Republic of the Philippines

UNIVERSITY OF EASTERN PHILIPPINES

University Town, Northern Samar

GE 9: THE LIFE AND WORKS OF RIZAL

FIRST SEMESTER, S.Y. 2020-2021

Prepared and Compiled by:

RALFH LAUREN C. REYES
JERICK A. BESALO
PAULA MAE M. CAPARIC
CAC, Part Time Lecturers

NAME OF STUDENT: _______________________________________________________

COURSE & YEAR: _________________________________________________________
PROFESSOR: ____________________________________________________________
 UNIT 2: THE LIFE OF RIZAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

UNIT 2: The Life of Rizal 3

…………………………………..………………………………....

Module 3: Family, Childhood and Early Education ……………………………..………... 4

Overview …………………………………………………………………………………... 4

Learning Outcomes ………………………………………………………………………. 4

The Mercado - Rizal Family……………………………………………………………… 5

Parents ……………………………..……………………………………………….… 5

Siblings ……………………………..……………………………………………….… 6

Childhood………………………………….……………………………………………..… 6

Early Education…………..……………………………………………………………..… 7

Early Education in Calamba and Biñan……………………………..……………… 7

The Hero’s First Teacher……………………………..……………………………… 7

Jose Goes to Biñan……………………………..…………………………………… 5

First Day in Biñan School……………………………..…………….…….………… 8

Best Student in School……………………………..………………………………… 9

Early Schooling in Biñan……………………………..……………………………… 9

Activity 3.1 …………………………………………………………………………………… 1

1
Activity 3.2 …………………………………………………………………………………… 1
1
Feedback ……………………………………………………………………………………… 1
2
Summary ………………………………………………………………………………………. 1
2
References …………………………………………………………………………………..... 1
3
Suggested Readings …………………………………………………………………………. 1
3

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UNIT 2:
THE LIFE OF RIZAL

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Module 3: Family, Childhood and Early Education

OVERVIEW

Welcome to the Life and Works of the Philippines’ national hero, Jose Rizal. Module 3
will talk about the Family, Childhood and Early Education of our national hero. This module
discusses the life of Rizal during his childhood days including also his early Education in
Calamba. This module will also give as insight about some of the famous article, struggles
and experiences of Rizal when he was still a child. The content of this Module will allow the
readers to fully understand the importance of the life of Rizal that shape him to become the
National hero that we have today. Are you ready? Let’s proceed to the expectations you
must overcome after learning this module.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The following are the learning outcomes we are expected to achieve by the students at the
end of this module:
1. Analyze Rizal’s life, family, childhood and early education
2. Evaluate the people and events and their influence in the early life of Rizal

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THE MERCADO - RIZAL FAMILY

The Rizal’s is considered one of the biggest families during their time. Domingo Lam-
co, the family's paternal ascendant was a full-blooded Chinese who came to the Philippines
from Amoy, China in the closing years of the 17th century and married a Chinese half-breed
by the name of Ines de la Rosa. Researchers revealed that the Mercado-Rizal family had
also traces of Japanese, Spanish, Malay and Even Negrito blood aside from Chinese. Jose
Rizal came from a 13-member family consisting of his parents, Francisco Mercado II and
Teodora Alonso Realonda, and nine sisters and one brother.

PARENTS:
 FRANCISCO MERCADO (1818-1898) Father of Jose Rizal who was the youngest of 13
offspring of Juan and Cirila Mercado. Born in Biñan, Laguna on April 18, 1818; studied in
San Jose College, Manila; and died in Manila.
 TEODORA ALONSO (1827-1913) Mother of Jose Rizal who was the second child of
Lorenzo Alonso and Brijida de Quintos. She studied at the Colegio de Santa Rosa. She
was a business-minded woman, courteous, religious, hard-working and well-read. She
was born in Santa Cruz, Manila on November 14, 1827 and died in 1913 in Manila.

