Chapter V:

EXILE, TRIAL, AND DEATH

GROUP 5
Eramis, Jopen
Generalao, Royce Michael
General, Johnloyd
Yap, Agnel
 Bitter-Sweet Life in
Dapitan

• The deportee could have stayed in

the Dapitan parish convent had he
retracted his anti-Catholic
pronouncements and made a
general confession of his past life.
Not willing to accede to these
main conditions set by the Jesuits.
Jose Rizal instead opted to live at
the commandant’s residence
called “Casa Real”
• Rizal became such good friends with his guard,
the commandant Captain Ricardo Carnicero.
• Later in his life in Dapitan, Rizal wrote a poem to
honor the commandant on his birthday on August
26, 1892.
• The poem was called “A Don Ricardo Carnicero”.
• In September 1892, Rizal and Carnicero won in a lottery. The Manila Lottery ticket
no. 9736 jointly owned by Rizal, Carnicero and a Spanish resident of Dipolog won
the secondary price of Php 20,000.
• Rizal used some parts of his share (Php 6,200) in procuring a parcel of lands near
the coast of Talisay, a barrio near Dapitan.
• On a property of more than 10 hectares, Rizal put up three houses made of bamboo
wood and nipa, where he lived. A hexagonal shaped house as a barn where he kept
his chickens. An octagonal house for some of his pupils.
• Rizal established a school teaching young boys practical subjects like reading,
arithmetic, geography and Spanish and English languages.
• He constructed additional huts to accommodate his recovering out of town patients.
 Daily life as an exile
• Rizal practiced medicine, taught some pupils, and engaged in farming and horticulture. He grew
many fruit trees (coconuts, mango, lanzones, makopa, santol, mangosteen, jackfruits, guayabanos,
baluno and nangka) and domesticated some animals (rabbits, dogs, cats, and chickens).
• He founded a school in 1892 which started with only 3 pupils and had about 20 students at the end
of his exile.
• Rizal rise at five in the morning to see his plants, feed his animals and prepare breakfast. He treats
the patients who had come to his house.
• Padding his boat called baroto which he had two and would then proceed to Dapitan town to attend
to his other patients,
• Rizal would return to Talisay to take his lunch. Teaching his students would begin at about 2 P.M.
and would end at 4 or 5 in the afternoon.
• With the help of his students, Rizal would spend the rest of the afternoon farming, planting trees,
watering the plants and pruning fruits.
• Then Rizal would spend the night reading and writing.
 Rizal And the Jesuits
• The first attempt by the Jesuit friars to win back the deported Rizal to
the catholic fold was the offer for him to live in the Dapitan convent
under some conditions. Refusing to compromise, Rizal did not stay with
the parish priest Antonio Obach in the church convent.
• Just a month after Rizal was deported to Dapitan, the Jesuit order
assigned to Dapitan the priest Francisco de Paula Sanchez. Rizal’s
favorite teacher in Ateneo. Many times, they engaged in cordial
religious discussions. But though Rizal appreciated his mentor’s efforts,
he could not be convinced to change his mind. Nevertheless, their
differences in belief did not get in the way of their good friendship.
• The priest Pablo Pastells, superior of the Jesuit Society in the
Philippines, also made some attempts by correspondence to win over to
Catholicism the exiled physician. Four times they exchanged letters
from September 1892 to April 1893. The debate was none less than
scholarly, and it manifested Rizal’s knowledge of the mass in Dapitan,
he refused to espouse the conventional type of Catholicism.
 Achievements in Dapitan
• Improving the town’s drainage and constructing better water system using empty bottles and bamboo
joints.
• Taught the town folks about health and sanitation to avoid the spread of diseases.
• With his Jesuit priest friend Sanchez, Rizal made a huge relief map of Mindanao in Dapitan plaza.
• Bettered the forest there by providing evident trails, stairs, and some benches. He invented a wooden
machine for the mass production of bricks. Using the bricks he produced, Rizal built a water dam for the
community with the help of his students.
• Rizal equally treated all patients regardless of their economic and social status. He accepted as “fees” things
like poultry and crops, and at times, even gave his services to poor folks for free.
• His specialization was ophthalmology, but he also offered treatments to almost all kinds of diseases, like
fever, sprain, broken bones, typhoid, tuberculosis and even leprosy.
• helped in the livelihood of the abaca farmers in Dapitan by trading their crops in manila. He gave them
lessons in abaca-weaving to produce hammocks.
• Noticing that the fishing method by the locals was inefficient, he taught them better techniques, like
weaving and using better fishing nets.
 As a Scientist • Rizal inspected Dapitan’s rich flora and fauna, providing a
sort of taxonomy to numerous kinds of forest and sea
and Philologist creatures.
• Sent various, biological specimens to scientists in Europe,
like his friend Doctor Adolph B. Meyer in Dresden. In return,
the European scholars send him books and some other
academic reading materials.
• three species were named after him: a Dapitan frog
(Rhacophorus Rizali), a type of beetle (Apogonia Rizali), and
a flying dragon (Draco Rizali).
• Having learned the Visayan language, he also engaged
himself in the study of language, culture, and literature.
• He examined local folklores, customs, Tagalog grammar,
and the Malay language.
• His intellectual products about these subjects he related to
some European academicians, like Doctor Reinhold Rost, his
close philologist friend in London.
 The Spies and secret Emissary

