RIZAL
Europe
CHAPTER 9: Noli Me Tangere, Context
and Content
The Publication of the Noli
Noli me Tangere is not just an answer to the
questions of the miserable state of the
country, it’s also an answer to the Filipino’s
complacency and lack of self-pride and
dignity.
 Utilizing their intellectual prowess,
the ilustrados released various
written outputs, world-class paintings
and other celebrated works.
 Noli Me Tangere one of the most
celebrated works of Rizal.
 The Noli as inspired by Juan Luna’s
Spoliarium and Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
 Noli was first started in Spain and was
completed and published in Germany
in 1887.
 Maximo Viola, as the savior of Noli
lent Rizal 300 pesos for the printing
of the first 2,000 copies.
 The Biblical reference of the Noli was
from the Gospel of John:
Jesus said, “Touch me not, for I am not
yet ascended to my Father.”
 Rizal intended to write about things
that the people dared not to touch.
 Originally, Rizal planned it to write in
French but decided that it should be
written in Spanish.
 The Noli was to expose the ills of
Philippine colonial society.
 The Plot of the Noli
 The return of Crisostomo Ibarra from
 The homecoming gathering prepared
by Capitan Tiago for Ibarra
 Ibarra’s effort to rekindle the links
with his betrothed Maria Clara
 The bad news about the friars abuse
to his late father
 Ibarra’s plan of building a school in
San Diego
 Elias saving Ibarra
 Ibarra’s luncheon
 Confrontation between Ibarra and
Damaso
 Revenge of Damaso
 Revolt blamed to Ibarra and his arrest
 The escape of Ibarra and the
heartbreaking confrontation with
Maria Clara
 Damaso-the father of Maria Clara
 Maria Clara thought Ibarra had been
killed
 The dying Elias with Basilio
 Elias’s instruction to Basilio
 Elias reminded Basilio, “to never lose
hope and if one day, freedom and
progress would come to his country,
never to forget those who labored in
the night.
CHAPTER 10: Noli Me Tangere,
Continuing Relevance
Noli After Its First Publication
 Resil Mojares named Rizal as the
father of the Filipino novels.
  Fray Salvador Font outlawed the
reading and possesison of Rizal’s
novel.
 Vicente Barrantes ridiculed Rizal as
“a man of contradictions”.
 Amidst of all these, defenders of the
Noli arose: del Pilar and Blumentritt.
 Earliest translation of the novel was
in French.
 German by Blumentritt ; Tagalog by
Paciano but never succeeded.
 English translation by Charles
Derbyshire
 Testa De Ocampo – seldom do we
read it in the original Spanish
Noli and the Study of Colonial Society
 Sociologist Syed Fareed Alatas
described Rizal as “probably the first
systematic social thinker in Southeast
Asia”.
 Noli as
- a diagnosis of the ills of colonial
society;
- an underscore in the importance of
education;
- exposed some misguided Filipinos
that contributed to the ills of the
society;
- emphasized the good qualities of
Filipinos
Hacienda de Calamba Conflict
 Calamba was owned by Spanish
laymen.
 In 1759, a Spanish layman, Don
Manuel Jauregui, eventually donated
the land to the Jesuits.
 On February 27, 1767, the Jesuits
were expelled by the decree of King
Charles III.
 By 1833, the Dominicans purchased
the Hacienda de Calamba for 52, 000
pesos.
 Rizal’s ancestors, who were principal
inquilinos, leased the largest part of
land in Calamba measuring
approximately 380 hectares.
 Mariano Herboso, Rizal’s brother-
in-law complained about the yearly
increase in rentals, faulty irrigation
systems, and failure to issue receipts.
 The tenants submitted a report on the
income of the estate and attached a
petition stating the grievances against
the hacienda owners.
 The tenants refused to pay the rent
which enraged the friars to evict them
from the land in 1891.
 The experience affected Rizal deeply
which he reflected in his second
novel, El Filibusterismo.
CHAPTER 11: LOOKING AT THE
FILIPINO PAST
 During the Spanish colonial period,
many of the early histories depicted
the Filipinos in negative terms.
 Jose Rizal’s annotation of Antonio
Morga’s work, Sucesos las Islas
Filipinas, was an attempt to redress
this biased view of the Filipinos.
Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas
Filipinas
 Antonio Morga
 - The Lieutenant-Governor of
the Philippines in 1593.
- A judge of the Audiencia in
1598
- President of the Audiencia in
1615 in Mexico
- Later found guilty of corruption
- Died in 1636 before being sent to
the gallows
 Sucesos de la Islas Filipinas
- published in 1609 in Mexico
- Consisted of 98chapters
- First seven chapter was about the
governor-
generals of the Philippines from
Miguel Lopez de Legaspi in 1565 to Pedro
Acuna in 1606
- The last chapter titled “An Account
of the Philippine Islands
-Rizal found a copy of it in British
Museum and copied it by hand.
