OVERVIEW: DR. JOSE RIZAL, A POLYMATH

118TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY

BY: CESAR D. CANDARI, MD., FCAP EMERITUS
Henderson, Nevada

We commemorate the 118th death anniversary of Dr. Rizal – to pay homage to the memory of this great man who gave his life for our beloved country, the Philippines on December 30, 1896. He was only 35 years old. He is one of the greatest Filipinos who ever lived at a time when the Philippine Islands was under the oppressive rule of the Spanish regime for 377 years. Jose Rizal bravely exposed and fought the repressive Spanish rule and paid with his life. 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.

Dr. Jose Rizal was a man of incredible intellectual power, the list seems nearly endless. He was not just a nationalist, he was a multifaceted personality who was a doctor with specialty in ophthalmology, poet, and an artist who could draw, paint, sculpt and carve, a linguist (22 languages), novelist, an agriculturist, a surveyor, and a teacher, a world traveler and an international figure.

His eloquent writings inspired the nationalists for peaceful reforms. Jose Rizal is remembered today throughout the Philippines for his brilliance, his courage, his peaceful resistance to tyranny, and his compassion, speaks well of his enduring legacy. It has been said that ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ Some people think of Dr. Rizal as a martyr, genius, and the greatest hero. But do we know what was his real purpose on sacrificing his own happiness and devoting his whole life in writing his historically famous and heartfelt novels, literatures, and great works of art?

Prior to his enrollment in the prominent learning institution in Manila, his older brother Paciano Rizal Mercado, insisted that Jose drop the surname “Mercado”, to ensure that he would be disassociated with him as an outspoken and subversive reputation. As such, the young man known as Jose Protacio Rizal at age 17 graduated on March 14, 1877 at Ateneo Municipal de Manila with a degree in Land Surveying and Assessment as inspired by land ownership of his prestigious and wealthy parents. Thereafter, he enrolled at the University of Santo Tomas as a medical student. He dreamed to be a doctor because of his mother’s eye ailment. At age 19 as a third-year medical student Jose Rizal formed a university fraternity called El Compañerismo to promote civic and patriotic education, mutual aid, and cooperation. He later left the medical school in 1882 alleging discrimination against Filipino students by the Dominican professors.

Believing that education in the country was limited, he boarded a ship to Spain with the support of his older brother but without informing his parents.

He enrolled at the Universidad Central de Madrid, graduated in 1884 with a degree in Medicine, and a year later with a degree in Philosophy and Letters from the same institution. Even after the completion of these two degrees, he still was not satisfied and traveled to France and studied at the University of Paris. Rizal was inspired to obtain his specialty in ophthalmology because of love, love for his mother turning blind. He was trained in Paris with Dr. Louis de Wecker, one of the foremost opthalmologist in the 19th century and finally with Dr. Otto Becker in Heidelberg, Germany – a pioneer in opthalmic pathology.

Dr. Rizal was an ideal Renaissance man, a polymath who excelled at anything he put his considerable mind and talents.

Among men of wisdom and legendary heroes of the past, Jose Rizal stood tall with Demosthenes of Greece who shouted against the Macedonian conquest, with Victor Hugo of France who defended the Magna Carta (“the great charter”) of King John of England, and with Abraham Lincoln of the United States of America who abolished slavery.

At age eighteen, Jose Rizal in a prize-winning nationalistic poem addressed to the Filipino youth entitled, A la Juventud Filipina, he called upon them as the fair hope of the Fatherland, challenging them to higher aspirations, and to unshackle their chains in order to build nationhood.

We must never forget of the two novels he wrote, that 170 passages in the Noli Me Tangere (written in Spanish) while studying in Spain. It was published in 1887 in Berlin. The novel is a scathing indictment of the Catholic Church and Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, the injustices and corruption in his native land. It was a scalding criticism of the Spanish colonial system in the country and Philippine society in general. This was met with harsh reactions from the elite, the church and the government. This book cemented Jose Rizal on the Spanish colonial government’s list of troublemakers.

In 1891, Rizal published another novel, a sequel to Noli MeTangere. This time titled El Filibusterismo (the Subversive) to fight for our rights and the political resolution of the problems that the Spaniards abused the Filipinos. It was his clarion call to inspire his kababayans to be aware, to be engaged, and to be involved in the events happening in the Fatherland. These were social commentaries on our country, the Philippines, which formed the nucleus of literature that inspired dissent among peaceful reformists and spurred the militancy of armed revolutionaries against the Spanish colonial authorities. These writings gave him “immortality in the eyes of his people and compatriots, but made him a target of ecclesiastical vengeance.”

After touring through Europe, Rizal returned home to Calamba, Laguna in 1887 for a visit and to perform surgical operation on his mother’s eyes. The surgery was not done because the eye cataract was not yet ripe. At this time he received summons from the Governor General for the publication of the Noli Me Tangere and he had to defend himself from charges of disseminating subversive ideas. Although the Spanish governor accepted Rizal’s explanations, the Catholic Church was less willing to forgive. Six months later, he was back to Europe passing Hongkong, Japan, United States and finally to London. He stayed in Brussels and back to Madrid.

