Rizal’s Romantic Relationship

Love, Courtship &

Marriage
Segunda Katigbak
Leonor Rivera
O Sei San
Nellie Bausted
 Rizal was just sixteen years old when he first
experience his first romance. In 1887 he paid
visit to his maternal grandmother in Trozo,
Manila and there met, among others, Segunda
Katigbak.
Since some of the guests knew that Rizal was
a skilled painter and asked him to draw a
portrait of Segunda and he obliged.
By that Segunda Katigbak was Rizal’s first
love. Unfortunately, at that time she was
already engaged to a townmate Manuel Luz.
Segunda
Katigbak
Leonor Valenzuela
Leonor Rivera
Gertrude Beckett
Nellie Bausted
 The proofs that Rizal indeed courted her were
the love letters he sent her. His love notes
were mysteriously written in invisible ink
made of common table salt and water, which
could be read by heating the note over a
candle or lamp.

Leonor
Valenzuela
 Leonor “Orang” Valenzuela was commonly
described as a tall girl. She was the daughter of
Capitan Juan and Capitana Sanday Valenzuela,
who were from Pagsanjan, Laguna.
Orang was Rizal’s neighbor when he boarded
in the house of Doña Concha Leyva in
Intramuros during his sophomore year at the
University of Santo Tomas as medicine
student. To finally move on perhaps from his
unsuccessful love story with Segunda
Katigbak.
Leonor
Valenzuela
Segunda katigbak
Leonor Rivera
Suzanne Jacoby
Josephine Bracken
 1867 Leonor Rivera is born to an equally
wealthy and influential family. Her father,
Antonio Rivera, is the cousin of Rizal's father,
Francisco Mercado.
1880- Rizal and Rivera become engaged. He
was 19, she was 13. They kept their relationship
secret. Their engagement would last for ten
years.
1882- Rizal leaves for Europe in secret. He
keeps correspondence with his fiance. He
comes involved with the Propaganda
Leonor movement.

Rivera
 1887- Rizal publishes the Noli. He
immortalizes Rivera in the novel as Maria
Clara. Rivera's mother bribes the local
postman to intercept all correspondence
between Rizal and Rivera. Rizal's father
compels him to avoid the Rivera's to keep
them safe.
1890- Rivera marries kipping upon the
encouragement of her mother. She is
inconsolable and vows never to sing or play
music ever again. Rizal hears the news and is
devastated.
Leonor
Rivera
 1892- Rizal returns to Manila from Europe.
1893- Leonor dies of childbirth from her
second child.
1896- Rizal is executed in Bagumbayan

Leonor
Rivera
Consuelo Ortiga
Suzanne Jacoby
Gertrude Beckett
Josephine Bracken
 The most that can dug up with Consuelo, is
that she was the prettiest daughter of Don
Pablo Ortiga, a former Mayor in Manila.
Consuelo wrote in her diary that she first
met Rizal in Madrid on September 16, 1882,
and apparently they talked the whole night
(always promising start to any relationship)
Sources say she had a penchant for asking
Rizal to write her poems and verses, he
would happily comply it. The most well-
known poems of these is entitled “A La
Consuelo Señorita”.
Ortiga
 However, Rizal’s romance with Consuelo did
not turn into relationship affair for he
decided to step back due to two reasons: First,
he was still engaged to Leonor Rivera and
second his friend Eduardo de Lete liked
Consuelo.