• A physician named Matias Arrieta revealed his covert mission and asked
for forgiveness after he was cured by Rizal (Bantug & Ventura, 1997,
p.116).
• In March 1895, a man introduced himself to Rizal as Pablo Mercado.
Claiming to be Rizal’s relative, this stranger eagerly volunteered to bring
Rizal’s letters to certain persons in Manila. Made suspicious by the
visitor’s insistence, Rizal interrogated him, and it turned out that his real
name was Florencio Nanaman of Cagayan de Misamis, paid as a secret
agent by the Recollect friars.
 The Spies and secret Emissary
• In June the next year, a different kind of emissary was sent to Rizal,
Doctor Pio Valenzuela was sent to Dapitan by Andres Bonifacio, the
Katipunan leader who believed that carrying out revolt had to be
sanctioned first by Rizal. Disguised as a mere companion of a blind
patient seeking treatment from Rizal. Valenzuela was able to
discreetly deliver the Katipunan’s message for Rizal. But Rizal politely
refused to approve the uprising, suggesting that peaceful means was
for the better than violent ways in obtaining freedom. Rizal further
believes that a revolution would be unsuccessful without arms and
monetary support from wealthy Filipinos. He thus recommended that
if the Katipunan were to start a revolution. It had to asked for the
support of the rich and educated Filipinos, like Antonio Luna who was
an expert on military strategy (Bantug & Ventura, 1997, p.133).
Visited by loved ones • Rizal was in Dapitan when he learned that his true
love Leonor Rivera had died. What somewhat
consoled his desolate heart was the visits of his
mother and some sisters.
• In August 1893, Doña Teodora, along with daughter
Trinidad, joined Rizal in Dapitan and resided with
him in his casa cuadrada(square house). The son
successfully operated on his mother’s cataract.
• At distinct times, Jose’s sister Maria and Narcisa
also visited him. Three of Jose’s nephews likewise
went to Dapitan and had their early education
under their uncle. Maria’s son, Mauricio (Moris) and
Lucia’s sons Teodoso (Osio) and Estanislao (Tan).
Jose’s niece Angelica, Narcisa’s daughter, also
experienced living for some time with her exiled
uncle in Mindanao.
• In 1895, Doña Teodora left Dapitan for Manila to be
with Don Francisco who was getting weaker.
 Visited by loved ones

• Shortly after his mother left, Josephine Bracken came

to Jose’s life. Josephine was and orphan with Irish
blood and the stepdaughter of Jose’s patients from
Hong Kong.
• Rizal and Bracken were unable to obtain a church
wedding because Jose would not retract his anti-
Catholic views. He nonetheless took Josephine as his
common-law wife who kept him company and kept
house for him.
• Before the year ended in 1895, the couple had a child
who was born prematurely. The son who was named
after Rizal’s father (Francisco) died a few hours after
birth.
 Goodbye Dapitan
• In 1895, Blumentritt informed Rizal that the revolution-ridden Cuba, another nation colonized by Spain, was
raged by a yellow fever epidemic.
• Rizal in December 1895 wrote to the then Governor-General Ramon Blanco, volunteering to provide medical
services in Cuba, receiving no reply from Blanco, Rizal lost interest in his request.
• On July 20, 1896, Rizal received a letter from the governor-general sanctioning his petition to serve as
volunteer physician in Cuba.
• In the late afternoon of July 31, Rizal got on the “España” with Josephine. Narcisa, a niece, three nephews,
and three of his students.
• Many Dapitan folks, especially Rizal’s students, came to see their beloved doctor for the last time. Cordially
bidding him goodbye, they shouted “Adios, Doctor Rizal” as some of his students even cried. With sorrowing
heart, he weaved his hand in farewell to the generous and loving Dapitan folks, saying, “Adios Dapitan!”.
• The steamer departed for Manila at midnight of July 31,1896. With tears in his eyes, Rizal later wrote in his
diary onboard the ship, “I have been in that district four years, thirteen days and a few hours” as cited in G.
Zaide & S. Zaide, 1984, p.242)