[ A man who fought for our country’s freedom under the inequality of the Spanish

rule. A man who is well-known throughout the world for his literary works such as
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, which paved the way for the Filipino’s
nationalism and patriotism. Who is this man behind the famous name of one of the
Philippine National Hero.

The Birth of a Hero ]

Dr. José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda

(About Rizal)
 Also known as Jose Rizal and called by his family ‘Pepe’, born on Wednesday of
June 19, 1861 in the lake shore town of Calamba, Laguna.
 His name “Jose” was chosen by his mother who was a devotee of the Christian
saint San Jose (St. Joseph)
 He was baptized in the Catholic Church of his town on June 22, aged three days
old, by the parish priest Father Rufino Collantes. His godfather was Father Pedro
Casanas, a close friend of the Rizal family.
 Father Collantes was impressed by the baby’s big head and said “Take good care
of this child, for someday he will become a great man”.
(His Parents)
 His father Francisco Engracio Alejandro Mercardo Rizal was the youngest of 13
offsprings of Juan and Cirila Mercado. Born in Biñan, Laguna on April 18, 1818.
He studied in San Jose College, Manila; and died in Manila at the age of 80.
 His mother Teodora Alonso Realonda was born in Manila on November 8, 1862.
She studied at the College of Santa Rosa, a well-known college for girls in the
city. She died in Manila on August 16, 1911, at the age of 85.
 It is said that her family was a descendant of Lakan-Dula, the last native king of
Tondo.
(Siblings) [ Jose Rizal came from a 13-member family consisting of his parents,
Francisco Mercado II and Teodora Alonso Realonda, and nine sisters and one
brother.]
 Saturnina (1850-1913). Oldest of the Rizal children, nicknamed Neneng; she
married Manuel T. Hidalgo of Tanawan Batangas.
 Paciano (1851-1930) Older brother and confidant of Jose Rizal; after his younger
brother’s execution, he joined the Philippine Revolution and became a combat
general. He died an old bachelor on April 13, 1930, aged 79.
 Narcisa (1852-1939) Her pet name was Sisa. She was a teacher and a musician.
She married Antonio Lopez, a school teacher in Morong.
 Olimpia (1855-1887) Her pet name was Ypia. She married Silvestre Ubaldo, a
telegraph operator from Manila.
 Lucia (1857-1919) She married Mariano Herbosa. Herbosa died of cholera and
was denied Christian burial because he was the brother-in-law of Dr. Jose Rizal.
 Maria (1859-1945) Biang was her nickname; she married Daniel Faustino Cruz.
 Concepcion (1862-1865) Her pet name was Concha; she died of sickness at the
age of 3. Her death was Rizal’s first sorrow.
 Josefa (1865-1945) Her pet name was Panggoy; she died an old maid in 1945,
aged 80.
 Trinidad (1868-1951) Her pet name was Trining; she died also an old maid in
1951 aged 83.
 Soledad (1870-1929) Her pet name was Choleng; she married Pantaleon
Quintero.

The Mercado - Rizal Family

 The Rizals is considered one of the biggest families during their time. Domingo
Lam-co, the family's paternal ascendant was a full-blooded Chinese who came to
the Philippines from Amoy, China in the closing years of the 17th century and
married a Chinese half-breed by the name of Ines de la Rosa.
  THE SURNAME Mercado was the original surname of the Rizal family.
Domingo Lamco, Jose's great-great-grandfather, adopted the name Rizal in 1731
and it became a second surname of the family. The name was given by Spanish
alcalde mayor of Laguna, who was a family friend.
 Rizal belong to an affluent Middle Class Family in what would be considered as
the Principalia or the educated upper class in the pueblos of the Spanish
Philippines. They were one of the distinguished families in Calamba.

 The Rizal family had a simple, contented and happy life. When the children got
into mischief, they were given a sound spanking. Evidently they believed in the
maxim: “Spare the rod and spoil the child”.

