SATURNINA RIZAL: The Hero's Second Mother

Recent controversial story mentions Saturnina as being with her mother when
the latter allegedly tried to poison Teodora Formoso, the wife of Jose Alberto (Teodora
Alonso’s brother).
The story further alleges that Saturnina and her uncle Jose Alberto were the real
parents of Soledad, the supposed youngest sister of Jose.

PACIANO RIZAL: Pinoy Hero's Big Brother

Paciano had only two known pictures—one is a ‘stolen shot’ by a nephew during
a family reunion, and the other, taken posthumously, of his corpse. A descendant
explained that Paciano—unlike his brother who even frequented photo studios for his
pictures—did not want to be photographed. The reason was that “he was a wanted man
in the past and if there were no photographs of him, then it would be hard for the
authorities to arrest him. He could walk everywhere without being recognized”
According to his grandchildren, Paciano had a very fair complexion and rosy
cheeks. His descendants were quick to add that their lolo was more handsome than the
national hero, and much taller, about 5’7” to 5’9. “When he died and the body was
brought to the funeraria, his feet stuck out of the coffin, which was too small for him” (as
quoted in Ambeth Ocampo, p. 43).
This description though was neither relative nor one-sided, for it was confirmed
by Jose Rizal himself. In a letter to Blumentritt, he wrote: “[Paciano] is more refined and
serious than I, taller, more slender, and fairer in complexion than I with a nose that is
fine, beautiful and sharp pointed, but he is bow-legged”
In November 1896, Paciano was arrested while Jose was in FortSantiagoprison.
To extract evidence for Jose’s involvement in the revolution, Paciano was subjected to
tortures for two agonizing days. Two officers took turns in thrashing him and crushing
his fingers using thumbscrew. Hanged by the elbows and raised several feet, he was
dropped repetitively until he lost consciousness.
But never did he sign any document that could incriminate his brother to any
charge. Paralyzed for days, it is said that Paciano never completely recuperated from
that torment.
NARCISA RIZAL: The Hospitable Sister of the Hero
It was also Narcisa who painstakingly searched for the place where the
authorities secretly buried the dead Rizal. She found freshly turned earth at the Paco
cemetery where a body had been buried without a box of any kindand with no
identification on the grave. She wittingly made a gift to the caretaker to mark the site
‘RPJ’, Rizal’s initials in reverse.Years later, Narcisa and her other siblings dug up the
hero’s remains at the spot.

OLYMPIA RIZAL: The Sister Whom the Hero Loves to Tease

Jose’s first love, Segunda Katigbak, was Olimpia’s schoolmate at the La
Concordia College. Rizal confided to Olympia about Segunda and the sister willingly
served as the mediator between the two teenage lovers. It was thus unclear whether it
was Olympia or Segunda whom Jose was frequently visiting at La Concordia at the
time.
Olympia died of hemorrhage while giving birth on September that same year—an
event that spoiled Rizal’s homecoming. Interestingly, about three years before her
death, in Jose’s letter to his parents where he talked about the student agitation in
Madrid and the condition of the sugar trade, he all of a sudden asked about the
condition of Olympia who was then expecting. He even joked about her being a mother,
“If her habits haven't changed yet, I fear very much for the skin of that boy: How many
pinchings he will get.”

LUCIA RIZAL: Partaker of the Hero's Sufferings

Lucia’s husband Mariano died during the cholera epidemic in May 1889. He was
refused a Catholic burial for not going to confession since his marriage to Lucia. In
Jose’s article in La Solidaridad entitled Una profanacion(‘A Profanation’), he scornfully
attacked the friars for declining to bury in ‘sacred ground’ a ‘good Christian’ simply
because he was the “brother-in-law of Rizal”.
MARIA RIZAL: The Hero's Confidant
It was to her whom Jose talked about wanting to marry Josephine Bracken when
the majority of the Rizal family was apparently not amenable to the idea.
Their son Mauricio married Conception Arguelles and the couple had a son
named Ismael Arguelles Cruz. Ismael was the father of Gemma Cruz Araneta, the first
Filipina to win the Miss International title, the first Southeast Asian to win in an
international beauty pageant title.

CONCEPCION RIZAL: The Hero's First Grief

Of his sisters, it is said that Pepe loved most the little Concha who was a year
younger than him. Jose played games and shared children stories with her, and from
her he felt the beauty of sisterly love.
When Concha died of sickness in 1865, Jose mournfully wept at losing her. He
later wrote in his memoir, “When I was four years old, I lost my little sister Concha, and
then for the first time I shed tears caused by love and grief.”
From Concha’s life we could learn that not a few children in those times died
young. If records are correct, more than ten of Rizal’s nieces and nephews also died
young, not to mention that Jose’s child himself experienced the same fate.

