PROPERTY FROM THE DR. LEONCIO LOPEZ-RIZAL FAMILY Hand-painted Chess Pieces c. 1893 thirty-two discs Ivory / bone hand-painted with Chessmen by José Rizal 32 pieces D: 1" (3 cm), with one piece, chipped, 1" x 1/2" (3 cm x 1 cm) PROVENANCE José Rizal and from thence to Narcisa Rizal and thence to her son, Dr. Leoncio Lopez-Rizal, and from thence to Asuncion Lopez-Bantug LITERATURE Pictorial Album on Rizal, printed by the José Rizal Centennial Commission, Manila, 1961. Page 138, black and white photograph with the caption “Chess pieces made of bones”. CONDITION REPORT Very good with the miniature paintings clearly visible; except for one piece, the Queen, with less than half missing, but the hand painting is still visible The first known record of Rizal and the game of chess was in 1877 when he played a kind of chess in a romantic azotea in Trozo, Manila. He played to impress the beautiful Segunda Katigbak, but bungled his moves each time she glanced at him. He was just 16. By 1882, Rizal is on board the steamship Salvadora and later the Djemnah, playing the game with his fellow passengers as they pass the Suez Canal on the way to Naples and Marseilles. Rizal uses what is described as a ‘custom chess set’ of his own, with pegs at the bottom of each piece to keep them steady in a heaving ship. He records in his diary that he wins more than he loses. He finds himself in Heidelberg in 1886, there to pursue eye surgery at the prestigious university’s AugenKlinik to heal his mother’s eyes. Rizal lived in one of the boarding houses for a short while, wrote his biographer Austin Craig. He would impress his fellow boarders, all law students, with his skill at the game. They would put his name forward for membership at the Heidelberg Chess Club. Craig said that he “was registered as a law student at the Club, like the men who proposed him.” These chess tournaments were “quite a feature of the town, being held in large salons, with several hundred people present and the contests of skill were eagerly watched by shrewd and competent judges.” Rizal, concluded Craig, “ was a clever chess player and left something of a record among the chess experts.” When he moved to the home of Pastor Karl Ullmer in neighboring Wilhelmsfeld to save money on his rent, Ullmer’s great-grandson would recall the family lore that Rizal would play regularly with the vicar who also schooled him in the German language while reading Schiller and William Tell. Chess is featured in a chapter of the Noli Me Tangere, the pivotal novel completed in Wilhelmsfeld in Germany. Crisostomo Ibarra, the idealist recently returned to the Philippines, offers to settle an ancient feud with Capitan Basilio with a game of chess. Rizal would sharpen his chess-playing skills even more while in Paris. He would write home in 1889 describing a charmed life spent mostly fencing and at the gymnasium, with more hours visiting the Universal Exposition (the same that gave the world the Eiffel Tower) than studying at the library. He would indulge in playing chess “every other night, from 8:00 to 11:00”, meeting his fellow ilustrados in a cafe to do so. But the idyllic days of playing chess to win over old foes came to an end in El Filibusterismo. In Brussels and Ghent, where the novel first saw publication in 1891, the disillusioned Rizal had now turned to pistol-shooting and wrote in the Fili of the game of tresillo, wagering Simoun’s diamonds for men’s souls. Rizal would come to a sharp denouement upon his return to the Philippines in 1892. He would be dispatched to Dapitan to suffer an indeterminate exile. It was in this distant outpost that he fashioned these home-made chess pieces sometime in 1893, according to the Rizal family’s oral tradition. The chessmen are painted with a dose of whimsy. There are sharp-nosed kings and queens with coronets, horses with braided manes, stone castles. The pawns on one side are outlined with daggers; on the other, feathered spears. Each piece, however, is different since they were handpainted; all are expressions of Rizal’s vivid imagination and his longing for a happier past. A closer look at the pieces show that one set features a European King, Queen, Knight and Rook; while the opposite features an African King, Queen, an Elephant for the Bishop and a Zebra for the Knight. They are, in short, 32 miniature artworks wrought by the country’s most beloved hero, an inestimably important artifact tied to Rizal’s very persona. Indeed, the chess pieces are a powerful reminder of Rizal’s searing intellect, methodical mind, and brilliant memory, which he used to master the art of chess — and the authentic artistic talent he possessed to create these works. Seeing Rizal’s lifelong fascination with chess, this set of pieces also demonstrates his forward-thinking, which would guide how he lived and even sacrificed his life.
Los Filipinos y Los Frailes (The Filipinos and the Friars) Dated Hong Kong 1888 4 1/4" x 3 1/4" (11 cm x 8 cm) José Rizal (1861 - 1896) The Friars and The Filipinos Ramon Martinez Press, 1959 6 1/4" x 4 1/2" (16 cm x 11 cm) This small pamphlet, written in Spanish, features a design that would have been very familiar to readers in the late 19th-century Philippines—and, moreover, bears the immortal byline of Dimas Aláng! Of course, Dimas Aláng was the pen name of none other than our National Hero, José Rizal. At first glance, this design closely resembles known published satirical pamphlets by Rizal under that alias, such as “La Visión de Fray Rodriguez,” an imagined conversation between Father José Rodriguez, an Augustinian who criticized Rizal's novel “Noli me Tangere,” and their founder, St. Augustine of Hippo. Another is “Por Telefono,” written in 1889, which presents a fictional phone call between Manila and Madrid to mock the Spanish friars, particularly Father Salvador Font, for banning the novel. The title of the pamphlet in hand is “Los Filipinos y Los Frailes.” This is not to be confused with another pamphlet by the journalist Joaquin Pellicena y Camacho, a contemporary of the propagandists, entitled “Filipinos y los Frailes,” which is about that campaign against the friars during the late Spanish regime and early American occupation, published in 1901. Searching the internet for the specific title “The Filipinos and the Friars” mainly yields books summarizing the Noli Me Tangere and a pamphlet in both English and Tagalog. These, along with other short essays by Rizal published in 1959 by R. Martinez and Sons, were intended to meet the demand for Rizal publications after Republic Act 1425, or the “Rizal Law,” and in anticipation of the Rizal Birth Centenary in 1961. (Incidentally, this is the companion piece in this collection.) Unlike other well-known Rizal essays, this one seems to have little visibility. The José Rizal National Centennial Commission (JRNCC) volumes on the complete works of José Rizal do not list this particular title, and upon checking the works of Rizal specialists, Zaide, Guerrero, Baron-Fernandez, and others, it is also pretty absent. One may even start to think that this is just another hoax. Upon reading the text, however, a Rizal enthusiast with an interest in history may begin to find the story familiar. Further investigation reveals that it is indeed listed in the JRNCC volume Prosa por José Rizal (Rizal’s Prose), though under a different title— “Una Visita del Señor a las Filipinas” or “The Lord Gazes at the Philippine Islands.” I first encountered this story in Ambeth Ocampo’s Makamisa: The Search for Rizal’s Third Novel, in which he summarizes the plot as follows: “The story opens with God the Father turning his attention to the Philippines, from where he has received many complaints. He consults the people in heaven and is told that certain beings, called friars, and a Pope, claim to speak in His name on earth. God traces all this to the Christian church, so he summons both Jesus Christ and St. Peter to explain how and why this state of affairs has come about. Not satisfied with their answers, God the Father commands Jesus and Peter to return to earth and make a report on the Philippines. He assures the anxious Jesus that this trip will not entail another round of suffering on the cross. “Jesus and Peter arrive in Hong Kong, where they are surprised to discover that a passport and visa are required to visit the Philippines. When they arrive in Manila, the boat is placed under quarantine, adding to their impatience. Jesus notes all these in a notebook, which is later opened by Spanish customs and immigration authorities in Manila, leading to renewed detention. When Jesus and Peter complain about