José Rizal
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This article uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Mercado and the
second or maternal family name is Realonda.
José Rizal
José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso
Realonda[1]
Born
June 19, 1861[2]
Calamba, Laguna, Captaincy General of the
Philippines, Spanish Empire [2]
December 30, 1896 (aged 35)[3]
Died Bagumbayan, Manila, Captaincy General
of the Philippines, Spanish Empire [3]
Cause of death Execution by firing squad
Luneta Park, Manila,
Calamba, Laguna,
Monuments
Daet, Camarines Norte,
Carson, California
Other names Pepe, Jose (nicknames)[4][5]
Ateneo Municipal de Manila (BA)
Alma mater Universidad Central de Madrid (MD)
University of Santo Tomas
Organization La Solidaridad, La Liga Filipina
Spouse(s) Josephine Bracken (1896)[6]
Francisco Rizal Mercado (father)
Parents Teodora Alonso Realonda
(mother)
Saturnina Hidalgo (sister)
Relatives
Paciano Rizal (brother)
Signature
José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda[7] (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse riˈsal]; June 19,
1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the tail end of the
Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is tagged as the national hero (pambansang
bayani) of the Filipino people.[8] An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a
key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement, which advocated political reforms for the
colony under Spain.
He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime of rebellion after the
Philippine Revolution, inspired in part by his writings, broke out. Though he was not actively
involved in its planning or conduct, he ultimately approved of its goals which eventually led to
Philippine independence.
He is widely considered one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines and has been recommended
to be so honored by an officially empaneled National Heroes Committee. However, no law,
executive order or proclamation has been enacted or issued officially proclaiming any Filipino
historical figure as a national hero.[9] He was the author of the novels Noli Me Tángere and El
filibusterismo, and a number of poems and essays.[10][11]
Contents
1Early life
2Education
3Personal life, relationships and ventures
o 3.1Affair
o 3.2Association with Leonor Rivera
o 3.3Relationship with Josephine Bracken
4In Brussels and Spain (1890–92)
5Return to Philippines (1892–96)
o 5.1Exile in Dapitan
o 5.2Arrest and trial
6Execution
7Works and writings
o 7.1Novels and essays
o 7.2Poetry
o 7.3Plays
o 7.4Other works
8Reactions after death
o 8.1Retraction controversy
o 8.2"Mi último adiós"
o 8.3Later life of Bracken
o 8.4Polavieja and Blanco
9Criticism and controversies
o 9.1National hero status
9.1.1Made national hero by colonial Americans
9.1.2Made national hero by Emilio Aguinaldo
o 9.2Critiques of books
o 9.3Role in the Philippine revolution
10Legacy and remembrance
o 10.1Species named after Rizal
o 10.2Historical commemoration
11Rizal in popular culture
o 11.1Adaptation of his works
o 11.2Biographical films/TV series
o 11.3Other
12See also
13Notes and references
14Sources
15Further reading
16External links
Early life
José Rizal's baptismal register
Francisco Rizal Mercado (1818–1898)
José Rizal was born in 1861 to Francisco Rizal Mercado y Alejandro and Teodora Alonso
Realonda y Quintos in the town of Calamba in Laguna province. He had nine sisters and one
brother. His parents were leaseholders of a hacienda and an accompanying rice farm by the
Dominicans. Both their families had adopted the additional surnames of Rizal and Realonda in
1849, after Governor General Narciso Clavería y Zaldúa decreed the adoption of Spanish
surnames among the Filipinos for census purposes (though they already had Spanish names).