Early Childhood

 Rizal spent his earliest childhood mesmerized with different trees and plants at
their backyard's garden and listening to his nanny’s stories about folklore.
 When he was four years old, his sister Conception, the eight child in the Rizal
family, died at the age of three. It was on this occasion that Rizal remembered
having shed real tears for the first time. Jose cried bitterly “I lost my little sister
Concha, and then for the first time I shed tears caused by love and grief”.
 During this time his mother taught him how to read and write. But it was three
years old when Rizal learned the alphabet from his mother as well. His father
hired a classmate to give him the first lessons in Latin, but it only lasted for five
months until his tutor’s sudden death.
 His parents particularly his mother were devout Catholics so at the age of three,
he began to take part in the family prayers. When he was five years old, he was
able to read haltingly the Spanish family bible. His mother also made him
memorize prayers in Latin.
 His Tio Manuel, seeing Rizal frail in body, concerned himself with the physical
development of his young nephew by means of physical exercise, walking and
wristling. His Tio Jose Alberto taught the latter love for the open air and
developed in him a great admiration for the beauty of nature and his artistic
ability, while his Tio Gregorio, a scholar, instilled into the mind of Rizal the love
for education and reading books.
 With his father, Rizal made a pilgrimage to Antipolo to fulfill the vow made by
his mother to take the child to the Shrine of the Virgin of Antipolo should she and
her child survive the ordeal of delivery which nearly caused his mother’s life.
 From there they proceeded to Manila and visited his sister Saturnina who was at
the time studying in the La Concordia College in Sta. Ana.

 Early on Rizal already showed signs of multiple intelligences:

 Learned the alphabet at age of 3
 As a child, invented his own toys made of scrap paper, cloth remnants, old pieces
of wool to create objects.
 At the age of five, he began to make sketches and to mold in clay and wax objects
inspired by his Tio Jose Alberto.
 He learned the Latin language at age of 7
 At the age of eight, Rizal wrote his first poem entitled "Sa Aking Mga Kabata."
The poem was written in tagalog and had for its theme "Love of One’s
Language." where the famous lines “ Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika, daig
pa ang malansang isda…”
 At age 9,he could quote chapters and verses from the Bible
 As a child, he made use of the following results of his experiment to produce the
colors he needed:
 pepper- green
root of the pot- black
achuete- maroon
duhat- aubergine
rhizomes- yellow
 At age 11, he mastered the card game “Pangginge” winning most of the time and
so on and so forth.

Early Education

Calamba -Binan
 Rizal had his early education in Calamba and Biñan. It was a typical schooling
that a son of an ilustrado family received during his time, characterized by the
four R’s- reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. Instruction was rigid and
strict. Knowledge was forced into the minds of the pupils by means of the tedious
memory method aided by the teacher’s whip. Despite the defects of the Spanish
system of elementary education, Rizal was able to acquire the necessary
instruction preparatory for college work in Manila. It may be said that Rizal, who
was born a physical weakling, rose to become an intellectual giant not because of,
but rather in spite of, the outmoded and backward system of instruction obtaining
in the Philippines during the last decades of Spanish regime.

 The first teacher of Rizal was his mother, who was a remarkable woman of good
character and fine culture. On her lap, he learned at the age of three the alphabet
and the prayers. "My mother," wrote Rizal in his student memoirs, "taught me
how to read and to say haltingly the humble prayers which I raised fervently to
God."

As tutor, Doña Teodora was patient, conscientious, and understanding. It was she
who first discovered that her son had a talent for poetry. Accordingly, she
encouraged him to write poems. To lighten the monotony of memorizing the
ABC’s and to stimulate her son’s imagination, she related many stories.

As Jose grew older, his parents employed private tutors to give him lessons at
home. The first was Maestro Celestino and the second, Maestro Lucas Padua.
Later, an old man named Leon Monroy, a former classmate of Rizal’s father,
became the boy’s tutor. This old teacher lived at the Rizal home and instructed
 Jose in Spanish and Latin. Unfortunately, he did not lived long. He died five
months later.

