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Jose Rizal and The Ilustrados PDF
Jose Rizal and The Ilustrados PDF
Noel V. Teodoro
University of the Philippines
If it were not for the events of 1872 there would not have been a
Plaridel, or a Jaena, or a Sancianco or the great and noble Filipino
society in Europe would have not been formed. If not for the events
of 1872, Rizal would have been a Jesuit and instead of writing the
Noli me tangere, he would have written the opposite of it. The reign
It is clear from the quotation that the year 1872 was significant to the
Filipinos who left, if not fled, to Spain to escape the conservatism of the
prevailing social order. The climate of persecution and oppression was not
conducive to the Filipino ilustrados who espoused patriotism and national-
ism through progressive and liberal ideas. This development challenged
the monastic authority or frailocracia, the backbone of the reactionary
colonial government.
The prolonged colonization of Spain gave birth to a backward society.
Education was weak and stagnant, since, according to a Franciscan friar,
the Filipino Indio did not need it because it was not important for the
attainment of glory in heaven (Bustamante, 1996, 1885). It is not good for
the Indio, he said, to separate from his carabao in order to waste his time
studying in Manila (more so outside the country after the opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869) because, when he returns to his place of origin, he
becomes a treacherous man, meaning an enemy of the state, of the church
and those in power.
Another obstacle to the progress of knowledge and education was the
Comisión permanente de censura (Permanent Commission of Censors) which
was established on October 7, 1856 (Agoncillo, 1974:13; Retana, 1965). All
printings and publications, newspapers and magazines, books, various
other forms of publications, shows, and even materials which contained
drawings and engravings, were subject to the scrutiny of the censors.
Often, the reason for censorship, especially texts which contained new and
“dangerous” ideas like “pantheism” and “materialism,” were shallow and
unjustified (Mojares,1983:110). Censorship inflicted great damage to the
intellectual freedom of writers and because of this, the Filipino ilustrados
campaigned to have it abolished in the soonest time possible (Agoncillo,
1974). In a report by W.E. Retana, a certain Georgel was quoted as saying:
“the oppressed always demand the right to freedom of the press while the
oppressor and the unjust demand the right to censorship” (Retana, 1965).
The author ended his report by saying that there was only one comment or
observation that can be made in relation to the senseless censorship in the
archipelago: that in the Philippines, works which are worthless and full of
stupidity are the ones which pass censorship — like Fr. Casimiro Herrero’s
El Capitán Juan (Captain Juan) and Fr. Miguel Lucio Bustamante’s Tandang
Basio Macunat (Miserly Old Basio), well known documents on racism
during the 19th century (Salazar, 1998). These works did nothing but speak
RIZAL AND THE ILUSTRADOS IN SPAIN 67
of negative values like sorrow, the lowliness and weaknesses of the Brown
(Filipino) race. As such, the Brown race will have to bow down to the
superiority of the white race to which the former is indebted for the logic,
morality and religion which saved the Indio during the dark ages (Salazar,
1983), when he was pictured as a cimarron (wild) and salvaje (barbaric), wild
and uncivilized in the minds of those from the west. Related to this, it can
be recalled that in 1889, on the occasion of the Paris Exposition (Schumacher,
1973), Rizal founded the Indios Bravos (“The Noble Indios” not wild nor
savages!), the primary objective of which was to uplift and promote the
esteem of the Filipinos by highlighting their positive traits, with the hope
that this would convince the Spaniards to correct their derogatory views of
the Indio and change their views of the colonized country.
