Women in

Rizal’s Life
RIZAL AND ROMANCE

• Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines, great propagandist,

novelist, was also known to very good in courting women, he met
quite a lot of women in his years. Known to be a smooth talker, Rizal
charmed these women with his intelligence, charisma and wit.

• Some label him a womanizer, in my opinion though, he had respect

with all the women that he had relationships with and he never had a
relationship with two women at the same time. Below is a list and a
short background of the women he encountered in his short but
eventful life.
SEGUNDA KATIGBAK
• She would be Rizals first infatuation, unfortunately she was already
engaged to another man. They first met in a party in Rizals
grandmothers house and to Rizal, it was love at first sight. Rizal,
however, knew from the very beginning that their story would not
have a happy ending for she was already engaged to someone.
LEONOR VALENZUELA
• After Segunda Katigbak, Rizals next object of affection was a woman
named Leonor Valenzuela, a tall girl of regal bearing. She was Rizals
neighbor, regularly visiting her house during social gatherings. Rizal
courted her with love notes written with invisible ink, which could
only be read by heating the note over a candle.

• After Rizal left for Europe however, their romance ended and she
accepted suitors and attended social parties.
LEONOR RIVERA
• Being Rizals sweetheart for 11 years, Leonor Rivera was considered a
reason as to why Rizal was prevented from falling in love with other
women in his travels. She was also known to be the inspiration for
one of Noli Me Tangeres characters, Maria Clara.

• Leonors Mother was against their relationship, often hiding the

letters that Rizal sends to her. Their exchange of letters lasted 6
years, being lovers by correspondence.
• After some time, she stopped receiving letters from Rizal. She was
not aware that her mother bribed two post office clerks to give her all
the letters and gifts from Rizal. Leonor was forced by her mother to
marry Henry Kipping, a young English engineer. He was responsible
for the completion of the railroad from Bayambang to the Ferrocarril
de Manila (railroad from Manila-Dagupan).

• Rizal's letters to Rivera were burned and the ashes were kept inside a
box covered with her dress with the letters J and L embroidered on it.
It was said that Rizal couldn't keep a serious relationship with other
women as he couldn't let go of Leonor
CONSUELO ORTIGA
• Consuelo Ortiga y Rey, the prettier of Don Pablo Ortigas daughters,
fell in love with him. He dedicated to her A la Senorita C.O. y R., which
became one of his best poems. The Ortiga's residence in Madrid was
frequented by Rizal and his compatriots. He probably fell in love with
her and Consuelo apparently asked him for romantic verses. He
suddenly backed out before the relationship turned into a serious
romance, because he wanted to remain loyal to Leonor Rivera and he
did not want to destroy hid friendship with Eduardo de Lete who was
madly in love with Consuelo.
• “She was very unfortunate, dying alone, sad, and abandoned, a victim
of tuberculosis … An excellent and illustrious friend communicated to
me this news when I went to Madrid as representative of a very
important news agency of London on the occasion of the marriage of
King Alfonso XIII in 1906 … May she rest in peace.”
O SEI SAN/SEIKO USUI
• She was the daughter of a Japanese samurai. Rizal met her when she
was 23 years old, serving as his interpreter during his stay in Japan.
She taught him Japanese culture, language and art.

• Charmed by her beauty, elegance and intelligence, Rizal was almost

tempted to stay in Japan, the Spanish Legation even offered him a
lucrative job, but alas his mission was of utmost importance to him.
• Seiko had an upbringing that gave her fluency in English and a bit of
French. She was described as shy yet she served as Rizal’s interpreter,
and accompanied him on sightseeing trips around Japan. Being a
woman of “high culture,” she introduced Rizal to Japanese culture
teaching him to write Japanese characters and paint in the
Japanese-style.
• Seiko never told anyone about her friendship with Rizal, until the
1950s when Filipino researchers tracked down her stepsister Yoshi
who said Seiko collected Philippine stamps and cherished those which
had Rizal’s picture. Her stamp collection and any mementos left by
Rizal were destroyed during the bombing of Tokyo in 1944.
• After her home in Shinjuku was destroyed, Seiko moved to Hagi, west
of Yamaguchi, where she died on May 1, 1947 at the age of 80.
When Rizal left for the United States, he told her in a note that he had
spent a happy golden month with her and that he do not know
if he can have another. She married a British man a year after Rizal's
execution.
GERTRUDE BECKETT
• Her affection for Rizal was clear, she spent more time assisting him
than their other boarders and showered him with all her attention.
Ultimately though, Rizal backed out from the romance and decided to
leave London to be away from Gertrude so that she may forget him.
He did however leave a carving of the Beckett sisters and gave it to
Gertrude as a gift.
NELLI BOUSTEAD
• Nellie Boustead was the daughter of the wealthy Anglo-Filipino
businessman Eduardo Boustead. The Boustead family welcomed Rizal
in his stay in France.

