MODULE LIFE AND WORKS OF RIZAL

CHAPTER 7: RELATED EVENTS BEFORE AND AFTER RIZAL’S DEATH

Objectives:

a.) Analyze the factors that led to Rizal’s execution.

b.) Assess the search for Rizal’s body, after his death.
c.) Analyze the effects of Rizal’s Execution.

FACTORS THAT LED TO RIZAL’S EXECUTION

1. illegal association - for founding La Liga Filipina

2. rebellion - for publication of Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo
3. sedition - for criticizing the Catholic religion aiming for exclusion from the Filipino
culture and dedicating El Filibusterismo to the three (3) “traitors” (GomBurZa)
and for emphasizing on the novel’s title that the only salvation for the Philippines
was the separation from the mother colony (referring to Spain)

The penalty of those accusation is life imprisonment to death and correctional

imprisonment and a charge of 325 to 3,250 Pesetas.

EVIDENCES

The prosecution drew information from the dossier on Rizal which detailed his “subversive
activities” some of which are the following:

1. The writing and publication of “Noli Me Tangere”, the Annotations to Morga’s

History of the Philippines, El Filibusterismo, and the various articles which
criticized the friars and suggested their expulsion in order to win independence.
The El Filibusterismo was dedicated to the three martyr priests who were the
moving spirits of the uprising that year.

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1. The establishment of masonic lodges which became the propaganda and fund
raising center to support subversive activities and the establishment of centers
in Madrid, Hongkong and Manila to propagate his ideas.

After finishing as much evidence as possible on November 20, 1896, the preliminary on
Rizal began. During the five-day investigation, Rizal was informed of the charges against
him before Judge advocate Colonel Francisco Olive.

Two Kinds of Evidences Endorsed by Colonel Olive to Governor

Ramon Blanco:

1. Documentary
o fifteen exhibits
2. Testimonal
o Provided by Martin Constantino, Angelo Del Rosario, Jose Reyes, Moises
Salvador, Jose Dizon, Domingo Franco, Deodato Arellano, Pio
Valenzuela, Antonio Salazar, Francisco Quison and Timoteo Paez.

The judge Rafael Domingues advocate assigned with the task of deciding what
corresponding action should be done.

Review transmitted the record to Don Nicolas de la Pena.

Pena’s recommendation as follows:

• Rizal must immediately sent to trial

• He must be held in prison under necessary security
• His properties must be issued in order of attachment and as indemnity, Rizal had
to pay one million pesos
• Insteadof a civilian lawyer, only an army officer is allowed to defend Rizal

The lawyer of Rizal is Lt. Luis Taviel de Andrade Brother of Lt. Jose Taviel de Andrade
who worked as Rizal’s personal bodyguard in Calamba in 1887. In this presence of his
Spanish Counsel on December 11, 1896, charges against Rizal were read in presence
of his Spanish counsel.

When they asked regarding his sentiments or reactions on the charges, Rizal replied that
in his defense.

• He does not question the jurisdiction of the court

• He has nothing to amend except that during his exile in Dapitan in 1892, he had
not dealt in any political matters.
• He has nothing to admit on the charges against him.
• He had nothing to admit on the declarations of the witnesses, he had not met nor
knew, against them.

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RIZAL’S LAST LETTER TO HIS BROTHER PACIANO

To Pacion, he said:

“It has been four years and a half

years that we have not see each other, addressed each other in writing orally. I don’t think
it is due to the lack of affection on part of yours, but, knowing each other so well, we have
no need of words to understand each other.

... I think of how hard you worked to enable me to have a career. I believe I have not tried
to waste my time. Brother, if the fruit has been bitter, it’s not my fault, it is the fault of
circumstances. I know that you have suffered much because of me, I am so sorry.

I assure you that I am innocent of this crime of rebellion. If my former writings had
contributed to this, I should not deny it but then I believe I have cleansed myself of this
with my exile.

Tell our father I remember him, but how? I remember my whole childhood, his tenderness,
his love. Ask him to forgive me for the pain I caused him unwillingly.”

