THE LIFE OF DR.

JOSÉ
RIZAL
(June19, 1861-December 30, 1896)
 OBJECTIVES

To be able to trace the background of the Philippines national

hero Dr. Jose Rizal;
To show the influence of Rizal’s environment to the
development of his personality; link the well-stacked family
library w/ Rizal’s love foe books and early exposure to great
minds ; and,
To distinguished precocity and mediocrity
 THE NAME RIZAL

Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado Alonso y Realonda is the full name of

the Philippines national hero. Suggestive of his time, Rizal has six
names. There are two given Christian names and four surnames. He
was simply Pepe to his family to his friends; Pepe Rizal for the family’s
friar-friends; as a medical practitioners, he was Dr. Jose Rizal; in the
academe, he was Dr. Jose Rizal, Jose Rizal or Rizal. He was Lolo Jose
for his grandchildren, and he was Joe for his live-in-partner, Josephine
Bracken.
At his present time, the name Rizal is associated with many
things, from mundane to divine. Rizal is a label of match. It is
also a brand of kerosene. For construction materials Rizal is a
trade name of cement of galvanized iron and many others. All
over the country, many provinces, cities, town, barangay,
avenues, and streets are named after Rizal. The three unit
course in college is also known Rizal.
In the past clandestine organization used Rizal as the
password for the KKK and the freemasons; and Rizal is god for
the cults, Iglesia Watawat ng Lahi and Rizalistas.
What was the origin of the Hispanic name Rizal? It be recalled that
conducting census and collecting taxes were undertaking essential for
the Spain for their colonies to survive. For this reason , Governor
General Narciso Claveria issued a decree on November 11, 1849 to
change the indios’ family names because indigenous surnames are
difficult to recall and to pronounce. Some indigenous names have
funny or not so nice implication such as Dalugdog , Karingking,
Patay, Dipakakibo, Pakipot, Patalagsa, Daku-Mata, Malapitan,
Magsipok, Kangsiko, Kaberde, Tatlong-Hari, Makapal, Bukukang,
Maliksi and many more. For easy listing and easy recall, hispanized
family names were given to Filipinos.
Who chose Rizal for a family name? What does it signify? The great,
great grandfather of Jose Rizal was a Chinese merchant Domingo
Lamco, who later on adopted the surnames Mercado. In Laguna, many
families adopted the family name Mercado. So, to distinguish Lamco-
Mercado from the other Mercado's who are not related to them the
alcalde mayor (their family friend) suggested addition of another
surname, Rizal. Domingo Lamco-Mercado was a merchant while
Francisco Mercado Rizal was a farmer. Accordingly the family name
Rizal could be traced from the word racial which means green fields.
This is a Spanish term which means ”a field where wheat stalks are cut
still green, to spout again.“ It can also mean, ”pruning”.
Biographers have conflicting accounts on the use of the
family name Rizal. In his correspondence with his friends,
Ferdinand Blumenttrit, Rizal revealed that he used Mercado
Rizal only on official documents like his passport , “when Jose
studied in Manila, he had to use the surname Rizal instead of
Mercado, for him not to be associated with his elder brother
Paciano. In his youth he thought he was illegitimate because of
this…..”.
The same view was shared by another biographer Austin Coates:

On June 11, 1872 six months after the Cavite mutiny Jose
Rizal, the aged eleven and seemingly still a small boy, was
nearly refused admission when he went up to the foremost
schools in the country the Ateneo Municipal…from that time
onwards, he styled himself Jose Rizal as advised by Paciano
who at college had been known as Paciano Mercado, and who
feared Jose might run into trouble if it was known too openly
that they were brothers.
Leon Ma. Guerero reiterated the precaution the brothers
purportedly undertook to avoid difficulties in Jose’s studies.
Record from the archives of the University of Santo Thomas
though, show that in nine school years, Paciano family name
Rizal was mispelled with an “s” rather than “z” during school
year 1863-64, in the Latin School of Jose de Villafranca. He was
Paciano
Fr. Leoncio Lopez was mentioned here because, he would be
typical as Fr. Florentino in the novel El Filibusterismo. Fr.
Lopez was a musician, a poet, and a liberalist who avoided
politics. He resembled Fr. Florentino in El Filibusterismo.
 THE RIZAL OF CALAMBA

Family planning was not heard of during those times, and

children were simply considered blessings from heaven. Jose
Rizal was born to a big family. He was the 7th in a brood of
eleven. They are as follows:
1. Saturnina, Neneng (1850-1913), the eldest , is married to
Manuel T. Hidalgo.