• After learning of Leonor Riveras marriage to Henry Kipping, Rizal

entertained the thoughts of courting another woman. The center of
this idea would be the highly educated, cheerful, athletic, beautiful
and morally upright Nellie. He even wrote to his friends his idea of
proposing to her.
It was actually all good when he bade goodbye and Nellie
even wrote him a letter where a paragraph has stated:
• Now that you are leaving I wish you a happy trip and may you
triumph in your undertakings, and above all, may the Lord look down
on you with favor and guide your way giving you much blessings, and
may your learn to enjoy! My remembrance will accompany you as
also my prayers.”
• One of the more memorable things about their romance was when
Antonio Luna, who made rather distasteful comments about her, and
Rizal almost had a duel to the death, only being stopped when Luna
apologized for his comments, conceding Nellie to Rizal in a most
chivalrous way.

• Unfortunately, their relationship did not end in marriage as Rizal did

not want to convert to Protestantism as Nellie demanded, and when
the time that Rizal had to leave had come, they parted as friends with
no hard feelings.
SUZANNE JACOBY
• A Belgian lady, Rizal met her when he stayed in Brussels as the cost of living in Paris was
too expensive, he stayed in a boarding house managed by two Jacoby sisters, Suzanne and
Marie.

• Rizal stayed in Belgium for 6 months; Suzanne was absolutely smitten with him. Rizal
however did not seem to reciprocate the feelings as intensely as her. Rizal did not even
mention her in his letters to his friends. When the time that Rizal had to (once again)
leave, she wept, Rizal only leaving her with a box of chocolates.

• Two months later, she wrote him a letter, saying after your departure, I did not take the
chocolate. The box is still intact as on the day of your parting. Dont delay too long writing
us because I wear out the soles of my shoes for running to the mailbox to see if there is a
letter from you. There will never be any home in which you are so loved as in that in
Brussels, so, you little bad boy, hurry up and come back
• In another one of her letters, it was clear that the affection has
already become one-sided.

• Rizal returned to Brussels one more time in April 1891 but not
specifically for her, as he just busied himself with revising and
finalizing his manuscript of El Filibusterismo.
JOSEPHINE BRACKEN
• In the last days of February 1895, while still in Dapitan, Rizal met an
18-year old petite Irish girl, with bold blue eyes, brown hair and a
happy disposition. She was Josephine Bracken, the adopted daughter
of George Taufer from Hong Kong, who came to Dapitan to seek Rizal
for eye treatment.

• Rizal was physically attracted to her. His loneliness and boredom

must have taken the measure of him and what could be a better
diversion that to fall in love again. But the Rizal sisters suspected
Josephine as an agent of the friars and they considered her as a
threat to Rizals security.
• She was the youngest of the five children of an Irish couple who were
married on May 3, 1868 in Belfast, Ireland: British army corporal
James Bracken and Elizabeth Jane MacBride. A few days after giving
birth to Josephine, her mother Elizabeth died. Her father decided to
give her up for adoption to her childless godparents,

• American George Taufer, an engineer of the pumping plant of the

Hong Kong Fire Department, and his Portuguese (second) wife.
Josephine’s real father (James) left Hong Kong after retirement and
was said to have died at the hands of robbers in Australia.
•Rizal asked Josephine to marry him, but she was not
yet ready to make a decision due to her responsibility
to the blind Taufer. Since Taufers blindness was
untreatable, he left for Hon Kong on March 1895.
Josephine stayed with Rizals family in Manila. Upon
her return to Dapitan,
•Rizal tried to arrange with Father Antonio Obach for their
marriage. However, the priest wanted a retraction as a
precondition before marrying them. Rizal upon the advice of
his family and friends and with Josephines consent took her
as his wife even without the Church blessings. Josephine
later give birth prematurely to a stillborn baby, a result of
some incidence, which might have shocked or frightened
her.
• During Rizal's exile in 1896, Bracken had affirmed her willingness to
help Rizal's cause by joining the 'Katipunan' in Imus, Cavite. Rizal,
foreseeing his death, asked Fr. Vicente Balaguer, S.J., a Jesuit priest
who later detailed Rizal's last days and served as Bracken's
messenger, to marry them. Some historians believe that Balaguer had
married the two on 5:30 a.m. of 30 December 1896, an hour before
Rizal's death at 'Bagumbayan', where she also revealed to Rizal's
closest friends and family members that she was married to him.
• Ngunit, nakaalitan ang pamilya Rizal dahil interasado siyang makihati
sa mga aklat ni Rizal ngunit hindi niya mapatunayan na kinasal sila sa
umaga ng kanyang kamatayan, kaya bumalik siya sa Hongkong,
nagpakasal muli sa isang Pilipino na si Vicente Abad, at namatay sa
murang edad na 25 noong 1902.