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SIBLINGS:
 SATURNINA RIZAL (1850-1913) Eldest child of the Rizal-Alonzo marriage. Married
Manuel Timoteo Hidalgo of Tanauan, Batangas.
 PACIANO RIZAL (1851-1930) Only brother of Jose Rizal and the second child. Studied
at San Jose College in Manila; became a farmer and later a general of the Philippine
Revolution.
 NARCISA RIZAL (1852-1939) The third child. Married Antonio Lopez at Morong, Rizal; a
teacher and musician.
 OLYMPIA RIZAL (1855-1887) The fourth child. Married Silvestre Ubaldo; died in 1887
from childbirth.
 LUCIA RIZAL (1857-1919) The fifth child. Married Matriano Herbosa.
 MARIA RIZAL (1859-1945) The sixth child. Married Daniel Faustino Cruz of Biñan,
Laguna.
 JOSE RIZAL (1861-1896) The second son and the seventh child. He was executed by
the Spaniards on December 30, 1896.
 CONCEPCION RIZAL (1862-1865) The eight child. Died at the age of three.
 JOSEFA RIZAL (1865-1945) The ninth child. An epileptic, died a spinster.
 TRINIDAD RIZAL (1868-1951) The tenth child. Died a spinster and the last of the family
to die.
 SOLEDAD RIZAL (1870-1929) The youngest child married Pantaleon Quintero.

CHILDHOOD
 June 28, 1848. Teodora Morales Alonso-Realonda y Quintos, and dad, Francisco Rizal-
Mercado y Alejandra, married.
 June 19, 1861. Jose Rizal, the seventh child of Francisco
Mercado Rizal and Teodora Alonso y Quintos, was born in
Calamba, Laguna. But before that Dona Teodora experience
difficulty in delivering because of Rizal big head. The family of
Jose considered him as special and called him “muy bonito”.
 June 22, 1861. Christened as José Protacio Rizal-Mercado y
Alonso-Realonda at the Catholic of Calamba by the parish priest
Rev. Rufino Collantes with Rev. Pedro Casañas as the sponsor.
 September 28, 1862. The parochial church of Calamba and the
canonical books, including the book in which Rizal’s baptismal
records were entered, were burned.
 1864. At barely three years old, Rizal learned the alphabet from
his mother. When he was still young his aya (nurse maid) told
him a lot of story about the existence of fairies, asuang, nuno and
tikbalang.
 1865. When he was four years old, his sister Conception, the eight child in the Rizal
family, died at the age of three. It was on this occasion that Rizal remembered having
shed real tears for the first time.
 1865 – 1867. During this time his mother taught him how to read and write. His father
hired a classmate by the name of Leon Monroy who, for five months until his (Monroy)
death, taught Rizal the rudiments of Latin. At about this time two of his mother’s cousin
frequented Calamba. Uncle Manuel Alberto, seeing Rizal frail in body, concerned himself
with the physical development of his young nephew and taught the latter love for the open

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air and developed in him a great admiration for the beauty of nature, while Uncle
Gregorio, a scholar, instilled into the mind of the boy love for education. He advised Rizal:
"Work hard and perform every task very carefully; learn to be swift as well as thorough; be
independent in thinking and make visual pictures of everything.”
 June 6, 1868. With his father, Rizal made a pilgrimage to Antipolo to fulfill the vow made
by his mother to take the child to the Shrine of the Virgin of Antipolo should she and her
child survive the ordeal of delivery which nearly caused his mother’s life. From there they
proceeded to Manila and visited his sister Saturnina who was at the time studying in the
La Concordia College in Sta. Ana.
 1869. At the age of eight, Rizal wrote his first poem entitled "Sa Aking Mga Kabata." The
poem was written in tagalog and had for its theme "Love of One’s Language."

EDUCATION
Early Education in Calamba and Biñan
Rizal had his early education in Calamba and Biñan. It was a typical schooling that a
son of an ilustrado family received during his time, characterized by the four R’s- reading,
writing, arithmetic, and religion. Instruction was rigid and strict. Knowledge was forced into
the minds of the pupils by means of the tedious memory method aided by the teacher’s
whip. Despite the defects of the Spanish system of elementary education, Rizal was able to
acquire the necessary instruction preparatory for college work in Manila. It may be said that
Rizal, who was born a physical weakling, rose to become an intellectual giant not because
of, but rather in spite of, the outmoded and backward system of instruction obtaining in the
Philippines during the last decades of Spanish regime.

