Module 5

Rizal’s Life, Exile, Trial and Death

Learning outcomes:
· Analyze the factors that lead to Rizal’s execution.
· Analyze the effects of Rizal’s execution on Spanish colonial rule and the Philippine
Revolution.

Rizal’s Exile
Rizal lived in exile in far-away Dapitan, a remote town in Mindanao, which was under
the missionary jurisdiction of the Jesuits, from 1892 to 1896. This four-year interregnum in his
life was tediously unexciting, but was abundantly fruitful with varied achievements. He
practices medicine, pursued scientific studies, continued his artistic and literary works,
widened his knowledge of languages, established a school of boys, promoted community
development projects, invented a wooden machine for making bricks, and engaged in farming
and commerce. Despite his multifarious activities, he kept an extensive correspondence with
his family, relatives, fellow reformists, and eminent scientists and scholars of Europe, including
Blumentritt. Reinhold Rost, A.B. Meyer, W. Joest of Berlin, S. Knuttle of Stuttgart, and N.M.
Keight of Prague.
Beginning of Exile in Dapitan. The steamer Cebu which brought Rizal to Dapitan
carried a letter from Father Pablo Pastells, Superior of the Jesuit Society in the Philippines, to
Father Antonio Obach, Jesuit parish priest of Dapitan. In this letter, Father Superior Pastells
informed Father Obach that Rizal could live at the parish convent on the following conditions:
1. “That Rizal publicly retract his errors concerning religion, and make statements that were
clearly pro-Spanish and against revolution.
2. “That he perform the church rites and make a general confession of his past life.
3. “That henceforth he conduct himself in an exemplary manner as a Spanish subject and a
man of religion.”
Rizal did not agree with these conditions. Consequently, he lived in the house of the
commandant, Captain Carnicero. The relations between Carnicero (the warden) and Rizal
(the prisoner) were warm and friendly.
Carnicero was charmed by Rizal’s fine qualities and personality. They ate together at
the same table and had many friendly conversations. Carnicero came to know that Rizal was
not a common felon, much less a filibustero. He gave good reports on his prisoner to Governor
Despujol. He gave him complete freedom to go anywhere, reporting only once a week at his
office, and permitted Rizal, who was a good equestrian, to ride his chestnut horse.
Rizal, on his part, admired the kind, generous Spanish captain. As evidence of his
esteem, he wrote a poem, A Don Ricardo Carnicero, on August 26, 1892, on the occasion of
the Captain’s birthday.
Wins in Manila Lottery. On September 21, 1892, the sleepy town of Dapitan burst in
hectic excitement. The mail boat Butuan was approaching the town, with colored pennants
flying in the sea breezes. Captain Carnicero, thinking that a high Spanish official was coming,
hastily dressed in gala uniform, ordered the town folks to gather at the shore, and himself
rushed there, bringing a brass band.
The mail boat, Butuan, brought no Spanish officials but the happy tidings that the
Lottery Ticket No. 9736 jointly owned by Captain Carnicero, Dr. Rizal, and Francisco Equilor
(Spanish resident of Dipolog, a neighboring town of Dapitan) won the second prize of P20,
000 in the government-owned Manila Lottery.
Rizal’s share of the winning lottery ticket was PHP6, 200.00. Upon receiving this sum,
he gave PHP2, 000.00 to his father and PHP200.00 to his friend Basamin Hong Kong, and
the rest he invested well by purchasing agricultural lands along the coast of Talisay, about one
kilometer away from Dapitan.
Rizal’s winning in the Manila Lottery reveals an aspect of his lighter side. He never
drank hard liquor and never smoked, but he was a lottery addict. During his first sojourn in
Madrid from 1882 to 1885 he always invested at least three pesetas every month in lottery
tickets. “This was his only vice,” commented Wenceslao Retana, his first Spanish biographer
and former enemy.

