REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN PHILIPPINES

Laoang Campus
Laoang, Northern Samar
Email: ueplaoang2000@gmail.com

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

7 EL FILIBUSTERISMO

OVERVIEW
The second and last novel completed by José Rizal (though he left behind the unfinished
manuscript of a third one), El Filibusterismo is a sequel to Noli Me Tangere. A dark, brooding, at
times satirical novel of revenge, unfulfilled love, and tragedy, the Fili (as it is popularly referred to) still
has as its protagonist Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra. Thirteen years older, his idealism and youthful dreams
shattered, and taking advantage of the belief that he died at the end of Noli Me Tangere, he is
disguised as Simoun, an enormously wealthy and mysterious jeweler who has gained the confidence
of the colony‘s governor-general.

A number of other characters from the Noli reappear, among them: Basilio, whose mother
and younger brother Crispin met tragic ends; Father Salví, the devious former curate of San Diego
responsible for Crispin‘s death, and who had lusted after Ibarra‘s love, María Clara; the idealistic
schoolmaster from San Diego; Captain Tiago, the wealthy widower and legal father of María Clara;
and Doña Victorina de Espadaña and her Spanish husband, the faux doctor Tiburcio, now hiding
from her with the indio priest Father Florentino at his remote parish on the Pacific coast.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Specifically, after learning the module, you are expected to:


 Value the role of youth in the development of future society.

Major characters
 Simoun

– Crisóstomo Ibarra in disguise, presumed dead at the end of Noli Me Tángere. Ibarra has
returned as the wealthy jeweler Simoun. His appearance is described as being tanned,
having a sparse beard, long white hair, and large blue-tinted glasses. He was sometimes
crude and confrontational. He was derisively described by Custodio and Ben-Zayb as an
American mulatto or a British Indian. While presenting as the arrogant elitist on the
outside, he secretly plans a violent revolution in order to avenge himself for his
misfortunes as Crisóstomo Ibarra, as well as hasten Elias' reformist goals.

 Basilio

– son of Sisa and another character from Noli Me Tángere. In the events of El fili, he is an
aspiring and so far successful physician on his last year at university and was waiting for his
license to be released upon his graduation. After his mother's death in the Noli, he applied
as a servant in Kapitán Tiago's household in exchange for food, lodging, and being allowed
to study. Eventually he took up medicine, and with Tiago having retired from society, he also
became the manager of Tiago's vast estate. He is a quiet, contemplative man who is more
aware of his immediate duties as a servant, doctor, and member of the student association
than he is of politics or patriotic endeavors. His sweetheart is Juli, the daughter of Kabesang
Tales whose family took him in when he was a young boy fleeing the Guardia Civil and his
deranged mother.

 Isagani

– Basilio's friend. He is described as a poet, taller and more robust than Basilio although younger.
He is the nephew of Padre Florentino, but is also rumored to be Florentino's son with his old
sweetheart before he was ordained as a priest. During the events of the novel, Isagani is
finishing his studies at the Ateneo Municipal and is planning to take medicine. A member of the
student association, Isagani is proud and naive, and tends to put himself on the spot when his
ideals are affronted. His unrestrained idealism and poeticism clash with the more practical and
mundane concerns of his girlfriend, Paulita Gomez. When Isagani allows himself to be arrested
after their association is outlawed, Paulita leaves him for Juanito Peláez. In his final mention in
the novel, he was bidding goodbye to his landlords, the Orenda family, to stay with Florentino
permanently.

 Father Florentino

– Isagani's uncle and a retired priest. Florentino was the son of a wealthy and influential
Manila family. He entered the priesthood at the insistence of his mother. As a result he had
to break an affair with a woman he loved, and in despair devoted himself instead to his
parish. When the 1872 Cavite mutiny broke out, he promptly resigned from the priesthood,
fearful of drawing unwanted attention. He was an indio (native) and a secular (a priest that
was unaffiliated with the Catholic religious orders), yet his parish drew in huge income. He
retired to his family's large estate along the shores of the Pacific. He is described as white-
haired, with a quiet, serene personality and a strong build. He did not smoke or drink. He was
well respected by his peers, even by Spanish friars and officials.

