Proposition: Argument no 2

ARGUMENT 2: CONDITIONS FOR RETRATION

Argument: It is also stated the two official, namely, Juan del Fresno and Eloy Moure were the
two person who witness and have place their signature in the document of retraction of Rizal. Hence, guard
also stated: “before Rizal was brought in Luneta, he get married to Josephine Bracken.”
Since Josephine Bracken was of Catholic faith is it necessary for Jose Rizal to participate in order
for them to get married.
Two years before Rizal execution, he had written a retraction in Dapitan. Which is early in 1895, Josephine
Bracken came to Dapitan with her adopted father who wanted to be cured of his blindness by Dr. Rizal;
their guide was Manuela Orlac, who was agent and a mistress of a friar.
Rizal fell in love with Josephine and wanted to marry her canonically but he was required to sign a
profession of faith and to write retraction, which had to be approved by the Bishop of Cebu.
"Spanish law had established civil marriage in the Philippines," Prof. Craig wrote, but the local government
had not provided any way for people to avail themselves of the right..."
In order to marry Josephine, Rizal wrote with the help of a priest a form of retraction to be
approved by the Bishop of Cebu. This incident was revealed by Fr. Antonio Obach to his friend Prof.
Austin Craig who wrote down in 1912 what the priest had told him that is written in the document; "The
document (the retraction), inclosed with the priest’s letter, was ready for the mail when Rizal came
hurrying to reclaim it." Rizal realized that he had written and given to a priest what the friars had been
trying by all means to get from him.
Noted in the historian Fr. Jose Arcilla’s monumental multi-volume Jesuit Missionary Letters from
Mindanao contains several letters of the Jesuit Antonio Obach to his Mission Superior, which may shed
light on this matter. Obach wrote on July 28, 1895: “Rizal has just seen me and said (what has been
jumping from mouth to mouth of some who heard it from him), ‘Father Antonio, I no longer want further
battles with the friars, but live and work in peace” he said to Rizal that “What you ought to do is retract all
your errors and you will be at peace.”
“I am ready to do what Your Reverence says, but under certain conditions.”
“I gave him a pen and paper for him to write these conditions. In his own hand
and style, he wrote:
‘Conditions I ask to retract references to the matter of the friars, and no longer meddle with them.
The conditions of Rizal are as follows: On fulfillment of these conditions, Rizal will write to the bishop
Is to have His freedom, to Return to his family what has been confiscated or give its
equivalent.and have a P50,000 to start a business to support himself
It is intriguing that he had arrived at this decision, evidently, to spare his family from further
suffering and maltreatment. Moreover, Obach’s letter point out the Rizal’s initiative of opening a wholesale
store in Dapitan to compete. with the Chinese traders, “who do nothing but cheat the Indios.” In fact, Rizal
had prepared the statutes and regulations of the Society of Dapitan Agriculturists, aiming to facilitate the
easy buying, selling, and storage of products for export, and curtailing the trade monopoly of the Chinese.
Obach believed that they had successfully persuaded Rizal to turn away from his errors: “I am convinced
that Rizal is now tired and wants to retract, but his pride strongly holds him back…I think he will
immediately break away from everything and he would be an excellent Christian.”
In a letter on the following day, Obach reports: “Regarding the letter I sent to Your Reverence
which contains Rizal’s retraction. I would ask you to send me a model retraction…where they indicate what
has been taken from his family. . Rizal refuses, because in this way they will (have) him bound more tightly
under obligation. On the other hand, retracting is acknowledging his errors, and so it is his turn to humble
himself”
Another evidence Dated, August 28, 1895, Obach recounted that Rizal requested for a detailed
account of his errors: “…Rizal came and asked me if I could draw up a list of his errors. ‘You can tell Fr.
Ricart, I am ready to write, and tell him that I myself will retract all errors I may have committed against the
Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church in my writings, and that he can make this same retraction public in
the manner he wants.’ But with this he stands to lose everything…” He wrote that Rizal insisted that he and
his family should receive some form of compensation for all the troubles they endured: “But on condition
that they give me P50,000 since I have no means to support myself in decency, and with that amount I
could bring my parents with me anywhere.” He no longer talks of machines and cement, and so on, and he
thinks that this amount is owed him because of the harm inflicted on him.”