The Women in Life of Rizal
children, all of whom had a name
Mother and Sisters
Teodora Alonso Realonda
 1826-1911
 born in Manila on November 8,
1826
 educated at the College of Santa
Rosa, a well-known college for
girls in the city.
 a remarkable woman, possessing
refined culture, literary talent,
business ability, and the fortitude
of Spartan women.
 is a woman of more than ordinary
culture: she knows literature and
speaks Spanish
 died in Manila on August 16, 1911
at the age of 85
Saturnina (1850-1913)
The Hero's Second Mother
 was the eldest child of Don
Francisco and Teodora Alonso.
 She and her mother provided the
little Jose with good basic
education that by the age of
three, Pepe already knew his
alphabet.
 Saturnina had always been a
loving ‘Ate’ Neneng to Jose.
When their mother was
imprisoned, Saturnina brought
the young Jose to Tanauan
during the summer vacation of
1873 just to cheer up the sad little
brother.
 Saturnina married Manuel
Timoteo Hidalgo of Tanauan,
Batangas.
 Manuel and Saturnina had five
which began with letter A:
Alfredo, Adela, Abelardo, Amelia,
and Augusto.
 Recent controversial story
mentions Saturnina as being with
her mother when the latter
allegedly tried to poison Teodora
Formoso, the wife of Jose Alberto
(Teodora Alonso’s brother).
 The story further alleges that
Saturnina and her uncle Jose
Alberto were the real parents of
Soledad, the supposed youngest
sister of Jose.
 Neneng was her nickname
Narcisa (1852-1939)
The Hospitable Sister of the Hero
 'Sisa’ was the third child in the
family.
 Like Saturnina, she helped in
financing Rizal’s studies in
Europe, even pawning her
jewelry and peddling her clothes
if needed. It is said she could
recite from memory almost all of
the poems of the national hero.
 searched for the place where the
authorities secretly buried the
dead Rizal. She found freshly
turned earth at the Paco
cemetery where a body had been
buried without a box of any kind
and with no identification on the
grave. She wittingly made a gift
to the caretaker to mark the site
‘RPJ’, Rizal’s initials in
reverse.Years later, Narcisa and
her other siblings dug up the
hero’s remains at the spot.
  Sisa married Antonino Lopez, a
teacher and musician from
Morong, Rizal. For letting the
Rizal parents live in their house,
Lopez became the target of
Spanish persecution. He was
threatened of deportation, his
house was dismantled, and the
unsecured belongings were
confiscated.
 Narcisa and Antonino had eight
children. Their son Antonio
(1878-1928) married his first
cousin Emiliana Rizal, the
daughter of Paciano Rizal by
Severina Decena.
 Narcisa’s daughter Angelica,
who had visited Rizal in Dapitan,
joined the Katipunan after her
uncle’s martyrdom.
 Narcisa’s grandchildren revealed
that their lolo, Antonino Lopez
was actually the son of the priest
Leoncio Lopez—the ‘cura
parroco’ of Calamba from whom
Rizal based the character of Fr.
Florentino in his El Fili.
Olimpia (1855-1887)
The Sister Whom the Hero Loves to
Tease
 was the fourth child in the Rizal
family. Jose loved to tease her,
sometimes good-humoredly
describing her as his stout sister.
 Jose’s first love, Segunda
Katigbak, was Olimpia’s
schoolmate at the La Concordia
College. Rizal confided to
Olympia about Segunda and the
sister willingly served as the
 mediator between the two
teenage lovers.
 Ypia was her nickname
 Olympia married Silvestre
Ubaldo, a telegraph operator
from Manila. The couple perhaps
had no permanent address for
they would stay wherever
Silvestre was assigned as
telegraph operator.
Lucia (1857-1919)
Partaker of the Hero's Sufferings
 was the fifth child in the Rizal
family.
 She married Mariano Herbosa of
Calamba, Laguna. Charged of
inciting the Calamba townsfolk
not to pay land rent and causing
unrest, the couple was once
ordered to be deported along
with some Rizal family members.
