BAPTISTA, JOHN LEE R.

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Activity 1:

Comparative analysis of the Four accounts:

Vicente Balanguer

Fr. Vicente Balanguer, a Jesuit priest manage to persuade Rizal to denounce Masonry and
return to Catholic fold. In December 9, 1896, he went to Fort Santiago together with two
priests to convince that Rizal must make a retraction. The retraction was signed together with
Rizal. Father Balaguer testify that on the very day of Rizal’s death he wrote everything and
preserved the account that serve as the data of presentation of his narration. Rizal and
Josephine Bracken enable to be married because Rizal retracted.

Father Pio Pi

Superior of the Jesuits in the Philippines, issued an affidavit about his involvement to Rizal’s
retraction. He is also a witness in the alleged retraction of Rizal but only involved in securing
the retraction document from Archbishop of Manila. The father followed what is written in the
letter because they want to save the soul of Dr. Jose Rizal who is their most eminent and
beloved pupil. Rizal surrendered willingly and complete his faith with the Lord and Christian
sentiments.

Rafael Palma

He was the author of Biographia of Rizal or Biography of Rizal, a work on the life of the National
Hero. After Rizal died, he believed that all the allegations of him retracting in documents were
forgery. For Palma, the conversation of Rizal in a testimony was just merely rumor because the
documents of retraction were kept secret, Rizal’s burial was kept secret, there was no masses
or funeral by the Catholics, and Rizal was not buried in the Catholic cemetery. Rizal considered
who died without implementing spiritual aid. For him, Rizal’s retraction was a pious fraud to
make people believe that the extraordinary man broke down and succumbed before the church
he had fought.
Austin Coates

Austin Coates’s interest in Jose Rizal began when he was assistant colonial secretary and
magistrate in Hong Kong in 1950. Coates’s analyses of Rizal’s retraction and other events that
happened before his execution. According to his analysis, the retraction of Rizal is fabricated. It
was the friars who wanted Rizal’s retraction. He believed that Balaguer creates his account to
publicly praised himself. In his account, it says that Rizal had nothing to retract because Rizal
believed that the prime mover of fraud is the friar and this friar is the one who wanted his
retraction.