxembourg palace and garden. He visited the tomb of
Napoleon at the Invalides.
In one letter, Rizal said not much has happened yet. He sent a long
meticulous report on the Pantheon, the ruins of Cluny, etc. Reading
this made me ask: Maybe it would have been easier for him to just
send the Baedeker Guide to Calamba? But every now and then, he
described what he saw in relation to something in the Philippines. For
example, in an exhibit of footwear from all over the world that he
viewed in a museum, he commented that he found embroidered red
slippers like those sold on Rosario street in Binondo, as well as straw
slippers of the twenty-centavo kind, etc.
Reading about Rizal in Paris in the days following the terrorist attacks
on this beautiful city is a way of believing that Paris and the French
will endure.
Our heroes formal

education, or lack
of it
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 01:23 AM October 07, 2015
Confucius birthday is commemorated by Celadon, the Chinoy

student organization in Ateneo de Manila University, by showing
appreciation for its teachers. It is much welcomed by the professors
who work many hours outside the classroom preparing for lectures
and marking papers. It is truly sad that many teachers all over the
country are overworked and underpaid, when it is they who form the
future.
Confucius birthday, National Teachers Week, and World Teachers

Day made me think about the formal schooling of our heroes. We
need not go into Jose Rizal anymore because everyone knows how
his mother taught him how to read and how he studied in Europe. We
need not be crushed by Rizals stellar grades in Ateneo Municipal or
his good grades in the University of Santo Tomas. All that is common
knowledge, but what about the schooling of other heroes like Andres
Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo, or Apolinario Mabini?
How much of a formal education did our heroes have? We all know
how Bonifacio was humiliated during the Tejeros Convention: His
election as secretary of the interior was questioned because he had
neither degree nor title. He was home-schooled and, according to
Teodoro Agoncillo, finished the equivalent of our Grade 4.
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He was literate; he could read, write and do simple arithmetic.

Contrary to popular belief, his job was clerical, not manual. One
source lists his occupation as bodeguero (warehouse clerk); he was
not a cargador. He was fluent in Tagalog and Spanish, and it has
been suggested that he knew some English, too.
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Bonifacio was home-schooled and self-made. Much of his learning

came from a life of reading. One assumes that his command of
Spanish was better than Aguinaldos because one of the earliest
Tagalog translations of Rizals Ultimo Adios is attributed to him.
Aguinaldos Spanish, deemed all right for communication, needed
improvement. Bonifacio read all three of Rizals books: the Noli, the
Fili and the annotated Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. Aguinaldo did
not read any. After Aguinaldo issued a statement in support of the
1957 Rizal Law that made the Noli and Fili required reading for all
college students, Nick Joaquin asked what he found memorable in the
novels. Aguinaldo then admitted that he knew very little Spanish and
had not read the novels.
Aguinaldo had about seven years of formal education. As a boy, he

preferred to play rather than study. When he went to school in Manila,
he spent his afternoons daydreaming and watching the ships gliding
on the Pasig River and Manila Bay rather than opening his books for
study. In 1882, when he was 13 years old, Aguinaldo was overjoyed
to learn that San Juan de Letran had closed due to a cholera
epidemic. He never returned to school after that long break.
Mabini, on the other hand, returned to Letran after the cholera

epidemic had passed.
We could probably strike a medal for Mabini because of his

intermittent schooling. His first lessons were from his mother and his
maternal grandfather because his father and his paternal grandfather
were both illiterate. Mabini as a boy appeared bright, so he was sent
to a school in Tanauan, which he subsequently left when the
schoolmaster whipped him for some mistake he made in his lessons.
He transferred to the school of Fr. Valerio Malabanan and stayed
there until the third year of his secondary education. He then
transferred to Letran in Manila for his fourth year, but had to stop
temporarily due to the cholera epidemic of 1882. He returned to
Batangas and was hired to teach children in Father Malabanans new
school in Bauan until the epidemic was over.
Mabini returned in Manila in 1884. While enrolled in Letran, he cross-

enrolled in the University of Santo Tomas but had to quit school for
lack of funds. He resorted to teaching children again, and through
hard work and perseverance he was able to complete his bachelors
degree and to earn a teachers certificate in 1887. With his savings
he finished law at UST and passed the bar in 1894.
Mabini almost missed his graduation because he had no money to

buy or rent an academic gown for the commencement exercise.
Fortunately, someone he had once provided with free legal advice
gifted him with a toga. The irony was that he never practiced law,
and was content with notarial work. What people did not realize then
was that Mabini was busy with subversive activities. He was
arrested in 1896 for complicity in the outbreak of the Philippine
Revolution, but was detained in San Juan de Dios hospital due to his
paralysis. Had he been able-bodied, he would probably have been
imprisoned and tortured in Fort Santiago.
Like Bonifacio, Mabini read a great deal. His reputation for learning,
for having a gintong ulo (golden head), led to his being ferried on a
hammock all the way from Batangas to Kawit, Cavite, where he
arrived on June 12, 1898, to witness Aguinaldos declaration of
Philippine independence from Spain. For a year, Mabini became the
closest and most influential adviser to Aguinaldo, the president of the
first republic.
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All this shows that a formal education can bring you only so far. What
you do after graduation, after receiving the diploma, is what matters
most.
***
Mothers and their

sons
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 03:06 AM October 02, 2015
After receiving 30 wounds from guns, bolos and daggers, Antonio

Luna breathed his last, expiring with an expletive on his lips. As his
assassins stood around his bloodied corpse, a womans voice from
the convent house of Cabanatuan broke the silence with the
question: Nagalaw pa ba iyan? It was Trinidad Famyor Kapitana
Teneng, Emilio Aguinaldos motherwho wanted confirmation that
the threat to her sons life and hold on power was dead. One
unreliable source quotes the kapitana as shouting: Hoy! Bad men!
Dont you recognize General Luna? A review of the different sources
on the death of Luna shows one that lays the blame for his death, not
on Aguinaldo, but on a woman who sat in on important meetings, a
woman Aguinaldo could not refuse.
All the interest generated by the film Heneral Luna helps us see
that history is composed of many narratives, some conflicting. It also
gives us a chance to reflect on the role of mothers in history. Teodora
Alonso, Jose Rizals mother, is said to have climbed the staircase of
Malacaang in 1896 to intercede for the life of her son. An hour
before his life was snuffed out by a bullet in the field of Bagumbayan,
Rizal left a note that reads: To my very beloved mother Sra. Doa
Teodora Alonso, At six oclock in the morning of 30 December 1896.
Jose Rizal. It leaves little to the historian, but much to a grieving
mother.
Nothing can be more tragic than for a mother to bury her child, worse
when it comes in threes, as it did for Laureana Novicio vda. de Luna
in 1899: First she buried her daughter Numeriana, then her son
Antonio was murdered in Cabanatuan in June, then another son Juan
died in Hong Kong in December. Antonios murderers were never
brought to justice, and Juan, we all know, died of a heart attack on
Dec. 7, 1899, as stated coldly in the death certificate: Juan Luna, 42
years old, painter, passed away in 2 Lower Castle Terrace, due to
angina pectoris, literally translated to pain in the chest, or a heart
attack. His death was registered the next day by a certain A. Martin
and PPJ Wodehouse, nephew of the British author P.G. Wodehouse.
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Our story should end with Juan Lunas death certificate, but I have
always been interested in a lead given me by E. Aguilar Cruz and
Teodoro A. Agoncillo, senior members of the National Historical
Institute, who suggested that the painter might not have died of
natural reasons, and was probably poisoned by someone hired by his
brother-in-law, Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera. Revenge was suggested
as the motive since Juan Luna had murdered Pardo de Taveras
mother Juliana Gorricho and sister Paz in a fit of jealousy in Paris in
1892.
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Long after Agoncillo and Cruz passed away, I found sources to

support what they suspected. On April 14, 1900, the Luna brothers
mother wrote to Tomas Arejola and the members of the Comite
Republicano Filipino in Madrid expressing her gratitude for the honor
given her sons Antonio and Juan. The letter reads:
In the midst of misfortune and overwhelming solitude, I am consoled
to know you have risen above base and petty calumnies by doing
justice to the tragic death of my Antonio. Believe me that in the near
future, history, being above vile and crude passions, will trace in gold
the name of he who was a victim of duty, if not the envy of his
detractors.
I have no ambition of making the names of my sons, Juan and