2. Paciano, Ñor Paciano (1851-1930), ten years older than

Jose, was a 4th year Civil Law dropout.

3. Narcisa, Sisang was married a teacher Antonino Lopez

from Morong, Rizal.

4. Olimpia, Ypia (1855-1887), married Silvestre Ubaldo, a

telegraph operator.
5. Lucia (1857-1919), married Mariano Herbosa of Calamba,
Laguna.

6. Maria, Biang (1859-1945), married Daniel Faustino Cruz of

Biñan, Laguna.
7. Jose, Pepe (1861-1896), the Philippine national hero, had a
common-law wife, Josephine Braken at Dapitan where he was
banished as filibustero.
8. Concepcion, Concha (1862-1865), died at the age of Three.

9. Josefa, Pañgoy, died a spinster.

10. Trinidad, Trining (1868-1951), also died a spinster.

11. Soledad, Choleng (1870-1929), the youngest, married
Pantaleon Quintero of Calamba, Laguna.

Typical among Filipinos is close family ties. Parents are

respected as decision-makers. While fathers are regarded as the
ultimate authority in the family, mothers assume a supporting
role. Strong filial love binds the children. Traditionally, elder
brother or sisters are bound to take care of younger siblings.
In the Rizal family, the two brothers Paciano and Jose were
best of friends and would connive to undertake a mission
concealed from their parents. Paciano was ten years older than
Jose and like a responsible father , he took charge of his
younger brother’s allowance while he studied abroad.
Saturnina, the eldest among them, gave Jose a diamond ring
which could be pawned when he would get short of his
allowance or when the money would be delayed. They
communicated with each other regularly while he was on
foreign lands.
The strong bond among siblings continued, up to Jose Rizal’s
day in Fort Santiago. Paciano would make an ultimate sacrifice
his younger brother when at the eve of the latter’s execution, he
was tortured almost to his death to implicate Jose as a
filibustero, but he would rather die than betray him. Jose
would entrust to his sisters the alcohol burner which contained
his last poem Mi Ultimo Adios. The whole family gathered and
prayed together in their most trying moments. Until the end,
Rizal’s sisters would watch over him and secretly mark the spot
where their brother’s body was dumped.
Steadfast to what they covenanted with, Paciano pursued their
solemn cause even after the death of his younger brother. In
1898, Paciano was entrusted by Emilio Aguinaldo the command
of the revolutionary troops operating against the Spaniards in
Laguna. He became one of the generals of the Philippine
Revolution. Later he retired as a farmer. Paciano had never
married though he had a natural, acknowledged daughter,
Emilia Severino- Decena.
During and after Rizal’s imprisonment and execution, the
Rizals suffered persecution. Saturnina’s husband, Manuel
Hidalgo was deported to Tagbilaran, Bohol twice. Narcisa’s
husband Antonio Lopez was banished to Mindoro. The same
fate befell Silvestre Ubaldo, the husband of Olimpia, and
Lucia’s husband, Mariano Herbosa was denied a Christian
burial.
 ENVIRONMENT PERSONALITY