Rizal-Pastells Debate on Religion. During his exile in Dapitan Rizal had a long and
scholarly debate with Father Pastells on religion. It started when Father Pastells sent him a
book by Sarda, with advice that the latter (Rizal) should desist from his majaderas
(foolishness) in viewing religion from the prism of individual judgment and self-esteem.
This interesting religious debate may be read in four letters written by Rizal, as flows:
(1) September 1, 1892; (2) November 11, 1892; (3) January 9, 1893; and (4) April 4, 1893;
and in Father Pastells’ replies dated: (1) October 12, 1892, (2) December 8, 1892, (3) February
2, 1893, and (4) April (no exact date), 1893.
In all his letters to Father Pastells, Rizal revealed his anti-Catholic ideas, which he had
acquired in Europe and embitterment at his persecution by the bad friars. It is understandable
why he was bitter against the friars who committed certain abuses under the cloak of religion.
As he wrote to Blumentritt from Paris on January 20, 1890: “I want to hit the friars, but only
friars who utilized religion not only as a shield, but also as a false and superstitious religion in
order to fight the enemy who hid himself behind it.”
According to Rizal, individual judgment is a gift from God and everybody should use it
like a lantern to show the way and that self-esteem, if moderated by judgment, saves man
from unworthy acts. He also argued that the pursuit of truth may lie in different paths, and thus
“religious may vary, but they all lead to the light.”
Father Pastells tried his best to win back Rizal to the fold of Catholicism. Divine faith,
he told Rizal, supersedes everything, including reason, self-esteem, and individual judgment.
No matter how wise a man is, he argued, his intelligence is limited; hence he needs the
guidance of God. He refuted Rizal’s attacks on Catholic dogmas as misconceptions of
rationalism and naturalism, errors of misguided souls.
This interesting debate between two brilliant polemicists ended inconclusively. Rizal
could not be convinced by Pastells arguments so that he lived in Dapitan beyond the pale of
his Mother Church.
In spite of their religious differences, Rizal and Pastells remained good friends. Father Pastells
gave Rizal a copy of the Imitacion de Cristo (Imitation of Christ), a famous Catholic book by
Father Thomas a Kempis. And Rizal, in grateful reciprocation, gave his Jesuit opponent in
debate a bust of St. Paul, which he had made.
Although Rizal did not subscribe to Pastells’ religious interpretation of Catholic
dogmas, he continued to be a Catholic, and celebrate Christmas and other religious fiestas in
the Catholic way. His Catholicism, however, was the Catholicism that inquires and enlightens,
the “Catholicism of Renan and Teilhard de Chardin.”
Rizal Challenges a Frenchman to a Duel. While Rizal was still debating with Father
Pastells by means of exchange of letters, he became involved in a quarrel with a French
acquaintance in Dapitan, Mr. Juan Lardet, a businessman. This man purchased many logs
from the lands of Rizal. It so happened that some of the logs were of poor quality.
Lardet, in a letter written to Antonio Miranda, a Dapitan merchant and friend of Rizal,
expressed his disgust with the business deal and stated that “if he (Rizal – Z) were a truthful
man, he would have told me that the lumber not included in the account were bad.
Miranda indiscreetly forwarded Lardet’s letter to Rizal. One of the hero’s weaknesses,
it should be noted was his sensitivity. When he read Lardet’s letter, he flared up in anger,
regarding the Frenchman’s unsavory comment as an affront to his integrity. Immediately, he
confronted Lardet and challenged him to a duel.
When the commandant heard of the incident, Carnicero told the Frenchman to
apologize rather than accept the challenge. “My friend, you have not a Chinaman’s chance in
a fight with Rizal on a field of honor. Rizal is an expert in martial arts, particularly in fencing
and pistol shooting.”
Heeding the commandant’s advice, Lardet wrote to Rizal in French, dated Dapitan,
March 30, 1893, apologizing for the insulting comment. Rizal, as a gentleman and well-versed
in pundonor (Hispanic chivalric code) accepted the apology, and good relations between him
and the Frenchman were restored.
It is interesting to recall that twice before his sensitivity caused him to challenge people
to a duel – Antonio Luna in 1890 and W.E. Retana in the same year.

