The Rizal Retraction and other cases

Posted on September 19, 2012

THE RIZAL RETRACTION AND OTHER CASES

by Peter Jaynul V. Uckung

The flow of history is as inexorable as the tidal flow of an angry ocean. But ever so often in our
collective recollection, it is remembered that sometimes the skilful use of forgery can redirect the flow
of history itself.

In the Philippines today, forgery is usually resorted to redirect the flow of money from the rightful
beneficiary to the unworthy pockets of invisible people.

That money is usually the target of forgery is known and practiced all over the world, but forgery in
the hands of the wily, has power to effect a redirection of events and undoing of history. It has the
power to obscure or beliee an occurrence or create an event that did not actually transpire. It also has
the power to enslave and destroy.

In October 1600, the Muslim Ottoman Army and a Christian army, led by Austrians, with Hungarian,
French, Maltese and German troops were battling it out for territory called Kanizsa. The Ottoman army
was outgunned and outmanned, but the Ottoman commander, Tiryaki Hasan Pasha was a clever man.
He knew that the Hungarians were not too happy to be allied with the Austrians. So he sent fake letters,
designed them to be captured by the Austrians. The letters contained Hungarian alliance with Ottoman
forces. The Austrian upon reading the fake letters signed by a reliable source (obviously forged) decided
to kill all Hungarian soldiers.

The Hungarians revolted and the Christian army disintegrated from within. Thus, did the Ottomans
won the battle, by issuing forged communication.

During World War II, the British, to protect the secrecy of the Allied plan to invade Sicily in 1943,
launched operation Mincemeat. This was a deception campaign to mislead German Intelligence about
the real target of the start of the Allied Invasion of Europe.

A series of seemingly genuine secret documents, with forged signatures, were attached to a British
corpse dressed in military uniforms. It was left to float somewhere in a beach in Spain, where plenty of
German agents were sure to get hold of it.
 The body with the fake documents was found eventually and its documents seen by German agents.
The documents identified Sardinia and Corsica as the targets of the Allied invasion. The Germans
believed it, and was caught with their pants down when allied forces hit the beaches of the real target,
which was Sicily.

This kind of deception was also used by the British against the Germans in North Africa. They placed
a map of British minefields, then attached them to a corpse. The minefields were non-existent but the
Germans saw the map and considered it true. Thus, they rerouted their tanks to areas with soft sand
where they bogged down.

In 1944, a Japanese sea plane crashed near Cebu. According to Japanese military officials who were
captured, and later released, they were accompanying Gen. Koga, Commander in Chief of the Japanese
Combined Fleet. Gen. Koga died in the crash. A little later, Filipino fisherman recovered some Japanese
documents. They delivered the documents to US Intelligence. The documents revealed that Leyte was
lightly defended. As a result, the Americans shifted their invasion target to Leyte instead of Cotabato Bay
in Mindanao.

On October 17, 1944 the invasion of Leyte went underway. Leyte was lightly defended as the Koga
papers have indicated. But it was during the invasion of Leyte when the Japanese navy launched their
last offensive strike against the US fleet, with the objective of obliterating it once and for all. They nearly
succeeded. After this near-tragic event, the Koga papers were considered by some military strategists as
spurious and could have been manufactured by the Japanese to mislead the American navy into thinking
that Leyte was a defenceless island. That Leyte was a trap. And the Americans nearly fell into it.

In recent memory, there was an incident in which the forging of documents served to negate the
existence of an independent Philippines.

In 1901, the Americans managed to capture a Filipino messenger, Cecilio Segismundo who carried
with him documents from Aguinaldo. The American then faked some documents complete with forged
signature, telling Aguinaldo that some Filipino officers were sending him guerrillas with American
prisoners. With the help of a Spanish traitor, Lazaro Segovia, the Americans assembled a company of
pro-American Filipino soldiers, the Macabebe scouts. These were the soldiers who penetrated the camp
of Aguinaldo, disguised as soldiers of the Philippine Republic. They managed to capture Aguinaldo. With
the president captured, his generals began to surrender, and the Republic began to fall.

The document of the retraction of Jose Rizal, too, is being hotly debated as to its authenticity.
 It was supposed to have been signed by Jose Rizal moments before his death. There were many
witnesses, most of them Jesuits. The document only surfaced for public viewing on May 13, 1935. It was
found by Fr. Manuel A. Gracia at the Catholic hierarchy’s archive in Manila. But the original document
was never shown to the public, only reproductions of it.

However, Fr. Pio Pi, a Spanish Jesuit, reported that as early as 1907, the retraction of Rizal was
copied verbatim and published in Spain, and reprinted in Manila. Fr. Gracia, who found the original
document, also copied it verbatim.

In both reproductions, there were conflicting versions of the text. Add to this the date of the signing
was very clear in the original Spanish document which Rizal supposedly signed. The date was “December
29, 1890.”

Later, another supposedly original document surfaced, it bears the date “December 29, 189C”. The
number “0” was evidently altered to make it look like a letter C. Then still later, another supposedly
original version came up. It has the date “December 29, 1896”. This time, the “0” became a “6”.

So which is which?

Those who strongly believed the faking of the Rizal retraction document, reported that the forger of
Rizal’s signature was Roman Roque, the man who also forged the signature of Urbano Lacuna, which
was used to capture Aguinaldo. The mastermind, they say, in both Lacuna’s and Rizal’s signature forging
was Lazaro Segovia. They were approached by Spanish friars during the final day of the Filipino-
American war to forge Rizal’s signature.

This story was revealed by Antonio K. Abad, who heard the tale from Roman Roque himself, them
being neighbours.

To this day, the retraction issue is still raging like a wild fire in the forest of the night.

Others would like to believe that the purported retraction of Rizal was invented by the friars to
deflect the heroism of Rizal which was centered on the friar abuses.
 Incidentally, Fr. Pio Pi, who copied verbatim Rizal’s retraction, also figured prominently during the
revolution. It was him, Andres Bonifacio reported, who had intimated to Aguinaldo the cessation of
agitation in exchange of pardon.

There are also not a few people who believe that the autobiography of Josephine Bracken, written on
February 22, 1897 is also forged and forged badly. The document supposedly written by Josephine
herself supported the fact that they were married under the Catholic rites. But upon closer look, there is
a glaring difference between the penmanship of the document, and other letters written by Josephine to
Rizal.

Surely, we must put the question of retraction to rest, though Rizal is a hero, whether he retracted or
not, we must investigate if he really did a turn-around. If he did not, and the documents were forgeries,
then somebody has to pay for trying to deceive a nation.

Retrieved from: https://nhcp.gov.ph/the-rizal-retraction-and-other-cases/