Rizal's retraction: Truth vs Myth

By ERIKA DENISE L. DIZON

THE DEBATE continues.
Since Rizals retraction letter was discovered by Father Manuel Garcia, C.M. in 1935, its content has become
a favorite subject of dispute among academicians and Catholics. The letter, dated December 29, 1896, was
said to have been signed by the National Hero himself.
It stated: I declare myself a Catholic and in this religion in which I was born and educated I wish to live and
die. I retract with all my heart whatever in my words, writings, publications and conduct has been contrary to
my character as son of the Catholic Church.
The controversy whether the National Hero actually wrote a retraction document only lies in the judgment of
its reader, as no amount of proof can probably make the two opposing groupsthe Masonic Rizalists (who
firmly believe that Rizal did not withdraw) and the Catholic Rizalists (who were convinced Rizal retracted)
agree with each other.
Proofs, documents
History books tell most people that the first draft of the retraction was sent by Archbishop Bernardino
Nozaleda to Rizals cell in Fort Santiago the night before his execution in Bagumbayan. But Rizal was said to
have rejected the draft because it was lengthy.
According to a testimony by Father Vicente Balaguer, a Jesuit missionary who befriended the hero during his
exile in Dapitan, Rizal accepted a shorter retraction document prepared by the superior of the Jesuit Society
in the Philippines, Father Pio Pi.
Rizal then wrote his retraction after making some modifications in the document. In his retraction, he
disavowed Masonry and religious thoughts that opposed Catholic belief.
Personally, I did not believe he retracted, but some documents that was purchased by the Philippine
government from Spain in the mid-1990s, the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila, showed some interesting
points about the retraction, said Jose Victor Torres, professor at the History department of the De La Salle
University.
Popularly known as the Katipunan and Rizal documents, the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila is a body of
documents on the Philippine revolutions that contains confidential reports, transcripts, clippings, and
photographs from Spanish and Philippine newspapers.
Despite this, Torres said his perception of the Filipino martyr would not change even if the controversies were
true.
Even though it would be easy to say he retracted all that he wrote about the Church, it still did not change
the fact that his writings began the wheels of change in Philippine colonial society during the Spanish
perioda change that led to our independence, Torres said. The retraction is just one aspect of the life,
works, and writings of Rizal.
But then, Torres noted that the controversy is irrelevant today.
The way Rizal is taught in schools today, the retraction means nothing, he said.
Unadorned fact
Filipino historian Nicolas Zafra considered the controversy as a plain unadorned fact of history, having all
the marks and indications of historical certainty and reality in his book The Historicity of Rizals Retraction.
Dr. Augusto De Viana, head of USTs Department of History , also believes that Rizal retracted and said the
National Hero just renounced from the Free Masonry and not from his famous nationalistic works.
He (Rizal) retracted. He died as a Catholic, and a proof that he died as a Catholic was he was buried inside
the sacred grounds of Paco Cemetery, said De Viana, who compared the martyr with Apolinario Mabini, a
revolutionary and free mason who was buried in a Chinese cemetery.
De Viana said it is not possible that the retraction letter had been forged because witnesses were present
while Rizal was signing it.
He added that the evidence speaks for itself and moves on to the question on Rizals character as some argue
that the retraction is not in line with Rizals mature beliefs and personality.
Anti-retractionists ask, What kind of hero is Jose Rizal? They say he was fickle-minded. Well, that may be
true, but that is human character. Rizal was not a perfect person, De Viana said.
He also mentioned that just like any person, Rizal was prone to flip-flop. He believes that Rizal retracted
because the national hero wanted to be at peace when he dies.
But would Rizals works deem irrelevant and futile because of his retraction?
De Viana answered, Rizal awakened our knowledge of nationalism. For me, that is enough. The issue will not
invalidate his works in any way.
How could this be? we ask. It COULD BE, for the circumstances and people had connived. It COULD BE,
for there was no other recourse. It COULD BE, for the moth had burned its wings! Twenty-four years after
the garroting of the Filipino clerics, Fathers Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and Jacinto Zamora, the pogrom
and intimidation had to continue. It had to continue for the dying Empire and frailocracy had now sensed its
own death. It had to continue, for it wanted to display its final domination of a reawakened people. However,
it would not be completely so! The man they had just martyred was a man whose politics and faith were
unshakeable and timeless. As we know, and as History recounts, it also projects.