Rizal and Father Sanchez. Father Pastells, aside from his personal efforts to
persuade Rizal to discard his “errors of religion,” instructed two Jesuits in Mindanao – Father
Obach, cura of Dapitan, and Father Jose Villaclara, cura of Dipolog – to try their best to bring
back Rizal within the Catholic fold. Furthermore, he assigned Father Francisco de Paula
Sanchez, Rizal’s favorite teacher at the Ateneo de Manila, to Dapitan.
Father Sanchez, since Rizal’s days at the Ateneo, had spent three years in Europe
and returned to Manila in 1881 to resume teaching at the Ateneo and to head its museum. He
was the only Spanish priest to defend Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere in public.
Immediately, upon his arrival in Dapitan, Father Sanchez lost no time in meeting his
former favorite student. Of all the Jesuits, he was the most beloved and esteemed by Rizal.
Almost daily they carried theological arguments in a friendly manner. But all efforts of Sanchez
were in vain. For once, his former beloved teacher could not convince Rizal.
Despite his failure to persuade Rizal to discard his unorthodox views on the Catholic
religion, Father Sanchez enjoyed the latter’s company. He assisted Rizal in beautifying the
town plaza. On his birthday, Rizal gave him a precious birthday gift – a manuscript entitled
Estudios sobre la lengua tagala (Studies on the Tagalog Language) – a Tagalog grammar
which Rizal wrote and which he dedicated to his beloved former teacher.

Idyllic Life in Dapitan. In Dapitan, Rizal had an exemplary life, idyllic in serenity. Since
August 1893, members of his family took turns in visiting him in order to assuage his loneliness
in the isolated outpost of Spanish power in the Moroland. Among them were his mother; sisters
Trinidad, Maria, Narcisa, and nephews Teodosio, Estanislao, Mauricio, and Prudencio. He
built his house by the seashore of Talisay, surrounded by fruit trees. He had also another
house for his schoolboys and a hospital for his patients.

Describing his life in Dapitan, Rizal wrote to Blumentritt on December 19, 1893

I shall tell you how we live here. I have three houses: one square, another hexagonal,
and a third octagonal, all of bamboo, wood, and nipa. In the square house we live, my mother,
sister Trinidad, a nephew and I; in the octagonal live my boys or some good youngsters whom
I teach arithmetic, Spanish and English; and in the hexagonal live my chickens. From my
house I hear the murmur of a crystal, clear brook which comes from the high rocks; I see the
seashore, the sea where I have many fruit trees, mangoes, lanzones, guayabanos, baluno,
ninja, etc. I have rabbits, dogs, cats, etc. I raise early – at five – visit my plants, feed the
chickens, awaken my people with tea, pastries, cheese, sweetmeats, etc. Later I treat my poor
patients who come to my land; I dress, go to the town in my baroto, treat the people there, and
return at 12, when my luncheon awaits me. Then I teach the boys until 4 P.M. and devote the
afternoon to agriculture. I spend the night reading and studying.

