Rizal in a Lifetime

The Rizal...

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:55:53 -0400

The Rizal Family

source: http://cebuanddavao.com/2011/06/19/my-tribute-to-dr-jose-rizal/

Noli Me Tangere Chapter 16 - Sisa

Tue, 15 May 2012 06:50:00 -0400

Noli Me Tangere Chapter 16 - Sisa:

source:http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs30/i/2008/235/8/6/NOLI_ME_TANGERE_by_josephcaesarsd.jpg

Rizal, the Romantic

Tue, 15 May 2012 05:56:00 -0400

There were at least nine women linked with Rizal; namely Segunda Katigbak, Leonor Valenzuela, Leonor Rivera, Consuelo Ortiga, O-Sei San, Gertrude Beckette, Nelly Boustead, Suzanne Jacoby and Josephine Bracken. These women might have been beguiled by his intelligence, charm and wit.

Segunda Katigbak
Segunda Katigbak was her puppy love. Unfortunately, his first love was engaged to be married to a town mate- Manuel Luz.

Leonor Valenzuela

After his admiration for a short girl in the person of Segunda, then came Leonor Valenzuela, a tall girl from Pagsanjan. Rizal send her love notes written in invisible ink, that could only be deciphered over the warmth of the lamp or candle. He visited her on the eve of his departure to Spain and bade her a last goodbye.

Leonor Rivera
Leonor Rivera, his sweetheart for 11 years played the greatest influence in keeping him from falling in love with other women during his travel. Unfortunately, Leonor’s mother disapproved of her daughter’s relationship with Rizal, who was then a known filibustero. She hid from Leonor all letters sent to her sweetheart. Leonor believing that Rizal had already forgotten her, sadly consented her to marry the Englishman Henry Kipping, her mother’s choice.

Consuelo Ortiga
Consuelo Ortiga y Rey, the prettier of Don Pablo Ortiga’s daughters, fell in love with him. He dedicated to her A la Senorita C.O. y R., which became one of his best poems. The Ortiga’s residence in Madrid was frequented by Rizal and his compatriots. He probably fell in love with her and Consuelo apparently asked him for romantic verses. He suddenly backed out before the relationship turned into a serious romance, because he wanted to remain loyal to Leonor Rivera and he did not want to destroy hid friendship with Eduardo de Lete who was madly in love with Consuelo.

O Sei San
O Sei San, a Japanese samurai’s daughter taught Rizal the Japanese art of painting known as su-mie. She also helped Rizal improve his knowledge of Japanese language. If Rizal was a man without a patriotic mission, he would have married this lovely and intelligent woman and lived a stable and happy life with her in Japan because Spanish legation there offered him a lucrative job.

Gertrude Beckett
While Rizal was in London annotating the Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, he boarded in the house of the Beckett family, within walking distance of the British Museum. Gertrude, a blue-eyed and buxom girl was the oldest of the three Beckett daughters. She fell in love with Rizal. Tottie helped him in his painting and sculpture. But Rizal suddenly left London for Paris to avoid Gertrude, who was seriously in love with him. Before leaving London, he was able to finish the group carving of the Beckett sisters. He gave the group carving to Gertrude as a sign of their brief relationship.

Nellie Boustead
Rizal having lost Leonor Rivera, entertained the thought of courting other ladies. While a guest of the Boustead family at their residence in the resort city of Biarritz, he had befriended the two pretty daughters of his host, Eduardo Boustead. Rizal used to fence with the sisters at the studio of Juan Luna. Antonio Luna, Juan’s brother and also a frequent visitor of the Bousteads, courted Nellie but she was deeply infatuated with Rizal. In a party held by Filipinos in Madrid, a drunken Antonio Luna uttered unsavory remarks against Nellie Boustead. This prompted Rizal to challenge Luna into a duel. Fortunately, Luna apologized to Rizal, thus averting tragedy for the compatriots.

Their love affair unfortunately did not end in marriage. It failed because Rizal refused to be converted to the Protestant faith, as Nellie demanded and Nellie’s mother did not like a physician without enough paying clientele to be a son-in-law. The lovers, however, parted as good friends when Rizal left Europe.

Suzanne Jacoby
In 1890, Rizal moved to Brussels because of the high cost of living in Paris. In Brussels, he lived in the boarding house of the two Jacoby sisters. In time, they fell deeply in love with each other. Suzanne cried when Rizal left Brussels and wrote him when he was in Madrid.