 Lucia’s husband Mariano died
during the cholera epidemic in
May 1889. He was refused a
Catholic burial for not going to
confession since he was a
brother-in-law of Dr. Rizal.
Maria (1859-1945
The Hero's Confidant
 was the sixth child in the family.
 Biang, was her nickname.
 It was to her whom Jose talked
about wanting to marry
Josephine Bracken when the
majority of the Rizal family was
apparently not amenable to the
idea.
 Throught letter, Jose had also
brought up to Maria his plan of
 establishing a Filipino colony in
North British Borneo.
 was married to a very young man
from Biñang whose name was
Daniel Faustino Cruz.”
 Maria and Daniel had five
children: Mauricio, Petrona,
Prudencio, Paz and Encarnacion.
Their son Mauricio married
Conception Arguelles and the
couple had a son named Ismael
Arguelles Cruz. Ismael was the
father of Gemma Cruz Araneta,
the first Filipina to win the Miss
International title, the first
Southeast Asian to win in an
international beauty pageant title.
Concepcion (1862-1865)
The Hero's First Grief
l Also called ‘Concha’ by her
siblings
l was the eight child of the Rizal
family
l She died at the age of three
l her death was the first sorrow of
Dr. Rizal. He later wrote in his
memoir, “When I was four years
old, I lost my little sister Concha,
and then for the first time I shed
tears caused by love and grief.”
Josefa (1865-1945)
The Katipunera
 She’s the ninth child in the family
who died a spinster.
 Panggoy was her nickname
 she died at the age of 80
 Just like Trinidad, she wasn't
married also.
 After Jose’s martyrdom, the
epileptic Josefa joined the
Katipunan and is even supposed
to have been elected the
president of its women section.
She was one of the original 29
women admitted to the Katipunan
along with Gregoria de Jesus,
wife of Andres Bonifacio. They
safeguarded the secret papers
and documents of the society and
danced and sang during sessions
so that civil guards would think
that the meetings were just
harmless social gatherings.
Trinidad (1868-1951)
The Custodian of the Hero's
Greatest Poem
 ‘Trining’ was the tenth child
 Jose Rizal sensed that studying is
not Trinidad’s thing
 Jose invited Trinidad to return to
Dapitan. Jose though had one
hesitation: “The difficulty is,
whom are you going to marry
here? The town is lonely still, for
there is almost no one.”
 Never married, Trinidad and
Josefa lived together until their
deaths.
 she died at the age of 83 because
of Malaria. However, she was the
last of the family to die.
 Right before Jose’s execution,
Trinidad and their mother visited
him in the Fort Santiago prison
cell. As they were leaving, Jose
handed over to Trining an alcohol
cooking stove, a gift from the
Pardo de Taveras, whispering to
her in a language which the
guards could not understand,
 “There is something in it.” That eyes of a man… You should value
‘something’ was Rizal’s elegy more, esteem more your honor
now known as “Mi Ultimo and you will be more esteemed
Adios.”Like Josefa and two and valued.”
nieces, Trinidad joined the
LOVERS
Katipunan after Rizal’s death.
Soledad (1870-1929)
The Hero's Controversial Sister
 Also called ‘Choleng,’
 was the youngest child of the
Rizal family.
 Being a teacher, she was
arguably the best educated
among Rizal’s sisters.
 Jose told to her that he was
proud of her for becoming a
teacher. He thus counseled her
to be a model of virtues and good
qualities “for the one who should
teach should be better than the
persons who need her learning.”
 Rizal nonetheless used the topic
as leverage in somewhat
rebuking her sister for getting
married to Pantaleon Quintero of
Calamba without their parents’
consent. “Because of you,” he
wrote, “the peace of our family
has been disturbed.” Some
timeless lessons in ethics and
good manners can be learned
from the letter.
