José Rizal

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"Laong Laan" redirects here. For the railway station, see Laong Laan railway station.

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal family name is Mercado and the second or maternal

family name is Realonda.

José Rizal

Born José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda [1]

June 19, 1861[2]

Calamba, Laguna, Captaincy General of the

Philippines, Spanish Empire [2]

Died December 30, 1896 (aged 35)[3]

Bagumbayan, Manila, Captaincy General of the

Philippines, Spanish Empire [3]
 Cause of Execution by firing squad

death

Monuments Luneta Park, Manila,

Calamba, Laguna,

Daet, Camarines Norte,

Carson, California

Other names Pepe, Jose (nicknames)[4][5]

Alma mater Ateneo Municipal de Manila (BA)

Universidad Central de Madrid (MD)

University of Santo Tomas

Organization La Solidaridad, La Liga Filipina

Spouse(s) Josephine Bracken (1896)[6]

Francisco Rizal Mercado (father)

Parents
Teodora Alonso Realonda (mother)

Relatives Saturnina Hidalgo (sister)

Paciano Rizal (brother)

Signature

José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda [7] (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse riˈsal];

June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino nationalist and polymath during the
tail end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is tagged as the national
hero (pambansang bayani) of the Filipino people.[8] An ophthalmologist by profession,
Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement, which
advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain.
He was executed by the Spanish colonial government for the crime of rebellion after
the Philippine Revolution, inspired in part by his writings, broke out. Though he was not
actively involved in its planning or conduct, he ultimately approved of its goals which
eventually led to Philippine independence.
 He is widely considered one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines and has been
recommended to be so honored by an officially empaneled National Heroes Committee.
However, no law, executive order or proclamation has been enacted or issued officially
proclaiming any Filipino historical figure as a national hero.[9] He was the author of the
novels Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo, and a number of poems and essays.[10][11]

Contents

 1Early life
 2Education
 3Personal life, relationships and ventures
o 3.1Affair
o 3.2Association with Leonor Rivera
o 3.3Relationship with Josephine Bracken
 4In Brussels and Spain (1890–92)
 5Return to Philippines (1892–96)
o 5.1Exile in Dapitan
o 5.2Arrest and trial
 6Execution
 7Works and writings
o 7.1Novels and essays
o 7.2Poetry
o 7.3Plays
o 7.4Other works
 8Reactions after death
o 8.1Retraction controversy
o 8.2"Mi último adiós"
o 8.3Later life of Bracken
o 8.4Polavieja and Blanco
 9Criticism and controversies
o 9.1National hero status
 9.1.1Made national hero by colonial Americans
 9.1.2Made national hero by Emilio Aguinaldo
o 9.2Critiques of books
o 9.3Role in the Philippine revolution
 10Legacy and remembrance
o 10.1Species named after Rizal
o 10.2Historical commemoration
 11Rizal in popular culture
o 11.1Adaptation of his works
o 11.2Biographical films/TV series
o 11.3Other
 12See also
 13Notes and references
 14Sources
 15Further reading
 16External links

Early life

José Rizal's baptismal register

Francisco Rizal Mercado (1818–1898)

José Rizal was born in 1861 to Francisco Rizal Mercado y Alejandro and Teodora

Alonso Realonda y Quintos in the town of Calamba in Laguna province. He had nine
sisters and one brother. His parents were leaseholders of a hacienda and an
accompanying rice farm by the Dominicans. Both their families had adopted the
additional surnames of Rizal and Realonda in 1849, after Governor General Narciso
Clavería y Zaldúa decreed the adoption of Spanish surnames among the Filipinos for
census purposes (though they already had Spanish names).
Like many families in the Philippines, the Rizals were of mixed origin. José's patrilineal
lineage could be traced back to Fujian in China through his father's ancestor Lam-Co, a
Chinese merchant who immigrated to the Philippines in the late 17th century. [12][13][note 1]
[14]
 Lam-Co traveled to Manila from Xiamen, China, possibly to avoid the famine or
plague in his home district, and more probably to escape the Manchu invasion during
the Transition from Ming to Qing. He finally decided to stay in the islands as a farmer. In
1697, to escape the bitter anti-Chinese prejudice that existed in the Philippines, he
converted to Catholicism, changed his name to Domingo Mercado and married the
daughter of Chinese friend Augustin Chin-co. On his mother's side, Rizal's ancestry
included Chinese, Japanese and Tagalog blood. His mother's lineage can be traced to
the affluent Florentina family of Chinese mestizo families originating in Baliuag,
Bulacan.[15] He also had Spanish ancestry. Regina Ochoa, a grandmother of his mother,
Teodora, had mixed Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog blood. His grandfather was a half
Spaniard engineer named Lorenzo Alberto Alonzo. [16]
From an early age, José showed a precocious intellect. He learned the alphabet from
his mother at 3, and could read and write at age 5. [13] Upon enrolling at the Ateneo
Municipal de Manila, he dropped the last three names that made up his full name, on
the advice of his brother, Paciano and the Mercado family, thus rendering his name as
"José Protasio Rizal". Of this, he later wrote: "My family never paid much attention [to
our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it, thus giving me the appearance of an
illegitimate child!"[17] This was to enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his
brother, who had gained notoriety with his earlier links to Filipino priests Mariano
Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora (popularly known as Gomburza) who had
been accused and executed for treason.

Rizal's house in Calamba, Laguna

Despite the name change, José, as "Rizal", soon distinguished himself in poetry writing
contests, impressing his professors with his facility with Castilian and other foreign
languages, and later, in writing essays that were critical of the Spanish historical
accounts of the pre-colonial Philippine societies. Indeed, by 1891, the year he finished
his El filibusterismo, this second surname had become so well known that, as he writes
to another friend, "All my family now carry the name Rizal instead of Mercado because
the name Rizal means persecution! Good! I too want to join them and be worthy of this
family name.