Module 2 Lesson 2

Lesson 2 Rizal without the Overcoat of Ambeth Ocampo (Rizal’s Life, family and Early
Education)

Module Overview:

This book is a collection of essays from Ambeth R. Ocampo’s newspaper column “Looking
Back” that began in the Philippine Daily Globe (now Philippine Daily Inquirer). This book
introduces Rizal’s basic truths as human through investigating his own writings (e.g. diaries,
letters and papers). To attempts to shred out the myths and rumors that surrounds our national
hero.

Module objectives

-To better understand our hero from the eyes of his families and friends

-To debunk myths on the childhood life of our national hero

Course Materials

1. Rizal without overcoat

Rizal has been always glorified as a national hero whose life and works was always portrait
as a significant act that change the course of our national history. Despite being painted
as man with great reputation, He can be viewed as an ordinary man who struggled a lot,
like any other man who lived in his time but was able to pursue what he aspired and lived
his beliefs until his death.

Read Rizal without overcoat chapter 1-Age, date of birth, Parents and relatives,
elementary days at Binan, laguna and then Ateneo de Manila.
Rizal background

Family

Father: Francisco Mercado

Mother: Teodora Alonso y Realonda

Date of Birth: June 19, 1861

Birthplace: Calamba, Laguna

Siblings:

Paciano

Saturnina

Narcisa

Olympia

Lucia

Maria

Concepcion

Josefa

Trinidad

Soledad
2. The Struggles of the young Jose in studying (Deflating historical ego “How Rizal graduated
sobre saliente?)

-Rizal in Binan, Laguna

-Rizal’s first teacher is Dona Teodora (non-formal teacher)
-Private tutor is Maestro Celestino
-Maestro Lucas Padua was the second private tutor
Maestro Leo Monroy became the his tutor is Spanish and Latin.

-During his time in Binan, Rizal was involved into two different physical brawl on his
teacher’s son named Pedro and Andres Salandanan.

- Jose surpassed his classmates in Spanish, Latin and of the subjects

His older classmates were jealous and squealed to the teacher whenever he had flights
Jose usually received five or six blows while laid out on a bench.

- Jose left Binan on 1870 and 2 year after the GomBurZa was executed. These priests
inspired Rizal to fight the evils of Spanish tyranny. In 1872 Dona Teodora was arrested on a
malicious charge that she aided his brother Jose Alberto in trying to poison his wife. Alberto’s
wife connived with the Spanish lieutenant of the Guardia Civil and filled a case against Rizal’s
mother.
- Antonio Vivencio del Rosario who was the gobernadorcillo of Calamba, helped the
lieutenant arrest of Dona Teodora.

-Dona Teodora was made to walk from Calamba to the provincial prison in Santa Cruz. The
imprisonment lasted in 2 and half years with the help of the famous lawyers of Manila named
Don Franciso de Marcaidea and Don Manuel Mazano.

-Rizal in Ateneo in Manila

 Read: Rizal, Jose “Memoirs of a student in Manila,” Appendix section of Gregorio Zaide’s
Jose Rizal, Life, Works and Writings

On the year 1872 Jose was sent to Manila to study in Ateneo.

-Jesuits Education system run in Ateneo. I was previously called Escuela Pia or Charity
School of Manila, founded in 1817. The government places it in the supervision of Jesuits.
The name of the school became Ateneo Municipal and then, Ateneo de Manila.
On the year 1872 Jose was sent to Manila to study in Ateneo.
-Fr. Magin Fernando deterred him from his matriculation because (1) He is late for
registration and (2) he appeared to be frail and sickly.

-Jose was the first to use the surname “Rizal” this is to avoid any association to the
martyred Fr. Jose Burgos.
-He was an external or a living-out student. He lived in Caraballo St. in Santa Cruz outside
the walled city in a house owned by certain Titay who has a debt on the Mercado Family.
- Rizal enjoyed his staying at Ateneo because of the system Jesuits has been running. (1)
they give emphasis to rigid discipline, character building and religious instruction. (2) They
established physical culture, humanities, and scientific studies. (3) They start and end
classes with a prayer and they hear masses every morning

-Rizal’ still got sobre saliente on the second half of his first year despite him focusing more
on novels and Cesar Cantu’s Historia Universal. On his second year he got a news that his mother
had been emancipated. Rizal didn’t show excellence in class. He ma maintained good grades but
only got one medal in Latin.