The Hero’s First Teacher

The first teacher of Rizal was his mother, who was a
remarkable woman of good character and fine culture. On her
lap, he learned at the age of three the alphabet and the prayers.
"My mother," wrote Rizal in his student memoirs, "taught me
how to read and to say haltingly the humble prayers which I
raised fervently to God."
As tutor, Doña Teodora was patient, conscientious, and
understanding. It was she who first discovered that her son had
a talent for poetry. Accordingly, she encouraged him to write
poems. To lighten the monotony of memorizing the ABC’s and
to stimulate her son’s imagination, she related many stories.
As Jose grew older, his parents employed private tutors to give him lessons at home.
The first was Maestro Celestino and the second, Maestro Lucas Padua. Later, an old man
named Leon Monroy, a former classmate of Rizal’s father, became the boy’s tutor. This old
teacher lived at the Rizal home and instructed Jose in Spanish and Latin. Unfortunately, he
did not lived long. He died five months later.
After a Monroy’s death, the hero’s parents decided to send their gifted son to a
private school in Biñan.

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Jose Goes to Biñan

One Sunday afternoon in June 1869, Jose, after kissing the hands of his parents and
a tearful parting from his sister, left Calamba for Biñan. He was accompanied by Paciano
who acted as his second father. The two brothers rode in a carromata, reaching their
destination after one and one-half hours’ drive. They proceeded to their aunt’s house, where
Jose was to lodge. It was almost night when they arrived, and the moon was about to rise.

That same night, Jose, with his cousin named Leandro, went sightseeing in the town.
Instead of enjoying the sights, Jose became depressed because of homesickness. "In the
moonlight," he recounted, "I remembered my home town, my idolized mother, and my
solicitous sisters. Ah, how sweet to me was Calamba, my own town, in spite of the fact that
was not as wealthy as Biñan."

First Day in Biñan School

The next morning (Monday) Paciano brought his younger brother to the school of
Maestro Justiniano Aquino Cruz. The school was in the house of the teacher, which was a
small nipa hut about 30 meters from the home of Jose’s aunt. Paciano knew the teacher
quite well because he had been a pupil under him before. He introduced Jose to the teacher,
after which he departed to return to Calamba.

Immediately, Jose was assigned his seat in the class. The teacher asked him:

"Do you know Spanish?"

"A little, sir," replied the Calamba lad.
"Do you know Latin?"
"A little, sir."

The boys in the class, especially Pedro, the teacher’s son laughed at Jose’s
answers. The teacher sharply stopped all noises and begun the lessons of the day.

Jose described his teacher in Biñan as follows: "He was tall, thin, long-necked, with
sharp nose and a body slightly bent forward, and he used to wear a sinamay shirt, woven by
the skilled hands of the women of Batangas. He knew by the heart the grammars by Nebrija
and Gainza. Add to this severity that in my judgement was exaggerated and you have a
picture, perhaps vague, that I have made of him, but I remember only this."

First School BrawlIn the afternoon of his first day in school, when the teacher was
having his siesta, Jose met the bully, Pedro. He was angry at this bully for making fun of him
during his conversation with the teacher in the morning.

Jose challenged Pedro to a fight. The latter readily accepted, thinking that he could
easily beat the Calamba boy who was smaller and younger.

The two boys wrestled furiously in the classroom, much to the glee of their
classmates. Jose, having learned the art of wrestling from his athletic Tio Manuel, defeated
the bigger boy. For this feat, he became popular among his classmates.

After the class in the afternoon, a classmate named Andres Salandanan challenged
him to an arm-wrestling match. They went to a sidewalk of a house and wrestled with their

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arms. Jose, having the weaker arm, lost and nearly cracked his head on the sidewalk. In
succeeding days he had other fights with the boys of Biñan. He was not quarrelsome by
nature, but he never ran away from a fight.

