Dr. José Rizal: National Hero of the Philippines

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The New Rizalista Order

Pres. Ferdinand Emmanuel E. Marcos

DR. JOSE P. RIZAL

Rizal was made a Master Mason on November 15, 1890 at Logia Solidaridad 53 in Madrid, Spain. He affiliated with a lodge under the jurisdiction of Grand Orient of France on October 14, 1891, and was made honorary Worshipful Master of Nilad Lodge No. 144 in 1892. There he delivered a lecture entitled “La Masoneria”.

A many-faceted and multi-talented genius, his God given talents for freedom and for the welfare of his people through peaceful reforms was an obsession that has guided him all his life.

A dedicated nationalist, physician, poet, novelist, historian, painter, sculptor, linguist, educator, anthropologist, ethnologist, sportsman, traveler and a prophet, his talents appear inexhaustible. His famous novels, “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” exposed the abuses of the Spanish authorities and inspired the 1896 Revolution. His martyrdom fanned the patriotic spirit of Filipinos and solidified their craving for nationhood.

Considered the pride of the Malay race and the greatest of the Filipino heroes ever born, he ranks equal to most of the great men of all races and of all times.

By: Alvin Lim

Bohol Provincial Library

January 6, 1812, Melchora “Tandang Sora” Aquino de Ramos was born to Juan Aquino and Valentina de Aquino in Banlat, Balintawak, Quezon City (formerly Barrio Banlat, Kalookan). She learned to read and write at a young age, and even in her youth was respected and loved by her community. She was active in many public events, not only in Banlat but also in the surrounding barrios, and was often a participant in her barrio’s Santa Cruzan festival. She had a good singing voice and was often invited to lead many Holy Week Pabasa.

She married Fulgencio Ramos who eventually became Cabeza de Barangay. The couple bore six children: Juan, Simon, Estefania, Romualdo, Juana, and Saturnina. Upon the death of her husband, she took on the role of both mother and father to her children, and managed the family farm and other business interests.

She was 84 when the Philippine Revolution of 1896 broke out. Her son, Juan A. Ramos, was associated with the Katipunan, the members of which were the ones who gave Aquino the nickname “Tandang Sora.” Andres Bonifacio and more than 1,000 of his men arrived at Ramos’s house on August 23, 1986. There, the Katipuneros engaged in what is now popularly known as the “Cry of Pugadlawin.”

Melchora Aquino aided the revolutionaries—while they were her guests, she attended to them and gave them provisions: 100 cavans of rice and ten carabaos—but paid for her actions.

Six days later, on August 29, she was arrested by the Spaniards and held captive in the house of the Cabeza de Barangay of Pasong Putik, Novaliches. She was then transferred to Bilibid Prison in Manila a day after her arrest. While in prison, she was interrogated vigorously by a Spanish inquisitor, but she remained loyal to the cause and did not surrender information about Bonifacio and the other Katipuneros. She was deported to Guam by Governor General Ramon Blanco on September 2, 1896, where she would stay until the takeover of the American Colonial Regime.

After enduring seven years of exile, Tandang Sora would finally be repatriated by the Americans on February 26, 1903. She was brought home by the steam freighter SS Uranus along with 76 other Filipino exiles. Upon her return to Banlat, she was welcomed by all the villagers, her children, and her grandchildren.

She spent her last years living in the hills of Balintawak. Her age prevented her from working, and she depended on her children and grandchildren for her means of living. Although the American government offered her monetary rewards for her sacrifice during the revolution, she declined them all, content that she had contributed to the revolutionary cause.

Tandang Sora quietly passed away at the age of 107, on February 19, 1919, (February 20, 1919—Official Gazette) in the house of her daughter Saturnina in Banlat. Her remains were interred in the Mausoleo de los Veteranos de la Revolucion in Manila North Cemetery, where it remained until 1969. It was then transferred to Himlayang Pilipino where a shrine to Filipino heroes is erected. On January 6, 2012, on the celebration of her 200th birthday, the Local Government of Quezon City decided to transfer Tandang Sora's remains from Himlayang Pilipino Memorial Park to the Tandang Sora National Shrine in Banlat, Quezon City.