Like many families in the Philippines, the Rizals were of mixed origin. José's patrilineal lineage
could be traced back to Fujian in China through his father's ancestor Lam-Co, a Chinese
merchant who immigrated to the Philippines in the late 17th century.[12][13][note 1][14] Lam-Co traveled
to Manila from Xiamen, China, possibly to avoid the famine or plague in his home district, and
more probably to escape the Manchu invasion during the Transition from Ming to Qing. He
finally decided to stay in the islands as a farmer. In 1697, to escape the bitter anti-Chinese
prejudice that existed in the Philippines, he converted to Catholicism, changed his name to
Domingo Mercado and married the daughter of Chinese friend Augustin Chin-co. On his
mother's side, Rizal's ancestry included Chinese, Japanese and Tagalog blood. His mother's
lineage can be traced to the affluent Florentina family of Chinese mestizo families originating in
Baliuag, Bulacan.[15] He also had Spanish ancestry. Regina Ochoa, a grandmother of his mother,
Teodora, had mixed Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog blood. His grandfather was a half Spaniard
engineer named Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo.[16]
From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He learned the alphabet from his mother
at 3, and could read and write at age 5.[13] Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he
dropped the last three names that made up his full name, on the advice of his brother, Paciano
and the Mercado family, thus rendering his name as "José Protasio Rizal". Of this, he later wrote:
"My family never paid much attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it,
thus giving me the appearance of an illegitimate child!"[17] This was to enable him to travel freely
and disassociate him from his brother, who had gained notoriety with his earlier links to Filipino
priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora (popularly known as Gomburza) who
had been accused and executed for treason.
Rizal's house in Calamba, Laguna
Despite the name change, José, as "Rizal", soon distinguished himself in poetry writing contests,
impressing his professors with his facility with Castilian and other foreign languages, and later,
in writing essays that were critical of the Spanish historical accounts of the pre-colonial
Philippine societies. Indeed, by 1891, the year he finished his El filibusterismo, this second
surname had become so well known that, as he writes to another friend, "All my family now
carry the name Rizal instead of Mercado because the name Rizal means persecution! Good! I too
want to join them and be worthy of this family name..."[17]
Education
Rizal, 11 years old, a student at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila
Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan, Laguna, before he was sent to Manila.
[18]
As to his father's request, he took the entrance examination in Colegio de San Juan de Letran
but he then enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and graduated as one of the nine students
in his class declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education at the Ateneo
Municipal de Manila to obtain a land surveyor and assessor's degree, and at the same time at the
University of Santo Tomas where he did take up a preparatory course in law and finished with a
mark of excelente or excellent. He finished the course of Philosophy as a pre-law.[19] Upon
learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at the medical school
of Santo Tomas specializing later in ophthalmology. He received his four-year practical training
in medicine at Ospital de San Juan de Dios in Intramuros. In his last year at medical school, he
received a mark of sobresaliente in courses of Patologia Medica (Medical Pathology), Patología
Quirúrgica (Surgical Pathology) and Obstretics.
Rizal, known for being an intelligent student, had some difficulty in some subjects in medical
school such as Física (Physics) and Patología General (General Pathology).[20] One of the causes
is due to the evident discrimination of the Profesor to Filipino students.
Rizal as a student at the University of Santo Tomas
Without his parents' knowledge and consent, but secretly supported by his brother Paciano, he
traveled alone to Madrid, Spain in May 1882 and studied medicine at the Universidad Central de
Madrid where he earned the degree, Licentiate in Medicine. He also attended medical lectures at
the University of Paris and the University of Heidelberg. In Berlin, he was inducted as a member
of the Berlin Ethnological Society and the Berlin Anthropological Society under the patronage of
the famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow. Following custom, he delivered an address in German
in April 1887 before the Anthropological Society on the orthography and structure of the
Tagalog language. He left Heidelberg a poem, "A las flores del Heidelberg", which was both an
evocation and a prayer for the welfare of his native land and the unification of common values
between East and West.
At Heidelberg, the 25-year-old Rizal completed in 1887 his eye specialization under the
renowned professor, Otto Becker. There he used the newly invented ophthalmoscope (invented
by Hermann von Helmholtz) to later operate on his own mother's eye. From Heidelberg, Rizal
wrote his parents: "I spend half of the day in the study of German and the other half, in the
diseases of the eye. Twice a week, I go to the bierbrauerie, or beerhall, to speak German with my
student friends." He lived in a Karlstraße boarding house then moved to Ludwigsplatz. There, he
met Reverend Karl Ullmer and stayed with them in Wilhelmsfeld, where he wrote the last few
chapters of Noli Me Tángere.
