“The Legacy left behind by Rizal”

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

ST. CLARE COLLEGE

CALOOCAN CITY

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for

PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1

Villalon Justin

Gabriel D. Rodrigo

Kevin C. Baltazar

August 2019

1
 Chapter 1

Introduction

José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realondo is known as Dr. José Rizal, is the National

Hero in the Philippines. He was born in June 19, 1861 in Calamba Laguna. His father named

Francisco Mercado Rizal he is an industrious farmer whom Rizal called a model of father.

His mother, Teodora Alonzo y Quintos she is a highly cultured and accomplished woman

whom Rizal himself called loving and caring mother and she was first teacher of Jose

Rizal. At the age of 3, Rizal was taught alphabet and how to recite prayers, good manner

and right conduct. Rizal showed affinity of an artist at the age 5, His family and relatives

was amazed by his talent being able to draw magnificent sketches and by his clay models.

In 1869 when he was at the age of 8, he wrote his first tagalog poem entitled “Sa Aking

Mga Kabata”. Rizal’s parents hired Maestro Celestino and Maestro Lucas Padua to give

him lessons at their home. Later on, a man named Leon Monroy, a friend of Rizal’s father

became his tutor. He taught Rizal Spanish and Latin language, Unfortunately he had a

natural death because of an old age. Then he ventured through out Manila to study Arts,

Rizal outclassed every students in academic studies on every school and universities that

he attended to. Jose Rizal used his plentiful skill of writing to make the Philippines free

itself, and his overflowing selflessness and courage. That is why he hold the renowned

titled of national hero.

2
 Chapter 2

Background of the Study

According to Anderson on 1988 and Kramer on 2006 Rizal’s main contributions

as a leader were through his insightful and inspirational writing, and to a lesser

extent, his role as a reformist and a symbol of hope. In order to better understand

the importance of his work, it is important to understand the context into which

he was born and raised. Rizal lived during a time of Spanish colonization that lasted

from 1521 to 1898. Spanish rule was heavy-handed, and stretched into every aspect

of Philippine life, from economics to politics, to culture and religion. Education

under the Spanish brought a certain uniformity and organization to the country.

According to a Writer Ronica Valdeavilla, Dr. José Rizal, the well-respected

national hero of the Philippines, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Through his

literary masterpieces, he voiced strong opposition to the abuse of Spaniards and

conveyed messages that he hoped would inspire his fellow countrymen. We round

up his best works and uncover the underlying meaning behind them.

3
 The first novel of Jose Rizal is the Noli Me Tangere is a Latin phrase that means

“Touch Me Not”. In this novel, Rizal described in detail the sufferings of his countrymen

under the Spanish rule. Jose Rizal wrote the first sections of his novel Noli Me Tangere in

1884 in Madrid, Spain when he was still studying medicine.

While in Germany, Rizal wrote the second half of Noli me Tangere from time-to-

time starting February 21, 1887. After he read the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet

Beecher Stowe, he had an inspiration to write his own novel with the same topic–to

expose Spanish colonial abuse in print. Beecher Stowe's novel describes black slavery

abuse done by white men. Rizal suggested to his fellow Filipino friends in Europe, through

writing, to have a meeting and plan for writing a novel similar to that of Beecher Stowe.

This novel was written to remind us the bad things that Jose Rizal experienced

during his time by the Spanish. From the very start of this novel, the first plan of our

national hero is, to write this novel with the help of his countryman that is also suffering

to the hands of the Spanish, but suddenly he failed to do it with the help of his countryman,

because his countryman lose their hope in fulfilling their dreams to have freedom in the

hands of the Spanish colonies.

But Jose Rizal did not lose hope to free his countrymen from the Spanish Bastards,

so he decided to write a novel by himself only.

4
 By the late nineteenth century, the Spanish empire was in irreversible decline.

Spain had ruled the islands since 1565, except for a brief hiatus when the British occupied

the islands in 1762. The colonial government was unresponsive and often cruel, with the

religious establishment wielding as much power as the state. Clerical abuses, European

ideas of liberalism, and growing international trade fueled a burgeoning national

consciousness. For Rizal and his generation, the 1872 Cavite Mutiny, in which three native

priests were accused of treason and publicly executed, provided both inspiration and a

cautionary tale.