the shabby treatment, they are branded as subversives by the authorities. Peter escapes and searches for the Manila Cathedral, which he heard was "his," to get help. Along the way, Peter hears Jesus being interrogated, and is relieved that it is daytime; thus, he would not have to hear the cock crow again. The novel ends abruptly just when the action is supposed to begin. By leaving this unfinished, Rizal dealt a great blow to Philippine comic or satirical literature.” So, if the work was unfinished, why is there a pamphlet with the same design as the other known Rizal pamphlets? The last page of the pamphlet reads “Hong Kong, 1888.” Rizal, however, was not in Hong Kong in 1888; he would arrive in 1891. The pamphlet ends with this paragraph, which, when translated from the Spanish, reads, “Note: This is the first complete publication of this satirical tale by Dr. Rizal, whose original manuscript was stolen from the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library), perhaps by the religious orders. The reduction in size of this edition has been made so that it forms a triptych with ‘The Vision of Father Rodriguez’ and ‘By Telephone,’ two other stories made by the same author that were published in Spain and Germany in the year 1889.” Although there was a deliberate attempt to make this particular printed pamphlet match the appearance of the actual Rizal pamphlets, it mentions ‘the Biblioteca Nacional’ or National Library. In truth, there was still no Biblioteca Nacional in 1888, so this printed material is not from 1888 but from the early American period. And now the plot thickens. If the manuscript was stolen by the friars, how was it ever published? Was there a copy made before the theft? Was the original ever found? The footnote in Prosa por Jose Rizal indicates that the manuscript is in the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library of the Philippines, NLP), but it is unclear whether it is indeed the original. Encarnacion Alzona finished translating from Spanish to English in 1957 using a photostat copy in the NLP. The guide to the Rizal manuscripts collection does not list the story. Did the war destroy the original? Or did it fall into someone else’s hands? Finally, Prof. Ambeth Ocampo sheds light on the matter: The original manuscript is indeed still at the National Library of the Philippines, in two notebooks, and is untitled, but was archived under the title “Principios de una novela satirica.” This explains why the work is known by many names, which, aside from the two already mentioned, also include “The Divine Wrath.” Apparently, the manuscript was acquired from the heirs of Rizal’s friend Mariano Ponce. If there is a case for lost in translation, this is more like lost among the titles. The importance of this work was underscored by Dolores Feria when she compared the satire of this unfinished novel to the posthumous writings of Mark Twain in Letters of the Earth. Satire is the weapon of the weak against the powerful. Rizal yielded this weapon to what his generation believed were the most formidable enemies of the Filipino people—the friars! He was not against the religion per se, as seen in his sympathetic portrayal of Jesus, but the friars, even if not all of them are bad, had become even more powerful than the civil government, just for their length of stay in a parish—30 to 50 years, as opposed to a Spanish civil official that only stayed three years. They should also ideally have trained the secular priests to administer the parishes, because their real mission is to stay in the convent, but they clung to this position as the go-between the people and the government, and in some cases, they had become the government themselves. Thus, there is a tendency to be corrupted by power. While the Catholic Church has changed in many ways, the new Padre Damasos in our society have become the political dynasties who overstay in power and use their institution to enrich themselves. This Rizal essay is consistent with his career and style as a satirist, but it also reflects Rizal’s personal tendency to be a bit of a ningas cogon, starting projects and never finishing them. Even so, this particularly rare piece is an indicator of Rizal’s continuing relevance amid the enduring hypocrisy and problems in Philippine society, still very similar to when Rizal imagined the Lord Jesus Christ coming to the Philippines to investigate them. Acknowledging the help of Mr. Eruel Olvina, Archivist I, Filipiniana Division of the National Library of the Philippines, for finding clues on the provenance of the essay.
El Filibusterismo Signed and dedicated “A mi querido amigo el doctor T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Jose Rizal, Gante, 16/ IX 1891” (To my dear friend, the doctor T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Jose Rizal, Ghent, 16 September 1891) Boekdrukkerij F. Meyer-Van Loo, Vlaanderenstraat, 60 First Edition, Ghent 1891 PROVENANCE From the collection of Don Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, as evidenced by an ex libris with his name on the marbled endpaper on the inside front cover and his name stamped on the title page as “Dr. T.H. Pardo de Tavera.” Printed when Jose Rizal was both emotionally and financially exhausted, the masterpiece El Filibusterismo contains fewer pages and was produced in fewer copies than his first book, the Noli Me Tangere. It is thus considered far rarer than his Noli Me Tangere. It is also the most poignantly produced, marshaling all that Rizal had to offer, together with funds raised from fellow Filipinos across Asia and Europe—in France, Belgium, the Philippines, and China. This edition’s unique value comes from the National Hero’s signature added below a dedication to Dr. Trinidad Pardo de Tavera. Signed September 16, 1891, it predates the commonly known printing date and is literally the press’s first copy. Rizal held this very book, personally sending Pardo de Tavera a message with it. Letters to his close friend Jose Basa in Hong Kong and others detail the lengths to which Rizal went to have El Filibusterismo printed. First of all, he moved from Paris (away from the high-living temptations of the Exposition of 1889) to save money and to find not just cheaper living quarters but also an inexpensive printing shop. He found it in Ghent, Belgium, at the Boekdrukkerij F. Meyer-Van Loo at No. 60 Vlaanderen Street, which extended installment terms to him. Rizal rented a room at a low-rent boarding house near the press at No. 47 Henegouwen Street. He shared it with Jose Alejandrino, then a student in chemical engineering. Together, they skipped meals and checked the galleys. Alejandrino would later become a prominent general of the First Philippine Republic. Even with the “pay as you print” arrangements, Rizal struggled. He exhausted the first loan sent by Jose Basa and became so desperate that he threatened to abandon the project and burn the manuscript. Rizal would wind up pawning jewelry his mother had given him, skipping meals, and, when he could afford it, living on tea and biscuits to scrape together the funds. A wealthy friend, Valentin Ventura—a fencing companion shown in his most famous photograph with Rizal and Juan Luna in Paris—finally stepped in. When he learned of Rizal’s dire predicament, he sent the much-needed funds to complete the printing. Described as the sequel (or continuacion) of the Noli Me Tangere, the masterpiece El Filibusterismo is as much a revealing account of Jose Rizal’s own life as it is a roadmap to revolution. The book sounded two alarms on its first pages: a message from Rizal’s confidante Ferdinand Blumentritt, who suggested that "filibusterers (subversives)" were the only logical outcome of Spanish oppression; and a provocative dedication to the martyred Padres Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora, which vividly attacked their tormentors. The Fili would thus strike a stronger blow for the cause of revolution, a far more direct call to action and change than the reformist Rizal, who was better known in the Noli. For that reason, the Spanish colonial government and their friar-accomplices did all they could to block the reading of the book. Both distribution and possession were condemned and banned. Those caught with it were arrested and imprisoned. Reports indicate that a shipment of 800 books—likely half the print run—sent to Hong Kong, a hotbed of Filipino resistance, was either lost, confiscated, or destroyed. This El Filibusterismo is thus an irreplaceable piece of Rizal’s own personal narrative — as well as an important part of the Philippines’ history.
