CHAPTER Seven: Women of Rizal

24/7/2014

1 Comment

A Romantic Affair
1. Julia/Minang

The first who captured Rizal’s romantic imagination.

A fourteen-year old that Rizal meet in Los Banos, Laguna. Rizal was only 15 when he first saw Julia by accident in

a river in Los Banos a few days after Easter in 1877. She was wearing a red wraparound skirt.

She was vibrant yet modest, oval-shaped and olive-skinned and blessed with simple beauty that attracted Rizal. She

was not timid nor afraid of boys and, eyes sparkling, conversed easily with Rizal.

Rizal offered Julia and her grandmother a ride home in his rented carromata. He was instantly attracted to her but

for lack of subsequent contact, Rizal eventually forgot Julia whose surname was never known.

2. Segunda Katigbak
 Rizal next met Segunda Katigbak, a charming girl 14 from Lipa, Batangas and the sister of his college friend

Mariano.Rizal first saw her in his grandmother’s suburban house in Trozo, which he used to visit on school holidays

in the company of friends. He had heard that she was already engaged, yet he found himself drawn to her

provocative smile and alluring presence.

On Thursdays and Sundays, Rizal would visit the Colegio De Concordia, where Segunda ang his sister Olympia

boarded. He would as to see his sister although he really wanted to see Segunda, Little by little, Rizal began to drink

‘the sweetest poison of love”.

Her engagement to Manuel Luz, led Rizal to relinquish his feelings and felt constraint to speak of love.

Rizal sought the company of a local belle, the mysterious “Bb. L” (Leonor Valenzuela) in order to forget the

“Rose of Lipa” (Segunda Katigbak)

3. Leonor Valenzuela

During his sophomore year at the University of Santo Tomas, Rizal boarded at the house of Dona Concha Leyva
whose neighbour were Capitan Juan and Capitana Sanday Valenzuela who had three daughters, one of whom was

Leonor “Orang” as she fondly called. Rizal was frequent visitor in the Valenzuela house which was often a

boisterous place where students gathered to play and banter, would entertain friends with card tricks. He began to

pay special attention to Orang, escorting her and writing her notes in invisible ink, a mixture of common table salt

and water, which became visible only when warm over a lamp or cancle.

Orang let on that she wanted to marry a person who was a doctor, philosopher and a surveyor all rolled on one.

The Rizal left to Europe, Jose (Chenggoy) Cecilio, tattletale-friend and self-anointed apoderado engergico (energetic

proxy) of the hero, would carry news between the two..

Rizal would rather consider Orang as a good friend rather than a life partner. And eventually Orang married another

man, leaving Rizal on ponder more deeply about La Cuestion del Oriente, the code name of chenngoy and Rizal

used in their letter to another to identify Leonor Rivera and conceal their references to her from prying eyes.

4. Leonor Rivera

Almost simultaneous, Rizal was meeting another Leonor. The girl, Leonor Rivera, would be his girlfriend to the

next 11 years. The two were distant cousins.

Rivera was to his ideal woman, his model Maria Clara, one of the main characters in his first nover, “Noli Me

Tangere.” He was ready to marry her. Unfortunately, Rivera’s mother disliked Rizal who was the earning the

reputation being a dissident. The last saw each other before Rizal left Spain in May 1882.

The Mother hid from Rivera all the letters of Rizal was sending from Spain. After a passage of many years, thinking

that Rizal was abandoned her, Rivera sadly consented to marry Henry Kipping, an Englishman who was her

mother’s choice. Rizal was said to have cried shamelessly when news of the wedding reached him.

5. Consuelo Ortiga y Perez (Madrid, Spain)

Rizal used to visit the home of Don Pablo Ortiga y Rey every Saturday evening. He and other Filipino Student

played parlor games with his two daughter, Pilar and Consuelo. It was Consuelo who awakened the sparks of love in
Rizal’s heart.

Consuelo loved Rizal. She wrote in her diary that she knew Rizal loved her, though he did not say it. Rizal gave her

flowers which she affectionately cherished.

Witt great real power, Rizal did not allow the romance to go on for two reasons:

1. He was still engaged to Leonor Rivera and he would not want to be unfaithful to her.

2. Eduardo de Lete, his friend deeply in love with Consuelo, and he did not want to break their friendship just for a

wisp of a girl. Thus in the summer 1833, he made a quick trip to Paris in order to forget Consuelo.

6. O-Sei-San (Japan)

On his second journey to Europe, Rizal passed through Japan and United States. In Japan, Rizal began to relax , his

frustration giving away to the tingle of spring and the scent of romance. He met 23-year-old Usui or O-Sei-San as he

called her, together they spent sweet hours and divine afternoon amidst the breathtaking cherry blossoms.

O-Sei-San was a descendant of the Japanese samurai class and their love affair that flared for “glided month”.