Rizal’s Encounter with the Friar’s Spy. During the early days of November 1893
Rizal was living peacefully and happily at his house in Talisay, a kilometer away from Dapitan.
His mother, sisters Narcisa and Trinidad, and some nephews were then living with him. His
blissful life was then suddenly jolted by a strange incident involving a spy of the friars. This
spy with the assumed name of “Pablo Mercado” and posing as a relative, secretly visited Rizal
at his house on the night of November 3, 1893. He introduced himself as a friend and relative,
showing a photo of Rizal and a pair of buttons with the initials “P.M.” (Pablo Mercado) as
evidences of his kinship with the Rizal family.
In the course of their conversation the strange visitor offered his services as a
confidential courier of Rizal’s letters and writing for the patriots in Manila. Rizal, being a man
of prudence and keen perception became suspicious. Irked by the impostor’s lies, he wanted
to throw him out of the house, but mindful of his duty as a host and considering the late hour
of the night and the heavy rainfall, he hospitably invited the unwanted visitor to stay at his
house for the night. And early the nest day, he sent him away.
After the departure of his bogus relative, Rizal attended to his daily chores, forgetting
the incident of the previous night. Later he learned that the rascal was still in Dapitan, telling
people that he was a beloved relative of Dr. Rizal. Losing his cool, he went to the
commandancia and denounced the impostor to Captain Juan Sitges (who succeeded Captain
Carnicero on May 4, 1893 as commandant of Dapitan. Without much ado, Sitges ordered the
arrest of “Pablo Mercado” and instructed Anastacio Adriatico, to investigate him immediately.
 The truth came out during this investigation. The real name of “Pablo Mercado” was
Florencio Namanan. He was a native of Cagayan de Misamis, single and about 30 years old.
He was hired by the Recollect friars to a secret mission in Dapitan – to introduce himself to
Rizal as a friend and relative, to spy on Rizal’s activities, and to filch certain letters and writings
of Rizal, which might incriminate him in the revolutionary movement. Strangely, Commandant
Sitges suddenly quashed the investigation and released the spy. He promptly forwarded the
transcripts of the investigation together with his official report to Governor General Blanco
who, in turn, kept these documents as highly confidential. Rizal, who was surprised at the turn
of events, requested for a copy of the proceedings of the investigation, but Sitges denied his
request. As now declassified and preserved at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, these
documents contain certain mysterious deletions.
These available documents on the friars’ spy failed mission have been quoted by three
Rizalist biographers, -Retana (1907), Palma (1949), and Jose Baron Fernandez (1982). Not
one of these biographers quoted the text of another document that is more reliable and
valuable in clarifying the whole incident. It is Rizal’s letter to his brother-in-law, Manuel T.
Hidalgo, written in Dapitan, December 20, 1893, as follows:

Rizal’s Trial

Accustomed to share the merry season with family, friends and relatives, the 1896
Christmas was indeed, Rizal’s saddest. Confined in a dark, gloomy cell, Rizal was in despair
and had no idea of what his fate may be. Under this delusion, he wrote a letter to Lt. Taviel de
Andrade requesting the latter to visit him before his trial for there was a very important matter
they need to discuss. Likewise, Rizal greeted the lieutenant a joyous Christmas.
The next day, December 26, about 8 o’clock in the morning, the court-martial of Rizal
commenced. The hearing was actually a kind of moro-moro – a planned trial wherein Rizal,
before hearing his verdict, had already been prejudged. Unlike other accused, Rizal had not
been allowed to know the people who witnessed against him. The trial took place at Cuartel
de España, a military building, with a court composed of seven military officers headed by Lt.
Col. Jose TogoresArjona. Present at the courtroom were Jose Rizal, the six other officers in
uniform (Capt. Ricardo Muñoz Arias, Capt. Manuel Reguera, Capt. Santiago Izquierdo Osorio,
Capt. Braulio Rodriguez Nuñez, Capt. Manuel Diaz Escribano, and Capt. Fernando Perez
Rodriguez), Lt. Taviel de Andrade, Judge Advocate Capt. Rafael Dominguez, Lt. Enrique de
Alcocer (prosecuting attorney) and a number of spectators, including Josephine Bracken.
After Judge Advocate Dominguez opened the trial, it was followed by Atty. Alcocer’s
reiteration of the charges against Rizal, urging the court that the latter be punished with death.
Accordingly, the three crimes accused to him were rebellion, sedition and illegal association –
the penalty for the first two being life imprisonment to death, while the last, correctional
imprisonment and a charge of 325 to 3,250 pesetas.
Lt. Taviel de Andrade, on the other hand, later took the floor reading his speech in
defense of Rizal. To supplement this, Rizal read his own defense which he wrote in his cell in
Fort Santiago. According to Rizal, there are twelve points to prove his innocence:

• as testified by Pio Valenzuela, Rizal was against rebellion

• he had not written a letter addressed to the Katipunan comprising revolutionary
elements
 • without his knowledge, his name was used by the Katipunan; if he really was guilty, he
could have escaped while he was in Singapore
• if he was guilty, he should have left the country while in exile; he shouldn’t have built a
home, bought a parcel of land or established a hospital in Dapitan.
• if he was really the leader of the revolution, the revolutionists should have consulted
him.
• he did not deny that he wrote the by-laws of the La Liga Filipina, but to make things
clear, the organization was a civic association, not a revolutionary society.
• after the first meeting of La Liga, the association banished because of his exile in
Dapitan, thus, did not last long.
• if the La Liga was reorganized nine months later, he had no idea about it
• if the La Liga had a revolutionary purpose, then Katipunan should not have been
organized.
• if the Spanish authorities found his letters having bitter atmosphere, it was because in
1890 his family was being persecuted resulting to their dispossession of properties and
deportation of all his brothers-in-law.
• he lived an exemplary life in Dapitan – the politico-military commanders and missionary
priests in the province could attest to that
• if according to witnesses the speech he delivered at Doroteo Ongjunco’s house had
inspired the revolution, then he wanted to confront these persons. If he really was for
the revolution, then why did the Katipunan sent an unfamiliar emissary to him in
Dapitan? It is so because all his friends were aware that he never advocated violence
But the military court remained indifferent to the pleads of Rizal. After a short deliberation,
he was sentenced to be shot in musketry until death at 7 o’clock in the morning of December
30, 1896 at Bagumbayan. The decision was submitted to Gov. Polavieja who immediately
sought the opinion of Nicolas de la Peña – the latter found the verdict just and final. Two days
later, the governor general signed the court’s decision and ordered Rizal’s execution.
Moments before his execution on December 30, 1896 by a squad of Filipino soldiers of
the Spanish Army, a backup force of regular Spanish Army troops stood ready to shoot the
executioners should they fail to obey orders. The Spanish Army Surgeon General requested
to take his pulse: it was normal. Aware of this the Sergeant commanding the backup force
hushed his men to silence when they began raising “vivas” with the highly partisan crowd of
Peninsular and Mestizo Spaniards. His last words were those of Jesus Christ:
“consummatumest“,–it is finished.
He was secretly buried in Pacò Cemetery in Manila with no identification on his grave. His
sister Narcisa toured all possible gravesites and found freshly turned earth at the cemetery
with guards posted at the gate. Assuming this could be the most likely spot, there never having
any ground burials, she made a gift to the caretaker to mark the site “RPJ”, Rizal’s initials in
reverse.
His undated poem, Miúltimoadiós believed to be written a few days before his execution,
was hidden in an alcohol stove, which was later handed to his family with his few remaining
possessions, including the final letters and his last bequests. During their visit, Rizal reminded
his sisters in English, “There is something inside it“, referring to the alcohol stove given by the
Pardo de Taveras which was to be returned after his execution, thereby emphasizing the
importance of the poem. This instruction was followed by another, “Look in my shoes “, in
which another item was secreted. Exhumation of his remains in August 1898, under American
rule, revealed he had been uncoffined, his burial not on sanctified ground granted the
‘confessed’ faithful, and whatever was in his shoes had disintegrated.
 In his letter to his family he wrote: “Treat our aged parents as you would wish to be
treated…Love them greatly in memory of me…December 30, 1896.”He gave his family
instructions for his burial: “Bury me in the ground. Place a stone and a cross over it.
My name, the date of my birth and of my death. Nothing more. If later you wish to
surround my grave with a fence, you can do it. No anniversaries.”
In his final letter, to Blumentritt – Tomorrow at 7, I shall be shot; but I am innocent of
the crime of rebellion. I am going to die with a tranquil conscience. Rizal is believed to
be the first Filipino revolutionary whose death is attributed entirely to his work as a writer; and
through dissent and civil disobedience enabled him to successfully destroy Spain’s moral
primacy to rule. He also bequeathed a book personally bound by him in Dapitan to his ‘best
and dearest friend.’ When Blumentritt received it in his hometown Litoměřice (Leitmeritz) he
broke down and wept.