Untiled (La Niña Mestiza) crayon on paper ca. 1876 - 1877 15 1/4" x 11 1/4" (39 cm x 29 cm) PROVENANCE From the collection of Asuncion Lopez Bantug , granddaughter of Narcisa Rizal; and L. Lopez-Rizal, as evidenced by handwritten notes at the back of the painting. LITERATURE Pictorial Album of Jose Rizal, printed by the Jose Rizal Centennial Commission, 1961. Page 135, black and white illustration with the caption “Studies in crayon by Rizal done in Manila while studying at the Ateneo.) Better known as a political philosopher and a novelist, Jose Rizal was also an accomplished artist. It was a talent he pursued very early in his youth, as this sketch made while he was at the Ateneo Municipal shows. He first entered the Ateneo as a boy of almost 12 in 1872. According to the eminent historian Ambeth Ocampo, “Rizal obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1877 with the grade of Sobresaliente (Excellent) and got five first prize medals in philosophy, drawing, comportamiento (good behavior ), good boarder, and aplicacion (studiousness) as well as honorable mention in physics and chemistry. Rizal would train in both sculpture and drawing, for which he received a “first class medal.” He would also study at the Manila Art Academy, formally known as the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura de Manila, the same school that produced Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and Miguel Zaragoza. His teacher was Lorenzo Guerrero. Like Juan Luna, he would also enrol in the Real Academia de las Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, the most famous art college in Spain. Upon closer inspection, this charming work is a portrait of a fair-haired girl, whose blond hair is highlighted with pale tones. Her eyes are also a light hazel, but her rounded cheeks suggest that she was a mestiza Filipina. Rizal skillfully uses an immaculately white collar and a black bow to offset her delicate features. Its sophistication reveals not only Rizal’s talent but his advanced training that he may have picked up at the Manila academia. It foretells the features of Rizal’s last love, the Irish mestiza Josephine Bracken, who would become his wife. This artwork was handed down from Narcisa Rizal, believed to be Rizal’s favorite and most devoted sister.
PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED LADY a.) Noli Me Tangere First Edition, Berlin 1887 Berliner Buchdruckerei-Actien-Gesselschaft Setzerinnen-Schule des Lette Vereins H: 9" (23 cm) W: 5 3/4" (15 cm) thickness: 1 1/4" (3 cm) b.) El Filibusterismo First Edition, Ghent, 1891 Boekdrukkerij F. Meyer-Van Loo, Viaanderenstraat, 66 H: 9" (23 cm) W: 6" (15 cm) thickness: 1" (3 cm) Both bound in hand-painted speckled Moroccan leather with six raised bands, stamped and ornamented, along the spine. Title and author gilt-stamped on red band. With marbled end papers. The initials “AGM” are engraved at the bottom of each spine. PROVENANCE Private Collection, Madrid, Spain.
a.) Original Print from the 1890 Madrid Negative of Dr. José Rizal 3" x 6" (8 cm x 15 cm) b.) Photograph of a Lost Painting by Don Roman Faustino y Topacio: Dr. José Rizal Treating a Patient 5" x 3 1/4" (13 cm x 8 cm) PROVENANCE Don Roman Faustino y Topacio collection This rare collection offers a deep and personal insight into the life and legacy of Dr. José Rizal, carefully curated and preserved by the respected Filipino artist and historian, Don Roman Faustino y Topacio. The two photographs, displayed together, serve as both original source material and a direct connection to an important, yet mostly lost, collection of artistic work. a.) This is a museum-quality print of the famous portrait of Dr. José Rizal, taken in Madrid in 1890. The inscription at the bottom of the image confirms its origin from the original negative, captured during a significant period of Rizal's life in Europe. This photograph is an important piece of visual history, showing the national hero with remarkable clarity and dignity during his years of intellectual and political growth. Its inclusion in Don Roman Faustino's collection emphasizes its importance as a key reference for his artistic works. It is more than just a portrait; it serves as a physical link to the historic moment that inspired a generation of Filipino artists. b.) The second item is a photograph of one of Don Roman Faustino’s most important paintings, believed to depict Dr. José Rizal treating a patient. It is widely thought to show Rizal caring for his own mother, Teodora Alonso, who was experiencing vision problems. This image is very significant, as it represents one of the few remaining visual records of a major work by Don Faustino. The painting itself, now lost due to the war, was a powerful depiction of Rizal’s compassion and skill as a doctor—a side of him often overlooked in favor of his revolutionary role. This photograph, also nearly destroyed by fire, is the only remaining visual connection to a piece of art that could have become a cornerstone of Philippine cultural heritage. It offers invaluable insight into Faustino's careful historical research and his commitment to creating a complete and humanized portrait of the national hero.
