RIZAL’s life, works & writings

LESSON 8: DR. ULIMAN, LIFE IN CALAMBA AND

BEYOND

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

At the end of the session the students are expected to;

1. Discuss the life of Rizal serving his townsfolk and countrymen.

2. Identify the reasons of Rizal’s love for the farmers.
3. Demonstrate the value of service and dedication to the needy
and oppressed.

LIFE IN CALAMBA AS A YOUNG DOCTOR

On August 8, Rizal returned in Calamba. His elder brother, Paciano did not leave him
during the first days to protect him from any assault especially those hurt by his novel ‘Noli Me
Tangere.’

Besides, Don Francisco did not permit him to go out alone. He established medical clinic
and he became known far and wide. He was called the great doctor from Germany or “Doctor
Uliman.”
Dr. Rizal successfully removed the cataract of his mother, his first surgical operation.
News spread quickly spread that everyone with an eye problem trooped to Calamba to be
treated by Rizal, who charged according to the financial means of the patient.

He earned P900 in a few months and P5,000 before he left the Philippines. He opened
a gymnasium for the young people. He introduced European sports such as fencing and
shooting to discourage the Filipinos from cockfighting and gambling.

Rizal was in sad moments while in Calamba. He tried to visit Leonor Rivera, his
fiancée in Tarlac but his parents forbade him to go because Leonor’s mother did not
like him to be her son-in- law. Add to his heart break was the death of his sister
Olimpia Mercado-Ubaldo who died while giving birth. To forget the pain in his heart, he
painted several beautiful landscapes in Calamba and translated German poems of Von
Wildernath in Tagalog.

STORM OVER NOLI ME TANGERE

While Rizal was peacefully living in Calamba and practicing his medical profession, his
enemies plotted his doom. Rizal received a letter from Gov. Gen. Emilio Terrero (1885-88)
requesting him to come to Malacañang Palace. He went to Manila and appeared at

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Malacañang. When the Governor-General asked him about his novel, Rizal explained to him
that he merely exposed the truth but did not advocate subversive ideas.

Governor-General Emilio Terrero, a 33 rd degree Mason was pleased by Rizal’s

explanation and curious about the book and asked for a copy of it. Rizal had no copy that time
but promised to send one for him.

In one of his free time, Rizal visited the Jesuit fathers to ask for their feedback on the
novel. He was gladly welcomed by the following: Fr. Francisco de Paula Sanchez, Fr. Jose
Bech and Fr. Federico Faura. The Jesuits fathers told Rizal that “everything in the novel was the
truth” but added “you may lose your head because of it”.

Sensing the imminent danger in Rizal’s life, Gov. Gen. Terrero assigned Spanish
Lieutenant, Don Jose Taviel de Andrade as bodyguard of Rizal for security. This young Spanish
lieutenant came from a noble family who was well-mannered and knew painting. He could
speak French, English and Spanish. Not a long while, Rizal and his bodyguard became a good
friend.

Archbishop Pedro Payo – a Dominican Archbishop of Manila sent a copy of the Noli to
Fr. Gregorio Echevarria, Rector of the University of Santo Tomas to examine the novel. The
Father Rector then created a commission to review the controversial novel. Fr. Salvador Font,
Augustinian friar curate of Tondo, was the head of the commission.

The committee that examined the novel of Rizal were composed of Dominican
professors. The report of the faculty members from UST about the Noli stated that the novel
was: (1) Heretical, (2) impious scandalous in the religious orders, (3) anti-patriotic, (4)
subversive of public order, (5) injurious to the government of Spain and its function in the
Philippine Islands in the political order.

The Committee recommended that the importation, reproduction, and circulation of the
dangerous novel in the islands be “absolutely prohibited”. Governor-General Terrero – was not
satisfied with the report so he sent the novel to the Permanent Commission of Censorship which
was composed of priests and lawyers. In the leadership of Governor General Terrero, there
was no mass imprisonment and execution of Filipinos who were caught reading or possessing a
copy of the Noli Me Tangere.

ATTACKERS OF THE NOLI

Fr. Jose Rodriguez – Augustinian Prior of Guadalupe Published a series of eight
pamphlets under the heading Cuestiones de Sumo Interes (Questions of Supreme Interest) to
blast the Noli and other anti-Spanish writing.

Copies of anti-Rizal pamphlets were sold after church mass. Many Filipinos were forced
to buy them to please the friars but did not believe on it. The novel was fiercely attacked in the
session hall of the Senate of the Spanish Cortes. Senators: General Jose de Salamanca
General Luis de Pando Sr. Fernando Vida Vicente Barantes – Spanish academician of Madrid
who formerly occupied high government position in the Philippines bitterly criticized the novel in
an article published in the Madrid newspaper, La España Moderna.

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DEFENDERS OF THE NOLI ME TANGERE

Propagandists rushed to uphold the truths of the Noli, like Marcelo H. del Pilar,
Graciano Lopez- Jaena , Antonio Ma. Regidor, Mariano Ponce, Father Francisco de Paula
Sanchez – Rizal’s favorite teacher in Ateneo defended and praised the novel in public. Don
Segismundo Moret – former Minister of the Crown. Prof. Miguel Morayta - historian and
stateman and Prof. Ferdinand Blumentritt – Rizal’s best friend.

