Rizal's Life, Family, Childhood, and Early Education PDF

# BIOGRAPHY, WRITINGS, AND LEGACIES OF OUR BAYANI c 27 ## Chapter III ### RIZAL'S LIFE: RIZAL'S FAMILY, CHILDHOOD, AND EARLY EDUCATION - José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was born on June 19, 1861 in Calamba, Laguna. - The seventh of eleven children born to a relatively well-off famil...

# BIOGRAPHY, WRITINGS, AND LEGACIES OF OUR BAYANI c 27 ## Chapter III ### RIZAL'S LIFE: RIZAL'S FAMILY, CHILDHOOD, AND EARLY EDUCATION - José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was born on June 19, 1861 in Calamba, Laguna. - The seventh of eleven children born to a relatively well-off family in a Dominican-owned tenant land in Calamba, Laguna, Jose Rizal lived and died during the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines. - In his early childhood, Jose had mastered the alphabet and learned to write and read. - His early readings included the Spanish version of the Vulgate Bible. - At a young age, he already showed inclinations to the arts. He amazed his family by his pencil drawings, sketches, and moldings of clay. - Later in his childhood, he showed special talent in painting and sculpture, wrote a Tagalog play, which was presented at a town fiesta (and later penned a short play in Spanish, which was presented in school). ## Don Francisco Mercado - Jose's father, Francisco Engracio Rizal Mercado, was a productive farmer from Biñan, Laguna. - He was an independent-minded, taciturn, but dynamic gentleman from whom Jose inherited his "free soul." - Don Francisco became tiniente gobernadorcillo (lieutenant governor) in Calamba and was thus nicknamed Tiniente Kiko. - Some students' comical conjecture that the fictional character Kikong Matsing of Batibot was named after Don Francisco is, of course, unfounded. ## Doña Teodora Alonso - Jose's mother, Teodora Alonzo (also spelled "Alonso"), was an educated and highly cultured woman from Sta. Cruz, Manila. - Common biographies state that Doña Teodora Alonso Quintos Realonda, also known as "Lolay," was born on November 8, 1826 in Santa Cruz, Manila and baptized at the Santa Cruz Church. - Strangely however, the volume in the church books that supposedly contained Teodora's baptismal records was the only one missing from the otherwise complete records down to the eighteenth century. - Asuncion Rizal-Lopez Bantug, the granddaughter of Jose's sister Narcisa, contrarily claims that Lola Lolay and all her siblings were born in Calamba, but (just) lived in Manila. ## Jose's Siblings - **Saturnina Rizal (1850-1913)** is 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 (Jose's nickname) already knew his alphabet. - **Paciano Rizal, Jose's only brother, was born on March 7, 1851 in Calamba, Laguna.** - He was fondly addressed by his siblings as Ñor Paciano, short for "Señor Paciano." - The 10-year older brother of Jose studied at San Jose College in Manila, became a farmer, and later a general of the Philippine Revolution. - After Jose's execution in December 1896, Paciano joined the Katipuneros in Cavite under General Emilio Aguinaldo. - As Katipunero, Paciano was commissioned as general of the revolutionary forces and elected as secretary of finance in the Department Government of Central Luzon. - **Narcisa Rizal (1852-1939)** or simply "Sisa" was the third child in the family. - Later in history, Narcisa (like Sturnina) would help in financing Rizal's studies in Europe, even pawning her jewelry and peddling her clothes if needed. - It was said she could recite from memory almost all of the poems of our national hero. - **Olympia Rizal (1855-1887)** 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 Olympia's schoolmate at the La Concordia College. - Rizal confided to Olympia (also spelled "Olimpia") about Segunda, and the sister willingly served as the mediator between the two teenage lovers. - **Lucia Rizal (1857-1919)** was the fifth child in the 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. - **Maria Rizal (1859-1945)** was the sixth child in the family. - 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. - In his letter dated December 12, 1891, Jose had also brought up to Maria his plan of establishing a Filipino colony in North British Borneo. - In his letter dated December 28, 1891, Jose wrote to Maria, "I'm told that your children are very pretty." - Today, we have a historical proof that Maria's progenies were indeed nice-looking (lahing maganda). - 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, also the first Southeast Asian to win an international beauty-pageant title. - **Concepcion Rizal (1862-1865)** was the eighth child of the Rizal family. - She died at the age of three. - Of his sisters, it was said that the young Pepe loved most little Concha who was a year younger than he. - Jose played games and shared children stories with her, and from her he felt the beauty of sisterly love at a young age. - **Josefa Rizal's nickname is "Panggoy" (1865-1945).