Noli Me Tangere 1st Edition signed and dedicated "To the distinguished Filipinista, Don T.H Pardo de Tavera, from his friend and countryman, J. Rizal" Berlin, Berliner Buchdruckerei-Aktiengesellschaft (Book Printing Stock Corporation) Setzerinnen-Schule des Lette-Vereins. (Typography School of the Lette Society) 1887 H: 9 1/4" (23 cm) W: 6 1/4" (16 cm) thickness: 1" (2.5 cm) PROVENANCE A gift from Jose Rizal to Don Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera By the time of the arrival of the Americans, the library of Don Trinidad H. Pardo Tavera had become legendary and had become invaluable as a resource to the new regime. As a result, "TH was persuaded to make a catalogue of his collection which was published in 1903 under the joint sponsorship of the Library of Congress and the U.S. Bureau of Insular Affairs,” noted E. Arsenio Manuel. “This is the Biblioteca Filipino which now stands a monument to his learning and a milestone in the history of Philippine bibliography making. It contains 2850 entries relating to the peoples of the Philippines, their history, languages and literatures, and culture.” In 1923, Pardo de Tavera was appointed to the directorship of the Philippine Library and Museum, a position which he held until his death two years later. He was married to Doña Concepcion Cembrano, daughter of Don Vicente Cembrano y Ker and Carolina Gonzalez Calderon, a cousin of Felipe Calderon. Family lore recalls that his daughter nicknamed “Bebeco” would refer to this first edition as a “galerada” or a “galley proof” since the book bears many markings of the year 1886: the first is the year in ink in a triangle and the second, a scribbled “1886” in pencil on the title page. There are also several pages with pencil annotations and markings, whose origins reflect his inquiring mind. Bebeco would take up the torch left by Don Trinidad and ensure the safety and survival of this precious treasure through the years.
Elevation of the Facade of Rizal’s Academy signed "J. Rizal 16 de Marzo" (lower right) 1892, Hongkong pen and ink in paper with metric measurements 23" x 17 1/4" (58 cm x 44 cm) PROVENANCE From the family of Narcisa Rizal, sister of Jose Rizal LITERATURE Pictorial Album on Rizal, published by Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, 1961. Black and white illustration and explanation, page 96. In Excelsis: The Mission of Jose P. Rizal, Humanist and Philippine National Hero by Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, Published by Studio 5 Designs, Inc., In honor of the Jose Rizal Martyrdom Centennial, December 30, 1996 , full color illustration page, 139 The Philippines' National Hero Jose Rizal is wellknown as a man of letters and the arts — less known are his training and ability in numbers. To start, Rizal was the first Filipino geodetic engineer (and certainly, its youngest), having taken the course at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1877 through 1878. At the time, it had the title of ‘agrimensor y perito tasador’ (land surveyor and expert assessor). He even passed the licensure exam in the same year but since he was only 17, had to wait almost four whole years to be given his license in November 1881. Rizal would have found this schooling useful as the son of one of the largest tenants of the Dominican-owned friar estates of Calamba. As surveyor, he learned how to mark boundaries (the kind still used today for land titles) and just as importantly, trained in measuring the sizes of property. In present times, he is regarded as the patron saint (and role model) for the association of Geodetic Engineers of the Philippines. During his exile in Dapitan, he even marked and planned the town’s streets. Rizal was, most of all, given a curious mind — but also a desire to share his many gifts and wide knowledge with young people. During his stay in HongKong in 1891 through 1892, he had envisioned a school to be established in the Crown Colony. His dream academy would balance the education of mind and body including three-hour walks and competitve exams for perspective teachers. He went on to do more than that, drafting a plan for the academy, complete with numerical measurements. After all, Rizal was a forward-thinking intellectual who in February 1889 made the bold move of writing nowfamous Letter to the Women of Malolos, encouraging them to love learning and to stand firm for their right to education. One of his friends was the German scholar Adolf Bastian, who believed in the community of men and would found the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. (Rizal contributed Philippine artifacts to its collection and the objects have been catalogued by the National Museum of the Philippines.) Moving in these spirited, pioneering circles, it is entirely possible that Bastian would have introduced Rizal to the Lette Verein (Lette Association), which had the pioneering vision of educating single women with vocational skills that would help them make a living and make their own independent way in the world. The Lette Verein, in fact, provided training in the cutting-edge arts of photography and type-setting. The Noli Me Tangere would be printed by the Berlin, Berliner Buchdruckerei-Aktiengesellschaft (Book Printing Stock Corporation) and its Setzerinnen-Schule des Lette-Vereins (Typography School of the Lette Society) in 1877. Photographs of the Lette Verein which still stands today in Berlin bear a striking resemblance to Rizal’s plans for his own dream academy, coming full circle to the country’s first political novel that would chart the Philippines’ destiny as a nation.
Josephine Sleeping signed 'Rizal' (bottom left) ca. July 1895 - July 1896 plaster of paris H: 2 1/2" (6 cm) L: 9 1/2" (24 cm) W: 2 3/4" (7 cm) PROVENANCE: Collection of the family of Narcisa Rizal, sister of the Philippines National Hero, Jose Rizal, thence by descent LITERATURE: Pictorial Album on Rizal (Album Pictorico Sobre Rizal), Foremost Filipino Hero, Martyr and Patriot, Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission, Republic of the Philippines, Manila. 1961, Black and white photograph, page 139. Asuncion Lopez Bantug. Lolo Jose: An Intimate and Illustrated Portrait of Jose Rizal, Vibal Publishing, Manila, 2008. Black and white (sepia) photograph, page 136. Sunday Times Magazine. Rizal : Man of Many Minds, June 14, 1970. Black and white photograph, page 30. PUBLIC HISTORY, PRIVATE LIVES AND HIS DREAM OF LOVE RIZAL AND THE PHILIPPINE REVOLUTION by LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL - By the end of June 1892, as Jose Rizal stepped on the deck of the boat Don Juan that would take him from HongKong to Manila, it was already apparent that he had chosen a collision course with his destiny. His letters to his family, the Spanish governor- general and finally and most tellingly, one addressed ‘To the Filipinos’, spoke plainly. His biographer Leon Ma. Guerrero wrote that “he was ready to be shot, and in a way, was expecting it.” He conducted himself, therefore, with a certain devil- may-care air, checking into “the best hotel in the city” (Room 44, of the Hotel Oriente), traveling to Bulacan and Pampanga and Tarlac — and within a week of his arrival, on July 3rd, calling a meeting of the like-minded to found La Liga Filipina. Two days later, the houses he had visited in the provinces outside Manila were raided and copies of the Fili and various subversive pamphlets were seized. The very next day after that, he was sent to incarceration at Fort Santiago escorted by the Governor General’s nephew, riding in his personal carriage. It was a quaint gesture of politeness, as if to say that it was all beyond Despujol’s comprehension. The scholar Jim Richardson notes, “By most accounts, when the Gaceta de Manila reported that he was to be deported from Manila to the south, Andres Bonifacio, Teodoro Plata, and Ladislaw Diwa and others had decided that it was time to proceed” with the plans for the Katipunan. It was July 7, 1892. In a week, Rizal was rousted from his sleep at midnight and sent on a slow boat to Dapitan and would begin his exile in Mindanao on July 17. It would seem that the Spanish colonial government had closed the book on Jose Rizal, the trouble-maker, agitator, and ring-leader, by dispatching him to a faraway town where he could do no more harm. They would be mistaken because Rizal’s exile had set into motion a