How could this be?” we ask. It COULD BE, for the circumstances and people had connived.

It COULD BE,
for there was no other recourse. It COULD BE, for the moth had burned its wings! Twenty-four years
after the garroting of the Filipino clerics, Fathers Jose Burgos, Mariano Gomez, and Jacinto Zamora, the
pogrom and intimidation had to continue. It had to continue for the dying Empire and frailocracy had
now sensed its own death. It had to continue, for it wanted to display its final domination of a
reawakened people. However, it would not be completely so! The man they had just martyred was a
man whose politics and faith were unshakeable and timeless. As we know, and as History recounts, it
also projects.

To paraphrase the words of Dr. Rafael Palma the great Philippine scholar, patriot, and former President of
the University of the Philippines regarding the trial of Dr. Jose Rizal, “the document obtained under
moral duress and spiritual threats has very little value before the tribunal of history.” Dr. Rafael Palma, a
respected jurist of his time, was an author on the life of our hero and had studied the trial of Dr. Jose
Rizal meticulously. Of this he says in his book The Pride of the Malay Race about Dr. Jose Rizal, “His
defense before the court martial is resplendent for its moderation and serenity in spite of the abusive
and vexatious manner in which the fiscal had treated him.” For in man’s own tribunal, the tribunal and
trial that condemned Dr. Jose Rizal to die was a sham; his execution, a foregone conclusion.

A portrait of Jose Rizal as a Mason. His membership in the fraternity had caused his excommunication
from the Roman Catholic Church. His retraction is a subject of controversy.

It is common historical knowledge that Ms. Josephine Bracken lived with Dr. Jose Rizal for three of the
four years he was exiled in Dapitan. He truly loved her. They had desired a canonical marriage but were
presented with a pre-condition retraction of Rizal’s anti-ecclesiastical writings and beliefs. As we may
know, he was never anti-God or anti-Church. He was anti-cleric to those who abused their mission and
hid behind their pretentious cloak of religiosity. He knew there were those who practiced religion but
did not worship God. Neither the retraction nor the marriage occurred. He and Josephine were parents
to a son, though he sadly passed. We know that Dr. Jose Rizal had immortalized Josephine Bracken in his
unsigned and untitled poem which we now refer to as his “Ultimo Adios”: “Adios, dulce extranjera mi
amiga, mi alegria…” As Ambeth R. Ocampo, Director of the Philippine Historical Institute quotes, “To
accept Rizal as having married Bracken is to accept his alleged retraction of religious error.” From Austin
Coates, British author and historian: “Before God, he (Dr. Rizal) had nothing to retract.” And from Dr.
Jose Rizal himself, I quote: “I go where there are no slaves, no hangmen, no oppressors… where faith
does not slay… where He who reigns is God.”

Fraudulent Premise
From 1892 to 1896, during his period of exile in Dapitan, the Catholic Church attempted to redirect his
beliefs regarding religious faith, albeit unsuccessfully. A succession of visits from Fathers Obach,
Vilaclara, and Sanchez did not find his convictions wanting. He had decided to remain ecclesiastically
unwed, rather than recant his alleged “religious errors.” Now, there seems to be a “disconnect”, or even
a divide among historians as to whether Dr. Jose Rizal had abjured his apparent errant religious ways as
claimed by the friars and the Jesuits. Since a retraction of alleged “religious errors” would have begotten
a marriage to Ms. Josephine Bracken, let us look for evidence that will prove this premise fraudulent.
Austin Coates’ book entitled Rizal – Philippine Nationalist and Martyr gives many compelling facts as
borne out from his own personal investigation, and with numerous interviews of the Rizal family. To wit:

1.Fr. Vicente Balaguer, S. J., claimed that he performed the canonical marriage between 6:00 – 6:15 AM
of December 30, 1896 in the presence of one of the Rizal sisters. The Rizal family denied that any of the
Rizal sisters were there that fateful morning. Dr. Jose Rizal was martyred at 7:03 AM.

2. Nobody had reported seeing Ms. Josephine Bracken in the vicinity of Fort Santiago in the morning of
the execution.

3. Considering the time it would take for the three priests (Fr. Jose Vilaclara, Fr. Estanislao March, and Fr.
Vicente Balaguer) to negotiate the expanse of the walk to give spiritual care to the condemned Dr. Jose
Rizal, why is it that only Fr. Balaguer could “describe” a wedding? Furthermore, where were Fr. Vilaclara
and Fr. March to corroborate the occurrence of a marriage ceremony? Or was there really even one at
all?

4. In Josephine Bracken’s matrimony to Vicente Abad, the Church Register of Marriages kept at the
Roman Catholic Cathedral in Hong Kong made no reference that Josephine was a “Rizal” by marriage, or
that she was the widow of Dr. Jose Rizal.

5. In the legal register of Hong Kong, Josephine used the last name “Bracken” instead of “Rizal” to be
married to Vicente Abad.

6. In Josephine Bracken’s litigation versus Jose Maria Basa for the possession of Dr. Jose Rizal’s valuable
library, a certification from the British Consulate from Manila stating that she was indeed Rizal’s widow
would have bolstered her claim. She did not pursue this. Why not?
7. In 1960, inquiry at the Cardinal-Bishopric of Manila for evidentiary proof of a Rizal-Bracken marriage
was not fruitful, or possibly, the issue was simply ignored by the religious. Likewise, we ask the question,
“Why?”