Antonio, appear side by side with that of Rizal, I only wish that
posterity would do them justice and that their memory would cause a
tear to fall from the bottom of peoples hearts.
With this, I will die in peace, perhaps pardoning in my last moments

their murderers. This is the most that an afflicted mother can say to
reciprocate the loving words with which you honor her sons.
That Laureana Novicio vda. de Luna believed her two sons were
murdered is one thing. That her son and grandson also believed this
is shown in two articles by Alfonso T. Ongpin, published in the
Spanish-language Voz de Manila and Nueva Era in 1949. A part reads:
I used to frequent the residence of the brother [of Juan Luna] Don
Pepe (Jose Luna), reputable toxicologist who on one occasion told me
verbally that his brother Juan died treacherously poisoned in Hong
Kong by a compatriot of ours. This was also confirmed by his only son
Andres Luna de San Pedro, creator of notable buildings and
magnificent mansions that are now standing in this capital and in the
provinces.
While I have yet to find the so-called smoking gun, I have looked at
Juan Lunas handwritten apology to Pardo de Tavera dated Jan. 19,
1897, and preserved in the Lopez Museum, that reads:
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I have reconciled with God through the holy sacrament of confession

since I wish to reconcile myself likewise with men, as a good
Christian Catholic should. I ask you, as representative of your whole
family, to pardon me of anything that has caused offense. I offer this
simple and just reparationfor the very sad misfortunes that
occurred in another time between both [our] familiesThese lines
are sealed in peace because I wish that we can be united as good
and resigned Christians. Your sure servant who kisses your hand. J.
Luna.
History is fascinating because it opens us to many alternative stories,

some more engaging than what we have in our textbooks.
Josephine Bracken
Josephine Bracken is a name familiar to Filipinos because he was Jose

Rizals last love, the woman immortalized towards the end of Ultimo
Adios in the words adios dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegria
[Farewell sweet foreigner, my darling, my delight]. Searching for
Josephine on the Internet yields some interesting material; for
example, in the New York Times of Sept. 22, 1897, is a story about
the widow of Rizal sighted in Philadelphia where she worked to secure
aid for the Filipino cause and to avenge her husbands death. This
was definitely new to me and the person was probably an impostor
who gave her name as Marina Cormenol Orbi Hozae Rizal. This is
definitely not Josephine Bracken but someone who used the romantic
story of her life to get attention and money.
It is said that none of the Philippine newspapers are available

completely online for historical research. The New York Times is fully
searchable and if you are lucky you can read the material you need
without paying a subscription or viewing fee. I looked up the Hong
Kong newspapers of the late 19th century and marveled at all the
dispatches from Manila that document the progress of the Philippine
Revolution against Spain and the Filipino-American War, too.
Josephine Bracken comes out twice in the China Mail of 1897.
Following news that the Widow of Rizal, as she was called, returned
to Hong Kong in May 1897, two images of her came out in the same
newspaper: One image, often quoted in books, portrays her as a
modern Joan of Arc who fought in the Philippine Revolution and even
killed a Spanish officer; the other image emerges from a surly
interview given by her stepfather George Taufer who portrayed her as
a scheming dishonest woman.
The more positive interview transcribed from the China Mail of May
29, 1897 reads:
ADVERTISEMENT
Mrs. Josephine Taufer, widow of Dr. Rizal who was shot in Manila for
complicity in the Rebellion in the Philippines arrived in the Colony on
May 23 by the Yuensang. A representative of the China Mail visited
Mrs. Rizal at her place of residence to-day, and elicited a remarkable
story of her career in the Philippines.
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As is now very well known, Mrs. Rizal is an English girl, born in Hong
Kong. In August 1894, she sailed for Manila, where Mr. Taufer had
gone on medical advice, he having suffered for two years from
cataract. After staying for six months in Manila, they journeyed to
Perin on the island of Dapitan. Here Dr. Rizal was called upon to
undertake the treatment of Mr. Tauffers eyes. Dr. Rizal had frequent
opportunities of meeting Miss Taufer, and the friendship thus formed
deepened into love and ultimately they were engaged. Dr. Rizal was
at this time living in banishment. Everything was prepared for the
marriage but one day a Spaniard came and told the young couple
that if they were to be married he would separate them immediately
afterwards. Miss Taufer expressed her surprise at what she termed
his silly proposal, and said: If I am not married I remain under the
English Flag, and if I am married I will be under the Spanish flag.
Various circumstances prevented the union. At Dapitan Dr. Rizal was

visited by Pau Balensuele [Pio Valenzuelasucceeding references will
carry the correct spelling] who brought three blind men with him
under the pretension that their eyes might be treated by the doctor.
This was the man who brought the paper of the Katupunin
[Katipunan] of Secret Society to Dr. Rizal, but he endeavored to
persuade Pio Valenzuela from taking part in the rising and
characterized the proposal to institute the rebellion as foolish, as the
men had not arms nor ammunition. He sent Pio Valenzuela away next
day without giving him any indication of support.
DR. RIZAL LIBERATED.
On 28th July 1896 Dr. Rizals liberty was sent from Manila, on
condition that he should go to Cuba for medical service. They
immediately left Dapitan by the Spanish mail Espaa for Manila,
leaving everything behind. On arrival in Manila harbour, a steam
launch came alongside the steamer and a Spanish officer came
aboard, and gave instructions that Dr. Rizal would be detained on
board. Miss Taufer was allowed to go ashore half an hour afterward,
and went to Dr. Rizals home in Manila. About ten oclock at night a
message was sent on shore from Dr. Rizal that his sweetheart might
come on board. She immediately obeyed the summons, and when
she met the doctor he told her he had sent for her to say goodbye,
that he was going on board the Spanish Cruiser [illegible] which was
to convey him to Spain. The Castilla remained for about a month in
Manila harbour, during which time Dr. Rizal was closely watched by
order of [illegible] Henrique [illegible] mtalo. Miss Tafer [illegible] and
Rizals sister visited him [illegible] board the vessel. [illegible] the
preparation of that period that cruiser sailed for Spain. From
Singapore he wrote to Miss Taufer, and that was the last letter she
received from him during his absence in Europe, although he stated
when he returned to Manila that he had written from Barcelona. On
arrival at Barcelona he was detained by the authorities who searched
his baggage, where they found his masonry papers, which were
tucked away with his pen-knives, razors [illegible]. The Authorities
declared [illegible] chief of the Katipunan.
(To be concluded on Friday)
Josephine Bracken,
revolutionary
(Continued from last Wednesday)
Three decades ago, while researching in the archives of the Spanish

Foreign Ministry in Madrid, I came across the dispatches of Jose de
Navarro, Spanish consul in Hong Kong, that contained reports on
expatriate Filipinos considered anti-Spanish and sympathetic to the
revolution in the Philippines. The dispatches from 1897-1898 were
particularly engaging because they contained raw intelligence
information gathered by the consul and his spies who monitored the
homes of prominent Filipinos described as the Junta Filibustera.
Josephine Bracken was the subject of a number of dispatches from

her arrival in Hong Kong in May 1897, her stay in the home of Jose
Ma. Basa, and the press interviews she gave, which attacked Spain
and provided her version of conditions in the Philippines.
ADVERTISEMENT
Two copies of Navarros clippings from the China Mail regarding the
Widow of Rizal existone sent to the governor general in Manila,
the other to Madrid. These yellowing and brittle clippings were
damaged along the folds, so when I transcribed them, I referred to
the missing texts as illegible. Now that the Hong Kong papers are
available online, I should update my notes. Since we are all familiar
with the romantic angle of Josephines life with Rizal, I conclude with
material after Rizals death, when Josephine slowly began to fade
from history. Before she returned to Hong Kong in May 1897,
Josephine was with the rebels in Cavite, having travelled there on the
afternoon of Dec. 30, 1896, the day Rizal was executed in Luneta:
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OFF TO THE REBELS
The same day she set off on foot at half past three to the rebel
position at Imus, without informing her sisters-in-law of her plans.
She walked all night and part of next day and arrived at Sapote
[Zapote] at eleven oclock in the morning. There she met one of the
civilian authorities who asked her who she was, to which she made
the reply, A Sister, Rizals widow. On the news becoming known, she
was well received, and from there was taken to Imus, where she met
Emilio Aguinaldo, the rebel leader. She was received with great
demonstration as the widow of a martyr for the cause. They
conducted her to San Francisco de Malabon [now General Trias], and
there she remained in one of the convents. In that convent were
many traces of the licentious life of the priests. Here she remained
for twenty-three days caring for the sick and wounded.
IN THE FIGHT
When the fight of Marias [Dasmarias] took place, Mrs. Rizal in

company with another lady went out on horseback armed with
Mauser rifles. She states she was lucky enough to kill a Spanish
officer. There were only three or four of the rebels killed, shot in the
head, and about two dozen wounded. After the encounter she
returned to San Francisco de Malabon. At Silan[g] she states the
Spaniards behaved with shocking barbarity, killing numbers of old
men, women and children. Children of seven or eight months old
were seized by the legs and their brains dashed out against the walls.
She maintains that Imus was taken by treachery. Negotiations were
being carried out by the authorities in Manila asking the rebels to
come to terms, and whilst these were in progress the attack was
commenced. When Imus was taken, Mrs. Rizal was lying ill at Tangas
[Tanza?] about half-an-hours walk from the convent, and that night
at eleven oclock they had to leave there for I[n]dang and passed
through twenty-three villages to the Province of Baie.
Bracken then relates a meeting with the Spanish governor general