RIZAL’S LETTER TO HIS FAMILY: A BURIAL WISH

He said: “Dear parents, brothers,

sisters. Give thanks to God who has kept me tranquil, before my death... Bury me in the
earth, put a stone on the top, and a cross. My name, the date of my birth, and that day of
my death. Nothing more. If later you wish to surround my grave with fence, you can do it.
No anniversary celebrations! I prefer Paang Bundok.”

“Paang Bundok” was a cemetery North of Manila, now known as the North Cemetery. But
the Rizal family never received the letter.

RIZAL’S LETTER TO BLUMENRITT

Rizal and Blumenritt met only once,

but they had been sending each other tons of letters for many years since 1886 (the last
of this snail-mail correspondence was written from Rizal’s Fort Santiago cell on the eve
of his execution); in an age when there was still no Internet and electricity, we can say
that the two, formed part of an earlier generation of social media users. Even though they
were miles apart, they had formed kindred bond, like that of brothers. So, when Blumenritt
finished reading Rizal’s first novel, alarm struck his heart for he realized the potential
danger caused by his dear Filipino friend’s pen. He advised Rizal to just stay in Madrid
for good and from there continue his Propaganda activities.

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Rizal responded to Blumenritt. In a letter dated 19 June 1887, the patriot wrote:

ORIGINAL TEXT OF RIZAL’S LETTER (IN SPANISH)

Su consejo de quedarme en Madrid y escribir allá es muy benévolo; pero no puedo ni

debo aceptarlo. No puedo suportar la’ vida en Madrid; allá todos somos “vox clamantis
en deserto”; mis parientes quieren verme y yo quiero verlos también; en ninguna parte la
vida me es tan agradable como en mi patria, al lado de mi familia. Todavia no estoy
europeizado como dicen los filipinos de Madrid; siempre quiero volver al pais de mis
aborígenes. “La cabra siempre tira al monte”, me dijeron.

English Translation:

“Your advice for me to stay in Madrid and write from there is very kind of you, but I cannot
even accept it. Life is difficult in Madrid. All of us there are but “vox clamantis en deserto”.
My relatives preferred seeing me and I feel the same way. In no place is life as nice as
the one in my country, with my family right by my side. I’m still not Europeanized, as
Filipinos say in Madrid.

I always want to return to my native country. As they say, “the goat always goes to the
mountain”.

TEODORA ALONSO’S PLEADING TO THE GOVERNOR

Meanwhile at the house of Governor General Polavieja, Doña Teodora Alonso with teary
eyes and fear she approaches the guard and speaks... Teodora Alonso: Excuse me
Señor, may I talk to Gov. Polavieja, I want to ask for help from him for my son Dr. Jose
Rizal. Guard: The governor has no time for that, leave! Teodora Alonso: Please, have
mercy, he’s the only chance we got to save my son’s life. Guard: Señora, por pabor! After
hearing the word pabor, the Governor General comes down and walks his way towards
the door where Doña Alonso was trying to plead for help from him. As he approaches the
halfway to the door, the guards let her enter the place and quickly she approached the
governor begging... but no help was given.

Moreover, on December 28, 1896, Doña Teodora Alonso, the hero’s mother, went to
Malacañang to plead with Governor General Camilo de Polavieja. She was refused
admission.

There was no one else to turn to and there were no burial instructions to read. So, the
family made other preparations.

Doña Teodora sought from one official to another permission to take care of her son’s
body after the execution. All refused except the mayor of Manila, Manuel Luengco.
Hesitantly, he agreed but only on his own account.

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SEARCH FOR RIZAL’S BODY

A coffin and a hearse were ordered. On the day of the execution, the family stayed
home, waiting in silence and prayer, until it was over.

To their disappointment and sorrow, they discovered that the body had been taken
away from Luneta shortly after the execution, with no one willing or able to say where it
had been taken.

A long search in suburban graveyards, including Paang Bundok, yielded no burials

that day. Narcisa, Rizal’s sister, finally came, late that afternoon, to the old and unused
Paco Cemetery. And there, from a distance and unnoticed, she saw Mayor Luengco and
several army officers inspecting a grave.