Material possessions bespeak socio-economic status in community,

and the Rizals were the first family to build a house in Calamba whose
replica has been standing in Calamba for generations. It was a
respectable structure where the fixtures belong to Hispanic-Philippine
era. From the living room, to the bedrooms, to the kitchen, down to the
nipa hut where the young Rizal played, to the well where water for the
family was drawn, one can surmise that the family lived in comfort.
They also had a house in town. Jose had a yaya (personal
servant) and tutors were hired to teach him what he had to
learn yet in school.
They also had a carriage (Maybe equivalent to Mercedes Benz
or Rolls Royce today). As to Rizal’s personal growth, this kind
of family, the atmosphere at home. And all things around him
contributed to his development physically, psychologically,
socially, and spiritually.
A visit to the replica of the Rizal’s house in Calamba allows us to
imagine how it was to be a part of that home. Big trees surrounded the
house. There were birds and animals which the boy Rizal could name(It
was an early exposure for him to become an ornithologist, botanist, and
biologist later on in his exile in Dapitan). Intellectually, he could be
considered advanced for his age: as early as two years old he could
already compose sentences in Spanish and in Tagalog( Now known as
Filipino). At age nine he composed his first Tagalog verses, Sa aking mga
kababata(To my fellow children). At fourteen, he wrote Mi Primera
Inspiracion(My first Insipiration). With laguna de bay visible from where
the house stood, Jose wondered, “What lies beyond the sea.”
These were early exposures and indications of his love for
science and the humanities. In sum, the serene and pleasant
atmosphere of Rizal’s home and the rustic beauty of the place
was conductive to the development of his intellectual inclinations.
Was Jose Rizal really a precocious child? Maybe yes, maybe not.
He might seem to be smart. But, he could just be an ordinary
boy, exposed to an environment conductive for learning. It could
be that he had been guided by his idealism or challenged by
frustrations and harsh realities of life at his tender age.
Was Rizal introvert or extrovert? Narcisa, his elder sister
described him as a quiet child, a keen observer, inquisitive,
creative, a loner, and a lover of arts. He could be inherently
pensive or a solitary person because of his delicate health
(which prevented him from joining rough games), and the
family library with adequate stack of good books was a haven
for a thinker like him. Later, he would be an ambivert but
would have retained peculiar traits of a deep thinker, being
diligent as a writer, as a scholar, and as a lover of books.
Did the birth of Jose Rizal augur something extraordinary?
Baby Jose was born in their home, the usual practice those times.
Some sources point out that had he been born in a hospital in our
time, he could have been delivered through caesarian section
given that Rizal’s head was big and un-proportioned to his body.
For the superstitious it was an extraordinary phenomenon.
Scientifically, the enlarged size of Jose’s head, however, may be
attributed to delayed and difficult child birth.
In today’s age of cybernism, there have been accounts of
exceptional children. At the age of two, three or five, gifted
children can comprehend difficult topics. They instantly and
correctly answer difficult questions posed by adults, and they
expound their thoughts as intellectuals wont. In short, they are
ahead of their time. They are intellectually advanced, and their
mental development does not follow the usual pattern of growth.
These children are known as “gifted” or precocious.
Dominican Fr. Fidel Villaroel believes in the superior qualities
of Jose Rizal. In the context of the 19th century, a boy like Jose
Rizal could have emerged as extra-ordinary as an offshoot of his
conducive environment and healthy heredity. He could also be
amazing as intellectually advanced, sustained by his
unquenchable thirst for knowledge and insatiable appetite to
learn. Until now empiricists and avid Rizalistas have remained
unsettled on the issue of Jose’s precocity as a child.
 THE FAMILY LIBRARY