who, on the insistent request of the friars, asked her to return to
Hong Kong to which she replied: What is the use of the Governor-
General if the priests govern the place? Then there is a scene with
the stomping feet, related thus:
The Governor-General requested her to leave Manila and in the

event of her doing so he would pay her passage and all that she
wanted. He stamped his foot and said it was very ridiculous that a
woman should engage in war, that the English were wrong in allowing
her to do so. The English of course liked war instead of peace. She
replied by stamping her foot and stating she did not care; she was
not afraid of him. She did not respect him as Governor-General. When
she bade him goodbye he was on very friendly terms with her. She
told him if he was offended with her he could take her out and shoot
her as her husband had been shot. She said My husband died
innocent, and his family is willing to die as he has done. If it was too
much trouble for him to take her out to the public place of execution
he could shoot her where she stood. During her stay in Manila she
was carefully watched by detectives, and in consequence of
information she received from a servant of one of the authorities that
they were to tie her up and subject her to cruelties which she states
would be a scandal and a disgrace for her as an English woman to
suffer, she bought a quantity of strychnine which she constantly
carried about with her, resolved that she would die by her own hand
rather than submit to their cruelties.
The long China Mail feature on Bracken ends with her saying: [A]s
long as she had breath it would be her endeavor to help the
Philippines in their fight for liberty. To clear my doubts on parts of
Brackens story requires more research that will hopefully result in
another book.
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Too sad for words

Reader response to the last two columns on Josephine Bracken is an

indication that people are curious about what happened to her after
Rizals death. She did go to Cavite, then the hotbed of the revolution,
where she played Florence Nightingale by caring for the sick and
wounded. She claimed to have taken rifle and horse to charge at the
enemy then killing a Spanish officer to become a modern-day Joan of
Arc.
After her return to Hong Kong, Josephine faded into the obscurity
where she came from; whatever light she had was reflected from her
relationship with Rizal. Josephine died on March 15, 1902, in a bad
part of town and was buried in a paupers grave in Happy Valley
cemetery. Her death certificate listed the cause of death as miliary
tuberculosis and ulceration of the breast.
What most people do not know is that this woman, described by Rizal
as his poor and unhappy wife, laid claim to part of Rizals estate
and brought Teodora Alonso to court to force the family to produce
what she claimed was Rizals last will and testament. In her
desperate attempt to force the hand of the Rizal family, she wrote a
series of letters to Ferdinand Blumentritt.
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One dated Nov. 9, 1897 reads as follows:

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My most appreciated [sic] and respectful friend. You must excuse

me for the delay in answering your kind letter, because I have been
very ill. But you must imagine dear friend what a joy it was for me to
receive your ever welcomed letter dated the 7th July. I thought that
you can cared not to answer my letters, but I see, that it was a letter
that touched my heart and brought tears in my eyes. Before going
any further in my letter I think it is my duty to inquire first how are
your kind family [sic] getting on. Hoping they are enjoying good
health. By receiving letters from you it reminds me the time that I
was staying in Dapitan, because whenever he received any letter
from you he will always tell me that he received an appreciated [sic]
letter from his friend, a friend that he adored so much. Yes time has
changed he is now 11 months under his solemn [sic] grave.
Well I must bid you good dear friend because the mail closes at 10
a.m. With fondest love to Mrs. Blumentritt [and] Children.
I remain Your Sincerely [sic] Josephine Rizal.

In transcribing the originals of the letters preserved in the National
Library of the Philippines, I left Josephines letters as is to expose her
atrocious grammar and spelling. In another letter dated Nov. 29,
1897, she requested Blumentritt to provide her with a letter to Jose
Ma. Basa so she can claim Rizals library that was under his
safekeeping, then she would send these to Blumentritt in Litomerice.
It is obvious that she, or whoever encouraged her to get the library,
would have sold every title when they got hold of them. Aside from
Rizals Library that was valued at 3,000 pesos, Josephine laid claim
to: 1,000 pesos in cash, and all the paintings by Juan Luna that then
as well as now were much coveted. The Nov. 29 letter reads:
Respectable Friend: I let you know by these few lines that my late
husband Dr. Jose Rizal left all his books to you. There are three
bookcases I mean library [sic] in care of Mr. Jose Maria Basas house I
opened the Will last month and found that the bookcases were for
you, he very often told me that those books cost him 3000$. I asked
Mr. Basa for the books and he denied them, I think it is better for you
to write over and ask him for the things that my husband left for you.
Yes; dear friend the Philippines [Filipinos] out here now they are not
Gentlemen, they deceived me a great deal their [sic] were 1000$
given to Rizal by the Freemason Lodge so it was to be given to me,
but they took it and spent it all. I think it is the best thing for you to
me a letter to hand the bookcases to me and I will sent [sic] it over to
you, because Mr. Basa is selling all the best books. I have lots of
troubles with the Philippines they are not what I thought them to be, I
took them to be like my husband, but I see that I am deceived.
Hoping that all your family [sic] are enjoying good health and please
excuse my letter if it is badly written because I am with a strong
favour [sic].
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With my warmest affection and respects to yourself and family.

I remain. Your sincerest friend Josephine Rizal.
My address Mrs. Josephine Rizal C/o Mr. J. Goodchild Thomas Grill

Room Hongkong.
Basas reply to Josephine and her lawyers when they demanded the
turnover of Rizals books was that she had to give him proof of her
marriage to Rizal. A marriage certificate issued by Church authorities
in Manila, or even a certification from the British Consul in Manila,
would have been sufficient. Josephine was not able to produce the
document and failed to claim Rizals library.
In 1902 Paciano Rizal, retired general of the Philippine Revolution and

elder brother of Jose Rizal, broke a 15-year silence and replied to an
inquiry by Blumentritt by stating that Rizal died, intestate, that he
had no knowledge of a will left by Rizal and advised him to ignore
Josephine Bracken. Nothing came of the lawsuit and whatever
remaining goodwill she maintained with Rizals family was
squandered away. Josephine Brackens story is something I had
hoped to write someday but I have kept my notes because it is a
story too sad for words.
Taxes and tax

collection in the
time of Rizal
Rereading the correspondence of Rizal with his family recently, I was

struck by the exchange between Jose and his elder brother Paciano.
In the past I was more focused on the delightful correspondence with
his sisters, which reminds mwany of us that Rizal was human.
Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso were very productive and had
11 children; Rizal was the seventh, the second son in a large brood of
nine sisters. With Rizals father seemingly always in the shadows, it
seems that Paciano took the responsibility of being more than a big
brother to Jose. It is a pity that we know little about Paciano because
he was the Other Rizal who helped form Rizal from boy to national
hero.
The Rizals were not an ordinary 19th-century family. They were upper
class, educated, well-read and had a view of the world outside
Calamba. Paciano was far from the stereotype country bumpkin. In
their correspondence, Paciano asked Rizal to comment on the global
price of sugar in the New York commodities market and how
competition from the US beet sugar would affect his crop in Laguna.
In a letter dated May 26, 1883, he remarked: The country that is
most burdened with taxes, in the opinion of various persons, is the
Philippines.
Paciano complained of the poll tax and the cedula that everyone had
to carry on their person as a form of identification. So burdensome
had the poll tax become such that Andres Bonifacio, when he began
the Philippine Revolution against Spain, inspired his men to battle by
tearing his cedula. I presume that when the Katipuneros tore their
cedula, the feeling must have been similar to the feeling of those
who participated in Edsa 1986 and shouted Sobra na! Tama na!
Palitan na!
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Rizals brother-in-law Maneng Herbosa,

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husband of his sister Lucia, said this about taxes on Aug. 29, 1886:
The tax! With regard to your question on this, the answer is very
long, as it is the cause of the prevailing misery here. What I can write
you will be only one-half of the story and even Dumas,
senior, cannot exhaust the subject. Nevertheless, Ill try to write what
I can, though I may not be able to give a complete story, you may at
least know half of it.
Here, there are many kinds of taxes. What they call irrigated rice
land, even if it has no water, must pay a tax of 50 cavanes of palay
(unhusked rice), and land with six cavanes of seed pay 5 pesos in
cash. The land they call dry land that is planted to sugar cane, maize,
and others pay different rates. Even if the agreed amount is 30 pesos
for land with six cavanes of seed, if they see that the harvest is good,
they increase the tax, but they dont decrease it, if the harvest is
poor. There is land whose tax is 25 pesos or 20 pesos, according to
custom.
The most troublesome are the residential lots in the town. There is
no fixed rule that is followed, only their whim. Hence, even if it is only
one span in size, if a stone wall is added, 50 pesos must be paid, the
lowest being 20 pesos. But a
nipa or cogon house pays only one peso for an area of ten fathoms
square. Another feature of this system is that on the day you accept
the conditions, the contract will be written which cannot be changed
for four years, but the tax is increased every year. For these reasons,
for two years now the payment of tax is confused and little by little
the fear of the residents here of the word vacant is being dispelled,
which our ancestors had feared so much. The result is bargaining, like
they do in buying fish. It is advisable to offer a low
figure and payment can be postponed, unlike