GOING BEYOND- POLITICKING IN CALAMBA

The Dominicans had developed a fierce hatred for Rizal that went beyond his novel. It
had to do with the politics of Calamba.
As part of the colonization of the Philippines, which began in 1565, Spanish
conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legaspi distributed 96 encomiendas (feudal estates) to various
colonists, forcing the local natives to pay tributes or rents to their new landlords. Among the
new encomenderos were the Spanish religious orders that were assigned estates in different
provinces around the Philippines.

On the outskirts of Calamba was an encomienda operated by the Jesuits who collected
rents from the tenant farmers for growing crops on their lands. The Jesuits had been operating
in the Philippines since 1581 until Spanish King Carlos III ordered their expulsion from all the
Spanish colonies in 1767.

The Jesuit-owned encomiendas were then awarded to other religious orders including
the Calamba, which fell into the hands of the Dominicans. Unlike the Jesuits, however, the
Dominicans collected rents from lands but did not pay taxes for those rents to the government
and to the King of Spain.

Spanish Governor General Emilio Terrero, a liberalminded person who resisted

pressure from the Spanish friars to arrest Rizal, dispatched an investigator to Calamba. The
investigator was to ascertain the reports about the Dominican friars who were not paying taxes
on lands where they were collecting rents. While the Dominican landlords ordered the tenant
farmers to lie, Rizal encouraged them to cooperate with the investigator and tell the truth.

With Rizal’s assistance and prodding, the Calamba tenant farmers even filed a
“Memorial” with the local court on January 8, 1888, listing their grievances against their
Dominican landlords. After a prolonged litigation, the “Memorial” was subsequently rejected by
the local Philippine court, a decision which Rizal later appealed to the Spanish Supreme Court
in Madrid.

After the Calamba tenants lost their case before the Spanish Supreme Court, the new
conservative Governor General, Valeriano Weyler (the “butcher of Cuba”), dispatched 50
soldiers to Calamba to expel the protesting tenants from their ancestral farms at gunpoint and
burn their houses. A total of 300 Calamba families, including Rizal’s own family, were forcibly
evicted by the Dominicans.

By then, Rizal had long left the Philippines on the advice of Terrero, who warned that he
could no longer hold off the friars. With sufficient funds from his ophthalmology practice, Rizal

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departed on February 3, 1888 for Hongkong, then Yokohama and then San Francisco, where
he then boarded a train to New York and from there, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to London.

THE ‘NEW CALAMBA’ IN NORTH BORNEO

On his voyage to Hongkong from Marseilles, Rizal met William Pryer, the manager of the
British North Borneo Company, the company with a long-term lease from the Sultan of Sulu in
1878 to manage the entire island of North Borneo. After learning of what Pryer planned to grow
the British colony, Rizal proposed to set up “New Calamba” for the evicted Filipino tenants from
Calamba.

William Pryer and his wife, Ada, enthusiastically welcomed Rizal’s proposal, which Rizal
later memorialized in an agreement he prepared that was composed of 14 specific points; he
mailed it to the Pryers from Hongkong. On her husband’s behalf, Ada Pryer wrote back: “it will
be a great advantage for B. N. Borneo if you are able to bring us a large Philippine contingent
and we shall hail your advent with great pleasure.”

Rizal then made plans to visit the Pryers in Sandakan, North Borneo. Two months later,
Rizal travelled to the place he hoped to call “Nueva Calamba,” rich fertile land up the Bengkoka
River in Maradu Bay. Together with Pryer, he met with the governor of North Borneo and
discussed his proposal to lease at least 5,000 acres of land (+2,000 hectares) with an option to
purchase thousands more for a lease of 950 years.

Rizal had one problem with this bright proposal. The Calamba tenants could not leave
the Philippines without the permission of the Spanish Governor-General, Eulogio Despujol.
Rizal was aware of this so even before travelling to North Borneo, he sent a letter to Governor-
General Despujol. The excerpt of the letter read as follows.

“I request Your Excellency to grant us the necessary permission to change our nationality, to
sell our little property that has been left to us by the many disturbances that we have had, and
to guarantee the emigration of all those who for some reason or other have incurred the
unfavorable criticism of more or less powerful persons who will remain in the Philippines even
after Your Excellency’s administration.”

Governor-General Despujol was incensed by Rizal’s letter and feared that Rizal would
use his Philippine colony in North Borneo to launch a revolution against Spain. The Governor
did not respond to Rizal’s letter. Instead, he asked the Spanish Consul in Hongkong to invite
Rizal to return to Manila to discuss the matter personally with him.

On June 26, 1892, Rizal arrived in Manila and had a series of meeting with Governor-
General Despujol at the Malacañang Palace before he was arrested after he was found to
possess leaflets critical to the clergy which was planted.

Rizal was put into detention at Fort Santiago before he was executed.

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EXERCISE: Discuss the following (50-100 words only)

Submit them at ecoben711@yahoo.com before our next class begins.

A. Do you think Rizal can set himself away from the trouble of the hacienda workers in Calamba?
B. Was Rizal a visionary for his effort of having ‘Neuva Calamba’ in North Borneo?
C. Can you draw (in caricature) the friendship of Rizal and Gov. Gen. Terrero.

REFERENCES:

Zaide, Gregorio F., & Zaide, Sonia M., Jose Rizal, Life, Works and Writings of a Genius, Writer,
Scientist and National Hero, (2008- Centennial Edition) All-Nations Publishing Co. Inc, Quezon
City
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Exo_Anime-3244785-jose-rizal-chapter-10/
https://globalnation.inquirer.net/114720/why-did-dr-jose-rizal-to-return-to-manila
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Calamba

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