The Filipino ilustrados, who were not only Indios but also beasts in the eyes
of the arrogant Spanish colonizers, did not fight their battles in the
Philippines but instead went to Spain to ask for assimilation and cam-
paigned to make the Philippines a province of Spain, which would establish
equality between the Spaniards and the Filipinos. It should be noted that
before Rizal, and the Indios Bravos association which he founded, there
were already Filipinos living in Europe. Among them were the Taveras of
Paris, the woman painter Pelagia Mendoza, who traveled to Europe during
the 1880s, the Regidors of Madrid and London (Joaquin, 1981:40), Pedro
Paterno (of Salamanca, and later of Madrid), Gregorio Sancianco (in
Madrid). Pedro Paterno was the son of Maximo Paterno, a rich business-
man from Manila who was exiled to the Marianas in 1872. Pedro Paterno
studied philosophy and theology in Salamanca, and he continued to live in
Madrid after getting his doctorate in law in 1880 at the Universidad Central
de Madrid. His house was usually the venue of reunion artisticas, where
prominent persons in the field of letters and politics of Spain gathered
(Schumacher, 1973:21). On these occasions, Paterno read his poems which
he compiled in 1880 in a book entitled Sampaguitas, which became part of
the collection Biblioteca Filipina. The latter aimed to make known to the
Spanish audience the achievements of the Filipino youth. Paterno’s en-
deavors to make known the origins of the indigenous culture and pre-
hispanic society were intended to show that the Filipinos had a certain level
of civilization which could equal if not surpass that of the Spaniards. These
works, published in Madrid, included the following: La antigua civilización
tagala (“Ancient Tagalog Civilization,”1887); Los itas (“The Aetas,” 1890);
El Cristianismo en la antigua civilización Tagalog (“Christianity in the Ancient
Tagalog Civilization,” 1892), which suggested that Christianity was al-
68 ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL
this, the coffers of the country were almost empty, and instead of a surplus,
the country had to contend with deficits … because it was always in deficit,
the Philippines was constantly wallowing in poverty” (Agoncillo, 1980).
It is important to mention at this point the statement of Jaime C. de
Veyra that the Filipinos in Spain came from the different regions of the
archipelago (Jaena, 1974:xvi). Julio Llorente, a native of Cebu, finished his
doctorate in law in Madrid while writing for La solidaridad. Valentin
Ventura, who gave financial help to Rizal for the publication of his second
novel, El filibusterismo, was from Bacolor, Pampanga, and died in Barcelona
in 1935 (Quirino, 1995:201). Francisco Liongson, who also studied in
Madrid (Larkin, 1993:160-161), was Ventura’s townmate. Jose Maria
Panganiban was from Mambulao (now Jose Ma. Panganiban), Camarines
Norte. He also wrote for La solidaridad, and like Jaena and Ventura, died in
Barcelona on August 19, 1890 due to tuberculosis (Quirino, 1995:159-160).
From Vigan, Ilocos Sur came Isabelo de los Reyes, the founder of the
bilingual newspaper El Ilocano. He was exiled to Barcelona because of his
links with the Katipunan. His historical and anthropological works could
be compared with the works of Paterno and Rizal (specifically, the latter’s
annotation of Morga’s Sucesos de las islas filipinas), wherein he discussed
that the ancient Philippine society had a culture and a civilization that he
could be proud of. Isabelo de los Reyes published from 1887 to 1909 the
following cultural studies: Filipinas: Articulos varios; Ilocandas: Varios trabajos
literarios; Las Visayas en la época de la conquista; El folklore filipino; Historia de
Filipinas; Historia de Ilocos; and La religion antigua de los filipinos.
The brothers Manuel and Juan Luna y Novicio (who died of heart
attack in Hong Kong on December 7, 1899) were born in Badok, Ilocos
Norte. The latter was known for his painting called “Spoliarium,” which
was awarded the gold medal in the Exposicion de bellas artes, held in Madrid
in 1884. Jose Torres Bugallon of Salasa, Pangasinan, became a pensionado
and scholar in the Military Academy (Toledo) in 1892. Telesforo Sucgang
who came from Banga, Capiz (Banga is now part of Aklan), was a historical
painter, religious sculptor, and musical composer, who became a pensionado
for four years in Madrid (Manuel, 1955:437-440). Sucgang highlighted the
theme of Spain in the Philippines which was related to the program of
assimilation of the ilustrados through several paintings — El desembarco de
Magallanes (1888), La llegada de Legazpi y Urdaneta, and La llegada del correo
espanol el la bahia de Manila (1887). Was there a deeper meaning in Sucgang’s
use of the words desembarco (landing) and llegada (arrival)? Was this a form
of celebration of the “landing” or “arrival” of western civilization which
were symbolized by Magallanes, Legazpi and Urdaneta, the messengers
and emissaries of the forces of “light” which imposed itself on the “orien-
tal” civilization, the indigenous society which Spain now refuses to em-
brace or assimilate?