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before when people were very much afraid to

pay after May.
Im looking for a receipt to send you, but I cannot find any, because
we dont get a receipt every time we pay. Anyway it is value-less as it
does not state the amount paid; it only says that the tax for that year
was paid, without stating whether it is five centavos, twenty-five
centavos, one hundred, or one thousand pesos. The residents who
ask or get the said receipt accept it with closed eyes. The receipt has
no signature in the place where the amount paid ought to be,
although it bears their name. Until now I cannot comprehend why
some are signed and others are not. This is more or less what is
happening here in the payment of the land tax and it has been so for
many years since I can remember.
Besides this, the taxes on the plants in the fields that are far from
the town, like the land in Pansol, are various. The tax on the palay is
separate from the tax on maize, mongo, or garlic. There is no limit to
this tax, for they fix it themselves. Since July no one buys sugar and
since June locusts are all over the town and they are destroying palay
and sugar cane, which is what we regret here. The governor gave 50
pesos to pay the catchers of locusts, but when they took them to the
town hall they were paid only 25 cents a
cavan and a half; and it seems that the locusts are not decreasing.
According to the guess of the residents here only 300 cavanes of
locusts have been caught in this town. Many still remain. Though the
governor has not sent any more money, the people have not stopped
catching them.
While it is true that the only things certain in life are death and taxes,
reading about these from primary sources is more lively and relevant
than reading about them in textbooks.
Rizals Ateneo
Ateneo Loyola Schools welcomed a new batch of freshmen and

returning students this school year on June 16, the same day in 1875
that Jose Rizal returned to Ateneo Municipal after the summer
vacation. Contrary to popular belief, Ateneo in Rizals time was a
colegio, meaning a secondary or high school, and not a facultad or
universidad, referring to tertiary education or college in our usage. In
the book I am working on, titled Rizal and me, I ask Rizal about his
school days.
ARO: What was a typical day at Ateneo like?
JR: I dressed like the other studentsthat is, I put on a coat with a
ready-made necktie. With what fervor I entered the chapel of the
Jesuit fathers to hear Mass, what most fervent prayers I addressed to
God, for in my sadness I didnt know whom else to invoke. After Mass,
I went to class where I saw a great number of boys, Spaniards,
mestizos, and Filipinos, and a Jesuit who was the professor.
ADVERTISEMENT
ARO: Aside from your enhanced boyhood photograph in Ateneo

uniform that seems suspiciously elongated because we all know you
were short, there is a charming 19th-century painting in the Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas that depicts two Ateneo boys standing by a table.
On that table rest some thick leather-bound books, one of which an
art critic mistook for the reading and writing primer or caton. Ateneo
boys already knew how to read and write; the book was part of their
classical education (this caton is the Spanish form for Cato the Wise).
Then as now, I think you could tell the school from the uniform. You
make a nice observation in Chapter 12 of El Filibusterismo of
students on their way to Intramuros.
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JR: Some were dressed in European attire, walking fast, carrying

books and notebooks; preoccupied they were in thinking of their
lessons and their compositions. These were the Atenistas. The
Letranistas could be distinguished by their being mostly dressed in
native attire or a la Filipina, being more numerous and less loaded
with books. Those from the University [of Santo Tomas] dressed more
neatly and smartly, walked slowly and, instead of books, often carried
canes Here and there the procession was made pleasant by the
graceful charm and the richness in colors of the female students of
the Escuela Municipal, ribbons over their shoulders and books on
their arms, followed by their maids.
ARO: You wrote in your student diary a great tribute to the

Jesuits, I owe to this Order all, all that I am. What do your
remember of your Jesuit teachers at Ateneo?
JR: [One] was called Father Jos Bech, a tall man, thin, with a body
slightly bent forward, with hurried walk, an ascetic, severe and
inspired face, small, deep-sunken eyes, a sharp Grecian nose, with
thin lips forming an arc whose ends turned toward his chin. This
priest was a bit crazy, so that one should not be surprised to find him
sometimes disgusted and ill-humored; other times he played like a
child.
[Another] professor was a model of uprightness, earnestness, and

devotion to the progress of his pupils; and such was his zeal that I,
who scarcely spoke middling Spanish, was able after a short time to
write it fairly well. His name was Francisco de Paula Sanchez. With his
aid I studied mathematics, rhetoric, and Greek to some advantage.
Father Sanchez was a penetrating observer, although rather
pessimistic, always looking at the bad side of things. When we were
in school we used to call him a dark spirit, and the students
nicknamed him Paniki, which is a kind of bat.
I had other professors, called Fathers Vilaclara and Minoves, the first
one of whom liked me very much and to whom I was somewhat
difficult. Although I was studying philosophy, physics, chemistry, and
natural history, and in spite of the fact that Father Vilaclara had told
me to give up communing with the Muses and give them a last
goodbye (which made me cry), in my leisure hours I continued
speaking and cultivating the beautiful language of Olympus under
the direction of Father Sanchez.
Father Heras, our friend and chief, complained that the work was very
tiresome. Father Pastells was my best friend; he was the most
distinguished and the best traveled among the Jesuit missionaries.
He was also very zealous. I sketched his picture from memory but
Father Snchez took it away from me Fr. Federico Vila was a
linguist; he also spoke German, French, English, Greek, Latin, etc. I
still remember the hardships of Father Torra when he entrusted to me
the first page for the Cartas de los PP, etc. Those were happy days.
ARO: Can you tell us about the Jesuit teaching methods?

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JR: You should know that in the Jesuit colleges, two empires were
established to stimulate learning and competition among the
students. One was Roman and the other Carthaginian or Greek,
constantly at war, and in which the highest positions were won by
challenges that were successful when the opponent made three
mistakes. They put me at the tail end. I scarcely knew Spanish, but I
already understood it.
Rizal would not recognize 21st-century Ateneo because the campus

he attended is now a historic ruin. There is a lot more he would not
recognize in the Philippines we now live in. Which often makes me
wonder: If Rizal foresaw the sorry mess we find ourselves in today, if
he saw the pork barrel scam, corruption, worst airport in the world,
etc., would he have allowed himself to be shot in Bagumbayan?
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu
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Don Teodoro R.
Facebook
Yangco and the

Rizal Monument
01:00 AM September 21, 2015
IN A rare instance, the Inquirers Sept. 7 editorial, titled Torre de

Rizal, began on the Front Page of your newspaper. I write this letter
not with the intention of adding my voice to the growing controversy
surrounding the construction of Torre de Manila. Rather, it is about
the role of my great-granduncle, Don Teodoro R. Yangco, considered
the foremost Filipino philanthropist of his time, in the construction of
the Rizal Monument.
I am proud of the fact that my great-granduncle was a member of the

commission that supervised the construction of the monument. Nine
prominent Filipinos constituted that commission. As stated in the
editorial, Paciano Rizal, Jose Rizals brother, was among them.
The Rizal Monument was officially inaugurated on Dec. 30, 1913. My

great-granduncle delivered an eloquent speech during that occasion.
He spoke of the significance of the monument saying that it
embodied the greatness and noble character of Jose P. Rizal.
ADVERTISEMENT
Incidentally, Dr. Jose P. Rizal and Don Teodoro R. Yangco were

contemporaries at Ateneo Municipal de Manila (now Ateneo de Manila
University). Both graduated with bachelor of arts degreesRizal in
1877, Yangco in 1880.
Torre de Rizal, or
Insulting the
national hero
It is a mistake to think that our generation would know Jose Rizals

wishes better than the revolutionary generation he inspired and
which erected his monument. Rizal did write that he wanted only a
simple tombstone to mark his gravebut he wrote that at a time
when the Spanish continued to rule the Philippines. The same person
who declined the possibility of a rescue by the Katipunan on the day
of his execution because he did not want innocent blood shed did not
want to be remembered through a grave that would attract other
martyrs.
But when a measure of self-rule had been obtained after two wars
against two colonial powers, the emerging nations revolutionary
generation hastened to honor the memory of the First Filipino. They
did it in large part through public subscription: People from all walks
of life donated money for the establishment of a Rizal monument.
This extraordinary circumstance has not been noted in the ongoing
debate over the construction of the Torre de Manila and the national
significance of the Rizal Monument and its surroundings. The
monument required P100,000 in funding. Between 1905 and 1912,
Filipinos donated over P100,000 to the fund; the American
government contributed only P30,000.
The monument committee that was created by law included Rizals

