Mark Gerald S.

Gigante

BIOGRAPHY OF JOSE RIZAL: NATIONAL HERO

OF THE PHILIPPINES

Dr Jose Protacio Rizal was born in the town of

Calamba, Laguna on 19th June 1861. The second
son and the seventh among the eleven children
of Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonso.
With his mother as his first teacher, he began
his early education at home and continued in
Binan, Laguna. He entered a Jesuit-run Ateneo
Municipal de Manila in 1872 and obtained a
bachelor's degree with highest honors in 1876.
He studied medicine at the University of Santo
Tomas but had to stop because he felt that the
Filipino students were being discriminated by
their Dominican tutors. He went to Madrid
at Universidad Central de Madrid and  in 1885
at the age of 24, he finished his course in Philosophy and Letters with a
grade of "Excellent".He took graduate studies in Paris, France & Heidelberg,
Germany. He also studied painting, sculpture, he learned to read and write in
at least 10 languages.

Rizal was a prolific writer and was anti-violence. He rather fight using his
pen than his might. Rizal's two
books "Noli Me Tangere" (Touch Me Not)
which he wrote while he was in Berlin,
Germany in 1887 and "El Filibusterismo"
(The Rebel) in Ghent, Belgiun in 1891
exposed the cruelties of the Spanish
friars in the Philippines, the defects of
the Spanish administration and the vices
of the clergy, these books told about the
oppression of the Spanish colonial rule.
These two books made Rizal as a marked
man to the Spanish friars.

 In 1892 when Rizal returned to the

Philippines, he formed La Liga
Filipina , a non violent reform
society of patriotic citizen and a forum for Filipinos to express their
hopes for reform, to promote progress through commerce, industry and
agriculture and freedom from the oppressive Spanish colonial
administration.
  On July 6, 1892, he was imprisoned
in Fort Santiago, on the charge of instigating unrest against Spain, he
was exiled to Dapitan, in northwestern Mindanao. He remained in exile for
four years, while he was in political exile in Dapitan, he practice
medicine, he established a school for boys, promoted community development
projects, he applied his knowledge in engineering by constructing a system
of waterworks in order to furnish clean water to the townspeople. In
Dapitan he also met, fell in love and lived with Josephine Bracken.
 In 1896, the Katipunan, a
nationalist secret society launched a revolt against the Spaniards,
although Jose Rizal had no connection with the organization, his enemies
were able to linked him with the revolt. To avoid being involved in the
move to start a revolution, he asked Governor Ramon Blanco to send him to
Cuba but instead he was brought back to Manila and jailed for the second
time in Fort Santiago.
RIZAL MONUMENT AT LUNETA PARK

On December 26, 1896, after a trial, Rizal was sentenced to die, he was
convicted of rebellion, sedition, and of forming illegal association. On the
eve of his execution while confined in Fort Santiago, Rizal wrote a poem Mi
Ultimo Adios (My Last Farewell) and hid it inside the gas burner and gave the
gas burner to his sister Trinidad and his wife Josephine.
He was executed on December 30, 1896 at the age of 35 by a firing squad at
Bagumbayan, now known as Luneta Park in Manila.
Jose Rizal was a man of many accomplishments - a linguist, a novelist, a poet,
a scientist, a doctor, a painter, an educator, a reformer and a visionary, he
left his people his greatest patriotic poem, Mi Ultimo Adios to serve as an
inspiration for the next generations.
 INTERESTING FACT ABOUT RIZAL
 Rizal's Contribution to Science
Rizal found Mindanao a rich virgin field for collecting specimens. With
his baroto (sailboat) and accompanied by his pupils, he explored the jungles
and coasts seeking specimens of insects, birds, snakes lizards frogs shells
and plants.
He sent these specimens to the museum of Europe especially the Dresden Museum.
In payment for these valuable specimens, the European scientists sent him
scientific books and surgical instruments.
On September 21, 1892 the mail boat “Butuan” arrived in Dapitan carrying
lottery Ticket No. 9736 jointly owned by Captain Carnicero, Dr Jose Rizal and
Francisco Equilior won the second prize of P20,000 in the government-owned
Manila Lottery.
Rizal’s share of the winning loterry was P6,200. He gave P2,000 to his father
and P200 to his friend Basa in Hongkong and the rest he invested well by
purchasing agricultural lands along the coast of Talisay about one kilometer
away from Dapitan.

Rizal Discovered Rare Specimens

For four years during his exile in Dapitan, Rizal discovered some rare
specimens which were named in his honor by the scientists. Among these were :
 Draco Rizali—a flying dragon
 Apogonia Rizali -a small beetle
 Rhacophorus Rizali—a rare frog