TRINIDAD RIZAL: The Custodian of the Hero's Greatest Poem

In January 1896, Jose invited Trinidad to return to Dapitan. Jose though had one
hesitation: “The difficulty is, whom are you going to marry here? The town is lonely still,
for there is almost no one.”
Trining once wrote to Jose: “I have read your letter to our brother Paciano in
which you asked how I'm getting along with Señora Panggoy. Thank God we are getting
along well and we live together peacefully.” Never married, Trinidadand Josefa lived
together until their deaths.
Right before Jose’s execution, Trinidad and their mother visited him in the Fort
Santiago prison cell. As they were leaving, Jose handed over to Trining an alcohol
cooking stove, a gift from the Pardo de Taveras, whispering to her in a language which
the guards could not understand, “There is something in it.” That ‘something’ was
Rizal’s elegy now known as “Mi Ultimo Adios.”Like Josefa and two nieces, Trinidad
joined the Katipunan after Rizal’s death.

JOSEFA RIZAL: The Katipunera

The letter addressed Josefa as “Miss Josephine Rizal”, thereby making her the
namesake of Rizal’s girlfriend Josephine Bracken.
After Jose’s martyrdom, the epileptic Josefa joined the Katipunan and is even
supposed to have been elected the president of its women section. She was one of the
original 29 women admitted to the Katipunan along with Gregoria de Jesus, wife of
Andres Bonifacio. They safeguarded the secret papers and documents of the society
and danced and sang during sessions so that civil guards would think that the meetings
were just harmless social gatherings.

SOLEDAD RIZAL: The Hero's Controversial Sister

Rizal nonetheless used the topic as leverage in somewhat rebuking her sister for
getting married to Pantaleon Quintero of Calamba without their parents’ consent.
“Because of you,” he wrote, “the peace of our family has been disturbed.”
Some timeless lessons in ethics and good manners can be learned from the
letter. For instance, it reveals that Jose was very much against women who allow
themselves to be courted outside their homes. He said to Choleng, “If you have a
sweetheart, behave towards him nobly and with dignity, instead of resorting to secret
meetings and conversations which do nothing but lower a woman's worth in the eyes of
a man… You should value more, esteem more your honor and you will be more
esteemed and valued.”
The story further alleges that Saturnina and her uncle Jose Alberto were the real
parents of Soledad, the supposed youngest sister of Jose.
LEONOR RIVERA
Leonor desolately consented to marry her mother’s choice on supposed
conditions that she would never play the piano again, all her and Jose’s letters to each
other which had been gathered be burned and the ashes be deposited in her jewelry
box, and that her mother stand beside her at her wedding. The marriage ceremony
happened two days before Rizal’s birthday in 1891.
Six months before the ceremony, Rizal had received a letter announcing this
imminent Kipping-Rivera wedding. The letter was from his true love herself who was
also asking for his forgiveness. Rizal described the news as a great blow to him as he
was “stunned, his eyes dimmed with tears, and his heart broke.” The mail signaled the
death of Rizal’s 11-year love affair with Leonor.
Rizal’s mourning heart was injured even more upon learning that “Leonor had
asked to be buried in the saya (native skirt) she was wearing when he and she had first
come to an ‘understanding.’ She had also asked for the silver cup which held the ashes
of the few letters from him which had reached her”.
As a postscript, Kipping and Rivera had a child named Carlos Rivera Kipping
(who later became Carlos Rivera Kipping, Sr.) who married Lourdes Romulo, a sister of
the former United Nation official and Boy Scouts of the Philippines co-founder Carlos P.
Romulo. The descendants of the Kipping family donated to the Yuchengco
Museum in Makati City the box which housed the ashes of burned Rizal’s letters to
Leonor.. The box was covered with Leonor’s dress with the letters “J” and “L”
embroidered on it.

JOSEPHINE BRACKEN
Before the year ended in 1895, the couple had a child who was born
prematurely. “Rizal’s sisters say the boy was named Peter; others say he was named
Francisco, after Don Francisco Mercado”
Unfortunately, the son died a few hours after birth. Rizal was said to have “made
a pencil sketch of the dead infant on the jacket of a medical book. He then buried the
baby in an unmarked grave in a secluded part of Talisay”