CHAPTER 9

First Return to
the Philippines
Name of Presenter
Position
Department/College
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As soon as Rizal arrived in Manila,
aboard the steamer Haiphong after five
years in Europe, he began receiving
anonymous letters and advices from
unknown persons and from his friends,
warning him of the dangers he was
facing.
 Rizal’s decisions to return
home were to:
• Operate on his mother’s eye.
• Serve his people who had long been oppressed
by Spanish tyrants.
• Find out for himself how the Noli Me Tangere
and his other writings were affecting Filipinos
and Spaniards in the Philippines.
• Know why Leanor Rivera stopped
communicating with him.
• The 1st surgical operation he performed as
ophthalmologist was on his mother. For the removal of
the Cataract of Teodora.
• Rizal was called “Doctor Uliman” because he came
from Germany.
• He opened a gymnasium for young people who enjoy
gambling and cockfights.
• The Mother of Leonor didn’t like Rizal as a son-in-law but
then he still respects the decision.
• Noli Me Tangere contains subversive ideas and was
branded by his enemies especially Spaniards and friars
as traitors.
• Governor General Emilio Terrero – who was a liberal
minded Spaniard, requested Rizal to come to
Malacanang.
• Lieutenant Jose Taviel Andrade - who was assigned to
guard Rizal; who belonged to a noble family and speaks
English, French and Spanish.
• Archbishop Pedro Payo- Rector of the University of Sto.
Tomas
 The work “Noli Me Tangere”
has been found:
• Heretical
• impious
• scandalous from the religious perspective
• anti patriotic
• subversive from the political point of view
• Injurious to the Spanish government and
its proceedings in the Islands.
• Fr. Salvador Font – who describe Rizal as an ignorant;
he recommended that “the importation, reprinting, and
circulation of the destructive book in the Islands be
prohibited”
• Fr. Jose Rodriguez – Prior of Guadalupe; published
eight pamphlets entitled “Questions of Supreme
Interest”
• (Cuestiones de Sumo Interes) to blast the Noli and other
anti-Spanish writings.
• Rev. Vicente Garcia- who wrote a defense of Noli; A
Filipino Catholic priest scholar.
• Just Desiderio Magalang- penname of Rev. Vicente
Garcia.
 He blasted arguments as
follows:
• Rizal cannot be an “ignorant man”, becase he was a
graduate of Spanish universities and was a recipient of
scholastic honors.
• Rizal did not attack the Church and Spain because what
Rizal attacked in the Noli were the bad Spanish officials
and not Spain and the corrupt friars and not the church.
• It was said that those who read Noli commit a mortal sin,
since the attacker had read the novel, therefore he also
commits a mortal sin.
• Rizal stayed in the Philippines about six
months.
• “Hymn Labor”- a poem wrote by Rizal for
the commemoration of Lipa’s elevation
from town to city.
• “work hard for the Motherland and
respect to the dignity of labor” –
message of the poem HYMN LABOR.
 AC2A
• Maida Mae Abuan - made the outline /
reporter
• Maria Carla Maray - powerpoint / reporter
• Daniella Mae Salazar - print the outline /
reporter
• Mary Rose Lacerna - reporter
• John Lloyd Ramirez - reporter
(all contributed money for the printed outline)