Rizal's First Trip Abroad

3 May 1882
Rizal left Philippines for the first time Spain. He boarded the Salvadora using a passport of
Jose Mercado, which was procured for him by his uncle Antonio Rivera, father of Leonor
Rivera. He was accompanied to the quay where the Salvadora was moored by his uncle
Antonio, Vicente Gella, and Mateo Evangelista.

4 May 1882
He got seasick on board the boat.

5 May1882
He conversed with the passengers of the ship; he was still feeling sea-sick.

6 May 1882
He played chess with the passengers on board.

8 May 1882
He saw mountains and Islands.

9 May 1882
Rizal arrived at Singapore.

10 May 1882
He went around the town of Singapore and maid some observations.

11 May 1882
In Singapore, at 2 p.m., Rizal boarded the boat Djemnah to continue his trip to Spain. He
found the boat clean and well kept.

12 May 1882
He had a conversation with the passengers of the boat.

13 May 1882
Rizal was seasick again.

14 May 1882
On his way to Marseilles, Rizal had a terrible dream. He dreamed he was traveling with
Neneng (Saturnina) and their path was blocked by snakes.

May 15 1882
Rizal had another disheartening dream. He dreamed he returned to Calamba and after
meeting his parents who did not talk to him because of not having consulted them about his
first trip abroad, he returned traveling abroad with one hundred pesos he again borrowed.
He was so sad and broken hearted. Soon he woke up and found himself inside his cabin.

17 May 1882
Rizal arrived at Punta de Gales.

18 May 1882
At 7:30 a.m., he left Punta de Gales for Colombo. In the afternoon, Rizal arrived at Colombo
and in the evening the trip was resumed.

26 May 1882
Rizal Bound for the Philippines

4 July 1887
Rizal passed the island of Cerdeña.

7 July 1887
In a letter he informed Fernando Canon about his trip on board the Djemnah, about the
different co-passengers he had the activies he did on board.

8 July 1887
He arrived at Port Said, Egypt.

July 1887
He arrived at the Suez Canal.

21 July 1887
Rizal arrived at Colombo, Ceylon. He went ashore and bought a hat.

26 July 1887
He wrote in a postcard from the Strait of Malacca: "Greetings from the Strait of Malacca in a
sea as tranquil as a mirror..."

27 July 1887
Rizal arrived at Singapore.

28 July 1887
Rizal left Singapore for Saigon.

30 July 1887
He arrived at Saigon and transferred to the S.S. Hayfong, a passenger ship.

2 August 1887
He left Saigon for Manila on board the S.S. Hayfong.

3 August 1887
He slept on deck the whole night. He must have been enjoying the magnificence of the sea
illumined by the full moon.
Rizal in Ghent, Belgium
3 July 1891
Rizal received from Jose Ma. Basa the amount he was borrowing for his trip to Hong Kong
from Marseilles, as well as the letter for the Director of the Messageries Maritimes. He was
boarding at 9 Rue de Hinaut.

9 July 1891
He was financially hard up. He did not receive for three months up to this date any pension
from home. He was living in the most difficult situation, renting a small room and eating the
modest food in order to economize and able to publish the Fili. He had already pawned all
his jewels.

29 July 1891
Rizal informed Eduardo Lete about the details of the two agricultural colonies in Belgium,
telling the latter that the Hoogstragen colony is for men and that of Brujas, for women. To
know the details about this request of Lete, Rizal personally went to Brussels.

4 August 1891
In a letter, he thanked Prof. Blumemtritt for the two books: the first volume of I El
Sacerdocio and the beautiful treaties of Mal Epos. He planned to write articles about these
but the El Filibusterismo consumed his time.

6 August 1891
He told Juan Zulueta that it was never his habit to provoke conflicts; that the idea which
precipitated the conflict among the members of the Colony in Madrid did not come from him
but from other persons, and that he never had the desire under his leadership to
subordinate neither the La Solidaridad nor its director.

23 August 1891
In a letter, Rizal informed Blumentritt that Padre Leoncio Lopez, the old parish priest of
Calamba who wanted to see and shake hands with him again in Calamba before eternally
leaving the valley of tears, but who died before the publication of the Noli, is described in
the Fili as Padre Florentino.

24 August 1891
Rizal wrote a letter to Mariano Ponce in Madrid informing the latter that he was deeply hurt
by the false accusations coming from Manila. However, he reiterated his adherence to the
cause of the movement.
26 August 1891
In a letter, he informed Basa in Hong Kong that the Fili was coming out in September.

16 September 1891
The El Filibusterismo was about to come off the press of F. Meyer, Van Loo at No. 66
Vlanderestraat. He was elated, together with Jose Alejandro who was staying with him at
No. 32 Vlanderestraat, near the printing press.

