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Submitted by: Ashley Qufemio
Submitted to: Ms. PLyn Noble
 José Protacio Rizal
Mercado y Alonso
Realonda
(born 19 June 1861, Calamba, Philippines- died 30
December 1896, Manila, Philippines), patriot,
physician and man of letters whose life and literary
works were an inspiration to the Philippine
nationalist movement.

José Rizal (1861-1896)

was a national hero of
the Philippines and the
first Asian nationalist.
He expressed the
growing national
consciousness of many
Filipinos who opposed
Spanish colonial
tyranny and aspired to
attain democratic
rights. José Rizal was
born in Calamba,
Laguna, on June 19,
1861, to a well-to-do family. He studied at the Jesuit Ateneo Municipal in
Manila and won many literary honors and prizes. He obtained a bachelor of
arts degree with highest honors in 1877. For a time he studied at the
University of Santo Tomas, and in 1882 he left for Spain to enter the Central
University of Madrid, where he completed his medical and humanistic studies.

Helearned
He learned the alphabet
the alphabet from
from his hisatmother
mother at 3,read
3, and could andand
could
writeread
at ageand write
5. Upon at ageat5.
enrolling the
Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he dropped the
Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he dropped the last three names that made up his full last three names
name, on the advice of his brother, Paciano and the Mercado family, thus rendering his
name as "José Protasio Rizal"
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"

Gadfly and Propagandist

In Spain, Rizal composed his sociohistorical novel Noli me tangere (1887), which reflected

the sufferings of his countrymen under Spanish feudal despotism and their rebellion. His
mother had been a victim of gross injustice at the hands of a vindictive Spanish official of
the guardia civil. Because Rizal satirized the ruling friar caste and severely criticized the
iniquitous social structure in the Philippines, his book was banned and its readers
punished. He replied to his censors with searing lampoons and diatribes, such as La vision
de Fray Rodriguez and Por telefono. Writing for the Filipino propaganda newspaper La
Solidaridad, edited by Filipino intellectuals in Spain, Rizal fashioned perceptive historical
critiques like La indolencia de los Filipinos (The Indolence of the Filipinos) and Filipinas
dentro de cien años (The Philippines a Century Hence) and wrote numerous polemical
pieces in response to current events.
Of decisive importance to the development of Rizal's political thought was the age-old
agrarian trouble in his hometown in 1887-1892. The people of Calamba, including Rizal's
family, who were tenants of an estate owned by the Dominican friars, submitted a
"memorial" to the government on Jan. 8, 1888, listing their complaints and grievances
about their exploitation by the religious corporation. After a long court litigation, the
tenants lost their case, and Governor Valeriano Weyler, the "butcher of Cuba," ordered
troops to expel the tenants from their ancestral farms at gunpoint and burn the houses.
Among the victims were Rizal's father and three sisters, who were later deported.
Rizal arrived home on Aug. 5, 1887, but after 6 months he left for Europe in the belief that
his presence in the Philippines was endangering his relatives. The crisis in Calamba
together with the 1888 petition of many Filipinos against rampant abuses by the friars
registered a collective impact in Rizal's sequel to his first book, El filibusterismo (1891).
Rizal's primary intention in both books is expressed in a letter to a friend (although this
specifically refers to the first book): "I have endeavored to answer the calumnies which for
centuries had been heaped on us and our country; I have described the social condition, the
life, our beliefs, our hopes, our desires, our grievances, our griefs; I have unmasked
hypocrisy which, under the guise of religion, came to impoverish and to brutalize us… ."
In El filibusterismo, Rizal predicted the outbreak of a mass peasant revolution by showing
how the bourgeois individualist hero of both novels, who is the product of the decadent
feudal system, works only for his personal and diabolic interests. Rizal perceived the
internal contradictions of the system as the source of social development concretely
manifested in the class struggle.
 Prison and Exile

Anguished at the plight of his family,

Rizal rushed to Hong Kong for the
purpose of ultimately going back to
Manila. Here he conceived the idea of
establishing a Filipino colony in
Borneo and drafted the constitution of
the Liga Filipina (Philippine League), a
reformist civic association designed to
promote national unity and liberalism. The Liga, founded on July 3, 1892, did
not survive, though it inspired Andres Bonifacio, a Manila worker, to
organize the first Filipino revolutionary party, the Katipunan, which
spearheaded the 1896 revolution against Spain. Rizal was arrested and
deported to Dapitan, Mindanao, on July 7, 1892.
For 4 years Rizal remained in exile in Dapitan, where he practiced
ophthalmology, built a school and waterworks, planned town improvements,
wrote, and carried out scientific experiments. Then he successfully petitioned
the Spanish government to join the Spanish army in Cuba as a surgeon; but
on his way to Spain to enlist, the Philippine revolution broke out, and Rizal
was returned from Spain, imprisoned, and tried for false charges of treason
and complicity with the revolution. His enemies in the government and
Church were operating behind the scenes, and he was convicted. The day
before he was executed he wrote to a friend: "I am innocent of the crime of
rebellion. So I am going to die with a tranquil conscience."
The day of Rizal's execution, Dec. 30, 1896, signifies for many Filipinos the
turning point in the long history of Spanish domination and the rise of a
revolutionary people desiring freedom, independence, and justice. Rizal still
continues to inspire the people, especially the peasants, workers, and
intellectuals, by his exemplary selflessness and intense patriotic devotion. His
radical humanist outlook forms part of the ideology of national democracy
which Filipino nationalists today consider the objective of their revolutionary
struggle.