Module 4.

1 Imagining a Nation

Vocabulary:
Cortes - the legislative or lawmaking body of the Spanish government

Creole - a Spaniard born in the Philippines

Mestizo - an individual born of mixed ancestry; may refer to a Spanish mestizo or a Chinese mestizo

Propaganda - information used to promote or publicize a particular cause or point of view

Restoration - refers to the Spanish restoration; a period in Spanish history spanning the years 1874 - 1931 the saw
the restoration of the monarchy under Alfonso XII together with the establishment of a bicameral legislature.

Introduction

Towards the end of the nineteenth century economic conditions in the Philippines had improved in such a way
that it was possible for many creole and mestizo families to send their sons to school not only in Manila, but also in
Europe. The young Filipino students' sojourn to the Peninsula would awaken in their minds ideas about progress
and love for their motherland.

Presentation

At the end of the 19th century, economic conditions had improved in the Philippines.

 Creole and Mestizo family can send their children to Europe to study.
 Filipino students learned the virtue of progress and love for their motherland through their sojourn in
the Peninsula.
 In Europe, Filipino students learned how to think, question, and imagine what a nation is.
 Circulo Hispano-Filipino was the earliest attempt to unite Filipinos studying in Spain.
 It is an organization under the leadership of a creole, Juan Atayde.
 It had the support of Spaniards who were sympathetic towards the Filipinos.
 It published a bi-weekly newspaper titled Revista del Circulo Hispano-Filipino in 1882.
 The newspaper and organization lasted until 1883.
 In 1883, Los Dos Mundos came out with the intention of demanding for the overseas Hispano Colonies
equality of rights and equal opportunities for progress.
 Graciano Lopez Jaena and Pedro Govantes y Azcarraga were staff members.
 Rizal and Eduardo de Lete were article contributors concerned with socio-political and economic
reforms in the Philippines.
 Another newspaper titled Espana en Filipinas started its publication through the support of Filipinos,
creoles, and meztizos in Madrid.
 The newspaper was short-lived due to glaring diffences and internal feuding among its staff.
 La Solidaridad
 It released its first issue on February 15, 1889.
 The staff defined its program as:
 to combat all reactions;
 to impede all retrogression;
 to applaud and accept every liberal idea;
 to defend all progress.
 Reforms sought:
 Philippine representation in the cortes
 Freedom of the press
 End of the practice of exiling residents without due process.
 It ran articles dealing with Spanish politics, attacks on friars, and reforms for the Philippines.
 Article contributors:
 Jose Rizal
 Dominador Gomez
 Jose Maria Panganiban
 Antonio Luna
 Ferdinand Blumentritt
 Del Pilar gradually took on the active role of running the paper.
 Lopez Jaena was the editor in name and known to be incapable of sustained work.
 Del Pilar decided to move to Madrid and the paper went with him.
 The first issue printed in Madrid came out on November 15, 1889.
 A month later, Del Pilar took the helm of editorship.
 In 1890, Rizal and Del Pilar had differences with regard to Philippines affairs.
 Rizal believes that to serve the country better, one had to bring the issues closer to home.
  Del Pilar was a skillful politician who felt that efforts at persuading the Spanish leaders and officials
needed to be continued and that this was the best way to achieve the reforms Filipinos were seeking.
 At New Year’s Eve banquet in 1891, Filipinos in Madrid proposed that they elect a leader to unite their
community.
 Rizal agreed with the proposal while Del Pilar expressed initial misgivings; nevertheless, the voting took
place.
 Rizal won the election, but upon learning that he won due to the manipulation of his friend, Mariano
Ponce, he felt a shallow triumph so he left Madrid.
 The newspaper released its final issue on November 15, 1895.
 Marcelo H. del Pilar wrote his final editorial saying, ‘’We are persuaded that no sacrifices are too little
to win the rights and the liberty of a nation that is oppressed by slavery.’’

Module 4.2 Noli Me Tangere

Vocabulary:
novel- a long written story most often about fictional events and characters

setting (in a novel) - the context in which the events take place; covers geographical areas in particular periods of
time

plot - the flow of the narrative in a story

Introduction

Jose Rizal’s first novel, Noli Me Tangere, is considered one of the most important written outputs by the national
hero at the height of his intellectual endeavors in Europe.

Rizal mustered his academic acumens as he tapped his knowledge of various fields and wove a narrative that aimed
to represent, if not expose, the realities of nineteenth century colonial life in the Philippines

Through the eyes of its characters, one journey of love and deception, struggles and triumphs; and in the process,
presents pressing questions about power and social inequalities.

