CHAPTER 4- UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS
pensee of its political use
 The Philippines’ sole institution of higher learning -
Dominican University of Santo Tomas
 Rizal’s mother had been strongly opposed to him
studying any further because if Jose continued to
study he would in the end fall into the trap of rising
too high for the friars’ liking
 It was the well-educated who were the first to be
regarded as enemies, and who ran the greatest risk
of ending their lives on Bagumbayan Field before a
firing squad
 Rizal’s brother accompanied him to go to Manila
despite his mother’s tears
 Rizal enrolled in Metaphysics
 He also took a land-surveying course at the Ateneo
 UST was founded in 1611, once the foremost seat of
European learning in the East and for long the pride
of the Dominicans, had been stagnating for well over
a century
 The friars were demagogic teachers
 Segunda Catigbac was 14 when he met Rizal. She
came from a wealthy mestizo family from Lipa,
Batangas
 Segunda was short, with expressive eyes, sometimes
ardent, at other times languid, rosy-cheeked, with
such an enchanting and provocative smile, a sylph-
like air, an alluring je ne sais quoi emanating from her
entire being
 Filipino society, when it came to young ladies
receiving the attentions of gentleman admirers, was
as strictly proper as the society of Victorian England
 Segunda presentation to Jose of an artificial rose
which she pretended someone else had made when
really she herself had made it especially for him- it
was the signal of love
 Segunda was Rizal’s first love but Segunda was
arranged to marry someone
 When the Saturday came, he had a white horse
saddled and rode out to a point where he knew the
Catigbac family, who had come some way to meet
Segunda, must pass
 Segunda’s father, in the first of a procession if pony-
traps, recognized Jose and invited him to come with
them to Lipa but Rizal refused to
 When Rizal described his first love, he was still only
20, and was not yet fully aware of the nature of this
element of self-restraint
 Rizal’s life was for a purpose with which nothing must
interfere, and that of all interferences, the most
absorbing and the most difficult to keep in place is
the love of a woman
 He always described his experience with Segunda as
“always a conqueror of my heart that still refused to
surrender”
 When Rizal returned to Calamba, his mother was
going blind (cataract)
 The following year, his second at Santo Tomas, he
chose medicine as his subject even though he was
not especially interested in medicine
 His main interest was literature, with the arriere
 3 professions that were open to the Filipinos:
Priesthood, Medicine, Law
 He chose medicine because he felt that he could be
of most service to the people. Additional motive was
to do something for his mother’s sight
 In addition to medicine, he was studying Philosophy
and Literature
 Each week he allowed so much time for the study of
each of his subjects, so much time for creative work-
poetry, sculpting, and sketching- so much time for
the literary and other associations he belonged to, so
much time for sleeping and eating, physical exercise
and social relaxations, and above all, so much time
for reading, thinking, and correspondence
 Rizal perceive that not all the fault lay on the side of
the friars, mush of it lay with the Filipinos. If indios
were to stand up to oppression, the impetus to them
to do so could only come from the educated youth of
the country, of which the students of Santo Tomas
were supposedly the cream
 A la Juventud Filipina- a poem which won first prize in
public competition organized by the Liceo- Atistico-
Literario of Manila 1879. He urged upon educated
Filipino youth their importance to their country,
enunciating for the first time unambiguously his
concept of the Philippines as a nation distinct from
Spain, at the same time making two graceful
references to Spain as the source of the country’s
well-being
 “Grow, O timid flower!”- another theme that was to
run powerfully through his life’s work
 The following year he won a more important literary
prize given by the Liceo in commemoration of the
centenary of Cervantes. This was an open
competition, and for the prize to go to a Filipino,
surpassing the Peninsular Spaniards in the use of
their own language, was something utterly unheard-
of. He later recalled in a whimsical manner how at
the prize-giving when his name was announced, the
enthusiastic applause dwindled away when the
audience saw the winner was an Indio, to be replaced
by ironic laughter and catcalls.
 Paciano- 10 years older than Jose, was not able to
attend the baccalaureate because the Dominican
friars who ran San Jose and knew Paciano’s former
association with Burgos, failed him
 Jose and Paciano had identical attitudes and
convictions. Between them, there were something
that went beyond brotherhood and friendship- an
intuitive understanding which with their reserved
natures, it needed few words to express
 In 1878- the two brothers made verbally a solemn
bond
 Jose’s duty- Taking up the Filipino cause
 Paciano’s duty- looking after their parents, at the
same time giving Jose all the support he could
 Narcisa- their sister and the only person who knew
about their secret compact
 Arthurian Legend
 In Spain solemn oaths and secret compacts had
played a vigorous part in history, and far from being
considered absurd, were respected for the dangers
they posed
 The revolt of the Philippines against Spain is from an  “Leonors, Dolores, Ursulas, Felipas, Viventas,
end to end a tale of secret societies, of hands Margaritas and others, other loves will occupy your
clasped, and signatures written, in blood hearts and soon you will forget the traveler” ☹
 It is strange, though, to reflect that it was in this Lope  Jose left a little poem to Leonor Rivera and letter to
de Vega atmosphere that was born one of the stimuli his parents
which propelled events in Asia forward to the day in  “I realize that all this means sacrifices, and terrible
1931 when Gandhi in his loincloth to meet George V ones- I imagine the pain which I must give you, but I
at Buckingham Palace feel something that obliges and implies me to leave. I
shall strive with fate, and I shall win or lose….. God’s
will be done.” 😊 ☹
CHAPTER 5- DEPARTURE ON A MISSION
 Antonio Rivera- uncle of the brothers who lived in
Intramuros, and who had a charming daughter
(Leonor), their cousin who in April 1880 had her
thirteenth birthday
 Paciano who has an exceptionally serious minded
person seems to have considered that he bore
responsibilities for Philippine reform devolving on
him from Burgos
 Paciano thought that Jose might easily be swayed by.
What if he went to Europe and forgot all about the
object of his mission? He might not even return.
 Paciano’s reason why they visit their uncle Antonio
Rivera was for Jose to be married or even engaged
with their cousin so that Jose would feel more
anchored to the Philippines, more responsible, and
more likely to stick to his purpose
 Leonor- the heroine, the inspiration, the ideal, it was
the age of very romantic literature- from whom he
created Maria Clara, the heroine of Noli Me Tangere,
and who was undoubtedly the only woman in his life
whom he truly love and in his own way
 When Jose met Leonor, she was 13, when he left for
Europe, she was 15. They correspond for another 6
years, but never saw each other again
 The year after he left the Philippines, a young Spanish
lady, Consuelo Ortiga y Perez, recorded in her diary
as much as she could remember of a day Rizal spent
at her parents’ house in Madrid
 In an one-act verse comedy, Junto al Pasig, which
had been performed at the Ateneo in December
1880, he had had the temerity to speak of the Phils’
erstwhile prosperity withering away beneath the
alien hand of Spain
 Jose still did not entirely want to go. Before him now,
always at any critical juncture, stood that “cruel
presentment” oh his last night at the Ateneo
 Paciano who now had land-holdings and an income
of his own, provided the money for a first-class
passage to Europe, and undertook to send his
brother a monthly allowance.
 Jose on going to Madrid to continue his studies was
not really his purpose and there was no any written
record of their discussion of the real purpose
 But in the widest possible sense, Jose aimed to learn
about:
- How they were governed
- what laws they had and which governments were
better than others
- how international commerce worked
- what reform movements there were in Europe
- how much freedom they were allowed
- what mouthpieces they used
 on May 3, 1882, he sailed from Manila on thus lonely
mission.