Educated at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila and the Dominican University of

Santo Tomas in Manila, Rizal left for Spain in 1882, where he studied medicine and the

liberal arts, with further studies in Paris and Heidelberg. The charismatic Rizal quickly

became a leading light of the Propaganda Movement—Filipino expatriates advocating,

through its newspaper, La Solidaridad, various reforms such as the integration of the

Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament),

the Filipinization of the clergy, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law. To

Rizal, the main impediment to reform lay not so much with the civil government but with

the reactionary and powerful Franciscan, Augustinian, and Dominican friars, who

constituted a state within a state. In 1887, he published his first novel, Noli Me Tangere,

written in Spanish, a searing indictment of clerical abuse as well as of colonial rule’s

shortcomings. That same year, he returned to Manila, where the Noli had been banned

5
and its author now hated intensely by the friars. In 1888, he went to Europe once more,

and there wrote the sequel, El Filibusterismo

The second novel of Jose Rizal is the El Filibusterismo meaning in English “The

Reign of Greed” was first written in Spanish while Rizal was travelling and stuying in

Europe. It was publish in Ghent, Belgium in 1891 and later translated into English, Tagalog,

Ilonggo, and other languages. (University of Hawaii Press, 2007)

A nationalist novel by an author who has been called the first Filipino, its nature

as a social document of the late-nineteenth-century Philippines is often emphasized. For

many years copies of the Fili were smuggled into the Philippines after it was condemned

as subversive by the Spanish authorities. Characters from the Noli (Basilio, Dona Victorina,

Padre Salvi) return while new ones are introduced: Simoun, the transformed Ibarra;

Cabesang Tales and his struggle for justice; the nationalist student Isagani; the Indio priest

Padre Florentino. Through them the colonial milieu is expanded its officialdom, education,

legal system, power plays, social patterns and seen anew as context for conflict and

insight. Translator Soledad Lacson-Locsin is the first to have worked from facsimile

editions of the original manuscripts. The result is the most authoritative and faithful

English translation to date, one which attempts to preserve in English the cadence and

color of the original.

6
 The two novel Noli Me Tangere and Elfilibusterismo of Dr. Jose Rizal are

differen in many respects, although they are written by the same author and are

supposed to be dealing with the same story and have the same characters. According

to the “head department of history Far Eastern University “ Gregorio F. Zaide on

1992 “Noli Me Tangere” is a romantic novel, it is a “work of the heart”. A book

of feeling, it has freshness, color, humor, and lightness. On the other hand the “El

filibusterismo” is a political novel, it is a “work of the head”. A book of thought ,

it contains bitterness, hatred, pain, violence, and sorrow.

After El Filibusterismo, even before Lopez Jaena suggested the writing of

another novel. Rizal had already in mind to write a third novel. On September 22,

1891 four days after El Filibusterismo came of the press, he wrote to blumentritt.

“I shall deal mainly with the habit and customs of the Filipinos, and only two

Spaniards, the Friar and the Lieutenant of The Guardia civil will be there. I wish to

be there, I wish to be humorous, satirical and witty, to weep and to laugh, to

laugh amidst tears, that is to cry bitterly.

On October 18, 1891 Rizal boarded the streamer Mel Bourne in Marseilles

bound for Hongkong. During the voyage he wrote the third novel in Tagalog which

he intended for tagalog readers and finished the early chapters. In Hongkong he

continued it, but did not finish it because his Tagalog was inadequate for literary

purposes. To put it simply, he could write better in Spanish than in Tagalog.

7
Statement of Problem:

This study aims to To gain an inspiring source of patriotism through the study of

Rizal's works, and writings. Specifically this research wants to answer the following:

1. Why was Rizal called Doctor Uliman?

2. What could happen if rizal does not exist?

3. 3. Are we truly independent from foreign occupancy now?