greater, unseen danger. “While parish friar and police spy, informer and garrison commander, Archbishop and Governor General went chasing after the aproned brethren (of Masonry), the majority of them progressive principales and liberal ilustrados, Bonifacio was quietly but tirelessly working among the masses, whose huts did not seem worth a search, who could be scarcely suspected of being able to write their own names, let alone subversive propaganda, who congregated dumbly in cockpits, circus tents, and dank alleys, and were presumably more concerned with keeping body and soul together and a shirt on their backs, than in the high politics of reform and revolution. These were the faithful, the submissive, the unspoiled... So it was that Bonifacio and the Katipunan escaped and grew,” explained Guerrero. The last four years of Jose Rizal’s life run in parallel with the beginning of the most tumultuous periods of Philippine history. But for Jose Rizal, he sought to create a different Filipino utopia. Between 1892 to 1896, ‘the four years and 13 days and some hours”, Rizal would dance around the cold reality of his exile. He would farm the land, trade in hemp, design an unusual six-sided house and a working water system, build a school and teach, and then finally, he would allow himself to dream — a dream of love with an Irish orphan girl with blue eyes. In January or February 1895, three years into his exile —it was a sentence of indeterminate length really, Josephine Leopoldine Bracken arrived with her adoptive father, George Taufer, an English engineer from Hongkong. Taufer had come to seek Rizal’s help to cure his blindness and Rizal did indeed operate on his eyes. But then the unexpected happened, and Rizal would fall finally and hopelessly in love. And on February 22, Rizal asked for Josephine’s hand in marriage over Taufer’s vehement objections. Josephine would accompany Taufer back to Manila but would soon return to Rizal’s side, by July 1895, they would be living together as man and wife. It is in this period, that the work, a depiction of a sleeping beauty, was created. Josephine lies outstretched on a classical Roman-style couch with a head-rest, covered in a thin blanket that outlines her waist and thighs. A hand modestly covers one breast, she half-smiles innocently in her sleep, tresses parted over her forehead. She is mother, child, and wife all at once. Rizal has signed his name beneath her soft, placid form. It is an intimate and happy depiction of his life and love, a rare exception to his allegorical themes of machismo, knowledge and strength. Or is 'Josephine Sleeping' true to Rizal's inner self and a symbol of his life's concern and his beloved nation now in a deep slumber? “In the life of Rizal, Josephine Bracken plays a special part... that has been too long deprecated and obscured... She is the one woman whom Rizal loved; Leonor Rivera was a boyish fancy, the nostalgic phantom that haunted fitfully his years in exile; all the rest: Consuelo, Suzanne, Gertrude with her breakfast tray, Sei-ko and her tales of the samurai, Nellie the proselytizer, had never really made him pause in his restless journeys, never really pierced the armor of his cold passion for his country and her rights and liberties. “If Rizal can be said to have ever loved anyone else but tthe Filipino Nation, than it must be said that he loved Josephine; he was her husband twice over, her open lover in defiance of all his innate propriety and sensibility; she was the one woman with whom he shared that most jealously prized of all his possessions, his name, and also his heart’s intimacies.”—— Leon Ma. Guerrero, in the ‘The First Filipino : A Biography of Jose Rizal’ inn the life of Rizal,
PROPERTY OF A VERY DISTINGUISHED SPANISH COLLECTOR Noli Me Tangere. Volume 1 and volume 2 Barcelona: Casa Editorial Maucci, 1907 Condition: Fair, damaged binding. The novels of Dr. Jose Rizal were printed and reprinted in Spain during the early decades of the 20th Century. This particular edition has the added value of its beautiful colored covers. Ilustrated with Annotations from R. Sempau.
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF TRINIDAD H. PARDO DE TAVERA Mi Retiro handwritten and signed by Jose Rizal himself ca. 1895 - 1896 two leaves of graph paper with four pages with handwriting enveloped addressed “Para Sr Dr Pardo, Calle Centeno, No. 7” (for Señor Doctor Pardo (de Tavera) Leaf 1: 8 1/4” x 10 1/4” (21 cm x 26 cm) Leaf 2: 8 1/4” x 10 1/4” (21 cm x 26 cm) Envelope: 4 1/2” x 5 3/4” (11 cm x 15 cm) WRITE UPRizal’s Mi Retiro His Message to the Filipino Nation by PROF. MICHAEL CHARLESTON “XIAO” BRIONES CHUA, PH.D. (CAND.) FILIPINO PUBLIC HISTORIAN Rizal moved to come home from Europe in 1892 and he knew when he arrived in Manila that he might be arrested or worse. He wrote two letters to his family and to the Filipino people to be opened after his death. He was, most of all, self-aware of his place in history and it was time to face his destiny. It is true that three days after he arrived, he organized La Liga Filipina — and he was arrested on 6 June 1892. The Spanish colonial government did not execute him, at least not yet. They had other plans. They exiled him to Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte, which literally was the edge of the world. They wanted him to be isolated and battered until he surrendered his will to the whims of the colonizers. It was putting José Rizal in prison but without bars. But prison it was, and he did what he could to give life to the town. He became a single-man NGO who introduced, as Floro Quibyen noted: progressive education, social entrepreneurship and community development. In August 1893, his mother, Doña Teodora Alonso and his sister Maria joined him to live in Dapitan. He treated her eyesight and she was observed how much busier he actually had become. As noted by historians Gregorio and Sonia Zaide, his mother “regretted that he had neglected the Muses.” Before she left to go back for Manila in February 1895, she asked and encouraged her son to write poetry again. Rizal’s Mi Retiro His Message to the Filipino Nation by PROF. MICHAEL CHARLESTON “XIAO” BRIONES CHUA, PH.D. (CAND.) FILIPINO PUBLIC HISTORIAN Faith do I have, and I believe the day will shine When the Idea shall defeat brute force as well; And after the struggle and the lingering agony A voice more eloquent and happier than my own Will then know how to utter victory’s canticle. — Jose Rizal, Excerpt from Mi Retiro, October 1895. Tranlation by Nick Joaquin But it would take some time before he could fulfill her wishes. On 22 October 1895, Rizal sent the poem Mi Retiro to his mother along with another poem, Himno a Talisay, which would become a sort of anthem for his Dapitan pupils, “Though I have no letter from you, nevertheless I write you thus, sending you the enclosed poem that I promised you. Many months have already passed but I have not been able to correct it yet on account of my numerous tasks. Besides I follow the advice of Horace to let manuscripts sleep a long time in order to correct them better later.” Some might feel that the verses are only the lengthy musings — this is Rizal’s longest poem at 24 stanzas — of a lonely man, settled but never content. What makes this deeply personal poem relevant to our country today is because the author, our National Hero, still found in his hopeless situation the courage to dream of a better Philippines. Rizal believed that the Idea — of liberty and freedom, and of the equality of all men — was the Idea that would ultimately loosen the grip of the oppressors. Leon Ma. Guerrero, who himself was an excellent writer, wrote in one of the best biographies of Rizal, The First Filipino, “The verses for his mother, entitled - Mi Retiro are some of his best.” But what makes this poem important aside from its authorship, yet again, is the discourse, that surrounds it. Virgilio Almario, National Artist for Literature and the country’s foremost poet in his own right, examined Mi Retiro in his book “Rizal: Makata.” He asks that we look beyond the oversimplification that the poem is only about acceptance and finding joy in a limiting space. He suggests that we look at how Rizal used the word Retiro to express a myriad of meanings: it meant retirement from long duty, it also meant retreat from battle, but in a religious sense, it could also mean temporary respite