70 ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL
Among the three expatriates after Sancianco – G.L. Jaena, M.H. del Pilar,
J. Rizal – it was Jaena, the author of the provocative literary work entitled
Fray Botod (1874), who first arrived in Spain in 1880 to study medicine at
the University of Valencia but did not finish because he became busy with
journalism (Jaena, 1974:195-219). Jaena founded in Barcelona in February
1889 the newspaper La solidaridad whose program was, “…Aside from
being simple, our program is clear: fight the reaction, stop any effort that
hinders progress, encourage and strengthen liberal thinking, defend the
progressive movement. In short, to be a disseminator of democratic ideas
so that they will flourish here and in other countries… It is the aim, in other
words, of La solidaridad to gather and publish liberal ideas which are
RIZAL AND THE ILUSTRADOS IN SPAIN 71
1.
Other writers for La solidaridad also used pen names: Jose Rizal (Dimasalang/Laon Laan),
Antonio Luna (Taga-Ilog), Jose Ma. Panganiban (Jomapa), Dominador Gomez (Ramiro Franco),
Mariano Ponce (Kalipulako/Tikbalang) (Zaide, 1968:32).
RIZAL AND THE ILUSTRADOS IN SPAIN 73
others, the said newspaper published Jose Rizal’s article, El Amor Patrio
(“Patriotism”), which del Pilar translated into Tagalog. In 1870, while a
student of law at the University of Santo Tomas (he finished in 1880), he
fought with the parish priest of San Miguel, Manila over the exorbitant
baptismal fees charged by the Spanish friar. This was perhaps his first ever
personal encounter with the frailocracia and colonial power, the same ones
who were behind the deportation of his older brother, the secular priest Fr.
Toribio H. del Pilar (Schumacher, 1981:24), to Guam due to his alleged
involvement in the Cavite uprising in 1872 (Schumacher, 1973). Plaridel
criticized and attacked the monastic authority, which he considered
harmful and a real obstacle to good governance, in literary works in
Tagalog or Spanish. Some of them were written as poems such as Pasiong
Dapat Ipag-alab ng Puso ng Taong Baba sa Kalupitan ng Fraile (“Passion that
Should Burn in the Hearts of the Lowly People Oppressed by the Friar”)
Dupluhan, Sagot nang España sa Hibik ng Pilipinas (“Spain’s Reply to the Cry
of the Philippines,”); some were parodies, for example, Dasalan at Toksohan
(“Prayer and Jest”), Caiigat Cayo (“Beware”); and others were manifestos
and pamphlets like Viva España, Viva el ejercito, !Fuera los frailes! and
Manifiesto que a la noble nacion española dirigen los leales filipinos…”.
In 1885, del Pilar urged the cabezas de barangay of Malolos to oppose the
order which gave the friars the power to change the list of taxpayers. In
1887, he was able to persuade the governor of Malolos to criticize Fr. Felipe
Garcia for violating the directive of the government which prohibited the
viewing of the dead in the church (Zaide, 1968:52). In the same year, he
sided with the people of Binondo against their parish priest who assigned
high positions in the church to the mestizos, to the disadvantage of the
natives whose progress was always suppressed and prevented by dis-
crimination and corruption. Together with Doroteo Cortés and Jose Ramos,
del Pilar was active in launching the demonstration of March 1, 1888, which
was participated in by about 800 people who demanded for the removal of
the friars, including the dismissal of their archbishop.
In Barcelona, the Imprenta Ibérica de Francisco Fossas published two
analytical essays of “Mh. Plaridel,” namely, La soberania monacal en Filipinas
(1888) and La frailocracia filipina (1889), which provided convincing argu-
ments of the economic, political and religious dimensions of church
management, not unlike the management of business corporations. The
colony was portrayed as relentlessly burdened by excessive taxes, other
expenses, and the voluntary services rendered by the converts/believers of
the missionaries and friars, who became rich to the detriment of the
Filipinos. About the tributes and impuestos, del Pilar (Del Pilar, 1974:194-
195) said that the Filipinos paid direct taxes which consisted of residence
certificates, municipal, city and provincial taxes, and indirect taxes levied
74 ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL
Trinidad Rizal, and Josefa Rizal (who became the leader of the women’s
chapter of the Katipunan).