Presentation

The Publication of the Noli Me Tangere

 Rizal participated in the movement of the ilustrados to utilized propaganda to campaign for reforms in
the Philippines. Utilizing their intellectual prowess, the ilustrados released various written outputs from
news bits, to feature articles, and commentaries.
 Rizal’s exemplary mastery of words was clearly evident in one of his most celebrated works, his first
novel, Noli Me Tangere
 The idea of publishing a book was not alien to Rizal
 In a meeting with the ilustrados in 1884, he proposed to write a book project to be done collaboratively
with his fellow writers, the project did not materialize
 He decided to write a novel on his own
 Rizal influenced in the writing of the Noli: 1. Juan Luna’s painting Spolarium which depicted the
sufferings faced by humanity in the face of inequalities 2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel by Harriet Beecher
Stowe that dealt with slavery in America.
 Rizal finished the first half of the novel in Spain, supposedly the other half in France, then completed
the draft in 1886. The novel was published the following year in Germany. Luck of funds delayed the
book’s publication until a fellow ilusrado, Maximo viola, insisted on lending him 300 pesos for the
printing of the first 2,000m copies
 March 29, 1887- Rizal, in token of his appreciation and gratitude, gave Viola the galley proofs of the
Noli carefully rolled around the pen that he used in writing it and a complimentary copy, with the
following inscription: “To my dear friend, Maximo Viola, the first to read and appreciate my work—Jose
Rizal”

Motivations behind Writing the Noli

 The title Noli Me Tangere is a Latin phrase which means “Touch Me Not”. It is not originally conceived
by Rizal, for he admitted taking it from the Bible
  Rizal, writing to Felix Hidalgo in French on March 5, 1887, said: “Noli Me Tangere, words taken from the
Gospel of St. Luke, signify “do not touch me” but Rizal made a mistake, it should be the Gospel of St.
John (Chapter 20 Verses 13 to 17)
 Rizal dedicated his Noli Me Tangere to the Philippines—“To My Fatherland”
 The cover of Noli Me Tangere was designed by Rizal. It is a ketch of explicit symbols. A woman’s head
atop a Maria Clara bodice represents the nation and the women, victims of the social cancer. One of
the causes of the cancer is symbolized in the friar’s feet, outsized in relation to the woman’s head. The
other aggravating causes of oppression and discrimination are shown in the guard’s helmet and the
iron chains, the teacher’s whip and the alferez’s scourge. A slight cluster of bamboo stands at the
backdrop; these are the people, forever in the background of their own country’s history. There are a
cross, a maze, flowers and thorny plants, a flame; these are indicative of the religious policy, the
misdirected ardor, the people strangled as a result of these all
 The novel Noli Me Tangere contains 63 chapters and an epilogue
 Antonio Ma. Regidor- Filipino patriot and lawyer who had been exiled due to his complicity in the
Cavite Mutiny of 1872, read avidly the Noli and was very much impressed by its author