18 September 1891
The Fili came off the press and Rizal sent to Hong Kong two copies: one for Jose Ma. Basa
and the other for Sixto Lopez.

22 September 1891
He sent one copy of his El Filibusterismo to Marcelo H. del Pilar. He informed the latter at
the same time that he was completely retiring from politics since he said he was going
home. Likewise, he sent a copy to Antonio M. Regidor, one of his countrymen living in
London.

He planned of writing the third novel during his travel back home. He wanted to write about
the customs and usages of the Filipinos in a humorous and satirical style.

25 September 1891
Valentin Ventura sent to Rizal in Ghent 200 francs for the publication expenses of the Fili.
Luneta Park

This one should come easy. I

mean, Rizal Park is in honor of
the Philippines’ national hero,
Dr. Jose Rizal, and we’ve studied
about him and his life since
elementary. So, writing about
this Philippine landmark should
be easy.

I’ve driven by the park countless

times, but I never got the chance
to check the place. The most I
could do was snap this photo.
Maybe this is the problem of
being immersed in a place too
long. One ceases to appreciate
things that others travel miles
just to see.

Anyway, Rizal Park is the shrine

of the Philippines’ national hero,
Dr. Jose Rizal. It’s formerly
called Luneta Park. During the
time with the Philippines was still a colony of Spain, it was called
Bagumbayan (which is short for Bagong Bayan, or New Town). On 30
December 1896, Jose Rizal was executed at Bagumbayan. Death
through a firing squad, for his “subversive” ideas. Reminds of a
conversation in a movie about someone’s terrorist being somebody else’s
hero.

Rizal Park is across the Manila Hotel. It’s an open public park, so you
could come anytime, for free of course. It’s location was discussed in our
previous post on the Manila Ocean Park, which is just a few meters
away from Rizal Park.
José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo
Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), the "Pride of the
Malay Race" and "The Great Malayan," is the national hero of the
Philippines.

As a polyglot, he mastered 22 languages including Catalan, Chinese,

English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, Malay, Sanskrit,
Spanish, Tagalog, and other Philippine languages.

As a polymath, he was also an architect, artist, educator, economist,

ethnologist, scientific farmer, historian, inventor, journalist, linguist,
musician, mythologist, nationalist, naturalist, novelist, ophthalmologist,
physician, poet, propagandist, sculptor, and sociologist.

A famous patriot, the anniversary of Rizal's death, December 30, is now

celebrated as a holiday in the Philippines, called Rizal Day.

Family

The seventh of the eleven children of Francisco Mercado and Teodora

Alonzo. José Rizal was born into a prosperous middle class Filipino family in
the town of Calamba in the Province of Laguna. Dominican friars granted
the family the privilege of the lease of a hacienda and an accompanying rice
farm, but contentious litigation followed; later, Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau
had the buildings destroyed.

Rizal is the descendant of Domingo Lam-co, a Chinese immigrant who sailed

to the Philippines from Amoy, China in the mid 17th century (see Chinese
Filipino). Lam-co married Inez de la Rosa, a Sangley native of Luzon. To free
his descendants from the racist anti-Chinese policies of the Spanish
authorities, Lam-co changed the family surname to the Spanish surname
"Mercado" (market) so that they would not forget their Chinese merchant
roots.

As José became more embroiled in controversy, his elder brother and

mentor Paciano advised him to change his name to protect the Mercados
from Spanish authority. José changed his surname from Mercado to his
middle name, "Rizal." The name is derived from Spanish "rizal" or "ricial,"
meaning "verdant" or "green" (as ricestalk), the main agricultural crop of
their family industry.

Aside from his indigenous Malay and Chinese ancestry, recent genealogical
research has found that José had traces of Spanish, Japanese and Negrito
ancestry. His maternal great-great-grandfather (Teodora's great-
grandfather) is Eugenio Ursua, a descendant of Japanese settlers, who
married a Filipina named Benigna (surname unknown). These two gave
birth to Regina Ursua who married a Sangley mestizo from Pangasinán
named Atty. Manuel de Quintos, Teodora's grandfather. Their daughter
Brígida de Quintos married a mestizo (half-caste Spaniard) named Lorenzo
Alberto Alonzo, the father of Teodora.

Education
He first studied under Justiniano Cruz in Biñan, Laguna. He went to Manila
to study at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila (now Ateneo de Manila
University) where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1877. He continued his
education in the Ateneo Municipal to obtain a degree in land surveying and
assessor, and at the same time in the University of Santo Tomas where he
studied Philosophy and Letters. Upon learning that his mother was going
blind, he then decided to study medicine (ophthalmology) in the University
of Santo Tomas, but did not complete it because he felt that Filipinos were
being discriminated by the Dominicans who operated the University.