To paraphrase the words of Dr. Rafael Palma the great Philippine scholar, patriot, and former President of the
University of the Philippines regarding the trial of Dr. Jose Rizal, the document obtained under moral duress
and spiritual threats has very little value before the tribunal of history. Dr. Rafael Palma, a respected jurist
of his time, was an author on the life of our hero and had studied the trial of Dr. Jose Rizal meticulously. Of
this he says in his book The Pride of the Malay Race about Dr. Jose Rizal, His defense before the court
martial is resplendent for its moderation and serenity in spite of the abusive and vexatious manner in which
the fiscal had treated him. For in mans own tribunal, the tribunal and trial that condemned Dr. Jose Rizal
to die was a sham; his execution, a foregone conclusion.
It is common historical knowledge that Ms. Josephine Bracken lived with Dr. Jose Rizal for three of the four
years he was exiled in Dapitan. He truly loved her. They had desired a canonical marriage but were
presented with a pre-condition retraction of Rizals anti-ecclesiastical writings and beliefs. As we may know,
he was never anti-God or anti-Church. He was anti-cleric to those who abused their mission and hid behind
their pretentious cloak of religiosity. He knew there were those who practiced religion but did not worship
God. Neither the retraction nor the marriage occurred. He and Josephine were parents to a son, though he
sadly passed. We know that Dr. Jose Rizal had immortalized Josephine Bracken in his unsigned and untitled
poem which we now refer to as his Ultimo Adios: Adios, dulce extranjera mi amiga, mi alegria As
Ambeth R. Ocampo, Director of the Philippine Historical Institute quotes, To accept Rizal as having married
Bracken is to accept his alleged retraction of religious error. From Austin Coates, British author and
historian: Before God, he (Dr. Rizal) had nothing to retract. And from Dr. Jose Rizal himself, I quote: I go
where there are no slaves, no hangmen, no oppressors where faith does not slay where He who reigns is
God.
Fraudulent Premise
From 1892 to 1896, during his period of exile in Dapitan, the Catholic Church attempted to redirect his
beliefs regarding religious faith, albeit unsuccessfully. A succession of visits from Fathers Obach, Vilaclara,
and Sanchez did not find his convictions wanting. He had decided to remain ecclesiastically unwed, rather
than recant his alleged religious errors. Now, there seems to be a disconnect, or even a divide among
historians as to whether Dr. Jose Rizal had abjured his apparent errant religious ways as claimed by the
friars and the Jesuits. Since a retraction of alleged religious errors would have begotten a marriage to Ms.
Josephine Bracken, let us look for evidence that will prove this premise fraudulent. Austin Coates book
entitled Rizal Philippine Nationalist and Martyr gives many compelling facts as borne out from his own
personal investigation, and with numerous interviews of the Rizal family. To wit:
1.Fr. Vicente Balaguer, S. J., claimed that he performed the canonical marriage between 6:00 6:15 AM of
December 30, 1896 in the presence of one of the Rizal sisters. The Rizal family denied that any of the Rizal
sisters were there that fateful morning. Dr. Jose Rizal was martyred at 7:03 AM.
2. Nobody had reported seeing Ms. Josephine Bracken in the vicinity of Fort Santiago in the morning of the
execution.
3. Considering the time it would take for the three priests (Fr. Jose Vilaclara, Fr. Estanislao March, and Fr.
Vicente Balaguer) to negotiate the expanse of the walk to give spiritual care to the condemned Dr. Jose Rizal,
why is it that only Fr. Balaguer could describe a wedding? Furthermore, where were Fr. Vilaclara and Fr.
March to corroborate the occurrence of a marriage ceremony? Or was there really even one at all?
4. In Josephine Brackens matrimony to Vicente Abad, the Church Register of Marriages kept at the Roman
Catholic Cathedral in Hong Kong made no reference that Josephine was a Rizal by marriage, or that she was
the widow of Dr. Jose Rizal.
5. In the legal register of Hong Kong, Josephine used the last name Bracken instead of Rizal to be married
to Vicente Abad.
6. In Josephine Brackens litigation versus Jose Maria Basa for the possession of Dr. Jose Rizals valuable
library, a certification from the British Consulate from Manila stating that she was indeed Rizals widow would
have bolstered her claim. She did not pursue this. Why not?
7. In 1960, inquiry at the Cardinal-Bishopric of Manila for evidentiary proof of a Rizal-Bracken marriage was
not fruitful, or possibly, the issue was simply ignored by the religious. Likewise, we ask the question, Why?