Plot

 Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin came back to the
Philippines after a 7-year absence. In his honor, Don Santiago de los Santos, a family friend commonly
known as Captain Tiago, threw a get-together party, which was attended by friars and other prominent
figures. One of the guests, former San Diego curate Fray Dámaso Vardolagas belittled and slandered
Ibarra. Ibarra brushed off the insults and took no offense; he instead politely excused himself and left
the party because of an allegedly important task.
 The next day, Ibarra visits María Clara, his betrothed, the beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and
affluent resident of Binondo. Their long-standing love was clearly manifested in this meeting, and María
Clara cannot help but reread the letters her sweetheart had written her before he went to Europe.
Before Ibarra left for San Diego, Lieutenant Guevara, a Civil Guard, reveals to him the incidents
preceding the death of his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, a rich hacendero of the town.
 According to Guevara, Don Rafael was unjustly accused of being a heretic, in addition to being a
subservient — an allegation brought forth by Dámaso because of Don Rafael’s non-participation in the
Sacraments, such as Confession and Mass. Dámaso’s animosity against Ibarra’s father is aggravated by
another incident when Don Rafael helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a child fighting,
and the former’s death was blamed on him, although it was not deliberate. Suddenly, all of those who
thought ill of him surfaced with additional complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the matter
was almost settled, he died of sickness in jail. Still not content with what he had done, Dámaso
arranged for Don Rafael’s corpse to be dug up from the Catholic church and brought to a Chinese
cemetery, because he thought it inappropriate to allow a heretic a Catholic burial ground.
Unfortunately, it was raining and because of the bothersome weight of the body, the undertakers
decide to throw the corpse into a nearby lake.
 Revenge was not in Ibarra’s plans, instead he carried through his father’s plan of putting up a school,
since he believed that education would pave the way to his country’s progress (all over the novel the
author refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two different countries, which form part of a same
nation or family, being Spain the mother and the Philippines the daughter). During the inauguration of
the school, Ibarra would have been killed in a sabotage had Elías — a mysterious man who had warned
Ibarra earlier of a plot to assassinate him — not saved him. Instead the hired killer met an unfortunate
incident and died. The sequence of events proved to be too traumatic for María Clara who got seriously
ill but was luckily cured by the medicine Ibarra sent.
 After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon during which Dámaso, gate-crashing the luncheon,
again insulted him. Ibarra ignored the priest’s insolence, but when the latter slandered the memory of
his dead father, he was no longer able to restrain himself and lunged at Dámaso, prepared to stab him
for his impudence. As a consequence, Dámaso excommunicated Ibarra, taking this opportunity to
persuade the already-hesitant Tiago to forbid his daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wished María
Clara to marry Linares, a Peninsular who had just arrived from Spain.
 With the help of the Governor-General, Ibarra’s excommunication was nullified and the Archbishop
decided to accept him as a member of the Church once again. But, as fate would have it, some incident
of which Ibarra had known nothing about was blamed on him, and he is wrongly arrested and
imprisoned. The accusation against him was then overruled because during the litigation that followed,
nobody could testify that he was indeed involved. Unfortunately, his letter to María Clara somehow got
into the hands of the jury and is manipulated such that it then became evidence against him by the
parish priest, Fray Salví. With Machiavellian precision, Salví framed Ibarra and ruined his life just so he
could stop him from marrying María Clara and making the latter his concubine.
 Meanwhile, in Capitan Tiago’s residence, a party was being held to announce the upcoming wedding of
María Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help of Elías, took this opportunity to escape from prison.
Before leaving, Ibarra spoke to María Clara and accused her of betraying him, thinking that she gave the
letter he wrote her to the jury. María Clara explained that she would never conspire against him, but
 that she was forced to surrender Ibarra’s letter to Father Salvi, in exchange for the letters written by her
mother even before she, María Clara, was born. The letters were from her mother, Pía Alba, to Dámaso
alluding to their unborn child; and that María Clara was therefore not Captain Tiago’s biological
daughter, but Dámaso’s.
 Afterwards, Ibarra and Elías fled by boat. Elías instructed Ibarra to lie down, covering him with grass to
conceal his presence. As luck would have it, they were spotted by their enemies. Elías, thinking he could
outsmart them, jumped into the water. The guards rained shots on him, all the while not knowing that
they were aiming at the wrong man.
 María Clara, thinking that Ibarra had been killed in the shooting incident, was greatly overcome with
grief. Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she asked Dámaso to confine her into a nunnery.
Dámaso reluctantly agreed when she threatened to take her own life, demanding, “the nunnery or
death!”[2] Unbeknownst to her, Ibarra was still alive and able to escape. It was Elías who had taken the
shots.
 It was Christmas Eve when Elías woke up in the forest fatally wounded, as it is here where he instructed
Ibarra to meet him. Instead, Elías found the altar boy Basilio cradling his already-dead mother, Sisa. The
latter lost her mind when she learned that her two sons, Crispín and Basilio, were chased out of the
convent by the sacristan mayor on suspicions of stealing sacred objects. (The truth is that, it was the
sacristan mayor who stole the objects and only pinned the blame on the two boys. The said sacristan
mayor actually killed Crispín while interrogating him on the supposed location of the sacred objects. It
was implied that the body was never found and the incident was covered-up by Salví).
 Elías, convinced that he would die soon, instructs Basilio to build a funeral pyre and burn his and Sisa’s
bodies to ashes. He tells Basilio that, if nobody reaches the place, he come back later on and dig for he
will find gold. He also tells him (Basilio) to take the gold he finds and go to school. In his dying breath,
he instructed Basilio to continue dreaming about freedom for his motherland with the words:
 “ I shall die without seeing the dawn break upon my homeland. You, who shall see it, salute it! Do not
forget those who have fallen during the night.” ”
 Elías died thereafter. In the epilogue, it was explained that Tiago became addicted to opium and was
seen to frequent the opium house in Binondo to satiate his addiction. María Clara became a nun where
Salví, who has lusted over her from the beginning of the novel, regularly used her to fulfill his lust. One
stormy evening, a beautiful crazy woman was seen at the top of the convent crying and cursing the
heavens for the fate it has handed her. While the woman was never identified, it is suggested that the
said woman was María Clara.

MAJOR CHARACTERS

 IBARRA

Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin, commonly referred to the novel as Ibarra or Crisóstomo, is the protagonist in
the story. Son of a Filipino businessman, Don Rafael Ibarra, he studied in Europe for seven years. Ibarra is also
María Clara’s fiancé. Several sources claim that Ibarra is also Rizal’s reflection: both studied in Europe and both
persons believe in the same ideas. Upon his return, Ibarra requested the local government of San Diego to
construct a public school to promote education in the town.