After a Monroy’s death, the hero’s parents decided to send their gifted son to a
private school in Biñan. His teacher in Biñan was a severe disciplinarian. His
name was Justiniano Aquino Cruz. "He was a tall man, lean and long-necked,
with a sharp nose and a body slightly bent forward. He used to wear a sinamay
shirt woven by the deft hands of Batangas women. He knew by memory the
grammars of Nebrija and Gainza. To this add a severity which, in my judgement I
have made of him, which is all I remember." said in his Memoirs of a student in
Manila.

Ateneo de Manila
 Later on Rizal left Biñan and went to Ateneo Municipal. The Jesuits were
considered the best educators of Spain, and perhaps of Europe, and so, when they
were permitted to return to the Philippines, although their power to administer
parishes was restricted except in the remote regions of Mindanao, the privilege of
founding colleges, they had to apply to the City of Manila for subsidies. That is
why the college which began to function in the year 1865, was called the Ateneo
Municipal. 
 To enter the Ateneo a candidate was subjected to an entrance examination on
Christian doctrine, reading, writing, grammar, and elementary arithmetic. Jose
did not take his entrance examinations and did not remain in Manila but returned
first to his town to celebrate the fiesta of its patron saint; it was then that his
father changed his mind and decided to send him to the Ateneo instead.

Since Mercado, the first surname of the family, had come under suspicion of the
authorities because it was the name used by Paciano when he was studying and
working with Father Burgos, in whose house he lived, Jose adopted the second
surname, Rizal.

 The Jesuitical system of instruction was considered more advanced than that of
other colleges in that epoch. Its discipline was rigid and its methods less
mechanical. It introduced physical culture as part of its program as well as the
cultivation of the arts, such as music, drawing, and painting. It also establishes
vocational courses in agriculture, commerce, and mechanics as a religious
institute, its principal purpose was to mold the character and the will of the boys
to comply more easily with the percepts of the Church.
 In the first two terms the classes were divided into groups of interns and externs:
the first constituted the Roman Empire and the second, the Carthaginian Empire.
In each empire there were five dignitaries: Emperor, Tribune, Decurion,
Centurion, and Standard-Bearer. These dignities were won by means of
individual competitions in which it was necessary to catch one’s adversary in
error three times. The empires considered themselves in perpetual warfare, and
when an individual of one empire was caught in error by one belonging to the
enemy empire, a point was counted in favor of the latter. At the end of each week
or two, the points in favor of each were added and the empire, which obtained
more point, was declared winner.
 There was a fraternity of Mary and Saint Louis Gonzaga, to which only those
who distinguished themselves in the class for their piety and diligence could
 belong. This fraternity met on Sundays and after mass held public programs in
which poems were recited or debates were held. With all these inducements it
was only natural that should be a spirit of emulation, a striving to surpass ones
colleagues found in the Ateneo.
 Rizal really enjoyed his time in Ateneo which in his memoirs he would say that
his glory days was his time with his Jesuit Professors.
 About that time he devoted himself to reading novels, and one of those he
enjoyed most was Dumas’ (father) The Count of Monte Cristo. The sufferings of
the hero of the twelve years. He also asked his father to buy him a copy of The
Universal History by Cesar Cantanu, and according to himself he profited much
from its perusal. 
 The family, who saw in Jose great aptitude for study, decided to place him as
intern or boarding student in the college the following year. In the corner of the
dormitory facing the sea and the pier Jose passed his two years of internship.

In the fourth year of his course he had Fr. Francisco Sanchez as professor. Jose
describes him as a model of rectitude, a solicitude, and love for the student, and
his studied mathematics, rhetoric, and Greek, and he must have progressed much,
for at the end of the year he-obtained five medals, which pleased him immensely
because with them I could repay my father somewhat for his sacrifices.
 He also devoted time to painting and sculpture. In drawing and painting he was
under the guidance and direction of the Ateneo professor, the Peninsula Don
Augustin Saez, who honored him with his affection and consideration because of
his progress. In sculpture his instructor was a Filipino, Romualdo de Jesus, who
felt proud in the last years of his life of having had such an excellent pupil. 
 Rizal graduated with highest honors in Ateneo and moved to UST for higher
education.
 Jose Rizal, having completed his Bachiller en Artes at the Ateneo Municipal, was
now eligible for higher education at a university. His mother, Doña Teodora, had
second thoughts about sending her son to school because of the previous incident
involving the execution of friars Gomez, Burgos and Zamora. However, it was
Don Francisco who decided his son should to the University of Santo Tomas, a
prestigious institution run by the Dominican order.
On April 1877, Rizal enrolled in UST taking the course on Philosophy and
Letters. [other details will be discussed by the next group]