from the frenzied hurly burly of the city life to reflect about life. It can also mean a look back to a life well-lived, a look back at the past and a physical return to once native or beloved land. In this we find the deeper and more relevant meanings of Mi Retiro. Rizal knew the fight was not yet over — and that somehow, the wheels of history would continue to turn. It can be argued, as it is argued by Almario, that Mi Retiro is a twin sister of Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios. And it would be wrong, as other experts say, that in bettering Mi Retiro’s standing would need to diminish Mi Ultimo Adios. The truth is both masterpieces are complementary and can best be appreciated if taken together. They are what constitutes Rizal’s long goodbye to the nation — and together pose an important message to all of us, its citizens. Mi Ultimo Adios’s last line answers the last premise of Mi Retiro, “Morir es descansar”—to die is to repose, to retreat, to rest. Rizal had found peace in dying, because the “Idea” had been brought forth. That Idea is ultimatly the Filipino Nation — a free Filipino nation. And he faced death courageously and valiantly, like all martyrs and heroes, because all the sadness and sacrifices were all worth it. Reflecting on the poem is like joining Rizal in his Mi Retiro as we also look back at his indubitable contributions to the birth of our nation. It is the perfect touchstone for its 125th year.
Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas por el Doctor Antonio de Morga; Obra Publicada en Mejico en el Año de 1609, Nuevamente Sacada a Luz y Anotada por Jose Rizal, y Precedida de un Prologo del Prof. Fernando Blumentritt (Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas by Dr. Antonio de Morga; A Work Published in Mexico in the Year 1609, Brought to Light and Annotated By Jose Rizal With a Prologue by Prof. Fernando Blumentritt.) Libreria de Garnier Hermanos, Paris, 1890 First Edition 8 3/4" x 5 1/2" (21 cm x 14 cm) depth: 1/2" (1 cm) PROVENANCE Private Collection, Manila José Rizal's edition of Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas [Events of the Philippine Islands], the early history of the Philippines that Antonio de Morga published in Mexico in 1609, is, in a few words, the best work of research from the pen of the Calamba hero. To understand the significance of this fundamental title of the Rizalian bibliography, it is necessary to understand the context of indigenous identity vindication that the Filipino ilustrados were carrying out at that time. Pedro Paterno, an uncredited pioneer in this as in so many other things, had printed in Madrid a few years earlier an ethnohistorical essay with the eloquent title: La antigua civilización tagalog [The ancient Tagalog civilization] (1887). Paterno's thesis was that Tagalog was one of the great civilizations of Asia, and that traces of that greatness were also evident in the Filipinos during his years. Pardo de Tavera, who was always moved by a more scientific approach, published two linguistic studies in Europe's most prestigious journals that implicitly stressed a vindication of the Filipino identity through the Tagalog language: Contribución para el estudio de los antiguos alfabetos filipinos [Contribution to the study of ancient Filipino alphabets] (Lausanne, 1884) and El sánscrito en la lengua tagala [Sanscrit in Tagalog language] (Paris, 1887). In 1887 Pardo de Tavera got a copy of Juan de Plasencia's manuscript on the ancient customs and rules of the Tagalogs, which he only published with annotations in 1892. With the same purpose, though in a more didactic and pragmatic spirit, Isabelo de los Reyes launched the bi-monthly journal El Ilocano in 1889. Thus, Rizal's intention in publishing the magnum opus of the Andalusian oidor of the Audiencia of Manila was in accord with that of the best-educated intellectuals in the Philippines during those years. What perhaps set Rizal apart from his colleagues was undoubtedly his passion, his artistic and imaginative talent and, of course, his ambition. Why did Rizal decide to transcribe, edit and annotate the long chronicle of a Spanish colonizer? Let us recall the profile of Morga's chronicle: a work written from an imperial perspective, structured around the different governors who had ruled the Philippines until then, with special emphasis on their role in the defense of Manila Bay in the battle against the Dutch. Retana has stressed that the work must have been written to clear Morga’s own name, as his attitude during the heat of battle was far from honorable, according to some witnesses. What must have caught Rizal's attention in his tireless bibliographic searches in the British Library must have been that the book was a rara avis among so many ecclesiastical chronicles: Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas is an interesting and engaging political and civil chronicle. But above all, what must have caught his attention was Chapter VIII, which contains a detailed description of Philippine cultures, nature, richness of resources, and geography during the early days of contact with the Spaniards, a description in which the natives are consistently delineated in positive terms. For example: “The people who inhabit this great island of Luzon [...] are medium in body, of a baked quince color, well built, both men and women, very black hair, little beard, good wits for whatever they put their minds to, sharp and choleric, and of good determination. They all live by their farms, labors and fishing and contracting, sailing from one island to another by sea, and from one province to another by land.” Rizal believed it was absolutely necessary that his fellow countrymen should know about this. The juiciest part of this edition are, of course, Rizal’s footnotes, which intervene frequently to contradict Morga, to explain etymologies, to deepen the understanding of matters that would not be clear enough, or even, to emphasize that certain customs were still maintained in his time, and to confront Morga's opinions with his own or with those of the Jesuit chroniclers Pedro Chirino and Francisco Colín, or the guide of the Franciscans, Buzeta and Bravo. Rizal does not behave in any case as Morga’s ally. If Morga, for example, pointed out the tendency of the natives to get drunk easily, Rizal intervenes to comment that it is a custom that fortunately was no longer familiar. In this sense, Rizal's edition of Morga constitutes a very personal work, in which his love for the Filipino people sometimes makes him lose his philological and historical objectivity, as his friend and colleague Ferdinand Blumentritt delicately reproached him in the introduction — which Rizal, with his characteristic spirit of chivalry and loyalty to his friend, included without censure. However, it is difficult to reproach Rizal for anything when the point at the time was to underline a fundamental thesis: that the inhabitants of the pre-Hispanic Philippines had a high degree of civilization and that the supposed cultural and material development obtained thanks to the arrival of the Spaniards and, above all, the friars, was not so big as believed. If there is something we can criticize about Rizal's footnotes, it is his excessive patriotism, as Isabelo de los Reyes himself pointed out to him, and which provoked an angry polemic between both of them in La Solidaridad. Historian Ambeth Ocampo, commenting on this book, concluded that "the significance of Rizal's view of Philippine history is that its influence is still felt and, taken in the context of Philippine historiography remains the key to an understanding of the reconstruction of the Philippine past as a means to forge a national identity.” José Rizal was the first Spanish speaker to see the value and rarity of Morga's work —even today there are very few copies of the original 1609 edition-, and the Spanish-language reprints that have followed must be credited to his re-discovery. The battle for the legitimate aspirations of the Filipinos that had begun through his literary talent in his well-known novels, gave way with this important textual rescue to a strategy of identity and historical re-definition. Therefore, José Rizal’s edition of Morga’s chronicle constitutes at the same time a pioneer work of Philippine scholarship and an essential chapter in the history of Philippine nationalism.
