Rizal in Dapitan

Rizal’s Life and Works – Week 8

 Bitter-sweet life in dapitan
• Jose Rizal opted to live at commandant’s residence called ‘Casa Real’
• The commandant, Captain Ricardo Carnicero and Jose Rizal became
good friends so much so that the exile did not feel that the captain
was actually his guard – later in his life in Dapitan, Rizal wrote a poem
‘A Don Ricardo Carnicero’ honoring the kind commandant’s birthday.
• September 1892, Rizal and Carnicero won in a lottery (Manila Lottery
Ticket No. 9736 jointly owned by Rizal, Carnicero, and a Spanish
resident in Dipolog won the second prize of Php 20,000.
• Rizal used his share Php 6,200 in procuring a parcel of land near the
coast of Talisay, a barrio near Dapitan.
• The property of more than 10 hectares, he put up three houses made
of bamboo, wood, and nipa.
• Rizal lived in the house which was a Square shape. Another house is
Hexagonal shape, was Rizal’s barn where he kept the chickens. In his
Octagonal house lived some of his pupils.
• Rizal also established a school, teaching young boys practical subjects
like reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and Spanish and English
languages.
• Later, he constructed additional huts to accommodate his recovering
out-of-town patients.
House of captain Ricardo Carnicero
Casa Redonda Piquena (Poultry)
Casa Cuadrada (Classroom)
Casitas de Salud (Hospital Houses)
Casa Redonda (Clinic)
 Daily life as an exile
• During his exile, Rizal practiced medicine, taught some pupils, and
engaged in farming and horticulture.
• He grew many fruit trees (coconut, mango, lanzones, makopa, santol,
mangosteen, jackfruit, guyabanos, baluno, and langka)
• He also domesticated some animals (rabbits, dogs, cats, and chickens)
• The school he founded in 1893 started with only three pupils, and had
about more than 20 students at the time his exile ended.
• Rizal would at least rise at five in the morning to see his plants, feed his
animals, and prepare breakfast.
• Having taken his morning meal, he would treat the patients who had come to
his house.
• Paddling his boat called ‘baroto’ (he had two of them), he would then
proceed to Dapitan town to attend to his other patients there the whole
morning.
• Rizal would return to Talisay to take his lunch.
• Teaching his pupils would begin about at 2 p.m. and would end at 4 or 5 p.m.
• With the help of his pupils, he would spend his rest of the afternoon in
farming – planting the trees, watering plants, and pruning the fruits.
• Rizal then would spend the night reading and writing.
 Rizal and the jesuits
• The first attempt by the friars to win back Rizal to the Catholic fold
was the offer for him to live in the Dapitan convent under some
conditions.
• Refusing to compromise, Rizal did not stay with the parish priest
Antonio Obach in the Church convent.
• Just a month after Rizal was deported to Dapitan, the Jesuit Order
assigned to Dapitan the priest Francisco de Paula Sanchez of Ateneo.
• Rizal appreciated his mentor’s efforts, he could not be convinced to
change his mind.
• The priest Pablo Pastells, superior of the Jesuit Society in the
Philippines, also made some attempts by correspondence to win
over to Catholicism the exiled physician.
• Four times they exchanged letters from September 1892 to April
1893.
• The debate was none less than scholarly and it manifested Rizal’s
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures for he quoted verses from it.
• Though Rizal consistently attended mass in Dapitan, he refused to
espouse the conventional type of Catholicism.
 Achievements in dapitan
• Rizal provided significant community services in Dapitan like improving town’s
drainage and constructing better water system using empty bottles and bamboo
joints.
• He also taught the town folks about health and sanitation so as to avoid the
spread of diseases.
• With his Jesuit priest friend Sanchez, Rizal made a huge relief map of Mindanao
in Dapitan plaza.
• He bettered the forest there by providing evident trails and some benches.
• He invented, a wooden machine for mass production of bricks- using the bricks
he produced;
• Rizal built a water dam for the community with the help of his students.
• Rizal equally treated all patients regardless of their economic and social
status.
• He accepted as ‘fees’ things like poultry and crops and at times, even gave
his services to poor folks for free.
• He also offered treatments to almost all kinds of diseases like fever, sprain,
broken bones, typhoid, tuberculosis and even leprosy (Bantug & Ventura,
1997, p.112)
• Rizal also helped in the livelihood of the Abaca farmers in Dapitan by trading
their crops in Manila.
• He also gave them lessons in abaca-weaving to produce hammocks.
• He taught them better techniques like weaving and using better fishing nets.
 As a scientist and philologist
• Rizal inspected Dapitan’s flora and fauna, providing a sort of
taxonomy to numerous kinds of forest and sea creatures.
• He sent various biological specimens to scientist in Europe like his
dear friend Doctor Adolph B. Meyer in Dresden – in return the
European scholars sent him books and other reading materials.
• From the collections he sent to European scholars, at least three
species were named after him:
Harlequin tree frog - Rhacoporus Rizali
Flying beetle - Apogonia Rizali
Flying lizard - Draco Rizali
• Having learned the Visayan language , he also engaged himself in the
study of language, culture, and literature.
• He examined local folklores, customs, Tagalog grammar, and the
Malay language.