“Unconfessed” Martyrdom”

From the dark days of exile in Dapitan, to the even darker days of imprisonment at Fort Santiago, the
Catholic Church had demanded from Dr. Jose Rizal a retraction before a canonical marriage could be
performed. In this Inquisition-like setting of the Spanish regime, it was always proclaimed that “the Indio
always retracted”, as he walked to his execution. Austin Coates states in his book: “The Spaniards
publish the same thing about everyone who is shot… Besides, nobody has ever seen this written
declaration in spite of the fact that a number of people would want to see it…. It is (always) in the hands
of the Archbishop.” I say that if there was no marriage, there could have not been a retraction, and Dr.
Jose Rizal met his martyrdom “un-confessed”:

1. Indeed, at the Paco Cemetery, the name of Dr. Jose Rizal was listed among those who died impenitent.
The entry made in the book of burials at the cemetery where Rizal was buried was not made on the page
for those buried on December 30, 1896 (where there were as many as six entries), but on a special page,
as ordered by the authorities. Thus, Dr. Jose Rizal was entered on a page between a man who burned to
death, and another who died by suicide – persons considered “un-confessed” and without spiritual aid
at the time of death.

2. Father Estanislao March, S.J., and Fr. Jose Vilaclara, S.J. (who had accompanied Dr. Jose Rizal to the
execution site) could have ordered a Christian burial, but they did not. They must have known that no
retraction was made. Dr. Jose Rizal was laid to earth bare, without a sack, without a coffin. This was the
onus of the “un-confessed.”

3. One must also remember that Dr. Jose Rizal wrote a short and final note to his parents dated
December 30, 1896 at 6:00 in the morning, with no mention of an occurred or intended retraction
and/or marriage. A message with that important information would have been of great consolation to
Dona Teodora Alonso and to Don Francisco Mercado, whom he loved and respected dearly.

4. Despite numerous immediate supplications from the Rizal family after the execution, no letter of
retraction could be produced.
5. The Rizal family was informed by the church that approximately nine to eleven days after the
execution, a mass for the deceased would be said, after which the letter of retraction would be shown
the family. Though the family was in attendance, the mass was never celebrated and no letter of
retraction was shown. They were told that the letter had been sent to the Archbishop’s palace, and that
the family would not be able to see it.

6. The Jesuits themselves (who had a special liking for their former student) did not celebrate any mass
for his soul, nor did they hold any funerary rites over his body. I take this as a repudiation of the Jesuits
against the friars, loudly hinting to the Filipino people that their esteemed pupil did not abjure!

7. The apparent “discovery” of an obviously forged autobiography of Josephine Bracken claiming

marriage to Dr. Jose Rizal, showed a handwriting that bore no resemblance to Josephine’s and had
glaring errors in syntax, which revealed that the perpetrating author’s primary language was Spanish (not
Josephine’s original language), thus proving that the document was manufactured and disingenuous.

8. Confession in August, 1901 of master forger Roman Roque that earlier in the year, he was employed
by the friars to make several copies of a retraction letter.

9. In 1962, authors Ildefonso T. Runes and Mamerto M. Buenafe in their book Forgery of the Rizal
Retraction and Josephine’s Autobiography, made an exposé of six different articles and books that
purportedly presented Dr. Jose Rizal’s “document of retraction” as copied from the so-called “original”
testament of retraction. Intriguingly enough, even to this day, the claimed “original” document from
which the facsimiles have arisen have not been seen by anybody. Blatant in these six different
presentations were differing dates and notes that had been doctored, traced-over, and altered, when
these facsimiles were supposed to have come from the same “original” document! This book of Runes
and Buenafe was published by the Pro-Patria Publishers of Manila. The book is extant but unfortunately,
out of print.

Though the issue of “Retraction” remains contentious for some people, it is my personal opinion that
there is no controversy; that Dr. Jose Rizal did not make any recantation of his writings and beliefs. The
arguments to the contrary made by his detractors are all smoke screen and “retreads” of the dubious
accounts of the sycophantic Father Balaguer and his gullible minions. Let us not allow for the sands of
time to cover the blunder of this ignoble and impious event. Let not the conspiracy of silence keep us
chained to this fraudulent claim. As had been vigorously proposed then, and again now, let the
document of retraction be examined by a panel of the world’s experts in hand-writing, and let a
pronouncement be made. Let this hidden document come to the eyes of the public, for they have the
greatest of rights to see, and to judge, and to know what is truthful.

When this comes to pass… in this 21st century, in this age of an “evidence-based” society that demands
transparency and full-disclosure, it can be stated that with the now enlightened and reformed
Catholicism, and in the spirit of Vatican II, if Pope John Paul II can apologize to the Jewish people for the
millennia of misdeeds by the Church, if Pope Benedict XVI can, in Australia at the 2008 World Youth
Congress, apologize to the victims of pedophilia and other ecclesiastical sexual abuses, then it should not
be beyond the Catholic Church to NOW admit the pious fraud it had committed in saying that Dr. Jose
Rizal had abjured his writings and beliefs, when all evidences point to the fact that he did not!