i. National Heroes Commission: Letters Between Rizal and Family Members Volume Two- Book One 1876-1896 ii. Vida Y Escritos del Dr Jose Rizal Librería Manila Filatélica iii. Jose Rizal: The Reformer The Rizal Caravan, Third Year iv. Jose Rizal: The Genius by Maximo Ramos and Socorro B. Ramos First Year v, Jose Rizal: The Filipino Hero The Rizal Caravan, Fourth Year vi. To The Young Women of Malolos written by Dr. Jose Rizal vii. Hernandez, Ocampo, Ella Jose Rizal: The Leader and Patriot The Rizal Caravan, Second Year
signed by José Rizal dated Dapitan, 3 June 1896 written in Spanish one sheet, with writing on both sides pen and ink on graph paper 8 1/4 “ x 5 1/4” (21 x 13 cm) PROVENANCE From José Rizal (1861-1896) to Maria Rizal (1859-1945), from thence by descent to her only daughter Encarnacion Cruz Rizal addresses the letter to “mi muy amada madre” (my beloved mother.) He sends news of Miss Bracken who leaves for Manila for a little rest; she arrives with various gifts including pajo, coconut oil, several trays and $25 for her and for “tatay (father.)” He apologizes for not sending more because he’s “had a lot of expenses”, but will send a little more with the next letter. He adds a list that he would like to have sent to him : three sacks of rice, one of flour and one of salt, several kilos (arroba) of sugar (of which he notes he consumes much) and a “bayoncito” of coffee. Rizal assures his mother, that although he “has gotten sick again but he was cured instantly because now he “knows more about the kind of fever that runs here.” In just two more months, he would sail home to Manila on 31 July 1896 to meet his destiny.
signed by José Rizal dated Dapitan, 28 August 1895 written in Tagalog two sheets, with writing on three sides pen and ink on graph paper 8 1/4 “ x 5 1/4” (21 x 13 cm) PROVENANCE From José Rizal (1861-1896) to Maria Rizal (1859-1945), from thence by descent to her only daughter Encarnacion Cruz LITERATURE Letters of Jose Rizal to His Family (1876-1896), José Rizal with a foreword by Alejandro R. Roces, National Historical Institute, 1993. Pages 401, 402 Rizal addresses the letter to Maria Rizal and sends a prescription for a minor ailment of her son Moris. There is a sense that Rizal has resigned himself somewhat to his fate in Dapitan, perhaps helped along by the arrival of ‘Miss B’ (his affectionately formal name for Josephine Bracken) earlier that year. He writes, “If Father is coming here I wish he would buy me a velocipede (the new-fangled precursor of the bicycle.) If they will come here and can endure our situation, I would not wish to leave this place anymore and I would just engage in farming so long as they live.”
signed by José Rizal dated Dapitan, 28 August 1895 written in Tagalog one sheet, with writing on both sides pen and ink on graph paper 8 1/4 “ x 5 1/4” (21 x 13 cm) PROVENANCE From José RIzal (1861-1896) to Maria Rizal (1859-1945), from thence by descent to her only daughter Encarnacion Cruz LITERATURE Letters of Jose Rizal to His Family (1876-1896), José Rizal with a foreword by Alejando R. Roces, National Historical Institute, 1993. Pages 395 Rizal addresses the letter to Maria Rizal and thanks her for “the chocolate, sweets, and cigarettes… as well as tea that he has “already found in the box.” He sends his most famous advice to her son Moris : “Please tell Moris to speak English so that he would not forget it” — and a piece of practical wisdom to all young people of the internationalism and borderlessness of the world.