It was not easy to unite the ilustrados, as was the dream of del Pilar,
Ponce and Rizal. There were times when the unity of Filipinos in Spain was
like fragile glass. For example, the conflict between del Pilar and Rizal was
a major hindrance in the “community” or “colony,” dividing the Filipinos
into two camps, the Pilaristas (pro-del Pilar) versus the Rizalistas (pro-
Rizal). The conflict may have started when Rizal criticized the Filipino
students for their lack of commitment. He was hurt that they were not
giving due attention to their studies and to the nationalist campaign led by
the editorial staff of La solidaridad. Instead, Rizal noted that they were busy
with fashion, gambling and womanizing. Ariston Bautista Lim, for ex-
ample, was known to have an amulet that was supposed to ensure that no
woman would reject him (Joaquin, 1981:48). Leading the playboys was one
named Zacarias Robles (Joaquin, 1981:48). Rizal was not remiss in remind-
ing, if not admonishing, the Filipinos in Barcelona and Madrid. He thought
that through his example as “a model ilustrado,” he could give moral and
intellectual leadership to his compatriots which he attempted to actualize
through the organization Indios Bravos.
However, on December 31, 1890, in the midst of celebrating new year’s
eve, Rizal came out as a boastful person when he refused to offer his co-
patriots free champagne, followed by his observations of the Filipino
students’ lack of enthusiasm in their studies. The following day, the Fili-
pinos proposed to unite the “colony” under one elected president, Rizal or
del Pilar. Rizal won, although he was already harboring ill feelings towards
del Pilar because of the alleged attempt of his supporters to disown or
topple Rizal down from power as the legitimate leader of the Filipino
“community” in Spain. In the end, del Pilar had to lead when his “oppo-
nent” resigned and ultimately left Madrid for Hong Kong and eventually
the Philippines. Rizal refused the attempts by del Pilar and his friend
Ferdinand Blumentritt to write again for La solidaridad. According to Rizal,
he did not want to waste his time in a project that had no relevance to cure
the cancer which was destroying Filipino society, as he depicted and
analyzed in his novels, Noli me tangere (Berlin, Germany, 1887) and El
filibusterismo (Ghent, Belgium, 1891). Rizal said the remedy or medicine
must be brought to the patient (Schumacher, 1973:233). The remedy was
not in Madrid, which was what La solidaridad asserted, but in our own
country, the real arena of battle. Despite everything, del Pilar still hoped for
Rizal’s support who, perhaps because he was steeped in books (Schumacher,
1973:234), seemed to lack the capacity to understand the different ways and
temperaments of human beings. For del Pilar, what was important was
unity and consensus deriving shared sentiments and aspirations. There
RIZAL AND THE ILUSTRADOS IN SPAIN 77
were two things to aspire for — the elimination of all obstacles to freedom
in the Philippines and the ultimate removal of the Spanish flag (Schumacher,
1973; Del Pilar, 1955; 1958).
It may be recalled that it was del Pilar who proposed that Rizal write
a letter in Tagalog to the women of Malolos, the townmates of del Pilar (22
February 1889), where the author emphasized the important role played
by women in the progress of the country, society, and family (Rizal,
1961:64-73). Despite the opposition and refusal of the friars, the women of
Malolos persisted in fighting for the right to have an education. And this
was through studying Spanish first, the colonial language, and the means
to acquire knowledge and awareness about contemporary events. The
latter can be read in the smuggled literature of the Propaganda Movement
whose distribution was strictly prohibited by the Comisión permanente de
censura. This did not prevent the dissemination of “subversive” readings.
In 1892, the constabulary confiscated some copies of El filibusterismo in a
simultaneous raid of houses in Bulacan, Pampanga, and Tarlac (Guerrero,
1969:339), which had just recently been visited by Governor Eulogio
Despujol.