older brother Paciano, a general in the revolution, and the courier of
Rizals message to the Katipunan rebels assembled in Imus, Cavite, in
late December 1896. Three accounts by revolutionary generals
Santiago Alvarez, Artemio Ricarte and Emilio Aguinaldoall agree
that Paciano intervened. In the end, that convinced the Katipuneros
not to attempt a rescue of Rizal. Alvarezs retelling is the most vivid:
And he [Paciano] said his brother Dr. Rizal would agree to be
rescued, if only one life were to be risked, because that would be
equal to his own in service; but if two lives were to be risked, then
dont even think [about] it because he could not agree, since two
lives in service to the nation could never be equal to one.
ADVERTISEMENT
And yet this same person was part of the committee that labored to
build a monument worthy of the herothe very same one who
conveyed Rizals startling message from jail cell to revolutionary
assembly, the one man whose personal sacrifice supported Rizals
studies abroad and the publication of his subversive writings. Other
members of the committee included friends and allies of Rizal
recipients of his letters and advice, believers in his cause. Would they
have dared to dishonor Rizals own wishes, about being buried in a
simple grave, about the admonition not to observe any anniversaries,
if they did not know that, the historical conditions having changed,
Rizal would approve changes to his final resting place, too?
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Everyone on that committee knew that Rizal worried often about the
legacy he would leave behind: hence the ambitious plan to complete
a deathless poem before his execution, the decision to wear the
clothes of a European (that is, as an equal of the Spanish) to his
death, the determination to avoid inflicting any more pain on his
family and his circle (thus, the admonition: No anniversaries). They
all thought that the simple obelisk design finally chosen because of
both choice and circumstance was appropriateour own Torre de
Rizal. The enthusiastic Filipinos who supported the public subscription
drive must have thought so, tooand it has been ever thus, until the
construction of Torre de Manila forced interested parties into
contorted rationalizations.
The simplicity of the Rizal Monument as landmark, as the countrys

first signpost (it is no coincidence that the Kilometer Zero marker is
right in front of it), even as a living symbol of the nation itself, works
not only because it mirrors Rizals no-frills character, but because it
depends on the history of its location: Luneta, the Bagumbayan of
old, where almost 900 people were executed by the Spanish colonial
regime, including the priests Gomburza, over 70 members of the
Katipunan, and Rizal himself.
The excellent essay The Centenary of the Rizal Monument, found

on the official government portal, offers an eloquent understanding of
the symbiosis between monument and killing field.
As an object, then, the monument shies away from magnificence. It

does not tower, there are no ornate details, no grandiose aesthetic
claims. It is the land that surrounds it, however, the land on which it
rose, that resonates with the history Rizal was party to and his
memory helped cultivatethe stories of centuries-long subjugation,
of benevolent assimilation, of city-razing warfare, of politicians
eager to attach their names to that of the national heros. It is the
Lunetaan annexed tract of land beyond the seat of the Spanish
colonial government and religious authority; the centerpiece of the
holistic overhauling of new Western conquerors, for both good and
bad; and the machinations of politicians in the past half a century
that bears for the Rizal Monument the burdens of the historical
narrative that it hosteda historical narrative that is of all us
Filipinos.
It is this story of the Filipino nation that the Torre de Manila seeks,
blithely, to set aside.
Torre de Rizal
By: Willy E. Arcilla - @inquirerdotnet
12:02 AM July 05, 2015
PHOTOBOMBER Increasing the height of the Rizal Monument would
solve the photobomber problem caused by Torre de Manila, according
to some quarters. ARNOLD ALMACEN/ERNIE SAMBO
Could there be a silver lining in the raging controversy over Torre de

Manila from which all parties advocates of culture and history, Dr.
Jose Rizal himself and all Filipinos, and yes even DMCI Homescan
mutually benefit? Instead of asking why Torre de Manila is so tall,
ought we not ask why the Rizal Monument is so small?
Should we not take this opportunity to ask ourselves if Rizal, our

national hero and the father of our country, the pride of the Malay
race and esteemed worldwide as one of Asias greatest leaders, does
not deserve a bigger and better monument than the existing one?
Dont the Filipino people deserve a bigger and better tourism

landmark than the current one? One that can also herald the
countrys recent economic resurgence that shakes off our old label as
the sick man of Asia and one that can inspire our countrymen not
only to value freedom, but also to work for national unity to achieve
progress for all.
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Public donation
This time, we can draw from the vast talent pool of world-class
Filipino artists and architects (since the old monument was created
by a Swiss sculptor in an international competition) for a renovation
that can enhance and elevate the stature of the existing monument
and invite the public to donate funds. Such a project can even
rekindle the ideals of Rizal for our patria adorada, especially among
the youth.
Perhaps the Rizal monument stood tall back in the early 1900s, but
the world has already grown by quantum leaps in building structures
of shrines and memorials, monuments and towers, landmarks and
attractions.
Quezon Memorial taller
Quezon Memorial in Quezon City
This could be why the Quezon Memorial, built 50 years later, stands
much taller than Rizals, and does not have to compete with existing
edifices nor does it become a hindrance to future buildings.
Contrast the Rizal Monument with similar shrines, such as the Lincoln
Memorial and the Washington Monument. As the countrys principal
tourist landmark, the Rizal Monument also pales in comparison with
those of our Asian neighbors, such as Indonesias Monas (Monument
Nasional) and Malaysias Petronas Towers, Thailands Grand Palace
and Buddhist temples, Bruneis Sultans Palace (built by DMCI) and
mosques, the Great Wall of China and Chairman Maos image in
Tiananmen Square.
Shanghais Oriental Pearl Tower and the Bund, Pudongs

megascrapers Jin Mao and Shanghai Towers and the World Financial
Center, the Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Skytree; the Seoul Tower and City
Gates; Taiwans Taipei 101 and Chiang Kai Shek Memorial; and even
Vietnams Memorial to Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi.
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Or could we be overreacting? Singapores Merlion stands proud and

unfazed, despite being surrounded and dwarfed by the city-states
ever-changing skyline, the Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay.
Hong Kongs tourist icon remains a traditional Chinese junk sailing
past gleaming skyscrapersfrom the Bank of China Tower to the
International Finance Center and International Commerce Center.
Man-made landmarks
Is it not about time we ask when the Philippines can ever erect
distinct man-made landmarks that Filipinos can be proud of and
foreigners can visit to admire, instead of just relying
Lapu-lapu Monument at Luneta Park
solely on Gods natural wonders, like white-sand beaches and crystal-

clear waters, chocolate hills and underground rivers, and perfect-
cone and smallest volcanoes?
Think of Frances Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, Americas Statue

of Liberty with Manhattans skyline, the US Capitol and the White
House, the Empire State Building and Freedom Tower, the Golden
Gate Bridge and the Strip in Las Vegas, Spains Palacio Royal de
Madrid and Barcelonas Sagrada Familia, Italys Basilica of St. Peter
and the Colosseum in Rome, Venices Canals and the Leaning Tower
of Pisa.
Turkeys Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, Englands Tower Bridge and
Big Ben Clock Tower, Buckingham Palace and Westminster,
Germanys Brandenburg Gate and medieval castles, Russias St.
Basils Cathedral in Moscow and St. Petersburgs Church of the Savior
on Blood.
Sydneys Opera House and Darling Harbor Bridge, Brazils Risen
Christ and today, the pride of the Middle East and the new capital of
the world, Dubai, with its Burj Al Arab and Burj Khalifa, The World and
Palm Jumeirah.
Ideal solution
What may be the most ideal solution would be if the 60-year-old

DMCI
builder of Philippine landmarks, like the UP Chapel, PNB and DBP

buildings, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Philippine International
Convention Center, Dambana ng Kagitingan on Mt. Samat, BPI and
PLDT buildings, Tower One of Ayala Triangle, Shangri-La and Rockwell
Centercan once again take the initiative in renovating the existing
Rizal Monument into one that will be bigger, better and more
deserving not only of Rizal but also of a 21st-century Philippines.
120-meter-high memorial
Chinese junk in Hong Kong
The height can be symbolic of the death anniversary of Rizal. If it can

be completed by Dec. 30, 2016, then it can rise to 120 meters to
represent the 120 years from 1896 to 2016. For instance, the Quezon
Memorial rises 66 meters to symbolize the age at which Manuel L.
Quezon died.
Such a memorial can offer visitors a deeper, more engaging and

enlightening experience than just spending a minute for a token
selfie, like an interactive museum on the ground floor, a visit to his
crypt in the basement and an observatory to offer the metropolis
one-and-only unimpeded 360-degree vista of Metro Manilas skyline
and Manila Bays famed golden sunset, including historic Corregidor,
and even beyond Manila Bay to the disputed West Philippine Sea, as
well as neighboring provinces like Rizal, Bataan, Pampanga, Bulacan,
Laguna and Cavite.
Needless to say, such an attraction can generate much-needed

tourism revenues for the continuous upkeep of the Rizal Park in
Manila.
As Kevin Costner said in the movie Field of Dreams, If you build it,
[they] will come. So too will more tourists flock to marvel at a bigger
and better Rizal Monument we can christen Torre de Rizal.
(Willy E. Arcilla is a marketing and advertising consultant with over 30

years of corporate experience in the Asia-Pacific region. He can be
reached at willyarcilla@yahoo.com.)
Lincoln Memorial in Washington
Chiang Kai Shek Memorial in Taiwan
Merlion in Singapore
What Went Before:

