Gamboa, Rubie Mae M.

BSFT 1-1D

Lesson 11

THE RIZAL RETRACTION

1. Who are the sources of the conflicting accounts or analyses on the Rizal retraction?

The sources are the statement of Fr. Vicente Balaguer and Fr. Pio Pi, and the analysis of
Rafael Palma and Austin Coates.

2. What are their account and analyses? How are they similar to and/or different from one
another?

The account of Fr. Vicente Balaguer stated how he personally persuade and witnessed the
retraction of Jose Rizal. On the other hand, the account of Fr. Pio Pi was a mere support for the
account of Fr. Balaguer.

The analysis of Rafael Palma mentioned different evidences connected to the burial of Rizal.
With the help of these evidences, Palma concluded that Rizal did not retract and the alleged
retraction was for the political motives of the Archbishop. However, Austin Coates, on his
analysis, believed that the alleged retraction was a plan of a small man with his own idea, and
the Church accepts the fraud and protected him. Coates believes that Balaguer wanted to be
praised publicly so he took the chance that the Archbishop is waiting for a retraction. The
similarity on the analysis of Palma and Coates is that they both pointed out the way the
Spaniards treated the body of Rizal after the execution to prove that Rizal did not retract.

The two account stated that Rizal retract on December 29, a few hours before his death,
while the two analysis stated that Rizal did not retract.

3. Which among the accounts or analyses do you consider the most convincing and reliable?
Why? Research more about these sources to come up with a sound answer.

Some of the statements below are excerpt from the book "Rizal without the Overcoat" by
Ambeth R. Ocampo. I used this sources to assess the validity of the sources mentioned above.

First, the part of the account of Fr. Balaguer where he stated that Rizal seems to change his
mind when he tell him that "if he will not change his mind and his reason for the sake of faith,
he would soon appear for judgement before God and would surely be damned." This contradicts
other analysis which stated that Rizal retracted because he wanted to marry Josephine Bracken.

Second, the marriage of Josephine Bracken to Jose Rizal was questionable.

According to Ambeth R. Ocampo:

When Josephine returned to Dapitan, she discovered that the parish priest refused to marry
them unless Rizal retracted from religious error and returned to the Catholic Church. Since there was
no civil marriage at the time, they decided to have a “live-in relationship” which infuriated the priest
even more. Rizal and Josephine we're not ashamed of their open relationship. But Rizal knew it
bothered his mother, so in successive letters to the family you would always mention "Miss B. who
sent her regards." To make the Rizal’s accept his common-law wife, Rizal would often relate his
comfortable domestic life: this was a happy time and Rizal often wrote about it...

Rizal and Miss B. [Josephine] had lived in for some time without formal marriage and with no
fear or shame, so why would Rizal retract on the day of his execution when it would have made no
difference to his fate? The argument that he was pressured into doing so contradicts the military
doctor’s statement that Rizal's pulse checked before his execution was normal, hardly that of a
frightened man! If he had married and retracted, why didn't he mention it to friends or relatives in
his last letters? Rafael Palma, witness to the execution writes that Rizal turned his back on the
crucifix offered by his Jesuit friends before he was shot-- again not the actions of a man was
returned to the fold of the church…

The Rizal family denied that Josephine ever married Rizal, thus casting doubt on the account of
the Jesuit Vicente Balaguer, who claimed to have officiated at both the wedding and the retraction.
Balaguer says he married Josephine and Rizal before the execution in the early morning of
December 30 1896, in the presence of one of Rizal's sisters. According to Rizal’s own account, none
of them were in Fort Santiago or at the Luneta on that day. Neither was Josephine…

The statement that none of them were in Fort Santiago was supported by a phrase from the last
chapter stating that:

Some people noticed that Rizal’s eyes darted quickly from left to right and it was believed that
his family or the Katipuneros would make a last minute effort to spring him from the trap.

The possibility that the reason why the Rizals’ denied Josephine as the wife of Jose Rizal is
because they did not approved of her was never set aside. However, there is clearly no evidence
that Josephine really did marry Jose.

What adds to the mystery is that in her marriage to Vicente Abad, Josephine didn't use the
surname Rizal, which she would be entitled to use if she were legally married to him. The consular
dispatches, despite their reference to "la viuda de Rizal," use her official name, Josephine Bracken.
Why didn't she use the surname and why didn't she have a marriage certificate to prove it?...

On the other hand, the analysis of Austin Coated pointed out that Balaguer, on his account, did
not mention the "Ultimo Adios" and that Rizal is allowed no time in which to write. But what if Rizal
did not right the "Ultimo Adios" on December 29?

Ocampo also stated in his book that:

Some account say that when Rizal met with his family for the last time in the afternoon of
December 29, he gave each of them a souvenir. When he gave his alcohol burner to sister Trinidad,
he whispered in English, “there is something inside” so the guards would not understand. Years
later, Trinidad contradicted all written accounts, saying that Rizal’s remark was not in English but in
Visayan. The poem was hidden in the lamp which she receive from her brother on December 29. So
how could Rizal write it on the eve of his execution? Was the poem written on December 28?....

When was the “Ultimo Adios” actually written? Definitely not on the eve of his execution. I agree
with Nick Joaquin who says "the poem had been running through his head ring his incarceration,
and maybe even before that; and what he wrote down on the 9th of December 29 (or December 28
if Trinidad got the lamp on December 29) was but the final and complete version of a poem long
process." Joaquin believes that the last stanzas to be composed was the third and the last two
stanzas "which could have been written and every eve of death...."

In my opinion, this is a strong evidence since Trinidad herself did not deny the claim. This leave
me with the idea that maybe Rizal write the poem a long time ago and he was only waiting for the
right time to give it to his family.

Lastly, the statement of Roman Roque, which weaken the account of Balaguer and Pi that Rizal
did retract:

Roman Roque is (in) famous for forging a document that help the enemy capture Emilio
Aguinaldo in Palanan in 1901. In his last years, Ramon also admitted, during a friend's birthday
party, that he forge one of the controversial documents in Philippine history-- the retraction of Jose
Rizal…

This hand written document stating Rizal's retraction from Masonry and religious error has been
in the custody of the archives of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila since it was first made
public in 1935. Ricardo Manapat, director of the National Archives, stated that Rizal wrote a
document repudiating the retraction. He hid this inside his shoes and when the Rizal family
exhumed Rizal's body, the corpse and the shoes had decomposed.

The last two statement seems unreliable but we cannot change the fact that they add up to the
evidences proving that Rizal did not ready retracted.

I therefore conclude that among the four sources, the most convincing and reliable was the
analysis of Rapael Palma. From how he explained the connection of how the Spaniards treated the
body of Rizal to the possible retraction, how he mentioned the rejection to the request of the family
to see the original copy of retraction and marriage certificate with Josephine Bracken, his analysis
about the possible reason why they fraud the retraction, up to his analysis about the personality of
Rizal are unquestionable. The claim that Rizal’s body was not given to his family is supported by
data that the family were only able to get the remains three years from the death of our National
Hero.

There was no concrete evidences that the retraction of Rizal really happened. There is no one
that can provide proper reason of why will Rizal, a man of pride, will break his beliefs on the last
hour of his life. Overall, whether Rizal retracted or not, it will not change the fact that he touches
the lives of every Filipinos by his writings and that Jose Rizal will forever be alive in the heart of
every Filipino.
“In death there is rest” - J. Rizal (1861-1892)