“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as
well as for the body.” This is an aphorism lived by Jose Rizal, For
wherever he was, in Calamba or in foreign lands, books were
indispensable for him.
In good times or during lean time(when there was delay in sending his
allowance), the list of his purchases show that books ate up the biggest
part of his budget. Family private library was a rarity in the 19 th
century,
But the Rizals had an impressive one. The Rizals’ library was sufficiently
stacked with more than a thousand volumes which included Encyclopedias,
different dictionaries, and books authored by great scholars and philosophers.
It could be inferred from here that books whetted and fed Rizal’s curiosity in
Arts, Sciences, and Humanities. A bibliophile at a young age, Jose Rizal would
be reading more books. Among others, the authors who had strong influence
in his literary works are mentioned here. Additional information about them
are supplemented, for the readers to know who they were and how in any
way, their books, poems, plays, satires, or novels contributed to Jose Rizal’s
philosophy, his style of writing, the depth of his works, and his efficacy in
hitting his target by the use of his pen.
By knowing Rizal’s choice of books and their respective authors,
one is given the idea how the influenced him as their ideas, styles, or
techniques in writing ramified in his literary works. The authors
cited below were popularized by religious, historical, philosophical,
political topics, and children’s stories. They are as follows;
1. Hans Christian Andersen (1812-1870), Danish. He was a writer
of fairy tales laden with moral values.
2.Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) French novelist. He authored one
hundred novels. He theorized that the nature of man is largely
determined by his environment.
3. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769- 1821) was a deist/athiest. He
viewed the value of religion not for salvation but for social and
political cohesion of the 18th century.
4. Daniel Defoe (1661- 1731) was an English journalist and novelist,
a pamphleteer on political subjects. He was imprisoned and
pilloried(his head and has were locked in a wooden frame for public
abuse and ridicule) for his satirical works. He authored Robinson
Crusoe.
5.Louis Montesquieu (1689-1755) satirized social and political
institutions in France and dealt with the nature of State and the
Science of Law in the 18th century.
6. Pierre Jean de Beranger (1802-1870), French. He authored
popular historical novels.
7. Alexander Dumas Pere (1802-1870), French. He authored Three
Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.
8. Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller (1759-1805), German.
He was a poet, playwright, historian, and critic. He showed mature
treatment of themes of freedom, idealism and heroic achievements.
9.Harriert Elizabeth Stowe (1811-1896) was the American writer
who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an anti-slavery novel which created
great political impact.
10. Emile Zola (1840-1902) was a French, Novelist and the
leading exponent of naturalism. He was a passionate social
reformer. In his pamphlet I’ accuse’; he courageously defended
Alfred Dreyfus, French, Jewish soldier who was imprisoned in
1894 for alleged espionage. He was pardoned in 1899 and was
finally cleared in 1906 after a campaign which produced long
lasting political and social division in France.
11. Jean Baptiste Moliere (1622-1673) was a French dramatist
and satirist who ridiculed eccentricities and the subtle but
deeper forms of obsessions.
12. Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1805) was French poet,
novelist , and dramatist. He had written epics and satirical
poetry. He enriched French poetry and opened the way for
many modern stylistics changes.
13. Alfred de Musset (1819-1857) was French Romantic writer.
He revealed the difficulties of his generation through his
delicate and witty poems plays and novels.
 L I V I N G L I F E TO T H E F U L L E S T

Jose Rizal was born June 19, !861 at Calamba, Laguna and died by
musketry on December 30, 1896 at Bagumbayan (Now Luneta). Thirty-
five years of existence is too short for a prolific man. Nonetheless, the
fullness of life is not measured chronologically. It is how one spent his
life. A “lived life” is more significant that a “life lived”. One may die at
age seventy, eighty, or one hundred, but one could have lived an animal
or mechanical existence. Hence, one may find life meaningless when he
crosses the great divide.
All Human beings come and go and whatever imprints they
may leave behind may easily be erased. There are deeds,
however, that can linger, long after one’s earthly existence is
done. Along these lines, Socrates a famous Greek philosopher
warned us, nosci te ipsum (know thyself), for an unexamined
life is not worth living.
 SUMMARY

The life of Dr. Jose Rizal is one if the major parts in Rizal
course. The study starts from paradoxes in the choice of the
Philippine national hero, the passage of R.A. 1425, the
significance, and the seeming obsolescence of the course. It
discusses the conflicting views and issues about Jose Rizal.
To be able to understand the significance of the Philippine national
hero, the socio-political setting is first explored and tied up with the
events that took place in the Philippines, the birth, the childhood the
education, and the martyrdom of Jose Rizal at the age of thirty-five. The
family name Rizal was traced as the Consequence of the Governor
General Narciso Claveria’s order to change native surnames to family
names of Hispanician origin. “Ricial” is a spanish term which means
green fields, or “wheat while still green is cut to be able to sprout again.”
It may be interpreted as pruning . Although several biographers claimed
that Jose avoided sporting the family name Mercado to preempt being
linked with the “subversives”. Records, however, show that Mercado
was always a part of Jose Rizal’s full name.
Both parents Francisco and Teodora were fairly educated. The Rizals
belonged to a middle class family in Calamba. They were lessees of the
Dominicans’ vast tracts of land in Laguna. Jose was seventh in a brood of
eleven. The eldest (his only brother), Paciano was ten years older than
him and the rest of his siblings were girls.
Rizal was small and sickly which may explain why he had penchant for
stories of giants and great men. Whit the help of his uncle, he improved
physically and started to appreciate gymnastics and manly sports. Close
family tie was seen among the Rizals. When Jose was in foreign land, they
kept the communication with him through letters. On his death, his
sisters would be watching over his remains which were dumped at a
Chinese cemetery.
Jose Rizal imbibed values he heard and observed from his
parents namely: the value of time, discipline, social graces,
religiosity, the value of honesty, and other positive values which
served as his guide throughout his life.