His intellectual products about these subjects, he related to some

European academicians like Doctor Reinhold Rost, his close Philologist
friend in London.
 Spies and secret emissary
Not just once did Rizal learn that his ‘enemies’ sent spies to
gather incriminating proofs that he was a separatist and an
insurgent.

Perhaps disturbed by his conscience, a physician named Matias Arrieta

revealed his covert mission and asked for forgiveness after he was
cured by Rizal
(Bantug & Ventura, 1997, p.116)
• March 1985, a man introduced himself to Rizal as Pablo Mercado
• Claiming to be Rizal’s relative, this stranger eagerly volunteered to
bring Rizal’s letter to certain persons in Manila.
• Made suspicious by the visitor’s insistence, Rizal interrogated him and
it turned out that his real name was Florencio Nanaman of Cagayan
de Misamis, paid as a secret agent by the Recollect friars.

But because it was raining that evening, the kind Rizal did not
command Nanaman out of his house but even let the spy spend the
rainy night in his place.
(Bantug & Ventura, 1997, p.117)
• June 1896, a different kind of emissary was
sent to Rizal. Doctor Pio Valenzuela was sent
to Dapitan by Andres Bonifacio – the
Katipunan leader who believed that carrying
out revolt had to be sanctioned first by Rizal.
• He disguised as a mere companion of a blind
patient seeking treatment from Rizal.
• Valenzuela was able to discreetly deliver the
Katipunan’s message for Rizal.
• Rizal politely refused to approve the uprising,
suggesting that peaceful means was far better
than violent ways in obtaining freedom.
 Rizal further believed that a revolution would be
unsuccessful without arms and monetary support from
wealthy Filipinos.

He thus recommended that if the Katipunan were to start a revolution,

it had to ask for the support of rich and educated Filipinos, like Antonio
Luna who was an expert on military strategy.
(Bantug & Ventura, 1997, p.133)
 Visited by loved ones
• Rizal was in Dapitan when he learned that his true love Leonor Rivera
had died. What somewhat consoled his desolate heart was the visits of
his mother and some sisters.
• In August 1893, Donya Teodora, along with Trinidad, joined Rizal in
dapitan and resided with him in his ‘casa cuadrada.’
• The son also successfully operated his mother’s cataract.
• At distinct times, Jose’s sisters Maria and Narcisa also visited him.
• There of Jose’s nephews also went to Dapitan and had their early
education under their uncle: Mauricio (Moris), Teodosio (Osio), and
Estanislao (Tan) – Jose’s niece Angelica also had experience.
• 1985, Donya Teodora left Dapitan for Manila to
be with Don Francisco who was getting weaker.
• Shortly after the mother left, Josephine
Bracken came to Jose’s life – Josephine was an
orphan with Irish blood and the stepdaughter
of Jose’s patient from Hongkong.
• Rizal and Bracken were unable to obtain a
church wedding. He nonetheless took
Josephine as his common-law wife who kept
him company and kept house for him
• Before the year ended in 1895, the couple had
a child who was bron prematurely. The son
who was named after Rizal’s father (Francisco)
died a few hours after birth.
 Goodbye Dapitan
• 1895, Blumentritt informed Rizal that the revolution-ridden Cuba was
raged by yellow fever epidemic.
• December 1895, Rizal wrote to then Governor General Ramon Blanco,
volunteering to provide medical services in Cuba.
• July 30, 1896, Rizal received a letter from the governor general
sanctioning his petition to serve as volunteer physician in Cuba.
• In the later afternoon of July 31, Rizal got on the ‘Espana’ with
Josephine, Narcisa, a niece, three nephews, and three of his students.
Many Dapitan folks, especially Rizal’s students, came to see their beloved Doctor
for the last time. Cordially bidding goodbye, they shouted “Adios, Dr. Rizal!” as
some of his students cried.

With sorrowing heart, he waved his hand in farewell to the generous and loving
Dapitan folks, saying “Adios, Dapitan!”

The steamer departed for Manila at midnight of July 31, 1896. With tears in his
eyes, Rizal later wrote in his diary onboard the ship, “I have been in that district
four year, thirteen days, and a few hours.”
(G. Zaide & S. Zaide, 1984, p. 242)