Josephine Bracken
In the last days of February 1895, while still in Dapitan, Rizal met an 18-year old petite Irish girl, with bold blue eyes, brown hair and a happy disposition. She was Josephine Bracken, the adopted daughter of George Taufer from Hong Kong, who came to Dapitan to seek Rizal for eye treatment. Rizal was physically attracted to her. His loneliness and boredom must have taken the measure of him and what could be a better diversion that to fall in love again. But the Rizal sisters suspected Josephine as an agent of the friars and they considered her as a threat to Rizal’s security.

source: http://www.joserizal.ph/lv01.html

http://img.wikinut.com/img/3aud7fsi84mqu0v5/jpeg/0/The-Women-of-Rizal-s-Life.jpeg

The Last Poem of Rizal

Tue, 15 May 2012 05:37:06 -0400

His friend Mariano Ponce gave it the title of MI ULTIMO ADIOS, as it originally had none

Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
With gladness I give you my Life, sad and repressed;
And were it more brilliant, more fresh and at its best,
I would still give it to you for your welfare at most.

On the fields of battle, in the fury of fight,
Others give you their lives without pain or hesitancy,
The place does not matter: cypress laurel, lily white,
Scaffold, open field, conflict or martyrdom’s site,
It is the same if asked by home and Country.

I die as I see tints on the sky b’gin to show
And at last announce the day, after a gloomy night;
If you need a hue to dye your matutinal glow,
Pour my blood and at the right moment spread it so,
And gild it with a reflection of your nascent light!

My dreams, when scarcely a lad adolescent,
My dreams when already a youth, full of vigor to attain,
Were to see you, gem of the sea of the Orient,
Your dark eyes dry, smooth brow held to a high plane
Without frown, without wrinkles and of shame without stain.

My life’s fancy, my ardent, passionate desire,
Hail! Cries out the soul to you, that will soon part from thee;
Hail! How sweet ‘tis to fall that fullness you may acquire;
To die to give you life, ‘neath your skies to expire,
And in your mystic land to sleep through eternity!

If over my tomb some day, you would see blow,
A simple humble flow’r amidst thick grasses,
Bring it up to your lips and kiss my soul so,
And under the cold tomb, I may feel on my brow,
Warmth of your breath, a whiff of your tenderness.

Let the moon with soft, gentle light me descry,
Let the dawn send forth its fleeting, brilliant light,
In murmurs grave allow the wind to sigh,
And should a bird descend on my cross and alight,
Let the bird intone a song of peace o’er my site.

Let the burning sun the raindrops vaporize
And with my clamor behind return pure to the sky;
Let a friend shed tears over my early demise;
And on quiet afternoons when one prays for me on high,
Pray too, oh, my Motherland, that in God may rest I.

Pray thee for all the hapless who have died,
For all those who unequalled torments have undergone;
For our poor mothers who in bitterness have cried;
For orphans, widows and captives to tortures were shied,
And pray too that you may see your own redemption.

And when the dark night wraps the cemet’ry
And only the dead to vigil there are left alone,
Don’t disturb their repose, don’t disturb the mystery:
If you hear the sounds of cittern or psaltery,
It is I, dear Country, who, a song t’you intone.

And when my grave by all is no more remembered,
With neither cross nor stone to mark its place,
Let it be plowed by man, with spade let it be scattered
And my ashes ere to nothingness are restored,
Let them turn to dust to cover your earthly space.

Then it doesn’t matter that you should forget me:
Your atmosphere, your skies, your vales I’ll sweep;
Vibrant and clear note to your ears I shall be:
Aroma, light, hues, murmur, song, moanings deep,
Constantly repeating the essence of the faith I keep.

My idolized Country, for whom I most gravely pine,
Dear Philippines, to my last goodbye, oh, harken
There I leave all: my parents, loves of mine,
I’ll go where there are no slaves, tyrants or hangmen
Where faith does not kill and where God alone does reign.

Farewell, parents, brothers, beloved by me,
Friends of my childhood, in the home distressed;
Give thanks that now I rest from the wearisome day;
Farewell, sweet stranger, my friend, who brightened my way;
Farewell, to all I love. To die is to rest.

source: http://www.joserizal.ph/pm03.html

JOSE RIZAL: A Biographical Sketch by Teofilo H. Montemayor

Tue, 15 May 2012 05:35:00 -0400

JOSE RIZAL, the national hero of the Philippines and pride of the Malayan race, was born on June 19, 1861, in the town of Calamba, Laguna. He was the seventh child in a family of 11 children (2 boys and 9 girls). Both his parents were educated and belonged to distinguished families.