Best Student in School

In academic studies, Jose beat all Biñan boys. He surpassed them all in Spanish,
Latin, and other subjects. Some of his older classmates were jealous of his intellectual
superiority. They wickedly squealed to the teacher whenever Jose had a fight outside the
school, and even told lies to discredit him before the teacher’s eyes. Consequently the
teacher had to punish Jose.

Early Schooling in Biñan

Jose had a very vivid imagination and a very keen sense of observation. At the age
of seven he traveled with his father for the first time to Manila and thence to Antipolo to fulfill
the promise of a pilgrimage made by his mother at the time of his birth. They embarked in a
casco, a very ponderous vessel commonly used in the Philippines. It was the first trip on the
lake that Jose could recollect. As darkness fell he spent the hours by the katig, admiring the
grandeur of the water and the stillness of the night, although he was seized with a
superstitious fear when he saw a water snake entwine itself around the bamboo beams of
the katig. With what joy did he see the sun at the daybreak as its luminous rays shone upon
the glistening surface of the wide lake, producing a brilliant effect! With what joy did he talk
to his father, for he had not uttered a word during the night!

When they proceeded to Antipolo, he experienced the sweetest emotions upon

seeing the gay banks of the Pasig and the towns of Cainta and Taytay. In Antipolo he
prayed, kneeling before the image of the Virgin of Peace and Good Voyage, of whom he
would later sing in elegant verses. Then he saw Manila, the great metropolis , with its
Chinese sores and European bazaars. And visited his elder sister, Saturnina, in Santa Ana,
who was a boarding student in the Concordia College.

When he was nine years old, his father sent him to Biñan to continue studying Latin,
because his first teacher had died. His brother Paciano took him to Biñan one Sunday, and
Jose bade his parents and sisters good-bye with tears in his eyes. Oh, how it saddened him
to leave for the first time and live far from his home and his family! But he felt ashamed to cry
and had to conceal his tears and sentiments. "O Shame," he explained, "how many beautiful
and pathetic scenes the world would witness without thee!"

They arrived at Biñan in the evening. His brother took him to the house of his aunt
where he was to stay, and left him after introducing him to the teacher. At night, in company
with his aunt’s grandson named Leandro, Jose took a walk around the town in the light of the
moon. To him the town looked extensive and rich but sad and ugly.

His teacher in Biñan was a severe disciplinarian. His name was Justiniano Aquino
Cruz. "He was a tall man, lean and long-necked, with a sharp nose and a body slightly bent
forward. He used to wear a sinamay shirt woven by the deft hands of Batangas women. He

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knew by memory the grammars of Nebrija and Gainza. To this add a severity which, in my
judgement I have made of him, which is all I remember."

The boy Jose distinguished himself in class, and succeeded in surpassing many of
his older classmates. Some of these were so wicked that, even without reason, they
accused him before the teacher, for which, in spite of his progress, he received many
whippings and strokes from the ferule. Rare was the day when he was not stretched on the
bench for a whipping or punished with five or six blows on the open palm. Jose’s reaction to
all these punishments was one of intense resentment in order to learn and thus carry out his
father’s will.

Jose spent his leisure hours with Justiniano’s father-in-law, a master painter. From
him he took his first two sons, two nephews, and a grandson. His way life was methodical
and well regulated. He heard mass at four if there was one that early, or studied his lesson
at that hour and went to mass afterwards. Returning home, he might look in the orchard for a
mambolo fruit to eat, then he took his breakfast, consisting generally of a plate of rice and
two dried sardines.

After that he would go to class, from which he was dismissed at ten, then home
again. He ate with his aunt and then began at ten, then home again. He ate with his aunt
and then began to study. At half past two he returned to class and left at five. He might play
for a short time with some cousins before returning home. He studied his lessons, drew for a
while, and then prayed and if there was a moon, his friends would invite him to play in the
street in company with other boys.

Whenever he remembered his town, he thought with tears in his eyes of his beloved
father, his idolized mother, and his solicitous sisters. Ah, how sweet was his town even
though not so opulent as Biñan! He grew sad and thoughtful.