Sources:
1. Official Gazette of the Philippines
2. Presidential Museum and Library PH

Bohol Provincial Library

January 5, 1897, Josephine Bracken Rizal arrived in San Francisco de Malabon with her in-laws, Trinidad and Paciano, and immediately expressed her wish to Andres Bonifacio to be actively espoused to the rebel cause. While her in-laws were apparently contented which such non-combatant duties as nursing the sick and wounded, Madame Rizal, with admirable courage, insisted on taking her place at the firing line, with a revolver or a rifle.

(In her first battle at Silang, Cavite, it is said that Madame Rizal with unerring aim, fired forty rounds, and have earned the admiration of those around her by her excellent shooting. She bravely inspired the fighting patriots in the battle of San Francisco Malabon. In the battle of Perez Dasmariñas she was armed with Ma**er rifle and was reported to have engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and have led charges with the bowie knife against the startled Spaniards. By the tenets of the Mosaic law (an eye for and eye and a life for a life), she must have satisfactorily avenged the murder of her husband).
[* Husband because — in the evening before Jose Rizal’s ex*****on on December 30, 1896, on charges of treason, rebellion and sedition by the Spanish colonial government, the Catholic Church claimed that Rizal returned to the faith and was married to Bracken in a religious ceremony officiated by Father Vicente Balaguer, S.J. sometime between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM, an hour before his scheduled ex*****on at 7:00 AM. Despite claims by Father Balaguer and Bracken herself, some sectors, including members of Rizal's family, disputed that the wedding had occurred because no records were found attesting to the union.]

When the Spaniards took the San Francisco Malabon, Josephine escaped, with Paciano, to the hills of Maragondon, and farther on to Laguna. She later returned to Manila, where the American consul gave her protection because she was the adopted daughter of an American citizen, George Taufer.

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Josephine was born in Victoria Barracks in Hong Kong on August 9, 1876, to Irish parents James Bracken, a corporal in the British Army, and Elizabeth Jane McBride, who were married in Belfast, Ireland. (As both her parents were Irish, Josephine too would have been officially classed as ‘Irish’, or more accurately, ‘British’, as all of Ireland was then a part of the United Kingdom until Irish independence in 1919–1922). After her mother died shortly after childbirth, her father gave her up for adoption. She was taken in by her godfather, the American George Taufer. Josephine was the one who recommended that her blind adoptive father see Jose Rizal, who was a respected ophthalmologist and had practiced at Rednaxela Terrace in Hong Kong. By this time, Rizal was a political exile in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte in southern Philippines. The family sailed to the Philippines and arrived in Manila on February 5, 1895, and later that month Josephine and Taufer sailed to Dapitan.

During the early years of the American occupation in the Philippines, Josephine worked as a public school teacher, first in Iloilo and later Cebu. She also did private tutoring, giving lessons to Sergio Osmeña [later President], Teodoro M. Kalaw, among others. Owing to poor health, she returned to Hong Kong, where she died on March 15, 1902 of miliary tuberculosis.

Sources and References:
1. Manuel D. Duldulao, “A Century of Philippine Legislature” 2007, Experience Philippines, Quezon City, Vol. I, p. 16–17
2. Dr. Robert L. Yoder, “The Life and Writings of Dr. José Rizal”, 2004
* Fadul, Jose A. (2008). "Encyclopedia Rizaliana: Student Edition", p. 17
* Craig, Austin (1913). "Lineage, life, and labors of José Rizal, Philippine patriot". Yonkers-on-Hudson World Book Company, p. 242

Matthew Marcos Manotoc

Happy Rizal Day!

Rizal more than any great figure in our national history does not diminish in relevance because he rises beyond the great issues of his day to address the concerns of generations to come. Again and again, each generation of our people come in homage before Rizal and have something to learn and remember. - Ferdinand E. Marcos (1981). [A]