Unconfessed Martyrdom
From the dark days of exile in Dapitan, to the even darker days of imprisonment at Fort Santiago, the
Catholic Church had demanded from Dr. Jose Rizal a retraction before a canonical marriage could be
performed. In this Inquisition-like setting of the Spanish regime, it was always proclaimed that the Indio
always retracted, as he walked to his execution. Austin Coates states in his book: The Spaniards publish
the same thing about everyone who is shot Besides, nobody has ever seen this written declaration in spite
of the fact that a number of people would want to see it. It is (always) in the hands of the Archbishop. I say
that if there was no marriage, there could have not been a retraction, and Dr. Jose Rizal met his martyrdom
un-confessed:
1. Indeed, at the Paco Cemetery, the name of Dr. Jose Rizal was listed among those who died impenitent. The
entry made in the book of burials at the cemetery where Rizal was buried was not made on the page for those
buried on December 30, 1896 (where there were as many as six entries), but on a special page, as ordered by
the authorities. Thus, Dr. Jose Rizal was entered on a page between a man who burned to death, and
another who died by suicide persons considered un-confessed and without spiritual aid at the time of
death.
2. Father Estanislao March, S.J., and Fr. Jose Vilaclara, S.J. (who had accompanied Dr. Jose Rizal to the
execution site) could have ordered a Christian burial, but they did not. They must have known that no
retraction was made. Dr. Jose Rizal was laid to earth bare, without a sack, without a coffin. This was the
onus of the un-confessed.
3. One must also remember that Dr. Jose Rizal wrote a short and final note to his parents dated December
30, 1896 at 6:00 in the morning, with no mention of an occurred or intended retraction and/or marriage. A
message with that important information would have been of great consolation to Dona Teodora Alonso and to
Don Francisco Mercado, whom he loved and respected dearly.
4. Despite numerous immediate supplications from the Rizal family after the execution, no letter of
retraction could be produced.
5. The Rizal family was informed by the church that approximately nine to eleven days after the execution, a
mass for the deceased would be said, after which the letter of retraction would be shown the family. Though
the family was in attendance, the mass was never celebrated and no letter of retraction was shown. They
were told that the letter had been sent to the Archbishops palace, and that the family would not be able to
see it.
6. The Jesuits themselves (who had a special liking for their former student) did not celebrate any mass for
his soul, nor did they hold any funerary rites over his body. I take this as a repudiation of the Jesuits against
the friars, loudly hinting to the Filipino people that their esteemed pupil did not abjure!
7. The apparent discovery of an obviously forged autobiography of Josephine Bracken claiming marriage to
Dr. Jose Rizal, showed a handwriting that bore no resemblance to Josephines and had glaring errors in
syntax, which revealed that the perpetrating authors primary language was Spanish (not Josephines original
language), thus proving that the document was manufactured and disingenuous.
8. Confession in August, 1901 of master forger Roman Roque that earlier in the year, he was employed by the
friars to make several copies of a retraction letter.
9. In 1962, authors Ildefonso T. Runes and Mamerto M. Buenafe in their book Forgery of the Rizal
Retraction and Josephines Autobiography, made an expos of six different articles and books that
purportedly presented Dr. Jose Rizals document of retraction as copied from the so-called original
testament of retraction. Intriguingly enough, even to this day, the claimed original document from which
the facsimiles have arisen have not been seen by anybody. Blatant in these six different presentations were
differing dates and notes that had been doctored, traced-over, and altered, when these facsimiles were
supposed to have come from the same original document! This book of Runes and Buenafe was published
by the Pro-Patria Publishers of Manila. The book is extant but unfortunately, out of print.
Though the issue of Retraction remains contentious for some people, it is my personal opinion that there is
no controversy; that Dr. Jose Rizal did not make any recantation of his writings and beliefs. The arguments
to the contrary made by his detractors are all smoke screen and retreads of the dubious accounts of the
sycophantic Father Balaguer and his gullible minions. Let us not allow for the sands of time to cover the
blunder of this ignoble and impious event. Let not the conspiracy of silence keep us chained to this
fraudulent claim. As had been vigorously proposed then, and again now, let the document of retraction be
examined by a panel of the worlds experts in hand-writing, and let a pronouncement be made. Let this
hidden document come to the eyes of the public, for they have the greatest of rights to see, and to judge, and
to know what is truthful.
When this comes to pass in this 21st century, in this age of an evidence-based society that demands
transparency and full-disclosure, it can be stated that with the now enlightened and reformed Catholicism,
and in the spirit of Vatican II, if Pope John Paul II can apologize to the Jewish people for the millennia of
misdeeds by the Church, if Pope Benedict XVI can, in Australia at the 2008 World Youth Congress, apologize
to the victims of pedophilia and other ecclesiastical sexual abuses, then it should not be beyond the Catholic
Church to NOW admit the pious fraud it had committed in saying that Dr. Jose Rizal had abjured his writings
and beliefs, when all evidences point to the fact that he did not!