Arevalo, Jannine Mae F.

Candido, Rona A.
Izquierdo, Shereen J.
Suruji, Shaina A.
BS-ECONOMICS 3A
GROUP ACTIVITY #2

CATEGORIES Rizal said (Memorias) Zaide said (Childhood days in Calamba)

Rizal’s stay with his relatives in
Binan
“At Binan at nightfall went to the
house of an aunt where was to stay.
When I entered his class for the first
time, that is, in his house, which was
of nipa and low, about thirty meters
away.”
Source: Memoirs of a Student in Manila
by P. Jacinto (Life and Works of Rizal pg.
27)
“Rizal had his early education in
Calamba and Binan. It was a typical
schooling that a sone of an Ilustrado
family received during his time,
characterized by the four R’s- reading,
writing, arithmetic, and religion.
Instruction was rigid and strict.
Knowledge was forced into the minds
of the pupils by means of the tedious
memory method aided by the
teacher’s whip. Despite od the defects
of the Spanish system of elementary
education, Rizal was able to acquire
the necessary instruction preparatory
for college work in Manila. It may be
said that Rizal, who was born a
physical weakling, rose to become an
intellectual giant not because of, but
rather in spite of, the outmoded and
backward system of instruction
obtaining in the Philippines during the
last decades of Spanish regime.”
Source:
http://www.joserizal.ph/ed01.html
Young Jose entered school in 1869. The
school was a private one and it was
located in Binan which was another town
in Laguna. Young Jose was the best
student of the school.
Tutors were hired by the Rizal Family in
order to stimulate the mind of young Jose
and to enrich his early education.
“Whoever knows not how to love his
native tongue is worse than any beast of
evil smelling fish.”
Source: Memoirs of a Student in Manila by P.
Jacinto
June 10, 1887, Rizal said that he stayed in
Binan for a year and a half.
Source: The Rizal-Blumentritt Correspondence,
part 1, pg. 100)
EARLY FORMAL EDUCATION (BINAN)
June 1869-Dec. 17, 1871 Rizal
accompanied by Paciano left Calamba for
Binan in June 1869- with his poker face
Paciano gave Rizal a cue on how a man
should behave during partings and
sentimentaloccassions. Stayed in his aunt
Tomasa Mercado. Tomasa had an
unmarried daughter Margarita and a
widower son Gabriel. Rizal’s young kinsfolk
were Leandro (mischievous), Florentina
(vulgar type) and Arcadia (hot headed,
simple and honest) who became his friend.
Maestro Justiniano Aquino Cruz- tall, thin
and stooped with a large neck and sharp
nose, he believed in “not sparing the rod”.
Rizal complained that rare was the day
when he did not suffer five or six

What and when Rizal consider
the “happiest days of his life”
“After two months and a half, I left
that house and returned to the
recently vacated room in the house of
my landlady, Dona Pepay, and
returned also to the same life as
before. As a result what happened to
me in my studies, as I have already
narrated, I received only the first prize
in Latin, that is, a medal, not like last
year, so that I returned to my
hometown discontented, though I
knew that many would have danced
with joy for less. My family resolved
to put me in the college as a boarder.
Indeed it was time for I was giving
very little attention to my studies. I
was already approaching thirteen
years and I had not yet made any
brilliant showing to my classmates.
Until here lasted my happiest days,
though short; but what does it
matter if they were short?”
Source: Memoirs of a Student in Manila
by P. Jacinto (Life and Works of Rizal- pg.
34)
“I studied fifth year course with the
same success as the previous one,
though under other circumstances.
At last the end of the term came and
the same thing happened to me. I
carried away another five medals due
to the indulgence with which my
superiors treated me and to my no
little luck winning them. Source: Childhood Years in Calamba by G.
Now it remains for me to evaluate Zaide (Life and Works of Rizal- pg. 47)
the two years that I consider the
happiest of my life, if happiness
“palmetazos” on his hands of his behind
even though he surpassed all of his
classmates in Spanish, Latin and other
subjects. (Zaide)
Source:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/150340429/Rizal
-s-Formal-Education
“Jose Rizal had many beautiful memories
of childhood in his native town. He grew in
a happy home, ruled by good parents,
bubbling with joy, and sanctified by od’s
blessings. His natal town of Calamba, so
named after a big jar, was a fitting cradle
for a hero. Its scenic beauties and it’s
industrious, hospitable, and friendly folks
impressed him during his childhood years
and profoundly affected his mind and
character. The happiest period of Rizal’s
life was spent in this lakeshore town, a
worthy prelude to his hamlet-like tragic
manhood.”
Source: Childhood Years in Calamba by G.
Zaide (Life and Works of Rizal- pg. 47)
The first memory of Rizal, in his infancy,
was his happy days in the family garden
when he was three years old. Because he
was frail, sickly, and undersized child, he
was given a tenderest care by his parents.
His father built a little nipa cottage in the
garden for him to play daytime. A kind old
woman employed as an aya (nurse maid)
to look after his comfort. At times, he was
left alone to muse on the beauties of
nature or to play by himself. In his
boyhood memoirs, he narrated how he, at
the age of three, watched from his garden
cottage, the culiauan, the maya, the maira
capra, the martin, the pipit, and the other
birds and listened “with wonder and joy”
to their twilight songs.