-On June 16, 1875, Rizal became an interno under Fr. Francisco Paula de Sanchez whom
he described as a great educator and scholar, a model of rectitude, and had a great devotion to
the student’s progress. This was the time when Rizal got inspired to study and write and poetry.
- The first poem that he wrote in Ateneo was “Mi Primera Inspiracion”
-Aside from writing poems, His talent came to his professor’s knowledge when they asked
him to carve the sacred heart of Jesus.
3. Rizal’s story of Love

-The teenage love story of Jose Rizal

1. Segunda Katigbak

-Rizal met Segunda when he visited his grandmother and friend, Mariano Katigbak.
-She was a close friend of Rizal’s sister, Olympia whom he visitor every week at the La Concordia
College.
-Segunda was a young woman from Lipa who at young age was sent by her parents to La
Concordia.

Rizal had to stop his motives to Segunda because the latter was already engaged to be married.

Rizal later wrote:

“Ended, at an early house, my first love! My virgin heart will always mourn the reckless step it took
on the flower decked abyss. My illusions will return, yes, but indifferent, uncertain, ready or the
first betrayal on the path of love.”
4. Debunking Myths Surrounding Young Rizal

CLASS ACTIVITY:

Instructor will provide a letter of Rizal written in Spanish and the class will try to translate
what was written on the letter.

4.1. Rizal as author of Sa aking mga Kabata (tagalog)

4.1.a. Which can be ascertained by knowing the concept of Freedom during the colonial
period.
Rizal belonged to the colonial elite and was formally schooled in Philippines and abroad
which made him to write in the language of the elite. One of the reasons that makes his
writings barely accessible to most Filipinos was because of the language used to write his
letter.

Virgilio Almario book entitled Rizal: Makata, the National Artist for Literature clarifies that
the poem was bot made by Rizal

1. On his letter to his brother Paciano in 1886, Rizal admitted that he finds it hard to translate
into Filipino the german word for freiheit or the Spanish word libetad, which he found in the
story of William Tell.
2. In Marcelo H. Del Pilar’s translation of Rizal’s article, El Amor Patrio (Ang Pagibig sa
Tinubuang Lupa, Rizal only discovered the word “malaya” or “kalayaan” as the equivalent
tagalog translation of libertad.

“… I lacked many words, for the word Freiheit or liberty, one cannot use the Tagalog word
kaligtasan of curse because this means that he was formerly in some prison, slavery, etc. I
encountered in the translation of Amor Patrio the noun Malaya, Kalayahan that Marcelo de
Pilar used. In the only Tagalog book I have, Florante at Laura I don’t find an equivalent noun.”
3. the word Kalayaan was used on the year 1882, 13 years after the Sa Aking Kabata in 1869.
 4. Rizal’s novel entited Makamisa which he intended to write in tagalog remained unfinished
because of his struggle in writing in tagalog- much more creating a tagalog poem when he
was 7-8 years old. He stopped writing in Tagalog and began anew in Spanish.
5. In Rizal’s childhood, they spelled words with a “c” rather than “k” where Rizal was not aware
of the colonial condition at such young age

4.1.b. Is Rizal the real author of the tagalog poem entitled “ Sa aking mga Kabata” and his
concept of freedom?

4.2 Rizal as an extraordinary honor student

4.2.a. which shows Rizal humble and ordinary life in Ateneo Municipal

- He is one of the high achievers-but not the valedictorian of his class. He was only one of
nine in a class of 12 who got sobresaliente.

4.2.b. Rizal bagging the awards and literature prize in Ateneo.

The teenage Rizal busied himself with extra curricular activities which includes sports, making
friends, and woing young girls of his age

Activity: Students will write their biography and how their life differs or are similar to Rizal’s
childhood life and education.

4. 3. Everyday Rizal (mundanities of Rizal’s life) dehumanizing heroe’s part

4.3.1 Rizal in the eyes of family, friend and educators.

4.3.2 Why is calling Rizal as a hero dehumanizing?