Busy with his research in London, where he composed the famous
letter, Rizal (Fischer, 1970) was occupied in detailing his annotations to the
chronicle Sucesos de las islas filipinas (Mexico, 1609) of Antonio de Morga,
doctor of canonical and civil law (Morga, 1964). Rizal planned to smuggle
the book with the help of Jose Maria Basa from Hong Kong to Manila
through Manuel Arias Rodriguez, a Spanish mason who owned Agencia
editorial. The book had an introduction by the “Filipinologist” Blumentritt
(Sichrovsky, 1987), El historiador de Filipinas (Schumacher, 1973:72), a
scholar from Austria who became a confidant and close friend of Rizal. The
latter undertook research from 1888 in the library of the British Museum in
order to discover the important historical sources which would be an
effective weapon of the nationalist discourse against the deluge of attacks
and insults disseminated by Francisco Gainza, O.P., Vicente Barrantes,
Pablo Feced y Temprano alias “Quioquiap,” Miguel Lucio Bustamante,
Casimiro Herrero, Gaspar de San Agustin, Francisco Cañamaque and
other anti-Filipino Spanish writers whose mental frameworks derived
from the popular ideology of racism of the 19th century.
For example, Francisco Gainza, O.P., the bishop assigned to the diocese
of Nueva Caceres in 1863, proclaimed that the Bicol region owed their
natural culture and civilization to the Spanish missionaries who lifted them
from their lowly material and moral situation. Because of this, they no
longer live in sordid conditions and indignity, which was a far cry from the
way of life of their savage ancestors, whose uncivilized state was made
worse by ignorance, worship of idols, cruel sacrifices which required that
78 ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL
1521), (2) from the time of discovery to the loss of Filipino independence
(1521-1808), (3) from the loss of independence to the Rebellion in Cavite
(1808-1872), and (4) Linguistics (Tagalog, Visaya, Iloko, Ibanag, Kapam-
pangan, Pangasinan, and others).
The leadership of the association was composed of Ferdinand Blu-
mentritt (President), Edmund Plauchut (French, Vice President), Antonio
Regidor and Reinhold Rost (the latter was an English born in Germany) as
advisers, and Rizal (as Secretary). Through Blumentritt, Rizal also met
Adolf B. Meyer (Director of the Ethnographic Museum of Dresden), Rudolf
Virchow (an anthrolopologist who was active in the liberal movement in
Germany), Feodor Jagor (he was in the Philippines in 1859-1860 and author
of Reisen in den Philippinen, 1873), and Wilhelm Joest (an expert in ethnog-
raphy). Rizal also became a member of Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethno-
logie und Urgeschichte, with the help of Virchow, president of the organiza-
tion. In April 1887, he read a paper in front of the assembly regarding the
art of Tagalog poetry. He also published, with the help of Rost, articles
which featured the folklore of the Tagalogs in Trübner’s Record, a field
which interested Hendrik Kern, professor of Sanskrit and Javanese in the
University of Leiden (Holland) and an expert in Malayan-Polynesian
languages. Kern was born in Java in 1883 and died in Utrecht in 1917 at the
age of 84 (Kern, 1998:10). He studied Tagalog closely and he read a paper
about its use in the national literature in an international conference of
orientalists held in Stockholm, Sweden (Schumacher, 1973:211). Rizal
heard of Kern from Blumentritt but he was not sure whether they will meet
in person.
The international conference did not push through because the French
government limited the number of conferences related to the Paris Expo-
sition in 1889. The association did not also last long because Rizal was also
busy in his work annotating Morga. Also, the financial support from the
Philippines, which Rizal expected in April 1890, did not arrive because his
family was seriously involved in an agrarian dispute in Calamba, which
resulted in his family’s dismissal from the hacienda owned by the Domini-
can order.
Rizal went back to the Philippines to found the reformist La liga filipina
in Tondo on July 3, 1892. The following were the objectives of the new
organization which were embodied in the constitution prepared by Rizal
in Hong Kong: (1) unite the whole Archipelago into a strong, stable, and
common group of citizens, (2) support one another in times of need, (3) put
up a defense against all kinds of oppression/violence, (4) revitalize educa-
tion, agriculture, and commerce, and (5) study and implement the planned
reforms (Agoncillo, 1980:154). La liga was short-lived. The authorities
considered it subversive. On July 7, 1892, Rizal was arrested and exiled to
80 ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL
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