RIZAL & the REVOLUTION

A Nation Aborted: Rizal, American Hegemony, and Philippine

Nationalism by Floro Quibuyen
RIZAL as a HERO.
• Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda
• Born on June 19, 1861
• Died on December 30, 1896
• Considered as an Illustrados
• Wrote the famous “Noli Me Tangere”
& “El Filibusterismo”
• A doctor, a writer & a scientist
RIZAL as a HERO?

• Rizal was for ASSIMILATION and repudiated the

REVOLUTION.

DID RIZAL SUPPORT THE

REVOLUTION?
 • Galicano Apacible
YES! RIZAL • Jose Alejandrino
SUPPORTED THE • Dr. Gregorio Zaide
REVOLUTION! • Dr. Pio Valenzuela
 GALICANO
APACIBLE
• Rizal’s COUSIN & Fellow Expatriate
• Co-founder of La Solidaridad & Nacionalista
Party
• Known for his piece, “To the American
People, an Appeal”
 GALICANO
APACIBLE
• He wrote this letter claiming that Rizal was not a separatist nor a
lover of Spain.
“I wish to touch on some opinions attributed to Rizal erroneously by
some writers who had not associated closely with him in the last years
of his life. Among them was the infamous Retana in his book about our
National Hero [Vida y Escritos]. These writers have affirmed that Rizal
was not a separatist and that he was a lover of Spain. Perhaps so,
before he had been in Spain , before he had discovered the true
situation obtaining in that country, he was not too much of a separatist,
though I have my doubts about this, because even when he was here, he
was truly a nationalist Filipino in his acts and opinions…
 GALICANO
APACIBLE
• Cont.
… But in Spain , when I joined him there, I found him a complete,
unwavering separatist. I remember that in our first conversation
alone, one of the first things he told me was that he was entirely
disillusioned at our then called Motherland. At that time the Spanish
atmosphere and the predominant Spanish opinions were such,
according to him, that the Philippines, our country, could not and
ought not to expect anything good under Spanish rule and that only
after separation from Spain could we achieve our social, civil, and
political aspirations.”
 JOSE
ALEJANDRINO
• Rizal’s roommate in Germany
• Became a General during the Revolution and
during the Philippine American War
• Member of the Propaganda Movement
• Contributor to the La Solidaridad
• Helped Rizal in correcting errors in the El
Filibusterismo
• He also helped Rizal in the distribution of
the novel
 JOSE ALEJANDRINO

• “That some of his biographers have presented Rizal as

completely opposed to the revolution of 1896”
 RIZAL as the
INSPIRATION OF
THE KATIPUNAN
• The Katipuneros have venerated RIZAL as the symbol
& inspiration of the Revolution.
• Rizal’s name was the password used among the
higher ranking members
• Photos of Rizal hung in every Katipunan meeting hall
• The speeches given by Katipunero leaders usually
ended with three cheers:
1. For the PHILIPPINES
2. For LIBERTY
3. For DR. JOSE RIZAL
 RIZAL as the
INSPIRATION OF
THE KATIPUNAN
• The Aguinaldo-led Philippine Republic issued a pamphlet that invoked the martyr’s name as:

The word named Jose Rizal, sent down by heaven to the

land of Filipinas, in order to spend his whole life, from
childhood, striving to spread throughout this vast
Archipelago, the notion that righteousness must be fought for
wholeheartedly.
 VENERATION
OF RIZAL
• Ricarte, one of the illustrado
revolutionary who refused to
concede the defeat of he revolution
to the American forces, was inspired
to change the name of the country.
• From LAS ISLAS FILIPINAS to
RIZALINE REPUBLIC
• The citizens will be called
RIZALINOS instead of Filipinos.
 VENERATION
OF RIZAL
• Lleto (1982) wrote:
“In almost every report of “disturbances” during the
first decade of American rule, there is mention of Rizal
as reincarnated in “fanatical” leaders… in general, as
literally the :spirit” behind the unrest. In the 1920
Lantayug proclaimed himself a reincarnation of Rizal
and won a wide following in the Eastern Visayas and
Northern Mindanao… Other peasant leaders who
challenged the colonial order in the 1920s and the 1930s
claimed to be in communication with Rizal.”
 • Renato Constantino
NO! RIZAL IS A • Trinidad Pardo De Tavera
COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY! • Wenceslao E. Retana
 RENATO
CONSTANTINO
• According to Constantino, Rizal is a
counterrevolutionary hero. Which means
that Rizal did not support the Revolution.
• Constantino’s opinion, during Rizal’s
time, were considered extraordinary, if
not absurd.
 COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES
• Dr. Trinidad H. Pardo de Tavera
• Spanish creole medical doctor
• Sanskrit scholar
• Ethnohistorian
• One of the 1st illustrados to offer their
services to the Americans as soon as the
Spanish regime collapsed.
 COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES
• Wenceslao E. Retana
• An anti-Rizal
• Profriar journalist who had a change of
heart after the fall of Spain
• Wrote the 1st documented full-length
biography of Rizal,
“Vida y Escritos del Dr. Rizal” (Life and
Writings of Dr. Rizal)
 COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES

• Tavera & Retana shared a common view of

Rizal as the multitalented, liberal, and
reformist intellectual who opposed Bonifacio’s
uprising, but who was, nonetheless, the most
revered of all Filipino patriots.

• The Americans found it most

congenial to their colonial agenda.
 Pardo De Tavera
• He declared in an interview with American authorities, that when the
Katipunan asked for Rizal’s counsel regarding the planned revolution,
“Rizal opposed the plan and said it would not be suitable” and
advised that what was good for the country was the “improvement
and education of the people”.
• However, “Bonifacio, instead of telling the truth, told the
Filipino people that Rizal, instead of advising peace, had
advised the revolution.”
 RETANA
• He fully explicated the now taken for granted interpretation that Rizal was an
antirevolutionary reformist and a deeply loyal subject of Spain.
• He also provided the primary documentary evidence for Rizal’s supposed assimilationist
reformism.
• His interpretation of Rizal’s politics were seconded by the first American translator of
Rizal’s novels, Charles Derbyshire, who reiterated Retana’s assimilationist thesis in his
translator’s introduction to The Social Cancer.
• This thesis was picked up and popularized by the second biographer of Rizal, Austin
Craig, an American Historian who set the official American version of Rizal.
 BUT…
• But the question is:

On what documentary sources were these

readings based?
How valid are these sources?
 RETANA
Retana’s erroneous identification of Rizal with
Ibarra can be easily disposed of, for Rizal
himself had unequivocably belied this
interpretation twice:

• First in his La Solidaridad • Second, in his conversation

polemic with Barrantes, where with Jose Alejandrino, Rizal
Rizal declared emphatically that revealed that his hero was
he does not share Ibarra’s view. not Ibarra but Elias.
Declaration of Rizal:
• As quoted by Alejandrino:
"I regret having killed Elias instead of Crisostomo Ibarra; but
when I wrote Noli me Tangere, my health was so shaken, I never
thought I could write its continuation and talk of a revolution.
Otherwise, I would have let Elias live, who was a noble, patriotic,
unselfish and disinterested character, Ibarra was an egoist, who
only decided to provoke a rebellion when his interests, his person,
his loves, and all that he held most sacred were touched. With
such men, one can not expect success in their undertakings"
“ZAIDE versus MANUEL”