While he was studying in Biñan, he returned to his hometown now and then. How
long the road seemed to him in going and how short in coming! When from afar he descried
the roof of his house, secret joy filled his breast. How he looked for pretexts to remain longer
at home! A day more seemed to him a day spent in heaven, and how he wept, though
silently and secretly, when he saw the calesa that was flower that him Biñan! Then
everything looked sad; a flower that he touched, a stone that attracted his attention he
gathered, fearful that he might not see it again upon his return. It was a sad but delicate and
quite pain that possessed him.

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FEEDBACK
Hola mis queridos estudiantes! Se divierten leyende este modulo?
“Hello my dear Students! Are you having fun reading this module?”

If you finished reading all the important information in this module I hope you fully
appreciate why we need to study this subject as part of our curriculum in the tertiary level. It
is a need for us to tackle this in order to know its implication to our present time and how
could we shape our society by instilling values and patriotism to the minds of our youth.

Do the required Learning Activities to test yourself on how much you have learned the
lesson. Answers key are provided at the last part of the module but make sure not to attempt
to peek at them unless you already finished all the learning activities in each lesson.

If you are able to answer all the learning tasks without any mistake, congrats you may
now proceed to the next module. If you get a score less than 75 percent of the total number
of items, I suggest reading again the lesson and try to answer the said activities. If you get
more than 76 percent of the total number of score try to review and focus to those items that
you fail to get the correct answer. Don’t worry, all is well, sooner or later you will be able to
get all the correct answer.

Congratulations! You did a great job! Rest and relax a while then move on to the next
Module. Good luck!

SUMMARY
This module discusses the childhood life of Rizal and how he acquire things
that would make him more knowledgeable and skilled in life to effectively deal with all
the challeneges that he might encounter along the way. Early education is the
foudation of our life and because of this he intend to do well in studying and to achieve
his dream he need to encounter different person in his life to teach and educate him to
succeed. In his childhood days he met different person that made him realize and solve
things better because of their guidance and teaching.

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REFERENCES
 De Viana A., Cabrera H.M., Samala E., De Vera M., Atutubo J. Jose Rizal: Social
Reformer and Patriot – A Study of His Life and Times. Manila. Rex Books Store.
Inc., 2018
 Zaide G., Zaide S. Jose Rizal: Life, Works and Writings of a Genius, Writer,
Scientist and National Hero. Quezon City. All-Nations Publishing Co., Inc.,
 http://joseprizal-one.blogspot.com/2006/03/rizal-family-early-childhood-
and.html?m=1
 https://www.scribd.com/presentation/473076380/Module-3-Rizal-s-Life-Family-
Childhood-and-Early-Education-pptx
 http://www.joserizal.ph/ed01.html
 http://www.web-books.com/Classics/ON/B0/B892/06MB892.html

SUGGESTED READINGS
 Nelson, Gloria Luz. “Mga Pananaw hinggil sa ugnayan ng talambuhay at lipunan,”
in Diestro D, et al. Si Heneral Paciano Rizal sa Kasaysayang Pilipino. Los Banos:
UPLB Sentro ng Wikang Filipino, 2006.
 C. Wright Mills. “The Promise,” The Sociological Imagination. Oxford University
Press, 1959, http://legacy.lclarck.edu/`goldman/socimagination.html
 P. Sztompka. “Great Individuals as Agencies of Change” The Socioloy of Social
Change. Wiley. 1993.
 John Schumacher. “Rizal in the Context of the 19th Century Philippines” The Making
of a Nation: Essays on Ninteenth-Century Filipino Nationalism. Quezon City: ADU
Press. 1991.
 Zaide G., Zaide S. Jose Rizal: Life, Works and Writings of a Genius, Writer,
Scientist and National Hero. Quezon City. All-Nations Publishing Co., Inc.,
 Ocampo A. Rizal Without the Overcoat. Philippines. Anvil Publishing. 2018
 Ocampo A. Meaning & History: The Rizal Lectures. Philippines. Anvil Publishing.
2013
 Film: “Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?” directed by Eddie Romero (1976)

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