Narcisa was certain it contained her brother’s body. When the authorities left, she
approached and found the freshly dug grave. It was unmarked. Requesting permission
from the cemetery guard, she asked that a small, simple marble slab he placed on the
grave.

For close to two years, the grave remained in relative anonymity. But on August 13, 1898,
Spain lost the mock battle for Manila and Commodore George Dewey of the United States
took command of the city.

Narcisa lost no time. Four days later, she had the grave in Paco Cemetery dug. She found
that her brother had been buried uncoffined, his clothes still recognizable. But his shoes
had already disintegrated and whatever letter he said was inside was lost forever.

Cleaned and placed on an ivory urn, Rizal’s remains stayed with the family in Narcisa’s
house in Binondo. Only 14 years later, in 1912, were where they interred in the base of
the “Motto Stella”. By then, the parents of Rizal were dead.

LA LIGA FILIPINA

La Liga Filipina (lit. The Philippine League) was a progressive organization created by Dr.
Jose Rizal in the Philippines in the house of Doroteo Ongjunco at Ilaya Street, Tondo
Manila in 1892.

The organization derived from La Solidaridad and the Propaganda movement. The
purpose of La Liga Filipina is to build a new group sought to involve the people directly in
the reform movement.

The league was to be a sort of mutual aid and self-help society dispensing scholarship
funds and legal aid, loaning capital and setting up cooperatives, the league became a
threat to Spanish authorities that they arrested Rizal on July 6, 1892 on Dapitan.

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During the exile of Rizal, the organization became inactive, through the efforts of Domingo
Franco and Andres Bonifacio, it was reorganized. The organization decided to declare its
support for La Solidaridad and the reforms it advocated raise funds for the paper, and
defray the expenses of deputies advocating reform for the country before the Spanish
Cortes. Eventually, after some disarray in the leadership of the group, the Supreme
Council of the League dissolved the society.

The Liga membership split into two groups when it is about to be revealed the
conservatives formed the Cuerpo de Compromisarios which pledged to continue
supporting the La Solidaridad while the radicals led by Bonifacio devoted themselves to
a new and secret society, the Katipunan.

AIMS

• To unite the whole archipelago into one vigorous and homogeneous organization;
• Mutual protection in every want and necessity;
• Defense against all violence and injustice
• Encouragement of instructions, agriculture, and commerce; and
• Study the application of reforms

DIRECTORS

• Domingo Franco, President and Supreme Leader

• Deodato Arellano, Secretary-Treasurer
• Isidro Francisco, Fiscal
• Apolinario Mabini, Secretary
• Marcelo H. del Pilar, editor-in-chief
• Graciano Lopez Jaena, former editor-in-chief

OTHER MEMBERS

• Andres Bonifacio, Supreme Leader of Katipunan and led the Cry of Pugad Lawin.
• Mamerto Natividad, One of the Leaders of the Revolution in Nueva Ecija.
• Moises Salvador, Master of lodge of the Mason in Balagtas.
• José A. Dizon, Master of lodge of the mason in Taliba.
• Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista, War adviser during First Philippine Republic, Author of
Philippine Declaration of Independence.
• Timoteo Lanuza, Stated the depose to dispel the Spanish trail in the Philippines in
1889.
• Marcelino de Santos, Bidder and assistant of La Solidaridad.
• Paulino Zamora, Member of lodge of the mason in Lusong.
• Procopio Bonifacio
• Juan Zulueta, Member of lodge of the mason in Lusong, Member of Supreme Council.
• Doroteo Ongjunco, Member of lodge of the mason in Lusong.
• Arcadio del Rosario, Publicist of lodge of the mason in Balagtas.
• Timoteo Paez, Member of Supreme Council

