A Brief Introduction About Jose Rizal (continued)

One commentator in Spain named Wenceslao Retana, had slighted Jose Rizal by a reference to his parents.  After being challenged with a duel, and realizing that Rizal was a better swordsman, Retana immediately apologized.  And in return, Retana wrote a European biography of Jose Rizal.  Memory still haunts Jose Rizal when he was a ten-year old being reminded of his mother's treatment at the hands of the civil authorities.  Rizal was troubled even more when his mother’s treatment was approved by high ranking Church authorities.   The mother of Jose Rizal, Teodora, was accused of trying to poison one of the extended family members when she claimed she only intervened to help. Without due process, she went to prison in Santa Cruz in 1871.  Rizal’s mother was made to walk ten miles from Calamba.   After two and a half years of appeals, she was finally released. 

After writing Noli me Tangere, Jose Rizal was very unpopular with the Spaniards.   Despite his notoriety and going against the advice of family and friends, Rizal came back to the Philippines to help his family.  There was a rent dispute with the Dominican landlords and  wrote a petition on behalf of the tenants of Calamba.   The  Dominicans successfully evicting the tenants from their homes, including the family of Jose Rizal.   The buildings on the Rizal farm were later torn down.

In 1896, Jose Rizal was in prison in Fort Santiago, along with his brother Paciano, tortured by Spaniards trying to get evidence of Jose's complicity in the revolution.

Eventually, Jose Rizal was unjustly linked to the nascent rebellion.   Then in summer of 1892, sometime in July,  he was deported to Dapitan in the province of Zamboanga. There Jose Rizal provided needed infrastructure for the community.  There, Rizal built a school, a hospital and a water supply system.  He taught the community to engaged in farming and horticulture. Jose Rizal and his students planted thousands of abaca, a vital raw material for cordage.

The boys' school, in which they learned English, taught the young men to become self sufficient and resourceful. Many of the students later enjoy successful lives as farmers and honest government officials. One Muslim student became a datu chieftain and another became Governor of Zamboanga.

The four years exile of Jose Rizal coincided with the Philippine Revolution from inception and to its final breakout.  From the court’s perspective, this showed his complicity in it and Rizal condemned the uprising.  The rebellion members of the Katipunan made Jose Rizal an honorary president and used his name as a war-cry.

By 1896, the rebellion become a full blown revolution spreading a nationwide uprising and leading to the first democratic republic in Asia. Jose Rizal issued a manifesto disavowing the revolution and declared the education of Filipinos and their achievement of a national identity were prerequisites to freedom.

Unfortunately, Rizal was arrested en route leaving Dapitan and imprisoned in Barcelona.  He was then sent back to Manila to stand trial and was court marshaled for rebellion, sedition and conspiracy.  He was convicted on all the three charges and sentence to death with the friars had contributing to sealing the fate of Jose Rizal.