Wilfredo R.

Goro

BSBio Blk 2- 3rd year

Life and Work of Rizal

Why do we need to know and understand the life and works of Rizal?

Who is Rizal? A lot of people called him Dr. Jose Rizal our greatest heroes but his full
name was Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda and was born in Calamba, Philippines
on June 19, 1861. Not only us Filipinos, many people are familiar with the name Rizal. It has
been used as a brand name, institution, road, structure, park, and similar things. Despite being a
name that sparked nationalism in the hearts of the first Filipinos, it has uncannily faded from
public memory. One may argue that we may have succumbed to the condition known as
semantic satiation, which suggests that the meaning of a phrase may have been lost as a result of
meaningless repetition. Despite the fact that mentioning this phenomenon in this story just serves
as a metaphor for what occurs when we appear to forget the significance of the word "Rizal" in
our past, He published the infamous novel called Noli me tangere (Touch me not) and El-
Felibusterismo (Reign of the dead).

The narrative of the three martyred priests served as Rizal's inspiration for writing El
Filibusterismo, the sequel to his well-known book Noli Me Tangere. This might mark the
beginning of Rizal's uprising against the Spaniards. But the unfair imprisonment of his mother,
Doa Teodora, for two years and a half, which he carried with him even until he was an adult,
greatly infuriated the young Rizal. She was made to admit to a crime of which she is not guilty.
Rizal began to doubt and lose faith in other people, which, in my opinion, had inspired him to
fearlessly pen revolting essays against Spanish colonization and even the Katipuneros uprising
that he considered to be absurd.