 For instance, it reveals that Jose
was very much against women
who allow themselves to be
courted outside their homes. He
said to Choleng, “If you have a
sweetheart, behave towards him
nobly and with dignity, instead of
resorting to secret meetings and
conversations which do nothing
but lower a woman's worth in the
languages  To learn a new language, Rizal
memorized five root words every
Before Rizal was exiled in Dapitan, he
night before going to bed.
already knew many languages.
 At the end of the year, he learned
These languages were:
1,825 new words.
Tagalog
 He never forget these foreign
Ilokano words because of his retentive
memory.
Spanish
 Rizal made a good use of his
Latin knowledge of many languages in
Greek his travels in Europe and
America, in communicating with
English foreign scholars and scientists,
and in his writings.
French
 Many times during his travels
German
abroad, he acted as interpreter
Arabic for his fellow travellers who
belonged to various nationalities-
Hebrew Americans, British, French,
Sanskrit German, Italians, Spaniards,
Japanese and others.
Catalan
 During his exile in Dapitan, Rizal
Dutch increased his knowledge of
languages.
Italian
 He studied three more
Chinese
languages- Malay, Bisayan and
Japanese Subanun.
Portuguese  By the end of his exile in Dapitan
on July 31, 1896, Rizal had
Swedish
become one of the world’s great
Russian linguists.
 He knew 22 languages, namely,
 His knowledge of many Tagalog, Ilokano, Spanish,
languages was one aspect of Portuguese, Latin, Greek,
Rizal’s amazing genius. Sanskrit, English, French,
German, Arabic, Hebrew,
 Few men in history were gifted by Catalan, Dutch, Italian, Chinese,
God with such ability to learn any Japanese, Swedish, Russian,
language easily. And one of these Malay, Bisayan, and Subanun.
rare men was Rizal.
TAGALOG
Jose Rizal was known for his
nationalistic fervour. Pride of the
Tagalog language was always in his
heart. In fact Jose Rizal’s friendship
with Blumentritt started because of the
latter’s great interest in the Tagalog
language.
 Jose Rizal wrote most of his
famous works in Spanish. Even
his final farewell poem, Mi Ultimo
Adios, was written in the
language of his executioners. He
was, after all, a man of his times
when most educated Filipinos
rarely wrote formally in their
mother tongue. Over a century
later, not much has changed
except that the foreign language
of choice is now English.
 But Rizal was not
a malansang isda (stinking fish)
who neglected his own language.
Throughout his short life he
worked to
enrich Tagalog literature and to
make it more accessible to
ordinary people. He translated
European stories
into Tagalog and the fairy tales of
Hans Christian Andersen.
 He wrote a
short Tagalog grammar and he
also attempted to write his third
novel in Tagalog, known today
as Makamisa, but it was left
unfinished when he was executed
in 1896.
Spanish
 And for all of us who know about
Rizal, if there was one language
he utilized and exploited, it was
nothing else but the Spanish
language.
 The same language of Cervantes,
Ignacio de Loyola, Calderon de la
Barca and that of all the
Philippines’ ilustrados was the
same language Rizal used for his
speeches and more importantly,
his writings. These writings,
some great, some ordinary, all
present to us the worldview and
also, the interior spirit that drove
Rizal to live his life lovingly
dedicated to the Filipino people.
 His poems, plays, letters, studies
and not to mention, his novels
were written in the Spanish
language.
 Likewise, his very lifestyle in the
Philippines, which he enjoyed,
was very Hispanic. A love for the
life in the country, a strong
devotion to the Catholic God and
an academic life in the Spanish-
owned Ateneo Municipal and
Universidad de Santo Tomás are
just some of the examples of how
Rizal lived the Hispanic identity of
the archipelago.
 Rizal, a scholar and a true
patriot, wanted to study the
condition of the various Japanese
classes.
 He might have realized that in
order for him to have a deeper
understanding of the Japanese
society, he had to learn their
language.
 With his natural flair for
languages and through the help
of his girlfriend Osei-san, he was
able to considerably improve his
Japanese skills.