His father, Francisco Mercado Rizal, an industrious farmer whom Rizal called “a model of fathers,” came from Biñan, Laguna; while his mother, Teodora Alonzo y Quintos, a highly cultured and accomplished woman whom Rizal called “loving and prudent mother,” was born in Meisic, Sta. Cruz, Manila. At the age of 3, he learned the alphabet from his mother; at 5, while learning to read and write, he already showed inclinations to be an artist. He astounded his family and relatives by his pencil drawings and sketches and by his moldings of clay. At the age 8, he wrote a Tagalog poem, “Sa Aking Mga Kabata,” the theme of which revolves on the love of one’s language. In 1877, at the age of 16, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree with an average of “excellent” from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila. In the same year, he enrolled in Philosophy and Letters at the University of Santo Tomas, while at the same time took courses leading to the degree of surveyor and expert assessor at the Ateneo. He finished the latter course on March 21, 1877 and passed the Surveyor’s examination on May 21, 1878; but because of his age, 17, he was not granted license to practice the profession until December 30, 1881. In 1878, he enrolled in medicine at the University of Santo Tomas but had to stop in his studies when he felt that the Filipino students were being discriminated upon by their Dominican tutors. On May 3, 1882, he sailed for Spain where he continued his studies at the Universidad Central de Madrid. On June 21, 1884, at the age of 23, he was conferred the degree of Licentiate in Medicine and on June 19,1885, at the age of 24, he finished his course in Philosophy and Letters with a grade of “excellent.”

Having traveled extensively in Europe, America and Asia, he mastered 22 languages. These include Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Malayan, Portuguese, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish, Tagalog, and other native dialects. A versatile genius, he was an architect, artists, businessman, cartoonist, educator, economist, ethnologist, scientific farmer, historian, inventor, journalist, linguist, musician, mythologist, nationalist, naturalist, novelist, opthalmic surgeon, poet, propagandist, psychologist, scientist, sculptor, sociologist, and theologian.

He was an expert swordsman and a good shot. In the hope of securing political and social reforms for his country and at the same time educate his countrymen, Rizal, the greatest apostle of Filipino nationalism, published, while in Europe, several works with highly nationalistic and revolutionary tendencies. In March 1887, his daring book, NOLI ME TANGERE, a satirical novel exposing the arrogance and despotism of the Spanish clergy, was published in Berlin; in 1890 he reprinted in Paris, Morga’s SUCCESSOS DE LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS with his annotations to prove that the Filipinos had a civilization worthy to be proud of even long before the Spaniards set foot on Philippine soil; on September 18, 1891, EL FILIBUSTERISMO, his second novel and a sequel to the NOLI and more revolutionary and tragic than the latter, was printed in Ghent. Because of his fearless exposures of the injustices committed by the civil and clerical officials, Rizal provoked the animosity of those in power. This led himself, his relatives and countrymen into trouble with the Spanish officials of the country. As a consequence, he and those who had contacts with him, were shadowed; the authorities were not only finding faults but even fabricating charges to pin him down. Thus, he was imprisoned in Fort Santiago from July 6, 1892 to July 15, 1892 on a charge that anti-friar pamphlets were found in the luggage of his sister Lucia who arrive with him from Hong Kong. While a political exile in Dapitan, he engaged in agriculture, fishing and business; he maintained and operated a hospital; he conducted classes- taught his pupils the English and Spanish languages, the arts.

The sciences, vocational courses including agriculture, surveying, sculpturing, and painting, as well as the art of self defense; he did some researches and collected specimens; he entered into correspondence with renowned men of letters and sciences abroad; and with the help of his pupils, he constructed water dam and a relief map of Mindanao - both considered remarkable engineering feats. His sincerity and friendliness won for him the trust and confidence of even those assigned to guard him; his good manners and warm personality were found irresistible by women of all races with whom he had personal contacts; his intelligence and humility gained for him the respect and admiration of prominent men of other nations; while his undaunted courage and determination to uplift the welfare of his people were feared by his enemies.

When the Philippine Revolution started on August 26, 1896, his enemies lost no time in pressing him down. They were able to enlist witnesses that linked him with the revolt and these were never allowed to be confronted by him. Thus, from November 3, 1986, to the date of his execution, he was again committed to Fort Santiago. In his prison cell, he wrote an untitled poem, now known as “Ultimo Adios” which is considered a masterpiece and a living document expressing not only the hero’s great love of country but also that of all Filipinos. After a mock trial, he was convicted of rebellion, sedition and of forming illegal association. In the cold morning of December 30, 1896, Rizal, a man whose 35 years of life had been packed with varied activities which proved that the Filipino has capacity to equal if not excel even those who treat him as a slave, was shot at Bagumbayan Field.