In the sequel of Noli, El filibusterismo, Ibarra returned with different character and name: he called himself as
Simoun, the English mestizo.

 MARÍA CLARA

María Clara de los Santos y Alba, commonly referred to as María Clara, is Ibarra’s fiancée. She was raised by
Capitán Tiago, Binundok’s cabeza de barangay and is the most beautiful and widely celebrated girl in San Diego. In
the later parts of the novel, María Clara’s identity was revealed as an illegitimate daughter of Father Dámaso,
former parish curate of the town, and Doña Pía Alba, wife of Capitán Tiago. In the end she entered local covenant
for nuns Beaterio de Santa Clara. In the epilogue dealing with the fate of the characters, Rizal stated that it is
unknown if María Clara is still living within the walls of the covenant or she is already dead.

The character of María Clara was patterned after Leonor Rivera, Rizal’s first cousin and childhood sweetheart.

 CAPITÁN TIAGO

Don Santiago de los Santos, known by his nickname Tiago and political title Capitán Tiago is a Filipino businessman
and the cabeza de barangay or head of barangay of the town of Binundok. He is also the known father of María
Clara.

In the novel, it is said that Capitán Tiago is the richest man in the region of Binondo and he possessed real
properties in Pampanga and Laguna de Bay. He is also said to be a good Catholic, friend of the Spanish government
and was considered as a Spanish by colonialists. Capitán Tiago never attended school, so he became a domestic
helper of a Dominican friar who taught him informal education. He married Pía Alba from Santa Cruz.

 PADRE DÁMASO

Dámaso Verdolagas, or Padre Dámaso is a Franciscan friar and the former parish curate of San Diego. He is best
known as a notorious character who speaks with harsh words and has been a cruel priest during his stay in the
town. He is the real father of María Clara and an enemy of Crisóstomo’s father, Rafael Ibarra. Later, he and María
Clara had bitter arguments whether she would marry Alfonso Linares or go to a convent.[13] At the end of the
novel, he is again re-assigned to a distant town and is found dead one day.

In popular culture, when a priest was said to be like Padre Dámaso, it means that he is a cruel but respectable
individual. When one says a child is “anak ni Padre Damaso” (child of Padre Dámaso), it means that the child’s
father’s identity is unknown.

 ELÍAS

Elías is Ibarra’s mysterious friend and ally. Elías made his first appearance as a pilot during a picnic of Ibarra and
María Clara and her friends.[14] He wants to revolutionize the country and to be freed from Spanish oppression.

The 50th chapter of the novel explores the past of Elías and history of his family. In the past, Ibarra’s great-
grandfather condemned Elías’ grandfather of burning a warehouse which led into misfortune for Elías’ family. His
father was refused to be married by his mother because his father’s past and family lineage was discovered by his
mother’s family. In the long run, Elías and his twin sister was raised by their maternal grandfather. When they were
teenagers, their distant relatives called them hijos de bastardo or illegitimate children. One day, his sister
disappeared which led him to search for her. His search led him into different places, and finally, he became a
fugitive and subversive.

 PILOSOPO TACIO

Pilosopo Tacio, known by his Filipinized name Pilosopo Tasyo is another major character in the story. Seeking for
reforms from the government, he expresses his ideals in paper written in a cryptographic alphabet similar from
hieroglyphs and Coptic figures hoping “that the future generations may be able to decipher it” and realized the
abuse and oppression done by the conquerors.

His full name is only known as Don Anastacio. The educated inhabitants of San Diego labeled him as Filosofo Tacio
(Tacio the Sage) while others called him as Tacio el Loco (Insane Tacio) due to his exceptional talent for reasoning.

 DOÑA VICTORINA

Doña Victorina de Espadaña, commonly known as Doña Victorina, is an ambitious Filipina who classifies herself as a
Spanish and mimics Spanish ladies by putting on heavy make-up.[12] The novel narrates Doña Victorina’s younger
days: she had lots of admirers, but she didn’t choose any of them because nobody was a Spaniard. Later on, she
met and married Don Tiburcio de Espadaña, an official of the customs bureau who is about ten years her junior.
However, their marriage is childless.

Her husband assumes the title of medical doctor even though he never attended medical school; using fake
documents and certificates, Tiburcio practices illegal medicine. Tiburcio’s usage of the title Dr. consequently makes
Victorina assume the title Dra. (doctora, female doctor). Apparently, she uses the whole name Doña Victorina de
los Reyes de de Espadaña, with double de to emphasize her marriage surname. She seems to feel that this
awkward titling makes her more “sophisticated.”