 Father Fernández

– a Dominican who was a friend of Isagani. Following the incident with the posters, he invited
Isagani to a dialogue, not so much as a teacher with his student but as a friar with a Filipino.
Although they failed to resolve their differences, they each promised to approach their
 colleagues with the opposing views from the other party – although both feared that given the
animosity that existed between their sides, their own compatriots may not believe in the other
party's existence.

 Kapitán Tiago

– Don Santiago de los Santos. María Clara's father. Having several landholdings in
Pampanga, Binondo, and Laguna, as well as taking ownership of the Ibarras' vast estate,
Tiago still fell into depression following María's entry into the convent. He alleviated this by
smoking opium, which quickly became an uncontrolled vice, exacerbated by his association
with Padre Írene who regularly supplied him with the substance. Tiago hired Basilio as a
capista, a servant who given the opportunity to study as part of his wages; Basilio eventually
pursued medicine and became his caregiver and the manager of his estate. Tiago died of
shock upon hearing of Basilio's arrest and Padre Írene's embellished stories of violent revolt.

Captain-General

– the highest-ranking official in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period. The Captain-
General in the novel is Simoun's friend and confidant, and is described as having an insatiable
lust for gold. Simoun met him when he was still a major during the Ten Years' War in Cuba. He
secured the major's friendship and promotion to Captain-General through bribes. When he was
posted in the Philippines, Simoun used him as a pawn in his own power plays to drive the
country into revolution. The Captain-General was shamed into not extending his tenure after
being rebuked by a high official in the aftermath of Basilio's imprisonment. This decision to
retire would later on prove to be a crucial element to Simoun's schemes.
 Father Bernardo Salví

– the former parish priest of San Diego in Noli Me Tángere, and now the director and
chaplain of the Santa Clara convent. The epilogue of the Noli implies that Salví regularly
rapes María Clara when he is present at the convent. In El fili, he is described as her
confessor. In spite of reports of Ibarra's death, Salví believes that he is still alive and lives in
constant fear of his revenge.

 Father Millon

– a Dominican who serves as a physics professor in the University of Santo Tomas.

 Quiroga

– a Chinese businessman who aspired to be a consul for China in the Philippines. Simoun
coerced Quiroga into hiding weapons inside the latter's warehouses in preparation for the
revolution.

 Don Custodio

– Custodio de Salazar y Sánchez de Monteredondo, a famous "contractor" who was tasked
by the Captain-General to develop the students association's proposal for an academy for the
teaching of Spanish, but was then also under pressure from the priests not to compromise
their prerogatives as monopolizers of instruction. Some of the novel's most scathing criticism
is reserved for Custodio, who is portrayed as an opportunist who married his way into high
 society, who regularly criticized favored ideas that did not come from him, but was ultimately,
laughably incompetent in spite of his scruples.

 Ben-Zayb

– A columnist for the Manila Spanish newspaper El Grito de la Integridad. Ben-Zayb is his pen
name and is an anagram of Ybáñez, an alternate spelling of his last name Ibáñez. His first
name is not mentioned. Ben-Zayb is said to have the looks of a friar, and believes that in
 Manila they think because he thinks. He is deeply patriotic, sometimes to the point
of jingoism. As a journalist, he had no qualms embellishing a story, conflating and butchering
details, turning phrases over and over, making a mundane story sound better than it actually
was. Father Camorra derisively calls him an ink-slinger.

 Father Camorra

– the parish priest of Tiani. Ben-Zayb's regular foil, he is said to look like an artilleryman in
counterpoint to Ben-Zayb's friar looks. He stops at nothing to mock and humiliate Ben-Zayb's
liberal pretensions. In his own parish, Camorra has a reputation for unrestrained lustfulness.
He drives Juli into suicide after attempting to rape her inside the convent. For his misbehavior
he was "detained" in a luxurious riverside villa just outside Manila.