- He annotated it for the intention of
creating a critical work on the
history of the Philippines.
-In 1889, Rizal published the
annotation in Garnier Hermanos in
Paris
 Five reasons for Rizal’s choice to
annotate the Sucesos
1. Morga’s work was rare
2. Morga provided a secular view of
the
historical events
3. Rizal believe that a secular view
was
more credible than that of the
religious.
4. It was more sympathetic than the
friars account.
5. Morga’s work was an eyewitness to
the
events during the early period of
Spanish
colonization.
 The annotation of Sucesos tackled the
past.
-Rizal presented an outline of linear
conception of history.
 While Noli dealt with the 19th century
 The El Fili and the essay entitled “The
Philippines a Century Hence”
covered the future.
 Rizal copious notes revealed early
Filipino culture as rich and
flourishing
 Thus, Rizal’s annotation may be
considered an effort to assert Filipino
identity within an oppressive colonial
framework.
CHAPTER 12: INDOLENCE OR
INDUSTRY
 Filipinos during the period of Spanish
colonization were commonly
described as lazy.
 Gemelli Careri remarked, “It is their
laziness that makes them appear less
ingenious; and they so entirely
addicted to it, that if in walking they
find a thorn run into their foot, they
 will not stoop to put it out of the way,
that other may not tread on it.”
 Rizal’s work, “Sobre la Indolencia
de los Filipinos” (On the Indolence
of the Filipinos) was an attempt to
rectify or correct this view.
 The indolence of Filipinos was not an
inherit trait but was an effect of other
conditions imposed upon the
Filipinos.
 Gregorio Sanciaco’s El Progreso de
las Filipinas confronted the issue by
attributing the trait to the Filipinos
being unmotivated.
 Though Rizal does not deny the
existence of indolence in the
Filipinos.
 Rizal notes, “the warm climate
demands the individual quietness and
rest, just as cold climate stirs up men
to work and to be active.
 Rizal asserted that evil does not lie in
the existence of indolence, but in the
way it is perpetuated.
 The Filipinos were not always lazy.
 According to Pigafetta the Filipinos
flourished in trade, mining and many
other crafts.
 So what brought indolence to the
Filipinos?
 Constant wars
 Moro Piracies
 Abuses of Spaniards
All of these took away their desire to work.
 What maintains this indolence?
- Lack of motivation from the
government
- defects of education
- lack of national sentiments
 The solution:
- Education
-Freedom
Rizal concluded that indolence is not an
inherit trait but a malady with its own causes
and cures.
CHAPTER 13: El Fililbusterismo: Context
and Content
 El Filibusterismo
- A story set in the twilight years of
the Spanish colonial government in the
Philippines.
- First translated into English by
Charles Derbyshire in 1912 with the title
“The Reign of Greed”.
Filibustero: History and Context
 The novel was written in the midst of
threats and oppressions.
 The novel was completed in Biarritz,
France on March 29, 1891.
 But it was on September the same
year that it was published.
 Valentin Ventura – the savior of El
Fili
 Blumentritt asked Rizal the meaning
of the word “Filibustero”
 Filibustero
 Rizal’s reply to Blumentritt:
 “….I heard it for the first time
in 1872…Our father forbade us ever
to utter it…The Manila newspaper
apply this word to one whom they
want to render suspect of
revolutionary activities…It means a
 dangerous patriot who will soon be
hanged, or a presumptuous fellow.
 With these definitions, how can we
describe the plot and the message of
the novel?
 El Fili was dedicated to Gomburza
 Rizal’s Dedication of the novel:
To the Memory of the priests:
Don Mariano Gomez (85 years old)
Don Jose Burgos (30 years old)
and Don Jacinto Zamora (35 years
old)
Executed on the scaffoldat
Bagumbayan
on February 28, 1872
…whether or not you were patriots, whether
or not you nourished sentiments of justice
and liberty, I have the right to dedicate my
work to you, as to victims of the evil that I am
trying to fight…let these pages serve as
belated wreath of dried leaves laid on your
unknown graves
 Rizal, however, made mistake in
indicating the age of the three priest
and the date they were executed.
 The Gomburza were publicly
executed by garrote on the early
morning of February 17, 1872.
 Gomez was then 73, Burgos was 35,
and Zamora was 37.
 Unlike Noli, El Fili burns with
passion and ideology.
Synopsis
 Crisostomo Ibarra as Simoun – a rich
jeweler.
 Crisostomo, who everyone thought to
be dead, escaped and fled to Cuba
became wealthy and as a consultant
of the governor-general.
 The plan of Simoun for revenge and
rescue Maria Clara.