The colonial government considered him a dangerous radical, and declared him an enemy of the state. What Rizal wished was to have the Philippines be made a province of Spain; Representation in the Cortes; Filipino priests instead of Spanish friars–Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans—in parishes and remote sitios; Freedom of assembly and speech; Equal rights before the law (for both Filipino and Spanish plaintiffs). It was written in La Solidaridad, a Spanish/Pilipino newspaper published in Barcelona, Spain. It served as the principal organ of the reform movement with Rizal as the inspiratory who wrote essays and editorials about the economic, cultural, political, and social conditions of the country in his pen name Laong-Laan.

The spirit of PATRIOTISM and sense of pride and purpose were enunciated by Jose Rizal as leader of the reform movement of Pilipino students in Spain. He dreamt the dreams of FREEDOM in the Philippines as professed by the tenets of the French Revolution, that of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité; (“Liberty, equality, fraternity (brotherhood)” – the national motto of France.

We must learn from Dr. Rizal who championed the tenets of UNITY. In fact when Rizal was elected responsable (chief) of the association of Filipinos in Madrid during his college days over his colleague, Marcelo H. del Pilar, who wanted the position very much, he abdicated the position in favor of del Pilar and stated, “I do wish you to give your full support and cooperation to my dear colleague Marcelo. Let us be united in our efforts to liberate our country”. Rizal wrote an article El Amor Patrio (Love of Country), sent to the Philippines from Spain, again asserted his PATRIOTISM.

Finally, after a total of 10 years away from home, Rizal decided in 1891 his self-exile in Hongkong and opened his medical practice. His family joined him in Hongkong and finally operated on his mother successfully. He knew already the agrarian trouble in the provinces in the Philippines was getting worse; that the families in Calamba including his parents were already evicted from their land and other family members were banished to Mindoro and Manila. Seven months later, he decided to go back home with his parents and his brother pleading not to go. He arrived in Manila in June1892 to discuss with Governor General Despujol regarding his Borneo colonization project for the Calamba landless people. Jose Rizal, as a political figure, initiated a civic organization-La Liga Filipina after his return. The purpose of La Liga Filipina was to build a new group sought to involve the people directly in the reform movement. Subsequently, this gave birth to the KATIPUNAN led by Andres Bonifacio and Emelio Aguinaldo. Dr. Rizal was a proponent of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution. He was immediately accused of being involved in the brewing rebellion, put to prison in Fort Santiago on July 6, 1892. He was later exiled to Dapitan in Zamboanga. He stayed there for four years. He served the poor people of Dapitan with all his talents. During that same period, the people of the Philippines grew more eager to revolt against the Spanish colonial presence.

The violent Philippine Revolution broke out in 1896. Rizal denounced the violence and was given his freedom. He was permitted to travel to Cuba in order to tend victims of yellow fever. Bonifacio and two associates sneaked aboard the ship to Cuba before it left the Philippines, trying to convince Rizal to escape with them, but Rizal refused. On the way to Cuba, he was arrested by the Spanish authorities, taken to Barcelona, and then extradited to Manila for trial. Jose Rizal was tried by court martial, charged with conspiracy, sedition and rebellion. Despite a lack of any evidence of his complicity in the revolution, Rizal was convicted on all three counts and given the death sentence. He was guided to his cell in Fort Santiago where he spent his last 24 hours right after the conviction and will be shot at 7:00 AM of the next day by firing squad on December 30, 1896 in Bagumbayan Field.

Did Rizal recant his political beliefs, that he was not part of the rebellion and retraction of his religious beliefs? He wrote: “I go where there are no slaves, no hangmen, no oppressors… where he who reigns is God.” And his final letter to his friend Blumentritt of Germany – “Tomorrow at 7, I shall be shot; but I am innocent of the crime of rebellion…” There was no retraction, however, documents of Rizal’s retraction have surfaced. Dr. Ramon Lopez, the grandnephew of Dr. Rizal wrote in his article: … “That Dr. Jose Rizal did not make any retractions on his writings and beliefs.”

The trial that condemned Dr. Jose Rizal was a sham. On the eve of his execution, Rizal wrote “Último adiós” (“Last Farewell”), a masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse. His last word- to die is to rest-mamatay ay ganap na katahimikan. Dr. Rizal’s burial at Paco cemetery was without spiritual aid, laid to earth without a sack and coffin per order by the authorities.

According to historians, before he returned to Manila, he wrote his letters to his parents and to the Pilipino people to be opened whenever he will be executed. To Pilipinos, he wrote: “Always have I loved our unhappy land, and I am sure that I shall continue loving it till my latest moment, in case men prove unjust to me. My career, my life, my happiness, all have I sacrificed for love of it. Whatever my fate, I shall die blessing it and longing for the dawn of its redemption.”

He touched the hearts and changed the lives of our forefathers, awakened the Filipinos about the real status of their lives because they seemed to have ignored the shame, the agony, and the pain brought by the recklessness of the contemporary colonizers.

With his political writings for which he became famous was his destiny. He wrote and died because of his love for his country.