signed by José Rizal dated HongKong, 9-12-1891 written in Tagalog single sheet, writing on both sides pen and ink on lined paper 10 3/4” x 8” (27 cm x 20 cm) PROVENANCE From José Rizal (1861-1896) to Maria Rizal (1859-1945), from thence by descent to her only daughter Encarnacion Cruz LITERATURE Letters of Jose Rizal to His Family (1876-1896), José Rizal with a foreword by Alejandro R. Roces, National Historical Institute, 1993. Pages 329, 330 For an artist, anything connected, or any work done at a significant time of his life or at a time when he also produced his most beautiful masterpieces is deemed important. For our nation, José Rizal is the foremost hero of the country. His works and writings as part of the Propaganda Movement in lobbying for reforms, including his political essays, history annotations in the work of Antonio de Morga, and his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo are part of the works that imagined and inspired the birth of the nation and changed our history. Yet, although most agree that his works and writings while in Europe are extremely significant as landmarks in our history, some argue that he was not able to translate his ideas into action. Many historians even suggest that Rizal does not deserve to become our National Hero because he did not even talk about being a nation in the first place, he only wanted us to become Hispanized Filipinos. Thus, he did not have a concept of a Filipino nation. But as Floro Quibuyen, author of the book A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony, and Philippine Nationalism, correctly pointed out, Rizal had an action plan of creating the nation, albeit implicitly, in planning to organize a social group which aims to, “To unite the whole archipelago into one compact, vigorous, and homogenous body.” If they were already a body or a group. What “one body” are you going to create as you unite? It can only be the nation. And on the other aims he listed his vision for what we should be as the nation, “Mutual protection in every want and necessity; Defense against all violence and injustice; Encouragement of instruction, agriculture, and commerce; and Study and application of reforms.” He thought of organizing Filipinos in the islands itself after having some conflicts with his compatriots in Europe and realizing, as he wrote Mariano Ponce, “the battlefield is in the Philippines.” But before coming home, he stayed in Hongkong from 20 November 1891 to June 1892. There, he was able to finally establish a clinic at No. 2 Rednaxela Terrace, D’ Aguilar Street, and in a way, officially became part of what would be the “Overseas Filipino Workers Phenomenon.” This is where he wrote the Constitution of the La Liga Filipina. It was also here that Rizal was able to reunite with his family after all the pain and anxieties bought by Rizal’s patriotic ideas and the family’s subsequent eviction from their childhood home by their Dominican landlords. In the 9 December 1891 Rizal letter to his sister Maria written in Tagalog, the uncertainty is so evident you really cannot tell if he was worried, joking or asking for pity, “I have not written you for such a long time that I no longer know whether you are still alive or if you still remember me.” By that time, he was already accompanied by his father Francisco Mercado, his brother, Paciano and his brother-in-law Silvestre Ubaldo (Bestre), as all the men in the family were already being persecuted in one way or the other. He reported his father as “always cheerful, …always walking around.” In the letter, he asked Maria to kiss his mother Teodora Alonso and his other sisters Panggoy and Trinidad if she was with them. He then told them of his plan to settle and create a plan in Sandakan, North Borneo. In telling her sister to take care of their nephews and other sisters, Rizal struck a hopeful note, “They must be patient and our day will come.” Unfortunately, the plan for a Sandakan settlement did not bear fruit, but his mother and sisters were able to follow him to Hongkong and they welcomed the New Year 1892 together. Thus, his stay, and this letter, are an important part of our history. With his parents, brother and sisters with him, and with his fame as an ophthalmologist, a rare profession at the time, on the rise, one could only wonder what great reason Rizal could have to leave everything in Hongkong behind and return to the lion’s den? It seems that the establishment of the La Liga Filipina was top priority, and he deemed it extremely important. Rizal returned to the Philippines on 26 June, and immediately travelled the new Manila-Dagupan Railroad to meet friends that might help the cause. On 3 July, Rizal established the La Liga Filipina in the house of Doroteo Ongjungco. In attendance, Andres Bonifacio, who eventually founded with his friends the Kataastaasang Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan (Highest and Venerable Association of the Sons of the People). But his arrest, only three days after the meeting, frustrated his dream of organizing himself his concept of the nation. On 17 July, he arrived in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte, which could be considered at that time one of the farthest corners of the colony. Beyond its border is already the Sultanate of Maguindanao. The exile was meant to break his spirit. Rizal, a well-travelled Filipino, a cosmopolitan man, is now boxed within a provincial setup between a colony. Despite being “on lockdown,” Rizal tried to be productive. It is in Dapitan that he tried to crystallize his vision of the La Liga Filipina. When he wins a prize in the Manila lottery with his warden, Comandante Politico-Militar of Dapitan Don Ricardo Carnicero, he buys a piece of land he called “Talisay.” This is where he got into agriculture, engaged in organizing the Dapitanons into a cooperative, opened a clinic where the poor could come free of charge, and organized a small school for both his nephews and the local kids with attention paid to the aptitude of each child. He also engaged in civic work, using his environment as a pedagogical tool, he created a relief map of Mindanao in the town plaza. One time, Rizal realized that even though Dapitan was beside the sea, no one knew modern fishing. So, he asked her sisters to send him a fishing net, and then, he asked them to send two fishermen to Dapitan, not only to teach fishing to Dapitanons but because it can be lucrative. With this, Quibuyen said that Rizal was ahead of his time, saying that he was able to demonstrate in Dapitan three things—progressive education, social entrepreneurship, and community development. This is what he could and would have done if given a chance to be a public servant. He was a one-man NGO. But as Noel Villaroman wrote in his definitive book Dapitanon, despite his productivity, Rizal had episodes of depression, that is why he would request the authorities for some of his family to be allowed to stay with him in Dapitan. In his letter to his sister Maria on 28 August 1895, Rizal said, “If they will come here and can endure our situation, I would not wish to leave this place anymore, and I would just engage in farming as long as they live.” He reiterated his wish in his letter to Maria on 6 June 1895 and extended it to other relatives, “Please tell Sra. Lucia that she can send me her children as soon as I am settled.” There was a time when his mother, sisters and nephews stayed with him. In the letter dated 3 June 1896, two months before he left Dapitan on 3 June 1896, he wrote his mother in Spanish thanking her for her love and affection and also thanking her for the food that was sent to him. It gives us a glimpse of his relationship with and his love for his parents. Simply put, the letters show us Rizal, the Dapitanon, very human, longing for family as he went through perhaps the most important part of his life, when he attempted to socially engineer the little town to be a little more dynamic — and how he was able to accomplish many things despite his human frailties. The Hongkong and Dapitan eras in Rizal’s life must always be connected because it is in this time of his life, he tried to make it real the nation he imagined by empowering the people of a most sleepy town. We must remember Rizal and hold him dear as a reminder of the price he had to pay, with the ultimate sacrifice of his life. 11, 14 February 2022, Room 604, Citadines Metro Central Dubai / Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates Rizal addresses the letter to Maria Rizal Mercado and writes from HongKong. (Maria is the elder sister closest to his age and was believed to be his confidante in the family.) He reports that his father, brother Paciano and ‘Bestre are there and “we are well off here.” He confides their plan for the future and that is to quit the Philippines : “We have hopes of moving to Borneo to live there and engage in farming.” It seems to be a happier time but there are dark forebodings. In one paragraph, he asks Maria “to take care of our nephews and other sisters there. They must be patient and our day will come.” One of his last instructions is : “Don’t forget those letters I left with Brother Isidoro. Look for them secretly so that the priests may not know about them.” so Rizal had just published his second novel ‘El Filibusterismo’ in that same year, 1891; and he was in the crosshairs of the Spanish colonial government.
Jose Rizal (1861-1896) Sketch Book with 40 Sketches by Karl Ullmer and 2 pages by Jose Rizal the drawings by Jose Rizal is signed and dated 1886, and inscribed Der Hausvather (father of the house) and Die Hausfrau (mother of the house) 1886 5 3/4” x 8 3/4” (15 cm x 22 cm)