Jose Rizal’s Martyrdom

An advocate of civil equality for Filipinos, political activist José Rizal published a book
critical of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines in 1886, while he was studying in Europe.
When he returned to the Philippines, Rizal was exiled to Mindanao. In 1896 Rizal was accused
of sedition and executed. He has become a national martyr of the Philippines.
Rizal’s death was an emotional event in our history as it produced in some form of
social change or transformation in lives of many people. He was put to death for subversion
by the dominant political purpose. He represented a sector of society which had begun to
cause trouble and therefore constituted a real threat to the existing social order.
He was accused by the Spanish colonial government two crimes, the founding of La
Liga Filipina, an illegal organization whose single aim was to perpetrate the crime of rebellion;
and a rebellion which he promoted through his previous activities.
His prosecution drew information from the dossier on which detailed his subversive
activities, some are the following:

• The writing and publication of Noli me Tangere, the Annotations to Morga’s History of
the Philippines, El Filibusterismo, and the various articles which criticized the friars and
suggested their expulsion in order to win independence. The Fili was dedicated to the
three-martyr priest who were executed as traitors to the father land in 1872 because
they were the moving spirits of the uprising that year.
• The establishment of masonic lodgeswhisc became the propaganda and fun raising
center to support subversive activities and the establishment of centers in Madrid,
Hongkong and Manila to propagate his ideas.
• Rizal denied that he engaged in any political activity between July 6, 1892 after the
foundingof the La Liga Filipina to June 1, 1896 when Dr. Pio Valenzuela visited him at
Dapitan to inform him that uprising was being contemplated. He told the court that
infact he advised against it and he seemed to have convinced Don Pio Valenzuela at
the end of the interview, for later on, instead of taking part in the rebellion , he sought
amnesty from the authorities. He claimed that his name was merely exploited since he
was already contented and resigned in his place of exile because of the opportunity it
gave me o do some writing and he even sought to go to Cuba as a volunteer.
 Rizal was heavily guarded and was accompanied by the Jesuits as he walked from Fort
Santiago to Bagumbayan. He wore a black woolen suit and a derby hat and his arms were
tied behind him. During the walk, he recalled his youth and days at the Ateneo. In Bagumbayan
itself, the Spanish troops held back the crowd while the artillery group stood on alert to prevent
any attempt to rescue Rizal.
A wagon from San Juan de Dios arrived after one hour and picked up Rizal’s body. He
was laid to rest in his black suit and derby hat. His remains were placed in a plain box and
buried at the Paco cemetery. No outsider was allowed to witness the event and the exact
burial site was kept secret for fear that Filipinos may steal the body. But some members of the
burial staff who were friends of the Rizal family placed a marker at the site with the letters
R.P.J. which stood for Rizal’s initials, in reverse.
Aguinaldo government had become the recognized political authority and was presumably
still in control before the Americans asserted their ownership of the island by virtue of the
treaty of Paris concluded on December 10 ,1898.
General Emilio Aguinaldo, president of the Philippine revolutionary Government
proclaimed December 30 as public holiday and a day of mourning in an order issued on
December 20 in Malolos, Bulacan. The American government took over this tradition and
included December 30, as one of the public holidays together with other American holiday’
such as Washington day. On December 30, 1905, William Jennings Byandeliverd the Rizal
Day address. A monumentwas also erected In Bagumbayan and Rizal was declared a national
hero.

How about us? Are we ready to defend our country? What do you think you can give to our
countrymen?