Cause of imprisonment of his
mother
consists in living without vexatious
cares. In what way have I advances,
that is, what had I learned during the
first year of my residence in college?
What did I get from what I learned?”
Source: Memoirs of a Student in Manila
by P. Jacinto (Life and Works of Rizal- pg.
36-37)
Rizal’s mother, Teodora Alonso, is In both imprisonments, Rizal’s mother was
imprisoned by Spanish officials on forced to walk rough roads before being
suspicion that she and her brother locked up in the prison cell in Santa Cruz,
Laguna. When she was incarcerated for
Alberto poisoned the latter’s wife.
the first time, some histories claim that
Many people know the real reason is she did a gruesome 50-kilometer walk,
because Rizal’s father, Francisco, while others state ‘16 kilometers. So why
talked back to a Spanish lieutenant. is there a discrepancy? Which figure is
And a Spanish judge who visited their plausible?
home felt insulted for not being Online distance calculators today indicate
treated the way he expected. that Calamba is 43-kilometer away from
Santa Cruz, suggesting that the ‘50
At age 14, Rizal discovers how cruel
kilometers’ claim is more plausible. But
the world is, as he witnesses that is if the walk was really from Calamba
Teodora’s ordeal. But he never loses to Santa Cruz. Because a relative of
faith in his mother’s strength, and she Teodora Alonso, Jacoba Faustina-Cruz,
in his. Even when the Spaniards target narrated that the forced walk was only
Rizal directly, she does not try to stop from Biñan to Calamba. Thus, if Cruz’s
him. In fact, she becomes his statement is true, then the ’16 kilometers’
claim is more reasonable. Biñan and
motivation to stay strong and fight
Calamba are 15.2465035627 kilometers
back. away from each other, according to a
Source: Memoirs of a Student in Manila modern mobile phone’s application.
by P. Jacinto (Life and Works of Rizal- pg.
30) Concerning the second time Teodora was
imprisoned, Rizal’s descendants claim that
The life of Doña Teodora illustrates the then half-blind Teodora Alonso was
how Filipinos, men and women alike, ordered to walk ‘85 kilometers’ from
struggled to keep their families Manila to Santa Cruz (Bantug, p. 100).
together during the tumultuous Modern distance calculators suggest that
period of Spanish colonization. 91.5 kilometers is the distance between
First of all, Doña Teodora worked hard the two locations, though it’s only
to support her family and send her 58.9813974616 kilometers if one could
children to distinguished colleges in just fly like a bird in a straight line. The
Manila. Aside from handling the Zaides’ however claimed that the walk was
family’s finances, she also helped only from Calamba to Santa Cruz (Zaide &
manage their farm where they raised Zaide p. 205)—which if true, then the walk
corn, rice, and sugarcane. She was was just about a half shorter.
involved in their textile business as Either way, the miserable experience of
well as in their sugar and flour mills Doña Teodora had predated the sufferings
and homemade hand press. To earn a of the victims in the infamous WW II Death
bit more, Doña Teodora also opened a March
small store on the ground floor of
their house. Source: ZAIDE SAID
However, despite the value she https://ourhappyschool.com/philippine-
attaches to education, Doña Teodora studies/teodora-alonzo-jose-rizals-mother
vigorously objected to her husband’s
plans of letting Jose pursue higher
education out of fear that their son
will suffer a tragic fate. During those
times, the ruling Spanish officials were
hostile towards the learned Filipino.
When Jose traveled to Spain to study,
it was without his parents’
knowledge.
Her efforts to protect her family did
not, however, save her child or herself
from persecution. Doña Teodora was
imprisoned and punished on the basis
of false and flimsy charges.
Nonetheless, she remained supportive
as Jose’s revolutionary pursuits
intensified. When Jose was exiled to
Dapitan in 1892, his mother and
sisters left Hong Kong to keep house
for him.

“When shall the night come to shelter

me so that I may rest in profound
sleep?” Rizal wrote in his Sept. 11,
1878 entry (he was just 16 years old)
about his childhood in Calamba. “Only
God knows. Meantime, now that I am
separated in the springtime of life
from those I love best in the world,
now as I sadly write these pages.”
What also stood out in Rizal’s
Memorias was that about his mother
Doña Teodora Alonso, who was
arrested when Rizal was just 10 years
old on the trumped up charge that
she acted as an accomplice in the
attempt to poison her brother’s wife.
Rizal’s mother was eventually
acquitted by the Supreme Court, but
only after almost two and a half years
of incarceration.
“Returning to Calamba, the family was
in disarray. The imprisonment of his
mother (had an effect on) Rizal who
suffered a bit and became very sickly,”
Habana said.
“I cannot tell you the emotion and the
profound grief that overempowered
us. From then on, while still a child, I
lost my confidence in friendship, and I
mistrusted men,” Rizal wrote about
his mother’s arrest in his diary entry
on Nov. 1, 1878.
Source: RIZAL (MEMORIAS)
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/791899/the
-young-jose-rizal-in-his-diary-memorias