The saga of Torre
de Manila
In June 2012, DM Consunji Inc. (DMCI) got a zoning permit that

allowed the company to build Torre de Manila on Taft Avenue in
Ermita, Manila, behind the lot previously occupied by the Manila Jai
Alai building.
In the same month, an online campaign against the construction of

the high-rise condominium project was launched by tour guide and
activist Carlos Celdran, who said that the structure would mar the
view of the iconic monument of national hero Dr. Jose Rizal at Luneta.
The following month, the local government of Manila city, under the
administration of then Mayor Alfredo Lim, granted a building permit
to DMCI because the company, according to Melvin Balagot, the city
building officer, had duly submitted all requirements, including an
approval from the city planning office in the form of a zoning permit.
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In November 2013, months after former President and now Mayor

Joseph Estrada took over, the Manila City Council suspended the
projects construction citing zoning violations.
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However, in January 2014, construction continued after the Manila
Zoning Board of Adjustments and Appeals granted DMCI an
exemption from the zoning regulation.
Demolition sought
In September 2014, the Knights of Rizal, along with Las Damas de

Rizal Philippines Inc., filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking the
high court to stop DMCI from proceeding with the project and to order
the immediate and complete demolition of Torre de Manila in order
to preserve the visual corridors or vista of the Rizal Monument for
posterity.
The group sought the buildings demolition because it allegedly

violated several laws protecting national heritage sites, including the
local zoning ordinance that allows only schools and government
buildings of up to seven stories to be built in that part of Manila.
At the time, construction was around 23 percent complete, having

reached 19 floors.
In November last year, the high court ordered the inclusion of the
National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the National
Museum of the Philippines, the National Historical Commission of the
Philippines and Manila city officials as intervenors in the case.
The Knights has since made several calls on the high court to finally
issue a temporary restraining order, saying the building continues to
rise each day.
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Hearings on the Torre de Manila project were conducted in the House

of Representatives and Senate last year.
At a Senate hearing, Sen. Pia Cayetano pointed out that Manilas

zoning ordinance had set a floor to area ratio (FAR) of four on the
property where the condominium was being built. The City Council
found out that Torre de Manilas FAR was 7.79. The building metric
compares a structures total floor area to the size of the land on
which it will be constructed.
Netizens, through an online Change.org petition, opposed the project,

referring to it as Terror de Manila and Pambansang Photobomb,
because it would ruin the iconic sightline of the national shrine.
NCAA cease order
On Jan. 5, the NCCA, one of the intervenors in the case, apparently

acted on its own and issued a cease-and-desist order on the
structure. The order was served on the Torre work site on Jan. 13.
The agency said the order would be implemented indefinitely until it

had determined whether or not construction of the condominium
destroys or significantly alters the landscape of the Rizal
Monument.
The NCCA, however, claimed that DMCI had not abided by the order
as shown by footage of ongoing construction at the work site.
Torre de Manila will have 49 floors, including 41 floors for residential

units, four levels for podium parking space, three for basement
parking, and a ground floor for various amenities. It has a land area
of 7,448 square meters.
Hotels, hospitals, condos
DMCI was founded on Dec. 24, 1954, by David M. Consunji, a civil

engineer from the University of the Philippines. Some of the landmark
infrastructure that DMCI built include Mactan Shangri-La Hotel
(Mactan, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu), Makati Shangri-la (Makati City),
Shangri-la Resorts and Spa Boracay (Malay, Aklan), Manila Hotel
(Rizal Park, Manila);
The Westin Philippine Plaza/Sofitel (CCP Complex, Roxas Boulevard,
Manila), Cultural Center of the Philippines (Roxas Boulevard, Manila),
Ayala Tower One (Makati City), The New Istana Palace (Sultans
Palace, Brunei, Darussalam), The Asian Hospital (Filinvest Corporate
City, Muntinlupa) and The Manila Doctors Hospital (UN Avenue,
Manila).
In 1999, DMCI spun off its housing division DMCI Homes. Other
projects of DMCI Homes include Cedar Crest and Royal Palm
Residences in Taguig, Magnolia Place in Tandang Sora in Quezon City,
East Raya Gardens in Pasig, Flair Towers and Tivoli Garden
Residences in Mandaluyong, La Verti Residences on Taft Avenue,
Illumina Residences in Sta. Mesa, Ohana Place in Las Pias, Siena
Park Residences in Paraaque and Rhapsody Residences in
Muntinlupa.Inquirer Research
Much ado about

Torre: Rizal asked
only for cross on
tombstone
(Editors note: The columnist is the former chair of the

National Historical Commission of the Philippines, then called
National Historical Institute.)
By the time the Supreme Court issued an order temporarily stopping
the construction of the Torre de Manila condominium, 19 of a
projected 46 floors had risen on Taft Avenue and appeared within the
sight line of the Rizal Monument. Torre had scraped more than sky,
reaping a hailstorm of protest from critics who claimed that seeing it
in the background of the iconic monument would ruin their souvenir
photos.
Worse, according to the Knights of Rizal, the Torre de Manila was a

national photobomber, disrespectful to the memory of the national
hero. Social media went viral, renaming the Torre de Manila the
Terror de Manila.
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Looking back on the background of the Rizal Monument should put

the controversy in context.
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A tomb
Contrary to popular belief, the Rizal Monument is not the exact spot
where Rizal was felled by a bullet on the morning of Dec. 30, 1896.
Rizal fell some 100 meters away, northwest of the monument, on the
side of Rizal Park toward the corner of Roxas Boulevard and P. Burgos.
Neither is the Rizal monument Kilometer Zero, the point from which
all geographical distances on highway markers in the Philippines are
reckoned.
The Rizal Monument is not merely a structure built to commemorate

the life and death of a man who inspired the emergence of the
Filipino nation, it is a tomb, the final resting place of the national
heros mortal remains.
Burial at Luneta
After Rizals execution in 1896, his corpse was not turned over to his
family for a proper funeral and burial. Rizal was interred in an
unmarked grave at Paco Cemetery, which one of Rizals sisters
located only after bribing one of the undertakers. She marked the
grave with a simple tombstone with the letters RPJ, the initials of
Jose P. Rizal in reverse.
In August 1898, a few days after Spanish Manila surrendered to the

Americans, the Rizal family exhumed the body of Rizal and
discovered rotting papers hidden in his pockets and shoes. We will
never know what those writings were all about. Perhaps Rizals last
will and testament? His thoughts before death? All disintegrated and
lost to history.
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Rizals remains were stored in an ornate urn of rare Philippine

hardwood and ivory carved by Romualdo de Jesus and venerated in
the Rizal home in Binondo. Here Teodora Alonso, the heros mother,
would sometimes take out Rizals skull to show curious visitors.
On Dec. 29, 1912, after lying in state in the Ayuntamiento, Rizals

remains were brought in a solemn procession to Luneta where they
were buried on the base of a monument to be constructed above
them.
Simpler design wins
The Italian Carlo Nicoli won over 39 other entries in an international

competition for the design of the Rizal monument, but his
complicated and ornate wedding-cake design was never executed.
Some sources say Nicoli was not able to post the required bond to
implement the project. Others say the organizers had second
thoughts about the projected cost and gave the commission to the
second-prize winner, a simpler monument in granite and bronze by
the Swiss artist Richard Kissling. Assembled in Switzerland and
shipped to the Philippines, Kisslings monument was unveiled on Dec.
30, 1913.
Kissling titled his work Motto Stella [Guiding Star]. It consists of a
granite base built over Rizals grave topped by an obelisk in three
parts, and capped by three golden stars lined up to form a triangle
taken by many to signify Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. Rizals
face was modeled from a photograph taken in Madrid in 1890, in
which the hero is shown holding a book and wearing an overcoat that
is out of place in the tropics.
The Rizal figure faces the Quirino Grandstand and the Manila Bay, to
gaze upon the setting rather than the rising sun. Arranged around the
obelisk are other bronze figures: on one side is a mother rearing a
child, on the opposite side two boys reading to underscore Rizals
love for family or the motherland caring for her citizens, and
education. Behind the monument is a still life composed of: a banana
tree, an earthenware jar and a plow to suggest industry and the
natural resources of the Philippines.
Last wishes
While the Rizal Monument is the focal point of two national

commemorationsthe June 12th Independence Day and Rizal Day on
Dec. 30and while visiting foreign dignitaries offer wreaths on Rizals
grave, Filipinos should ask themselves what Rizal would have thought
about the monument and the controversy over the Torre de Manila.
True to his nom de guerre Laong Laan [Ever Prepared], Rizal