 Father Irene

– Kapitán Tiago's spiritual adviser. Along with Don Custodio, Írene is severely criticized as a
representative of priests who allied themselves with temporal authority for the sake of power
and monetary gain. Known to many as the final authority who Custodio consults, the student
association sought his support and gifted him with two chestnut-colored horses, yet he
betrayed the students by counseling Custodio into making them fee collectors in their own
school, which was then to be administered by the Dominicans instead of being a secular and
privately managed institution as the students envisioned. Írene secretly but regularly supplies

, ensuring he inherited nothing.

 Placido Penitente

– A student of the University of Santo Tomas who had a distaste for study and would have left
school if it were not for his mother's pleas for him to stay. He clashes with his physics
professor, who then accuses him of being a member of the student association, whom the
friars despise. Following the confrontation, he meets Simoun at the Quiapo Fair. Seeing
potential in Placido, Simoun takes him along to survey his preparations for the upcoming
revolution. The following morning Placido has become one of Simoun's committed followers.
He is later seen with the former schoolmaster of San Diego, who was now Simoun's bomb-
maker.

 Paulita Gómez

– The girlfriend of Isagani and the niece of Doña Victorina, the old Indio who passes herself
off as a Peninsular, who is the wife of the quack doctor Tiburcio de Espadaña. In the end, she
and Isagani part ways, Paulita believing she will have no future if she marries him. She
eventually marries Juanito Peláez.
Characters from Barrio Sagpang:
 Kabesang Tales

– Telesforo Juan de Dios, a former Cabeza de Barangay of Barrio Sagpang in Tiani. He was a
sugarcane planter who cleared lands he thought belonged to no one, losing his wife and eldest
daughter in the endeavor. When the Dominicans took over his farm, he fought to his last money
to have it retained in his possession. While his suit against the Dominicans was ongoing, he
was kidnapped by bandits while he was out patrolling his fields. Having no money to pay his
captors, his daughter Juli was forced to become a maid in exchange for her mistress paying his
ransom. When his son Tano was conscripted into the Guardia Civil, again Tales had no money
to pay for Tano's exclusion from the draft. When in spite of all Tales lost the case, he not only
lost his farm but was also dealt with a heavy fine. He later joined the bandits and became one
of their fiercest commanders. Tandang Selo, his father, would later on join his band after the
death of Juli.

 Tandang Selo

– father of Kabesang Tales and grandfather of Tano and Juli. A deer hunter and later a
broom-maker, he and Tales took in the young, sick Basilio who was then fleeing from the
Guardia Civil. On Christmas Day, when Juli left to be with her mistress, Selo suffered some
form of stroke that impaired his ability to speak. After Juli's suicide, Selo left town
permanently, taking with him his hunting spear. He was later seen with the bandits and was
killed in an encounter with the Guardia Civil – ironically by the gun of the troops' sharpshooter
Tano, his grandson.

 Juli – Juliana de Dios, the girlfriend of Basilio and the youngest daughter of Kabesang Tales.
When Tales was captured by bandits, Juli petitioned Hermana Penchang to pay for his ransom.
In exchange, she had to work as Penchang's maid. Basilio ransomed her and bought a house
for her family. When Basilio was sent to prison, Juli approached Tiani's curate, Padre Camorra,
for help. When Camorra tried to rape her, Juli jumped to her death from the church's tower.
 
 Tano
– Kabesang Tales's son, second to Lucia who died in childhood. He was nicknamed
"Carolino" after returning from Guardia Civil training in the Carolines. His squad was
escorting prisoners through a road that skirted a mountain when they were ambushed by
bandits. In the ensuing battle, Tano, the squad's sharpshooter, killed a surrendering bandit
from a distance, not knowing it was his own grandfather Selo.