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EFFECTS OF RIZAL’S EXECUTION IN SPANISH COLONIAL RULE

The effect is: Rebellion after Rizal’s Execution. The Philippine Independence struggle
turned more violent after Rizal’s death. It was led first by Andres Bonifacio and later by
Emilio Aguinaldo. Emilio Aguinaldo was a peasant worker and an idealist young fireband.
Rizal’s death filled the rebels with new determination, but the Katipunan was becoming
divided between supporters of Bonifacio, who reveled himself to be an increasingly
ineffective leader, and its rising star, Aguinaldo. At a convention held at Tejeros, the
Katipunan headquarters in March 1897, delegates elected Aguinaldo president and
denoted Bonifacio to the post of the director of the interior. Bonifacio withdrew with his
supporters and formed his own government. After foghting, broke out between Bonifacio’s
and Aguinaldo’s troops, Bonifacio was arrested, tried, and on May 10, 1897, executed by
order of Aguinaldo.

Aguinaldo. He extracted some concessions from the Spaniards in 1897 and declared
Philippines independence on June 12, 1898 from the balcony of his home in Cavite and
established himself as president of an ill-fated provisional Philippine Republic after the
Filipinos drove the Spanish from most of the archipelago. Through their revolutionary
proclamations, Filipinos claimed that the Philippines was the first democratic republic in
Asia. In one battle unarmed rebels on the island of Negros tricked the Spanish into
retreating by launching an attack with “cannons” made rolled-up palm-leaf mats painted
black and “bayonet rifles” constructed from bamboo.

As 1897 war on, Aguinaldo himself suffered reveries at the hands of Spanish troops,
being forced from Cavite in June and retreating to Biak-na-Bato in Bulacan Province. The
futility of the struggle was becoming apparent on both sides. Although Spanish troops
were able to defeat insurgents on the battlefield, they could not suppress guerrilla activity.
In August armistice negotiations were opened between Aguinaldo and new Spanish
governor.

After three years of bloodshed, most of it Filipinos, a Spanish-Filipino peace pact was
signed in Hong Kong in December 1897. According to the agreement the Spanish
governor of the Philippines would pay Aguinaldo the equivalent of US$800,000, and the
rebel leader and his government would go into exile. Aguinaldo established himself in
Hong Kong, and the Spanish bought themselves time. Within the year, however , their
more than three centuries of the rule in the islands would come to an abrupt and
unexpected end.

According to Lonely Planet: “Predictably, the pact’s demands satisfied nobody. Promises
of reform by the Spanish were broken, as were promises by the Filipinos to stop their
revolutionary plotting. The Filipino cause attracted huge support from the Japanese, who
tried unsuccessfully to send money and two boatloads of weapons to the exiled
revolutionaries in Hong Kong.

When the Spanish-American War broke out in April 1898, Spain’s fleet was easily
defeated at Manila. Aguinaldo returned, and his 12,000 troops kept the Spanish forces

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bottled up in Manila until U.S. troops landed. The Spanish cause was doomed, but the
Americans did nothing to accommodate the inclusion of Aguinaldo in the succession.
Fighting between American and Filipino troops broke out almost as soon as the Spanish
had been defeated. Aguinaldo issued a declaration of independence on June 12, 1898.
However, the Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898, by the United States and
Spain, ceded the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico to the United States, recognized
Cuban independence, and gave US$20 million to Spain. A revolutionary congress
convened at Malolos, north of Manila, promulgated a constitution on January 21, 1899,
and inaugurated Aguinaldo as president of the new republic two days later. Hostilities
broke out in February 1899, and by March 1901 Aguinaldo had been captured and his
forces defeated. Despite Aguinaldo’s call to his compatriots to lay their arms, insurgent
resistance continued until 1903. The Moros, suspicious of both the Christian Filipino
insurgents and the Americans, remained largely neutral, but eventually their owned
armed resistance had to be subjugated, and Moro territory was placed under U.S. military
rule until 1914.

To know more about this Chapter, please click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgypaiP9JiE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIeMUsQYIzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DTbeclBL8M

Dr. Mariano M. Ariola The Life and Works of Rizal. Unlimited Books Library Service & Publishing
Inc.: 2018

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