Rizal, The Philippine National Hero!

Dec.30.2005 Madrid, Spain
near the Avenida de Filipinas

To start a new blog of the pearl of the orient i decided to put up Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda.

Ive taken up Rizal subject in college, read his two novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

so here are some tidbits. more soon.

In the early morning of December 30, 1896, 35 year old Jose' Rizal, an indio with strong oriental features but the bearing of a western intellectual, wearing a black suit and hat, stood erect and calm in an open field by Manila Bay. Ministering to him were two Jesuit priests. Wanting to be master of his own execution, he refused to kneel and be blindfolded. He asked to face the firing squad but was forced by the officer in charge to turn his back. A military doctor took his pulse. It was, strangely, normal. At 7:03 the bark of bullets rent the air. Rizal fell, and so, virtually, did Spanish colonial rule.

Born on the island of Luzon on June 19, 1861, Rizal studied under the Jesuits and then at the Dominican University of Santo Tomas, also in Manila. In 1882 he left the Philippines ostensibly for further medical studies abroad, but principally in pursuit of some vague political objective.Something of a genius, Rizal was an unlikely political activist. He had been trained as an opthalmic surgeon by leading specialists in Paris, Heidelberg, and Berlin. At heart, however, he was an artist and a poet, and by concious choice a scholar, historian, researcher, and prolific writer. He wrote in Spanish, Tagalog, German, French, Englisg, and Italian and spoke a few other modern languages. In addition, he knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The references in his writings to Cervantes, Schiller, Shakespeare, and Dante are evidence of his broad humanistic interests and worldwide perspectives. Through Ferdinand Blumentritt, an Austrian scholar and personal friend, Rizal came in contact with leading European intellectuals and was admitted into two learned societies in Berlin.

other infos: Jose Rizal, Liberator of the Philippines

A literary jaunt through Manabo,Madrid and Mexico, writings by Robert Basilio Jr.
Rizal´s Madrid, Rizal.ph