RIZAL'S MOST CONTESTED

AND EVER INCOSTESTABLE

MANUSCRIPT
By: Jesus Ma. Cavanna
• Of aall Rizal's writing there is one that has been and seems to remain
a nightmare for some people. it is u sheet 32 cm. x 22 cm. containing
a manuscript of 18 limes with 115 in his all in Rizal's own handwriting.
• it was only at the end of 11908 when, according to Teodoro M. Kalaw
(La mansoeria Filipina, Manila, 1920. p. 202) the Mansons “started a
campaign against the alleged abjuration of Rizal.”
• they kept on claiming that Rizal's retraction could not be accepted
unless the original document be produced.
• he claim was obviously unreasonable. in legal procedure and
historical methodology, direct and circumstaantial evidence. and this
is what Gonzalo Ma. Puñana achieved in his work “Murio el Doctor
Rizal Cristianamente Reconstitucion de las Ultiimas Horas de su Vida”
(Barcelona, 1920).
• the weight of the evidence presented in Piñana's book was
overwhelming. Following the most strict dmands of historical criticism
the fact of the Rizal's retraction should have been a closed question
after 1920.
• Immediately the Manila papers started “a veritable deluge od articles and
discussions, not as to the authenticity of the document (admitted by all), but
as to Rizal's purpose to signing it, the circumstances under which it was
signed, his sincerity and intellectual honesty, and even consequent stature as
a national heero” (Sunday Tribune, Junee 30, 1935).
• a professorr of philosophy of the University of the Philippines who does not
claim any experience in examining questioned handwritten documents took
the bold step of making a technical study of Rizal's retractionn bolograph in
order to prove that it was a forgery.
• his conclusion therefore that the retraction document was a forgery is simply
groundless, his scientific apparatus has been prove, point by point untenable.
THA CANNARD OF “RIZAL'S
RETRACTIONS”
• finally, with the coming of Rizal's centennial year, something new has
been produced to contest again, not precisely the historicity of Rizal's
vrsion, but the genuineness of the seemingly accured sheet of paper
written and signed by Rizal by the midnight of December 29, 1896.
• it was booklet entitled “Rizal's Retractions”(Manila, 1959) by Collas
trying to show that there are two “substantiallly different” and
supposedly original”.
• the book insistently declares that Rizals did not retract, because this is
utterly imposible and furthermore. it just couldn't be ad those who
maintan the contrary are hirelings, parrots, cunning propagandist,
bigots, fanatics, temerartous being idiots, vulgar and stupid persionss,
rude and ignorant like the spanish.
• the first (ORIGINAL retraction according to the Introducttion) Father
Pio Pi published in spain in 1909 as an alleged verbatim copy of the
original.”
• the booklet on Rizal's “retraction” started its readers with the curious
announcement of the “existence of not less than two “originaal
retraction” of the greatest Filipino martyr and hero.”
• we need not worry. there is not other “original” than we know the
real one of Rizal's own handwiiting, that as safely kept in the Manila
archdiocesan archives, lost sight of for ssome time and found where it
was left in 1935.
• on the very day of Rizal's death, other copies more correct and
faithful to the retraction bolograph were published in the Manila
papers, and a little later still in other papers of spain and hongkong,
and in the following years, before 1909, in other magazines, reviewss,
aand books printed in spain and in the philippines.
• until now we have remained at the threhold of the booklet on “Rizal's
retractions.” we have cat a glance at its introduction and have noticed
already that its argument does not hold water.
• Rizal's crafty enemies the Jesuit Father presented the “original
retractions. the jesuits were not the publisher or editors of the
periodicals and books that released to the public the text of the
“original retraction” the Jesuits merely forwarded Rizal's holograph to
the Archbishop who had the right and duty of keeping it and in
whose palace it was exhibited and presented to the other person.
• The Jesuit actually presented not only one but two or three different
“original retraction” we are eagerly waiting for someone to produce.
not three, but at least TWO original retractions.
• “the first (original retraction) was published in spain.” the statement is
wong. the first photostar of Rizal's autographed retraction was
published by the philippines Herald, on june 15, 1935. in manila.
• “The second (original retraction) was published in the Philippines.”
• “Father Pio Pi published his opuscule.”La Muerte Critiana del Doctor
Rizal,” in the Spanish Peninsula.”
• “He (Father Pio Pi) published it (La Muerte Cristiana etc.) possibility to
correct Retana's version published earlier.”
• “Father Pio Pi claimed that this was a “true copy” pf the original Rizal
“retraction”.
• “Rizal's enemies wee in such hast that they actually presented the
first “original retraction” in Father Pio Pi's opuscule; the second in
what Father Gracia claimed to be the “original retraction”, four
decades after Rizal's death.”