Patriot, physician, and man of letters who was an inspiration to the Philippine nationalist movement.

 

 

 

The study of the life and character of Dr. Rizal cannot but be beneficial to those desirous of imitating him. - President Wm. H. Taft. 27th President of the United States

 

Filipino nationalist, doctor, poet, novelist, essayist, linguist, and journalist whose works and martyred death made him a hero of the Philippine Revolution.

 

The seventh of eleven children born to a wealthy family in the town of Calamba, Laguna (province), Rizal attended the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, earning a Bachelor of Arts. He enrolled in Medicine and Philosophy and Letters at the University of Santo Tomas and then travelled alone to Madrid, Spain, where he continued his studies at the Universidad Central de Madrid, earning the degree of Licentiate in Medicine. He attended the University of Paris and earned a second doctorate at the University of Heidelberg.

 

Rizal was a polyglot conversant in at least ten languages. He was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels. Noli me Tangerewas published in 1887 in Berlin. The novel is a scathing indictment of the Catholic Church and Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines.

 

This book cemented Jose Rizal on the Spanish colonial government's list of troublemakers. When Rizal returned home for a visit, he received a summons from the Governor General, and 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. In 1891, Rizal published a sequel, titled El filibusterismo.

 

Both in his novels and in newspaper editorials, Jose Rizal called for a number of reforms of the Spanish colonial system in the Philippines. He advocated freedom of speech and assembly, equal rights before the law for Filipinos, and Filipino priests in place of the often-corrupt Spanish churchmen. In addition, Rizal called for the Philippines to become a province within Spain, with representation in the Spanish legislature (the Cortes Generales).

 

These social commentaries on the Philippines formed the nucleus of literature that inspired dissent among peaceful reformists and spurred the militancy of armed revolutionaries from the Spanish colonial authorities. Rizal never called for independence for the Philippines. Nonetheless, the colonial government considered him a dangerous radical, and declared him an enemy of the state.

 

As a political figure, Rizal was the founder of La Liga Filipina, a civic organization that subsequently gave birth to the Katipunan led by Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo. He was a proponent of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution. The general consensus among Rizal scholars, however, attributed his martyred death as the catalyst that precipitated the Philippine Revolution.

 

Forerunner of Gandhi and contemporary of Tagore and Sun Yat Sen, all four created a new climate of thought throughout Asia, leading to the attrition of colonialism and the emergence of new Asiatic nations by the end of World War II.

 

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I believe in revelation, but not in revelation which each religion claims to possess... but in the living revelation which surrounds us on every side — mighty, eternal, unceasing, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as is the being from whom it proceeds, in that revelation which speaks to us and penetrates us from the moment we are born until we die. Letter to Fr. Pastells (4 April 1893)

 

Genius has no country. It blossoms everywhere. Genius is like the light, the air. It is the heritage of all.Toast to the artists Juan Luna and Felix Hidalgo,Spain (25 June 1884)

 

Death has always been the first sign of European civilization when introduced in the Pacific. Annotations to Morga's Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas

 

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