 Hermana Penchang

– the one among the "rich folks" of Tiani who lent Juli money to ransom Kabesang Tales from
the bandits. In return, Juli will serve as her maid until the money was paid off. Penchang is
described as a pious woman who speaks Spanish; however, her piety was clouded over by the
virtues taught by the friars. While Juli was in her service, she made her work constantly,
refusing to give her time off so she can take care of her grandfather Selo. Nevertheless, when
the rich folks of Tiani shunned Juli because to support her family in any way might earn some
form of retribution from the friars, Penchang was the only one who took pity upon her.

 Hermana Báli

– Juli's mother-figure and counselor. She accompanied Juli in her efforts to secure Kabesang
 Tales' ransom and later on Basilio's release. Báli was a panguinguera – a gambler
 – who once performed religious services in a Manila convent. When Tales was captured by
bandits, it was Báli who suggested to Juli the idea to borrow money from Tiani's wealthy
citizens, payable when Tales' legal dispute over his farm was won.
Student association for the teaching of Spanish:

 Macaraig

– the leader. He is described as wealthy, with his own coach, driver, and set of horses. He is
said to own several houses, and that he is lending one to serve as the schoolhouse for their
planned Spanish language academy. After the outlawing of the group, he was the first to post
bail. He then left the country after his release.

 Sandoval

– a Peninsular who had come to Manila as a government employee and was finishing his
studies, and who had completely identified himself with the cause of the Filipino students.
After the outlawing of the group, he still managed to pass his courses through sheer
oratorical skill.

 Pecson

– described as chubby, pessimistic, and having an annoying grin. He is Sandoval's regular
foil when Sandoval launches into any kind of patriotic, optimistic speech. After they receive
disappointing news about their Spanish language academy project, it was Pecson who
suggested a torch-lit dinner at the Panciteria Macanista de Buen Gusto, just a block away
from the Binondo Church and Convent, served by naked Chinese waiters. From there
Sandoval and Pecson became more gracious to each other.

 Tadeo

– a truant and charlatan who regularly dreamed of an eternal "holiday" from school, but was
all the same beloved by professors and passed courses. A longtime Manila resident, he is
seen having fun by telling outrageous stories about himself to a newcomer student from his
home province. After the outlawing of the group, he alone seemed to welcome imprisonment
as it meant not going to school. His holiday realized at last, he "celebrated" by setting up a
bonfire using his books upon his release.

 Juanito Peláez

– Isagani's rival for Paulita Gomez's affection. He was the son of a Timoteo Peláez, a
metalworks trader. He was a favorite of his professors. A regular prankster, he was said to
have developed a hump by playing some trick and then hunching behind his classmates. He
paid his dues to the student association, but broke away just as easily when the association
was outlawed. Following Isagani's arrest, Paulita breaks off from Isagani to marry Juanito.
ASSESSMENT TASK 1

Create a thing that would represent the wholeness of the El Filibusterismo. Have a 30
second video explaining why you created that thing. You will create not get something
from the ground and that’s it. You need to create or make.

ASSESSMENT TASK 2

Roam around your brgy. bring a book if you have or an image and ask random people if
they knew what the book is all about and who is the author. This is documented by
showing pictures of the random people.
Required Readings:

 Virlyn Francisco, Paul Micah Francisco, Rex Oliver T. Papel, MAT., Rizal: A Modular Approach
Bsed On The New Ched Curriculum ., Rm. 108, ICP Bldg., Recoletos St., Intramuros, Manila:
Mindshapers Co., Inc. 2018

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_filibusterismo

References:

 Virlyn Francisco, Paul Micah Francisco, Rex Oliver T. Papel, MAT., Rizal A Modular
Approach Bsed On The New Ched Curriculum., Rm. 108, ICP Bldg., Recoletos St.,
 Intramuros, Manila: Mindshapers Co., Inc. 2018
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/302595/el-filibusterismo-by-jose-
rizal/9780143106395/readers-guide/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_filibusterismo