scribbled an undated letter in Fort Santiago before his death giving
his family specific instructions regarding his burial:
Bury me in the ground, place a stone and a cross over it. My name,
the date of my birth and of my death. Nothing more. If you later wish
to surround my grave with a fence, you may do so. No anniversaries.
I prefer Paang Bundok [the area where the Manila North and Chinese
Cemeteries now stand].
All but one of these last wishes were followed. Instead of a simple
cross and tombstone, a monument in granite and bronze was built
over Rizals grave. Instead of Paang Bundok, he now rests in Luneta.
Each year on Dec. 30, the President of the Philippines lays a wreath
on the monument and leads the nation in commemorating Rizals
death, when he specified no anniversaries.
Rizal might well be amused about the honor and respect we accord
him, manifested in the fierce defense of a monument and a sight line.
God forbid that Rizal comments with the title of Shakespeares play:
Much ado about nothing. (To be continued)
Controversies over
Bonifacios death
Teresa De Jesus, saint and doctor of the Church, is quoted to have

said that more tears are shed over answered prayers than
unanswered ones. It is a warning about being careful what we ask
for, or perhaps being open to the fact that God sometimes sees fit to
give us what we need rather than what we want. Teresa de Jesus
came to mind when I received an invitation to a memorial service for
Andres Bonifacio at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption in
Maragondon, Cavite. For many years now, some of Bonifacios
descendants have been requesting the government to organize a
state funeral for the Supremo of the Katipunan, he who began the
Philippine Revolution against Spain in 1896. Now that they will get
the recognition they asked for, on a smaller scale they will also reap a
whirlwind because the memorial service is like opening Pandoras
Box. There is much in the life and tragic end of the Supremo that we
as a people have to come to terms with.
Jose Rizal was accorded an elaborate funeral in 1912 that included a

solemn procession from the family home in Binondo to the Marble
Hall in Intramuros where his mortal remains lay in state before these
were deposited at the base of his monument along Roxas Boulevard.
With the exception of a piece of Rizals backbone, chipped where the
bullet struck and snuffed out his life, all of his bones now rest under
the monument.
On the other hand, we do not have Bonifacios bones. In my book

Bones of Contention (2001), I argued that the so-called remains of
the Supremo excavated in Maragondon in 1918 are fake. I believe
that Bonifacios remains and those of his brother Procopio remain
somewhere in the Maragondon range and have yet to be found and
given a proper burial. During the discussion on the pomp that would
accompany a state funeral for Bonifacio in the City of Manila, I
suggested that in the absence of mortal remains a handful of earth
from the execution site be placed in an urn to serve as the focus of a
memorial service. How can we have a state funeralor any funeral,
for that matterwith an empty coffin? I was then trying to convince
myself that a symbolic state funeral was possible.
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The Rizal monument has become the site of our Philippine

Independence Day celebration. It is the monument where a
succession of Philippine presidents, foreign dignitaries and heads of
state have laid countless wreaths. The Rizal monument is actually a
tomb; his remains are buried underneath it. In contrast, the Bonifacio
monument in Caloocan is just a monument even if it has become a
familiar landmark in a place now known as Monumento.
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This situation has led some people to ask: Who is greater then, Rizal
or Bonifacio? It is an ideological rather than historical question that
finds no resolution, which is why I have always maintained that we
should stop comparing and measuring heroes against each other
because it is not a boxing match where one emerges the victor,
leaving a nation divided. Instead of choosing between Rizal or
Bonifacio, we should embrace both as National Heroes for they both
figured in the emergence of the nation.
The memorial service this week in Maragondon makes us look into

the way the two heroes lived and died: Rizal was executed by the
enemy while Bonifacio was executed by fellow Filipinos. Bonifacio was
killed by the very revolution he started. Andres and Procopio
Bonifacio were tried for treason in an ancestral home now preserved
by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines as the
Bonifacio Trial House.
The brothers were found guilty and sentenced to death; the sentence
was later carried out, textbook history says, by a company of men
under Lazaro Makapagal on May 10, 1897. I learned in school that the
site of their execution was Mount Buntis, but when I did some field
research in 1997 I was surprised to learn that the actual site is known
as Nagpatong. It did not escape my green mind to see that some of
the place names in the area could be arranged in order to suggest
the sex act: Nagpatong, Pumutok, Buntis, and Hulog.
To add to the many controversial issues surrounding Bonifacios

deaththe legality of the court martial and sentence, the role of
Emilio Aguinaldo in the approval of the death sentence, whether
Bonifacio ran or begged for his life, whether he was shot or hacked to
death, etc.we now have the suggestion that Bonifacio was not
killed in Maragondon on May 10, 1897, but, rather, in his camp in
Limbon on April 23, 1897!
When I first heard about this new controversy, I reviewed the
transcript of the trial of Bonifacio now preserved in the National
Library of the Philippines, which has made it available online. On one
page of the trial documents you can clearly see Bonifacios famous
signature with a flourish, as well as his Katipunan name Maypagasa
(There is hope). How can anyone even suggest that Bonifacio was
killed during his capture in Limbon in April when he signed one of the
pages in the trial document in May?
Well, now it seems that the authenticity of the trial documents and all
the other primary sources that have led all Filipino historians to
accept May 10, 1897, as Bonifacios date of death is now in question.
(Concluded on Friday)
The true date of

Bonifacios death
Pockets of controversy quietly rage in academic circles over when

and where Andres Bonifacio tore up his cedula and delivered the
inspiring yell that marked the outbreak of the Philippine Revolution.
Officially, and since 1962, it has been celebrated on Aug. 23, 1896, in
Pugad Lawin. Traditionally, before 1962, it was commemorated on
Aug. 26, 1896, in Balintawak. On this matter tradition dies hard.
Despite documentary evidence presented for each side, it seems we

may never come to a satisfactory resolution. With historians insisting
on the validity of their particular date and place, we end up more
confused than when we started because aside from a series of
August dates, we now have Sept. 5, 1896, too. Aside from Pugad
Lawin and Balintawak, we now have to consider: Bahay Toro, Pacpac
Lawin, Pasong Tamo, Kangkong and, in jest, even Pugad Baboy! But
despite the heated discussion over the details, the general outline of
the story remains the same and without question: Somewhere in
Caloocan, sometime in August 1896, the Katipunan Supremo
changed the course of our history and charted our journey to
nationhood.
As though the Pugad Lawin vs. Balintawak controversy were not

enough, we now have the president of the Philippine Historical
Association, Luis Dery, arguing that Andres Bonifacio was not
executed in the Maragondon range on May 10, 1897, as we all know
and think it to be. Dery is acknowledged by his colleagues for having
spent countless hours going through books, manuscripts, periodicals,
and microfilm in search of material that has since been shared in
academic conferences and in his many books. While leafing through
copies of the prewar periodical El Renacimiento, he came across a
report in the April 23, 1903, issue regarding a commemoration of
Bonifacios death on Reina Regente street attended by veterans of
the revolution like Jose Turiano Santiago and Guillermo Masangkay.
On this occasion, the poet Cecilio Apostol recited Un heroe del
pueblo, where he declared that after Rizal, sage and martyr, the
next greatest patriot is Bonifacio.
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Intrigued by this reference, Dery continued his research and came

across the article Hinggil sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas by Gonzalo
Cue Malay in Muling Pagsilang of Nov. 2, 1906, that says Bonifacio
was killed by Agapito Bonson and company in Limbon, Cavite, at 5
p.m. on April 23, 1897. Furthermore, Dery cites Emilio Aguinaldo, who
is quoted by Manuel Artigas y Cuerva in his work, Glorias nacionales:
Andres Bonifacio y el Katipunan (Libreria Manila Filatelica, 1911), as
saying that Bonifacio had been sentenced to death for treason and
that this decision was implemented in Maragondon on April 23,
1897. Aguinaldos memory failed him on this, or he was not quoted
accurately by Artigas, because Bonifacio was in Limbon, not
Maragondon, on April 23, 1897!
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Both Aguinaldo and Artigas were unreliable, or at least inconsistent,

because further on in the book Artigas cites a letter that Bonifacio
wrote Emilio Jacinto dated April 24, 1897. Havent we been told that
dead men tell no tales? That dead men cannot write letters?
Elsewhere in the same monograph and using another informant,
Artigas says that Bonifacio was wounded in the left rib and that he
was carried to the site of his execution in a hammock as he could not
walk due to his wounds. Here, Artigas says Bonifacio died on April 26!
Artigas was so inconsistent that he cannot be relied on for this

matter. However, on the site on Mount Nagpatong where Bonifacio
and his brother Procopio allegedly met their end, there are two
historical markers: an official one in bronze installed by the
Philippines Historical Committee in 1953 stating that Bonifacio was
executed and died on May 10, 1897, and an earlier one in marble
installed by the Legionarios del Trabajo that erected the original
monument to perpetuate until future generations that on
April 26, 1897 was interred in this site, the cadaver of Andres
Bonifacio.
The problem with all of these is that the presentation of four

secondary sources to refute a mountain of primary-source documents
and eyewitness and contemporary accounts is not good historical
method.
In the Bonifacio trial documents we can clearly see the Supremos

signature made on May 4, 1897. Dery claims this signature is a
forgery, it being slightly different from those in other documents. But
remember, Bonifacio had a gunshot wound in his left side and a stab
wound in the neck that were not attended to and were festering
during his trial. One of his brothers was killed during the arrest,
another was beaten witless, and his wife Gregoria de Jesus was
sexually abused. He was wearing the same torn and bloody clothes
he wore during his arrest in Limbon on April 23, 1897, such that his
wife begged the court to allow her to cover his body with a blanket
she had brought to the proceedings. Bonifacio was undergoing a trial
by a government and court he did not recognize. He knew he would
get a death sentence. Surely, all these affected his signature that
day. How can that final signature be questioned?
Dery will have to present more to convince us to change a fact that

we all know and hold true. Pending that, let us cast aside the debates
over the details just for tomorrow, May 10, in order to honor a hero
whose life and tragic end contributed to the birth of the Filipino
nation.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/74349/the-true-date-of-

bonifacios-death#ixzz4hJOlqF8W
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Bonifacio under oath