O-Sei-San was more that a hero’s sweetheart. Being an artist and linguist, she taught Rizal the art of Japanese

painting and improved his knowledge of Japanese language and literature. O-Sei-San beauty and affection almost

tempted Rizal to settle down in Japan. At the same time , he was offered a good job. If he were a man of less heroic

mould, of less power, he would have lived permanently in Japan – and happily at that with O-Sei-San; but the then

the world, in general, and the Philippines, in particular, would have lost a Rizal.

7. Gertrude Beckett (Liverpool, England)

Rizal had a romantic interlude with the oldest of the Beckette sisters- Gertrude.

Gettie, as she was called by her family, was a buxom English girl “with brown hair, blue eyes and pink cheeks.”

She was attracted to the talented brown-skinned physician boarder, and there was no doubt that she was in love with

him.

Rizal being a normal man, found great delight in Gertrude’s companionship. He wass in the verge of love, himself;

but, out of loyalty to Leonor Rivera, he could not reciprocate the English girl’s affection. He realized their friendship

was drifting to a more serious affair. It was this romantic affair which drove Rizal to Paris in 1889, leaving London
because he could not marry Gertrude.

8. Nellie Boustead (Paris, France)

Rizal having lost Leonor Rivera entertained the thought of courting other ladies. While a gust of the

Boustead family at their residence in the resort city of Biarritz, he had befriended the two pretty daughters of his

host, Eduardo Boustead.

Rizal used to fence with the sisters at the studio of Juan Luna. Antonio Luna, Juan’s Brother ad also a frequent

visitors of Bousteads, courted Nellie but she was deeply infatuated with Rizal. In a party held by Filipinos in

Madrid, a drunken Antonio Luna uttered unsavoury remarks against Nellie. This prompted Rizal to challenge Luna

into a duel. Fortunately, Luna apologized to Rizal, thus averting tragedy for the compatriots.

Their love affair unfortunately did not end in marriage. It failed because Rizal refused to be converted to the

Protestant faith, as Nellie demanded and Nellie’s mother did not like a physician without enough paying clientele tot

ne a son-in-law. The lovers, however, parted as good friends when Rizal left Europe.

9. Suzanne Jacoby (Brussels, Belgium)

In 1890, Rizal moved to Brussels because of the high cost of living in Paris. In Brussels, he lived in the boarding

house of the two Jacoby sisters, Marie and Suzanne, who household included a petit niece, also named Suzanne.

Rizal was so charming and dignified a gentleman that Suzanne, the petit of his landladies, was attracted to him. He

was lonely in a strange country- and Leonor Rivera was so far away; naturally being a normal young man, he found

certain bliss in the company of a pretty Belgian girl. He might have flirted with Suzanne, he could not stoop low to

deceptive amorous relationship.

Like other women- Sugunda Katigbak, Orang Valenzuela, Leonor Rivera, O-Sei-San, Gertrude Beckette, Consuelo

Ortiga y Perez, and Nelie Boustead – Suzanne fell in love with Rizal. She cried whemn he left toward the end of

July, 1890 for Madrid, stopping for a few days in Paris. Although Rizal was in faraway Madrid, Suzanne could not

forget him.

10. Josephine Leopoldine Bracken (Ireland)

While still in Dapitan, Rizal met an 18-year old petite Irish girl, with bold blue eyes, brown hair and a happy
disposition.

Bracken was the apoted 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.

The Rizal sisters suspected Josephine as an agent of the friars and they considered her as a threat to Rizal’s security.

Rizal asked Josephine to marry him, but she was not yet ready to make a decision due to her responsibility to the

blind Taufer.Josephine stayed with Rizal’s 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

her. Rizal upon the advice of his family and friends and with Josephine’s consent took her as his wife even without

the Church blessings.

Josehpine later gave birth prematurely to a stillborn baby, a result of some incidence, which might have shocked or

frightened her.

Filial Love

Teodora Alonso Realonda Mercado y Quintos

She stood as a sentinel of strength. Rizal drew strength from his mother in order to overcome the tyranny of Spanish

authority

Mother and son were united in a silent bond of suffering that brought them mutual strength

The extent of his love for his mother could be seen in his gesture within his prison cell in Fort Santiago. His

thoughts went out to his father to whom he wrote a letter seeking pardon for the pain he had caused him. He wrote

his last letter “To my very dear Mother, Senoia Dña. Teodora Alonso. 6 o’clock in the morning, December 30, 1896.

Jose Rizal.”

No further words were needed. None could substitute to express what his heart felt. The very mention of her name

touched chords of memory that brought his entire life within the core of her grieving heart. He had reserved his final

letter to express his last words of love and the words. “Sra. Dña. Teodora Alonso” held and carried the quintessence

of that love.