 Maria Clara, in her mourning, entered
the convent
 Simoun plan to start a revolution by
recruiting revolutionaries
 Basilio as a medical student in Manila
 Simoun’s plan of revolution failed
twice.
 The failed uprising due to Maria
Clara’s death
 The Arrest of Basilio
 The escape of Basilio through the
help of Simoun
 The second attemp of uprising
 A kerosene lamp – the bomb that
would signal the uprising
 The bomb at the wedding of Paulita
Gomez and Juanito Pelaez
 Basilio bothered by the plot
 Isagani’s secret love to Paulita abort
the explotion
 Simoun took refuge in the house of a
kind Filipino priest
 Simoun poisoned himself
 Confession to Father Florentino
 Padre Florentino throwing Simouns’s
jewels into the sea
 The annotation of Sucesos tackeld the
past.
-Rizal presented an outline of linear
conception of history.
  While Noli dealt with 19th century
 The El Fili and the essay titled “The
Philippines a Century Hence”
covered the future.
 Rizal copious notes revealed early
Filipino culture as rich and
flourishing
 Thus, Rizal’s annotation may be
considered an effort to assert Filipino
identity within an oppressive colonial
framework.
CHAPTER 14: El Filibusterismo:
Continuing Relevance
 El Filibusterismo
- The novel may be written more than
a hundred years ago, but it cannot be denied
that the social ills that Rizal depicted in his
novel are still present today.
 Noli and El Fili’s main objective is to
expose the Philippine situation as
Rizal witnessed during their time.
Revolution as a Means of Social Change
 Who is the Filibustero in the novel?
 Simoun’s character represents the
Filipino revolutionaries that
supported the idea of a bloody
revolution.
 Simoun’s death in the story made
some readers conclude that Rizal was
against the idea of revolution.
 Rizal’s letter to Blumentritt:
“ …if the government drives us to the
brink, that is to say when no other hope
remains but seek our deastruction in war,
when the Filipinos would prefer to die rather
than endure their misery any longer, then I
will also become partisan of violent means.”
 Ambeth Ocampo wrote: “Simoun
failed – not because Rizal was against
the revolution, but because he
reflected on the anger and bitterness
in his heart following the agrarian
dispute in Calamba, a realization that
ONE MUST START WITH A
GOOD INTENTION TO
SUCCEED.”
On Leadership and Governance
 El Fili’s message:
- Inept leaders
- Corrupt officials
- System of government in the
Philippines could lead to
Spain’s downfall
- Simoun said: “What is a man
to do when he is denied
justice? Take the law into his
own hands or wait for Spain to
give him rights..?”
- Rizal was respected by the
Propaganda Movement as a
kind of leader that was not
motivated by personal
interest.
- Rizal condemned the friar-led
officials for their greed and
criticized his fellow Filipinos
who did not respond to the
abuse of the Spanish officials.
- Basilio represents this apathy
when he did not support
Simoun’s plan of
overthrowing the
government.
- Senor Pasta exhibited also this
kind of characteristics.
- Good leadership can be
achieved if the leaders have
 moral fiber, and are ready to
give up their personal
interests for the welfare of
their constituents.
On Education and Language
 Simoun strongly reacted against the
project advocated by the students,
including Basilio, to establish a
school for natives.
 Simoun questioned the student’s
advocacy:
arguments on what the state of the
country will be like in the future.
 Rizal said: “In order to read the
destiny of the people, it is necessary
to open the book of its past.”
 The content of the Essay:
a. The Arrival of the Spaniards
b. Conditions had become better in the
Phiilppines, however, Filipinos
remained brutalized and oppressed.

“Spanish will never be the common c. The question whether the Philippines
language in the country,…Each country has will remain a Spanish Colony or not.
its own, as it has its manner of feeling. What d. The future of the country:
will you gain with Spanish? The few who
speak it? To stamp out you originality, -The Short-lived
subordinate your thought to other minds and Independence
instead of making yourself free, make - United Stated will acquire
yourself truly slaves.” and
On the Filipino Youth colonize the country.
 “Where are the youth who will e. It is imperative for Spain to grant
consecrate ttheir golden hours, their the Filipinos reform
illusions, and their enthusiasm for the
welfare of their country? Where are
they who would generously shed their
blood to wash away so much shame,
so much crime, so much
abomination? Pure and spotless the
victim has to be for the holocaust to
be acceptable! Where are you, youth
who will incarnate in yourself the
vigor of life that has fled from your
veins, the purity of ideas that had
been soiled in our minds, and the fire
of enthusiasm that has been
extinguished in our hearts?...We wait
for you, O youth! Come, for we await
you!”
CHAPTER 15: The Destiny of the Filipino
People
 Rizal’s essay titled “The Philippines a
century Hence”p resents compelling