** - She was the ninth child in the family. - Panggoy died a spinster. - **Trinidad Rizal (1868-1951)** or "Trining" was the tenth child. - Historically, she became the custodian of Rizal's last and greatest poem. - 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 "something" was Rizal's elegy now known as "Mi Ultimo Adios." - Like Josefa, Paciano, and two nieces, Trinidad joined the Katipunan after Jose's death. - **Soledad Rizal (1870-1929)** was the youngest child of the Rizal family. - Being a teacher, she was arguably the best-educated among Rizal's sisters. - In his long and meaty letter to Choleng dated June 6, 1890, Jose told her sister 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." - Choleng's union with Pantaleon, nonetheless, resulted in the Rizal family's becoming connected by affinity to Miguel Malvar (the hero who could have been listed as the second Philippine President for taking over the revolutionary government after Emilio Aguinaldo's arrest in 1901). - Soledad and Pantaleon had five children: Trinitario, Amelia, Luisa, Serafin, and Felix. - Their daughter Amelia married Bernabe Malvar, son of Gen. Miguel Malvar. ## The Surname Rizal - Had their forefathers not adopted other names, Jose and Paciano could have been known as "Lamco" (and not Rizal) brothers. - Their paternal great-great grandfather, Chinese merchant Domingo Lamco, adopted the name "Mercado," which means "market." - But Jose"s father, Francisco, who eventually became primarily a farmer, adopted the surname "Rizal" (originally "Ricial", which means "the green of young growth" or "green fields"). - The name was suggested by a provincial governor who was a friend of the family. - The new name, however, caused confusion in the commercial affairs of the family. - Don Francisco thus settled on the name "Rizal Mercado" as a compromise, and often just used his more known surname "Mercado." - When Paciano was a student at the College of San Jose, he used "Mercado" as his last name. - But because he had gained notoriety with his links to Father Burgos of the "Gomburza," he suggested that Jose use the surname "Rizal" for Jose"s own safety. - Commenting on using the name "Rizal" at Ateneo, Jose once wrote: "My family never paid much attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it. thus giving me the appearance of an illegitimate child!" - But this very name suggested by Paciano to be used by his brother had become so well known by 1891, the year Jose finished his El Filibusterismo. - As Jose wrote to a friend, "All my family now carry the name Rizal instead of Mercado because the name Rizal means persecution! Good! I too want to join them and be worthy of this family name..." ## Rizal's Birth - Doña Teodora was said to have suffered the greatest pain during the delivery of her seventh child, Jose. - Her daughter Narcisa recalled: "I was nine years of age when my mother gave birth to Jose. I recall it vividly because my mother suffered great pain. She labored for a long time. Her pain was later attributed to the fact that Jose's head was bigger than normal” - Jose Rizal was born in Calamba. - In 1848, his parents decided to build a home in this town in Laguna, southern Luzon. - The name Calamba was derived from kalan-banga, which means "clay stove” (kalan) and “water jar" (banga). ## The Childhood of a Phenom - Jose Rizal's first memory, in his infancy, was his happy days in their family garden when he was three years old. - Their courtyard contained tropical fruit trees, poultry yard, a carriage house, and a stable for the ponies. - Because the young Pepe was weak, sickly, and undersized, he was given the fondest care by his parents, so his father built a nipa cottage for Pepe to play in the daytime. - Memory of his infancy included the nocturnal walk in the town, especially when there was a moon. - Jose also recalled the "aya" (nursemaid) relating to the Rizal children some fabulous stories, like those about the fairies, tales of buried treasure, and trees blooming with diamonds. - Another childhood memory was the daily Angelus prayer in their home. - Rizal recorded in his memoir that by nightfall, his mother would gather all the children in their home to pray the Angelus. - At the early age of three, he started to take a part in the family prayers. - When Concha died of sickness in 1865, Jose mournfully wept at losing her. - 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" - At the age of five, the young Pepe learned to read the Spanish family Bible, which he would refer to later in his writings. - Rizal himself remarked that perhaps the education he received since his earliest infancy was what had shaped his habits. - As a child, Rizal loved to go to the chapel, pray, participate in novenas, and join religious processions. - In Calamba, one of the men he esteemed and respected was the scholarly Catholic priest Leoncio Lopez, the town priest. - He