Influences on Jose Rizal’s Boyhood

Rizal's family was a mixture of races. They were a combination of Negrito,
Malay, Indonesian, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish, though Jose was
predominantly Malayan.
 Malayan Ancestors – love for freedom, innate desire to travel, indomitable
courage.
 Chinese Ancestors – serious nature, frugality, patience, and love for
children.
 Spanish Ancestors – elegance of bearing, sensitivity to insult, gallantry to
ladies.
 From his Father – profound sense of self-respect, the love for work and the habit
of independent thinking.
 From his Mother – religious nature, the spirit of self sacrifice, and the passion for
arts and literature.
From his Father he inherited a profound sense of self-respect, the love for work
and the habit of independent thinking. And from his Mother – religious nature,
the spirit of self sacrifice, and the passion for arts and literature

 Paciano – instilled in his mind the love for freedom and justice.
 From his Sisters – he learned to be courteous and kind to women.
 Nanny – fairytales that awakened his interest in folklore and legends.
 Tio Jose Alberto – inspired him to develop his artistic ability.
 Tio Manuel – encouraged him to develop his frail body by means of physical
exercise, including horse riding, walking and wrestling.
 Tio Gregorio – intensified his voracious reading of good books.
 Father Leoncio Lopez – fostered Rizal’s love for scholarship and intellectual
honesty.
 Aid of Divine Providence – God endowed him with the versatile gifts of
genius, the vibrant spirit of nationalist, and the valiant heart to sacrifice for
a noble cause.

There were also other people that influenced Jose Rizal growing up. From his
siblings it was his big brother Paciano that instilled in his mind the love for
freedom and justice. Paciano was a student activist in Sto Thomas University
and was friend of Father Jose Burgos. When the Gomburza fathers were
executed it was Paciano who explained to him the injustices that was happening
in the colony.

Rizal was know to be a polyglot…

He was fluent in twenty-two languages (Hebrew, Filipino, Ilokano, Bisayan, Subanon,
Chinese, Latin, Spanish, Greek, English, French, German, Arabic, Malay, Sanskrit,
Dutch, Japanese, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and Russian) and had a knack
for switching from one language to another when he was writing.
And he was also a polymath which means a person of great learning in several fields
of study. He was a journalist, playwright, ophthalmologist, farmer, historian, painter,
novelist, engineer, and educator. He also had varying degrees of expertise in
economics, ethnology, sociology, anthropology, architecture, cartography, martial
arts, dramatics, fencing, and pistol shooting.
Resources:

Memoirs of a Student in Manila,

https://pdfcookie.com/documents/37526746-memoirs-of-a-student-in-manila-
0nvorpjk93v8

http://joseprizal-one.blogspot.com/2006/03/rizal-family-early-childhood-and.html

https://www.joserizal.com/jose-rizals-sisters/?
fbclid=IwAR377gaaTojtgQRmeQI3cwzM-
EBYjNzQLGjK2BHumhRrPehklYEVrhqYVv4

Life and works of Rizal

http://thelifeandworksofrizal.blogspot.com/2011/12/education.html

Historical Background of Rizal Family

https://www.academia.edu/31898505/
HISTORICAL_BACKGROUND_OF_RIZALS_FAMILY?
fbclid=IwAR2hq9wh8ZtPLaq5WAaVWmqcnuhBXjdQpQORzooeoiAPknEDZEC8X
LKNtxU