Consuelo
Ortiga
Segunda Katigbak
Leonor Rivera
O Sei San
Nellie Bausted
 real name (Seiku Usui)
One of the happiest interludes in the life of
Rizal was the sojourn in the Land of the
Cherry Blossoms for one month and a half.
During his first day in Tokyo, Rizal was
embarrassed because he did not know the
Japanese language. He looked, Japanese, but
could not talk Japanese. To avoid further
embarrassment, Rizal decided to study the
Japanese language.
O Sei San
 February 28 - April 13, 1888 - He was
enchanted by the natural beauty of Japan,
the charming manners of the Japanese
people, and the picturesque shrines.
Moreover, he fell in love with a Japanese
girl, whose loveliness infused joy and
romance in his sorrowing heart. Rizal
affectionately called her O-Sei-San. Fate,
however, cut short his happy days in Japan.
He had to sacrifice his own happiness to
carry on his work for the redemption of his
oppressed people. He decided to leave Japan
and forget his romance, which pained him.
O Sei San
Leonor Valenzuela
Consuelo Ortiga
Gertrude Beckett
Josephine Bracken
 While Rizal was in London annotating the
“Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas”, he boarded in
the house of the Beckett family.
Gertrude was the eldest of the three Beckett
sisters. She fell inlove with Jose Rizal and help
him with his sculpture and painting.
However, to avoid Gertrude, Rizal went to Paris
as a sign of their short-lived relationship. But
before leaving, he finished a carving of the
heads of the Beckett sisters.
When Rizal was in Paris he published his
Gertrude annotation of “Morgas’s Sucesos de las Islas
Filipinas” where he prove that Filipinos had a
Beckette civilization worthy to be proud of.
Consuelo Ortiga
Nellie Bausted
Suzanne Jacoby
Josephine Bracken
 While a guest of the Boustead family at their
residence in the resort city of Biarritz, he
had befriended the two pretty daughters of
his host, Eduardo Boustead.
Rizal used to fence with the sisters at the
studio of Juan Luna in Paris. Antonio Luna,
Juan's brother and also a frequent visitor of
the Bousteads, courted Nellie but she was
deeply infatuated with Rizal.
Nellie
Bousted
 In a party held by Filipinos in Madrid, a
drunken Antonio Luna uttered unsavory
remarks against Nellie Boustead. This
prompted Rizal to challenge Luna into a duel.
Fortunately, Luna apologized to Rizal, thus
averting tragedy for the compatriots.
Their love affair unfortunately did not end in
marriage. It failed because Rizal refused to be
converted to the Protestant faith, as Nellie
demanded and Nellie's mother did not like a
physician without enough paying clientele to
be a son-in-law.
Nellie The lovers, however, parted as good friends
Bousted when Rizal left Europe.
Nellie Bausted
Suzanne Jacoby
Leonor Valenzuela
Leonor Rivera
 Suzanne Jacoby was a Belgian lady whom
Rizal met when he was 29.
To somewhat economize in his living
expenses, he left the expensive city of Paris
and went to Belgium in January 1890.
Along with his friend Jose Albert, Rizal
arrived in Brussels on February 2 and stayed
in the boarding house managed by two Jacoby
sisters, Suzanne and Marie.

Suzanne
Jacoby
 Suzanne was taken by Rizal’s charm and
gallantry during his 6 months stay in Brussel.
Rizal could have flirted with her considering
that Leonor was far away, but he realized he
could not deceived her.
When Rizal left for Madrid on July 1890 she
wrote a letter to him in French.

Suzanne
Jacoby
Josephine Bracken
Consuelo Ortiga
Nellie Bausted
Suzanne Jacoby
 On August 9, 1876, Josephine Bracken, who
was considered as wife of Dr. Jose Rizal,
was born in Victoria, Hong Kong to Irish
parents. Bracken, whom Rizal (a respected
ophthalmologist) met in Hong Kong, went to
Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte to
accompany her near-blind stepfather,
George Taufer, for eye consultation
(although Taufer's condition then was
already beyond Rizal's help).
She and Rizal fell in love and lived together
in Dapitan while the latter was in political
exile there. They had a stillborn child,
Josephine named Francisco Rizal y Bracken, who was
buried in Dapitan.
Bracken
 Bracken joined the Filipino revolutionaries
for a time after Rizal's execution on
December 30, 1896 on charges of treason,
rebellion and sedition by the Spanish
colonial government in Bagumbayan
(Luneta), Manila.
She was later summoned before the Spanish
governor-general, threatened with torture
and imprisonment if she did not leave the
Philippines, so she voluntarily returned to
Hong Kong in 1898. She subsequently
married Vicente Abad, a Cebuano mestizo
who represented his father's Tabacalera
Company in Hong Kong.
Josephine
Bracken Bracken died of tuberculosis on March 15,
1902
“To love oneself is the beginning of
a lifelong romance."

- Oscar Wilde
Thank You !!!
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