used to visit him and listen to his inspiring opinions on current events and thorough life views. - Also at the age of five, Pepe started to make pencil sketches and mold in clay and wax objects, which attracted his fancy. - When he was about six years old, his sisters once laughed at him for spending much time making clay and wax images. - Initially keeping silent, he then prophetically told them "All right laugh at me now! Someday when I die, people will make monuments and images of me." ## The Story of The Moth - To impart essential life lessons, Lolay held regular storytelling sessions with the young Rizal. - Doña Teodora loved to read to Pepe stories from the book Amigo de los Niños (The Children's Friend). - One day, she scolded his son for making drawings on the pages of the story book. - To teach the value of obedience to one's parents, she afterward read him a story in it. - Lolay chose the story about a daughter moth who was warned by her mother against going too near a lamp flame. - Though the young moth promised to comply. she later succumbed to the pull of the light's mysterious charm, believing that nothing bad would happen if she approached it with caution. - The moth then flew close to the flame. - Feeling comforting warmth at first, she drew closer and closer, bit by bit, until she flew too close enough to the flame and perished. - Incidentally, Pepe was watching a similar incident while he was listening to the storytelling. - Like a live enactment, a moth was fluttering too near to the flame of the oil lamp on their table. - Not merely acting out, it did fall dead as a consequence. - Both moths in the two tales paid the price of getting near the fatal light. - Many years later, Rizal himself felt that the moths' tale could serve as an allegory of his own destiny. - Years have passed since then. - The child has become a man... - Steamships have taken him across seas and oceans. He has received from experience bitter lessons, much more bitter than the sweet lessons that his mother gave him. - Nevertheless, he has preserved the heart of a child. - He still thinks that light is the most beautiful thing in creation, and that it is worthwhile for a man to sacrifice his life for it. ## Education in Calamba - The familiar statement that Doña Teodora was Rizal's first teacher is not just a sort of "venerating" his mother who sacrificed a lot for our hero. - It was actually a technical truth. - In his memoirs, Rizal wrote, "My mother taught me how to read and to say haltingly the humble prayers which I raised fervently to God." - In Rizal's time, seldom would one see a highly educated woman of fine culture, like Doña Teodora who had the capacity to teach Spanish, reading, poetry, and values through rare story books. - Lolay, indeed, was the first teacher of the hero—teaching him Spanish, correcting his composed poems, and coaching him in rhetoric. - On her lap, Jose learned the alphabet and Catholic prayers at the age of three, and learned to read and write at age of 5. ## Education in Biñan - Rizal was subsequently sent to a private school in Biñan. - In June 1869, his brother Paciano brought him to the school of Maestro Justiniano Aquino Cruz. - The school was in the teacher's house, a small nipa house near the home of Jose's aunt where he stayed. - In Rizal's own words, his teacher "knew by the heart the grammars by Nebrija and Gainza." - During Rizal's first day at the Biñan school, the teacher asked him: * "Do you know Spanish?" * "A little, sir," replied Rizal. * "Do you know Latin?" * "A little, sir." - Because of this, his classmates, especially the teacher's son Pedro, laughed at the newcomer. - So later in that day, Jose challenged the bully Pedro to a fight. - Having learned wrestling from his Uncle Manuel, the younger and smaller Jose defeated his tormenter. - After the class, he had an arm-wrestling match with his classmate Andres Salandanan. - In that match, however, Jose lost and even almost cracked his head on the sidewalk. - In the following days, Jose was said to have some other fights with Biñan boys. - If his average was two fights per day, as what happened during his first day in Biñan school, then he might have been more active than today's MMA (mixed martial arts] fighters.) - For his scuffles, he nonetheless received many whippings and blows on the open palm from his disciplinarian teacher. - Rizal might not have won all his brawls but he, nevertheless, beat all Biñan boys academically in Spanish, Latin, and many other subjects. - After sometime, Jose told his father that he had already learned all there was to be taught in Biñan. - Don Francisco firmly scolded Jose and hustled him back to the school. - Maestro Cruz, Jose's teacher in Biñan, later confirmed, however, that Jose had indeed finished already all the needed curricular works. - So despite his wife's reluctance, Don Francisco then decided to send Jose to a school in Manila. ==End of OCR==