Jean Rene Kalaw ; SS14/A2

WT#1 Rizal Retraction Controversy.

According to claims by the Catholic Church, Dr. Jose Rizal wrote a retraction paper on

December 29, 1896, taking back all his words and writings against the church and professing his

faith. Rizal was said to be convinced in converting and writing the retraction paper by Fr.

Vicente Balaguer, a priest he had been with in Dapitan. The retraction paper was not revealed

to the public until 1935. According to most claims and theories, there are four reasons as to

why Dr. Rizal retracted. First is that he wanted to legally marry Josephine Bracken, an Irish

woman whom he had been living with in the Dapitan, The second is to save his family from the

persecution of the government, knowing that those he will leave behind will be the ones to

suffer next, the third is to secure Spanish reforms, hoping that in the retraction, there would be

change, and the fourth is to heal the church for inside, once again, in the hopes that something

will change.

According to historians, there are 11 eye witnesses when Dr. Rizal retracted, according to them,

Rizal wrote the paper, signed a prayer book, and recited prayers and some claim that they saw

him kiss a crucifix before his death. Nicolas Zafra of the University of the Philippines strongly

believes that the retraction paper was true and the denial of the paper was simply

stubbornness of the masons. Teodoro Kalaw, a lawyer and historian who studied Rizal’s life also

claimed that the paper was authentic by studying the hand writing.

Some claims say that the letter was written by his brother Paciano, but the signature was from

Rizal himself, Paciano apparently did this to avert the remaining members of his family from
danger. In other words, a case of forgery, many theories suggest that Rizal’s letter was created

by someone else using his signature or a sample of his writings.

When Fr. Balaguer was asked for the original copy of the document for the handwriting to be

authenticated, the said document was allegedly lost, only to resurface 35 years later in history,

discovered by Fr. Manuel Garcia. At least 4 copies said to be the retraction had surfaced.

Although, the wording in the document found by Fr. Garcia is different than those claimed by

other, such as the copies of the formula which appeared in Manila Newspapers.

In the theories, the reason for his retraction was to marry the woman she fell in love with while

he was in exile, Josephine Bracken. However, no real record of the wedding between Bracken

and Rizal has been found, especially a marriage certificate. If the retraction was true, then there

should at least be a document that shows that the marriage happened and, considering where

Rizal was buried, outside the inner wall of Paco Cemetery, and the record of burial is not the

same day as his death.

In my research, I found that no one has really claimed to have the copy of the original text,

except the publisher of La Voz Espanola, they claim to have seen and read the retraction which

they say that Rizal himself sent to the archbishop. Also, almost two years before his death,

meaning his time in Dapitan, when Rizal fell in love with Bracken, he prepared a retraction

paper in order to marry Josephine, he intended to submit it to the Archbishop of Cebu.

According to Fr. Austin Craig, the document was ready for mailing but Rizal reclaimed it. The

significance of this prepared letter in Dapitan is that, anyone who could forge a letter already

has a template to copy from. There is also a confession from a person named Antonio K. Abad,
where in a party in his home, a certain person admitted how he was hired by the Catholic friars

to forge several copies of the retraction document, as to which document it really was, it was

not revealed.

From the data that I have gathered, I believe that Dr. Rizal’s retraction was false. My first

reason for believing this is that, it seems quite convenient for a Catholic Priest to find a

retraction letter 35 years after the “loss” of the document. The second reason is that, there

were plenty of opportunities to forge the letter in the years that is was not even made public. If

he did retract his words, then he should have at least been defended by the church, since Dr.

Rizal professing his faith to the Church publicly, alive, would benefit the church greatly, but they

didn’t take the opportunity. And there was no marriage certificate between him and Josephine.

The last is Dr. Rizal’s personality and dignity itself. A man of that caliber who endured and made

the best out of exile in Dapitan, who had the courage to for La Solidaridad and established the

La Liga Filipina, the man who openly used symbolisms to appeal to the Spaniards regarding the

state the Philippines is in, through his novels, would fold so easily, by being threatened by

death. Surely this man was prepared for death, yet in his last moments he would betray his own

principles? This even is too convenient for it to occur, as if it was a scripted play. It is more likely

to be a ploy by the church, with the rising power of the revolutionaries and the involvement of

the west in the Philippines. The controversy was meant to degrade the morale of the Filipinos,

to make us think the hero who bravely faced death was a coward who bit his tongue and took

back his words.

I believe the Rizal’s Retraction was false.

References:

Primacyofreason.blogspot.com www.joserizal.ph joseprotasiorizal.blogspot.com