Against his father's wishes, he traveled to Madrid and studied medicine at

the Universidad Central de Madrid where he earned the degree, Licentiate in
Medicine. His education continued at the University of Paris and the
University of Heidelberg where he earned a second doctorate.

Writings
José Rizal was known for two novels, Noli Me Tangere (1887) published in
Berlin and El Filibusterismo (1891) published in Ghent, which are social
commentaries of the Philippines under Spanish colonial rule. These books,
inspired by Cervantes' Don Quixotes' ideals are responsible for the
development of a unified Filipino consciousness and identity, which led to
the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

Legacy
Rizal was a reformer for an open society rather than a revolutionary for
political independence. As a leader of the Propaganda Movement of Filipino
students in Spain, he contributed newspaper articles to La Solidaridad in
Barcelona with the following agenda:

• That the Philippines be a province of Spain

• Representation in the Cortes (Parliament)
• Filipino priests rather than the Spanish Augustinians, Dominicans, or
Franciscans
• Freedom of assembly and speech
• Equal rights before the law (for both Filipino and Spanish plaintiffs)

The authorities in the Philippines could not accept these reforms, as the
social reforms threatened the status quo; thus upon his return to Manila in
1892 he was exiled, being accused of subversion for forming a civic
movement called La Liga Filipina. While exiled in Dapitan, Mindanao, he
established a school and a hospital.

Last days
In 1896, the Katipunan, a patriotic secret society, launched a revolution.
Rizal had been given leave by the colonial government to serve in Cuba as a
volunteer to minister to victims of yellow fever. He was arrested en route,
imprisoned in Barcelona, and returned to stand trial. He was implicated by
association with members of the Katipunan and tried before a court-martial
for rebellion, sedition, and establishing an illegal association. Rizal was
convicted of all three and sentenced to death.

With his execution nearing, he wrote his last poem, "Mi Último Adiós" (My
Last Farewell), which played a role in later events. In the early morning, he
assisted in two Masses and was finally allowed to marry his fiancée and
lover, Josephine Bracken at 5:30 am, after having been denied a marriage
license the year before. He was executed by firing squad in Bagumbayan
Field (now Rizal Park) in Manila) some two hours later. His body was buried
in a secret grave in Paco Cemetery, registered as a suicide.

A statue is present now at the place where he fell, designed by Richard

Kissling of the famed "William Tell" sculpture, with the inscription- I want
to show to those who deprive people the right to love of country, that when
we know how to sacrifice ourselves for our rights and convictions, death
does not matter if one dies for those one loves- for his country and for
others dear to him
The Mercado - Rizal Family
The Rizals is considered one of the biggest families during their time.
Domingo Lam-co, the family's paternal ascendant was a full-blooded
Chinese who came to the Philippines from Amoy, China in the closing years
of the 17th century and married a Chinese half-breed by the name of Ines
de la Rosa.

Researchers revealed that the Mercado-Rizal family had also traces of

Japanese, Spanish, Malay and Even Negrito blood aside from Chinese.

Jose Rizal came from a 13-member family consisting of his parents,

Francisco Mercado II and Teodora Alonso Realonda, and nine sisters and
one brother.

FRANCISCO MERCADO (1818-1898)

Father of Jose Rizal who was the youngest of 13 offsprings of Juan and
Cirila Mercado. Born in Biñan, Laguna on April 18, 1818; studied in San Jose
College, Manila; and died in Manila.

TEODORA ALONSO (1827-1913)

Mother of Jose Rizal who was the second child of Lorenzo Alonso and Brijida
de Quintos. She studied at the Colegio de Santa Rosa. She was a business-
minded woman, courteous, religious, hard-working and well-read. She was
born in Santa Cruz, Manila on November 14, 1827 and died in 1913 in
Manila.

SATURNINA RIZAL (1850-1913)

Eldest child of the Rizal-Alonzo marriage. Married Manuel Timoteo Hidalgo
of Tanauan, Batangas.

PACIANO RIZAL (1851-1930)

Only brother of Jose Rizal and the second child. Studied at San Jose College
in Manila; became a farmer and later a general of the Philippine Revolution.

NARCISA RIZAL (1852-1939)

The third child. married Antonio Lopez at Morong, Rizal; a teacher and
musician.

OLYMPIA RIZAL (1855-1887)

The fourth child. Married Silvestre Ubaldo; died in 1887 from childbirth.

LUCIA RIZAL (1857-1919)

The fifth child. Married Matriano Herbosa.

MARIA RIZAL (1859-1945)

The sixth child. Married Daniel Faustino Cruz of Biñan, Laguna.

JOSE RIZAL (1861-1896)

The second son and the seventh child. He was executed by the Spaniards on
December 30,1896.