Teodoro M. Kalaw is the name of a busy Manila street where the

National Library of the Philippines is located. The naming of this
street is quite appropriate because Kalaw served as director of the
prewar National Library and published compilations of primary-source
documents that have been mined by historians for decades. He
published: the correspondence of Jose Rizal, five volumes in six
books, as the Epistolario Rizalino, two volumes of Apolinario
Mabinis writings under the title La Revolucion Filipina, and Mariano
Ponces letters as Cartas sobre la revolucion.
What is not well-known is that Kalaw made his own transcription and
translation of the Bonifacio trial, then preserved in the archives of the
Bureau of Insular Affairs in Washington, DC. This was translated into
English by Paz Policarpio Mendez and published in 1926. It makes for
very painful reading today because on its pages we see the wounded
and disgraced Supremo of the Katipunan being tried for treason
against a government he did not recognize, and by a court he did not
recognize even if he did not put this on record. This week I step back,
allowing readers to form their own conclusions from the primary-
source text.
Remember that a historian has claimed that Bonifacio was killed in

Limbon on April 23, 1897, despite the fact that Bonifacio gave
witness to and signed a sworn statement on May 4, 1897, that reads:
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Andres Bonifacio, 33 years of age, married, born in Tondo, Manila,

initiator of the Revolution and head of the Katipunan, appeared
before the Judge and the Secretary on this day for examination.
Asked if he knew of the existence of [the] revolutionary government
in that province. He replied that he did not know.
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Asked if he knew of the existence of an army here in Tanguay

[Cavite]. He replied that he knew and that the officers were Generals
Santiago [Alvarez], Emilio [Aguinaldo], Pio [del Pilar] and [Artemio]
Ricarte.
Questioned if he held any legal powers in the government of this

province. He replied that he did not know if he occupied any position
or not because he did not even know of the existence of such a
government.
Asked if he had any permit from the government to stay in Limbon,
Yndang. He replied that the officials of Magdiwang knew of his
leaving Yndang en route to Manila, but because no one could show
them the way, they were forced to stop at Limbon.
Asked if he had any government permit to enlist soldiers with guns

and swords in Limbon. He replied that, as he had said before, he did
not know that there was another government. For this reason, he
failed to advise the proper authorities that he was reassembling his
soldiers whom he had sent to them as a reinforcement. However, the
provincial council of Magdiwang, through its president, returned the
soldiers to him.
Asked the number of guns he had in Limbon. He replied that he had

sent as succor about 50 guns, but he had brought with him to Limbon
only about 17 Remingtons and some others of different make.
Asked if among the guns there was the mark Magdalo. He replied
that he did not know exactly the signs, but he was fully confident that
they were all his, because the men who had them had testified to
that effect.
Asked who took charge of rubbing out the signs on the guns. He
replied that there was nobody.
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Asked if he knew Pedro Giron, Benito Torres, Pio del Pilar, and
Modesto Ritual. He replied that he knew all of them.
Asked if he recalled having written to those men inducing them to

transfer to his army and to take their guns with them. He replied that
he had never written to anybody on the subject asked him.
Asked if during his stay in Limbon, he held meetings, and who were
present in the meetings. He replied that he did not recall holding a
meeting with anybody save with his companions.
Asked if he remembered how many times he held conference with
Pedro Giron on the subject of killing the President of the government.
He replied that he never talked to the person alluded to on the
subject he was being questioned.
Asked if he remembered that in Naic he had given money to the

army officers so that they might transfer their soldiers Pith guns to
his side. He replied that the Secretary of the Treasury, Diego Mojica,
and Secretary of War Agustin Villanueva, had promised to give some
reward to the army officials who had aided in the Noveleta and
Malabon battles, that in the name of Magdiwang and in fulfillment of
the mentioned promises, he had rewarded said army and that of
Balara, with two hundred pesos in the presence of a big audience,
with instructions to the officers to distribute the money among their
men and to notify General Emilio of it. Aside from this, he had never
given any money to anybody, much less to the officers mentioned in
the question asked him.
Asked if Diego Mojica, Ariston Villanueva and Silvestre Domingo, and

one named Santos often held meetings with the witness and his
brothers in Limbon. He replied that Silvestre Domingo, Santos, and
Diego Mojica, as he remembered, passed there on their way to
Buenavista, but he never talked to them except a few words common
among acquaintances, and the words were exchanged in the
presence of the owner of the house and some natives of the place.
More on Friday.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/74497/bonifacio-under-

oath#ixzz4hJNtsE00
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/74290/controversies-over-

bonifacios-death#ixzz4hJNRWUAI

Rizal's views on religion from boyhood to adulthood

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Rizal's views on religion from boyhood to adulthood

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Rizal: the boy and

the adult (1)

IN ANOTHER life, I shed Ambeth Ocampo and my birthday, which is

One day in the cloister, I remembered two pieces of sculpture by

What about Fray Botods character? Gluttonous a usurer, worse

Contrary to popular belief, it is the Dominican Fr. Salvi, rather than

The same is true with Marcelo H. del Pilar who published

More than five years in a monastery gave me perspective. Being

Rizal: the boy and

Students forced by law to read Jose Rizals novels develop a warped

These fine distinctions between religious not made by the

Being patriotic Spaniards, the friars naturally resisted the legitimate

When thinking of the friars, we should remember that most of the

Reflecting on the two statuettes by Rizalthat of the Sacred Heart

A slip in my last column: I misidentified P. Salvi as a Dominican rather

Rizal the little bad

EEKLO, BELGIUMI am here in this small town known for Unesco-

This weekend I will deliver a lecture at the Ghent Town Hall to

There were about a dozen letters of Suzanne Jacoby in the prewar

My dear Mr. Rizal:

Monsieur Baudrio replied that you have become stout and I

Here is already one of your compatriots. Come quickly and bring

Your Petite Suzanne

Such an innocent letter on the surface, but on rereading you may

Present Rizal research continues abroad, undertaken by adoptive

Rizal the user

We know that Rizal experimented with hashish from a letter he wrote

No book, no historian that I know of speaks of any plant whose use

Neither is a word resembling it found in the language. The is-is or

I am here at Brussels at your disposal as always. If you could give

Most affectionately yours, Rizal.

I will not speculate on why the 18-year-old Rizal was experimenting

Reflecting on the growing number of corpses of suspected drug

There was a recent high-profile rally in Luneta to protest the planned

Two historians recently asked me about the exhibits at the Rizal

Although we dont have a photograph of the adult Rizal without his

Here are the exact measurements of Rizals coats; shoulder width

Anden couldnt try on the pants, but noted the following

Overall length41 inches; waist13 inches (half circumference);

Would Rizal have

THERE ARE suggestions that, recognizing the archipelagic nature of

Rizal was certainly aware of the persistence of strong regional

The Liga, a cross between a political party and a self-help

This meant, in the first instance, cultivating in the people a capacity

Rizal was a modern thinker. The draft constitution of the Liga

The adoption of an alias might have been rationalized as a security

However, he appeared to subscribe to the principle of subsidiarity

The Supreme Council controls the whole Liga and communicates

The unitary nation-state that arose from the dissolution of the

Federalism will not solve poverty and inequality, simply because it

Aware that he had become controversial and was likely to be

Encountering Rizals words today, the generation of young Filipinos

That would be a misunderstanding of Rizals ideas. More than the

Is the Philippines worth living for?

This question came to me a few weeks ago when I was invited to

The government spends enormous amounts of money to educate its

I was the recipient of a similar grant in the late 1960s. I felt so

This, to me, is the dilemma that confronts those of us who think of

The story of a nations birth is the same everywhere. In a landscape

Below is my abridgement of the first pages of this powerful text, as

To predict the future of a nation, it is necessary to look at her past.

Having reached this stage of degradation, the people of these

This blow, far from being mortal, became a source of salvation, a