Source: http://www.joserizal.ph/bg01.html

"To doubt God is to doubt one’s own conscience, and in consequence it would be to doubt..."

Tue, 15 May 2012 05:33:35 -0400

“To doubt God is to doubt one’s own conscience, and in consequence it would be to doubt everything.
- Dr. Jose Rizal, Letter to Fr. Pastells (4 April 1893)”

- http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Rizal

This is the house of Dr. Jose Rizal in Calamba, Laguna. In...

Tue, 15 May 2012 04:39:27 -0400

This is the house of Dr. Jose Rizal in Calamba, Laguna. In here,his first education took place. He had her mother, Teodora Alonzo Reralonda, as her first teacher. His mother taught him a lot of important values to be kept and live by.

"It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the..."

Tue, 15 May 2012 04:23:00 -0400

“It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.
- Dr. Jose Rizal”

- http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jose_rizal.html#vexj7Mh4t0VSjT2y.99

My Great Hero source: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~n_r_d/

Sun, 13 May 2012 09:21:00 -0400

My Great Hero

source: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~n_r_d/

One Peso Coin

Sun, 13 May 2012 08:36:20 -0400

In my younger years, years when I was still so free to play as I wish, to ask something that I want (yet not really granted for everything), to cry whenever I get hurt, I used to ask too many questions to people around me. I had asked every member of my family anything that joggles in my young mind.

In those days I was able to meet the one peso coin. And in those days too, it has of such a great value to me. With it I am able to satisfy my simple happiness, just like being able to buy an ice candy, a breadstick, a junkfood, a bubble gum and the list went on. That is why I was accustomed to ask one peso from my mother, father, tita, tito, etc., during those times. And then one dayI get to wonder about something and I asked my mother about it

“Mother, who is this person in my one peso coin?” I asked. Of course I can’t still read the engraving on it.

“He is Jose Rizal,” my mother answered to me with a smile.

Still puzzled I asked one more, “Ahm, who is Jose Rizal, mother?”

She simply said, “He is our National Hero.”

During those times, I don’t know yet its real importance.

As I grow up,I was able to know more about Jose Rizal. I get to see him almost everywhere, in my books, my classroom’s wall, and most especially in almostevery park in each municipality.

In elementary, I was able to know about his deeds. We were even given an activity to write an essay entitled “My Favorite Hero”. And I picked him. After the activity, my classmates shared what they wrote. I was amazed on how almost all of us made Jose Rizal our favorite hero. Well, there is one classmate of mine whose answer is different from the rest. He picked his mother as his favorite hero. We all laughed at him. Later have I realized that mothers are heroes too.

Back to the topic, I continued learning his life in my secondary level. I got to play as his mother, Teodora Alonzo Realonda, in one of our role playing.And my appreciation on him grows deeper as I get to know more about him.

And now in college, my knowledge about his life widens together with my admiration on him. His sacrifices was not easy, was not simple. Yet, with great courage made it for the sake of his fellowmen, for the sake of his beloved homeland. He filled his mind with useful learning from just different genres. And he did this not for his own sake but to share it to his fellowmen. He wrote novels for his people’s enlightenment even though he knows his life would be at stake. He lived a life of sacrifice for his country but he didn’t see it that way. For him, he was living a life filled with love for his country and every step he was taking he was generously offering it to his homeland. And he believes life would be of great meaning if he was able to free his land from the suffering unrighteously given by the Spaniards.

What is more admirable about him is that he freed his country not by shedding blood but by his intelligence. He never wanted chaos. All he wanted is for his people be able to learn that they are not meant to suffer under other people’s power. And to let the colonizers know that they are of big mistake on what they are doing.

Jose Rizal is undoubtedly a great hero. A hero of all time. A truly remarkable Filipino worth imitating. And only now have I realized why our government did not placed him in the one thousand peso bill. Why didn’t our government made a five thousand peso bill with him on it. Why of all domination he is in a one peso coin. It is of great purpose of course. It is for every Filipino to know him as early our young minds can conceive. A three-year old Filipino rarely can own a five hundred peso bill. But a two-year old Filipino can hold a one peso coin and use to buy it his simple happiness. And with him being able to own a one peso coin, can mean knowing our great hero at his very young age. And with the curiosity of a young mind comes questions. And with these questions are answered paired with learning. By then, every Filipino, being able to go to school or not knows who Jose Rizal is.

Every Filipino knows who my hero is.

Let us not only admire him, let us take care of his great gift on us, our country’s freedom. Let us take care of it by just simply being him.