Rizal was a polymath, skilled in both science and the arts. He painted, sketched, and made
sculptures and woodcarving. He was a prolific poet, essayist, and novelist whose most famous
works were his two novels, Noli Me Tángere and its sequel, El filibusterismo.[note 2] These social
commentaries during the Spanish colonization of the country formed the nucleus of literature
that inspired peaceful reformists and armed revolutionaries alike. Rizal was also a polyglot,
conversant in twenty-two languages.[note 3][note 4][21][22]
Rizal's multifacetedness was described by his German friend, Dr. Adolf Bernhard Meyer, as
"stupendous."[note 5] Documented studies show him to be a polymath with the ability to master
various skills and subjects.[21][23][23][24] He was an ophthalmologist, sculptor, painter, educator,
farmer, historian, playwright and journalist. Besides poetry and creative writing, he dabbled,
with varying degrees of expertise, in architecture, cartography, economics, ethnology,
anthropology, sociology, dramatics, martial arts, fencing and pistol shooting. He was also a
Freemason, joining Acacia Lodge No. 9 during his time in Spain and becoming a Master Mason
in 1884.[25]
Personal life, relationships and ventures
Rednaxela Terrace, where Rizal lived during his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong (photo taken
in 2011)
José Rizal's life is one of the most documented of 19th century Filipinos due to the vast and
extensive records written by and about him.[26] Almost everything in his short life is recorded
somewhere, being himself a regular diarist and prolific letter writer, much of the material having
survived. His biographers, however, have faced difficulty in translating his writings because of
Rizal's habit of switching from one language to another.
They drew largely from his travel diaries with their insights of a young Asian encountering the
West for the first time. They included his later trips, home and back again to Europe through
Japan and the United States,[27] and, finally, through his self-imposed exile in Hong Kong.
Shortly after he graduated from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila (now Ateneo de Manila
University), Rizal (who was then 16 years old) and a friend, Mariano Katigbak, came to visit
Rizal's maternal grandmother in Tondo, Manila. Mariano brought along his sister, Segunda
Katigbak, a 14-year-old Batangueña from Lipa, Batangas. It was the first time they met and Rizal
described Segunda as "rather short, with eyes that were eloquent and ardent at times and languid
at others, rosy–cheeked, with an enchanting and provocative smile that revealed very beautiful
teeth, and the air of a sylph; her entire self diffused a mysterious charm." His grandmother's
guests were mostly college students and they knew that Rizal had skills in painting. They
suggested that Rizal should make a portrait of Segunda. He complied reluctantly and made a
pencil sketch of her. Unfortunately for Rizal who had referred to her as his first love in his
memoir Memorias de un Estudiante de Manila, Katigbak was already engaged to Manuel Luz.[28]
Business card showing Dr. José Rizal is an ophthalmologist in Hong Kong
From December 1891 to June 1892, Rizal lived with his family in Number 2 of Rednaxela
Terrace, Mid-levels, Hong Kong Island. Rizal used 5 D'Aguilar Street, Central district, Hong
Kong Island, as his ophthalmologist clinic from 2 pm to 6 pm. This period of his life included his
recorded affections of which nine were identified. They were Gertrude Beckett of Chalcot
Crescent, Primrose Hill, Camden, London, wealthy and high-minded Nelly Boustead of the
English and Iberian merchant family, last descendant of a noble Japanese family Seiko Usui
(affectionately called O-Sei-san), his earlier friendship with Segunda Katigbak, Leonor
Valenzuela, and eight-year romantic relationship with a distant cousin, Leonor Rivera (popularly
thought to be the inspiration for the character of María Clara in Noli me tangere).