Lineage, Life and Labors of José Rizal, Philippine Patriot
Mrs. Rizal returned to Manila. Then came a brief interview with the
Governor-General. He had learned that his "administrative powers"
to exile without trial did not extend to foreigners, but by advice
of her consul she soon sailed for Hongkong.
Mrs. Rizal at first lived in the Basa home and received
considerable attention from the Filipino colony. There was too
great a difference between the freedom accorded Englishwomen and the
restraints surrounding Spanish ladies however, to avoid difficulties
and misunderstandings, for very long. She returned to her adopted
father's house and after his death married Vicente Abad, a Cebuan,
son of a Spaniard who had been prominent in the Tabacalera Company
and had become an agent of theirs in Hongkong after he had completed
his studies there.
Two weeks after Rizal's execution a dozen other members of his
"Liga Filipina" were executed on the Luneta. One was a millionaire,
Francisco Roxas, who had lost his mind, and believing that he was in
church, calmly spread his handkerchief on the ground and knelt upon
it as had been his custom in childhood. An old man, Moises Salvador,
had been crippled by torture so that he could not stand and had to
be laid upon the grass to be shot. The others met their death standing.
That bravery and cruelty do not usually go together was amply
demonstrated in Polavieja's case and by the volunteers. The latter
once showed their patriotism, after a banquet, by going to the water's
edge on the Luneta and firing volleys at the insurgents across the
bay, miles away. The General was relieved of his command after he had
fortified a camp with siege guns against the bolo-armed insurgents,
who, however, by captures from the Spaniards were gradually becoming
better equipped. But he did not escape condemnation from his own
countrymen, and when he visited Giron, years after he had returned to
the Peninsula, circulars were distributed among the crowd, bearing
Rizal's last verses, his portrait, and the charge that to Polavieja
was due the loss of the Philippines to Spain.
The Katipunan insurgents in time were bought off by General Primo de
Rivera, once more returned to the Islands for further plunder. The
money question does not concern Rizal's life, but his prediction of
suffering to the country came true, for while the leaders with the
first payment and hostages for their own safety sailed away to live
securely in Hongkong, the poorer people who remained suffered the
vengeance of a government which seems never to have kept a promise to
its people. Whether reforms were pledged is disputed, but if any were,
they never were put into effect. No more money was paid, and the first
instalment, preserved by the prudent leaders, equipped them when,
owing to Dewey's victory, they were enabled to return to their country.
On the first anniversary of Rizal's execution some Spaniards desecrated
the grave, while on one of the niches, rented for the purpose, many
feet away, the family hung wreaths with Tagalog dedications but
no name.
August 13, 1898, the Spanish flag came down from Fort Santiago in
evidence of the surrender of the city. At the first opportunity
Paco Cemetery was visited and Rizal's body raised for a more decent
interment. Vainly his shoes were searched for a last message which
he had said might be concealed there, for the dampness had made any
paper unrecognizable. Then a simple cross was erected, resting on a
marble block carved, as had been the smaller one which secretly had
first marked the spot, with the reversed initials "R. P. J."
The first issue of a Filipino newspaper under the new government was
entirely dedicated to Rizal. The second anniversary of his execution
was observed with general unanimity, his countrymen demonstrating that
those who were seeing the dawn of the new day were not forgetful of
the greatest of those who had fallen in the night, to paraphrase his
own words.
His widow returned and did live by giving lessons in English, at first
privately in Cebu, where one of her pupils was the present and first
Speaker of the Philippine Assembly, and afterwards as a government
employee in the public schools and in the "Liceo" of Manila.
With the establishment of civil government a new province was formed
near Manila, including the land across the lake to which, as a lad
in Kalamba, Rizal had often wonderingly looked, and the name of Rizal
Province was given it.
Later when public holidays were provided for by the new laws, the
anniversary of Rizal's execution was in the list, and it has become the
great day of the year, with the entire community uniting, for Spaniards
no longer consider him to have been a traitor to Spain and the American
authorities have founded a government in conformity with his teachings.
On one of these occasions, December 30, 1905, William Jennings Bryan,
"The Great American Commoner," gave the Rizal Day address, in the
course of which he said:
"If you will permit me to draw one lesson from the life of Rizal,
I will say that he presents an example of a great man consecrated
to his country's welfare. He, though dead, is a living rebuke to the
scholar who selfishly enjoys the privilege of an ample education and
does not impart the benefits of it to his fellows. His example is worth
much to the people of these Islands, to the child who reads of him,
to the young and old."
The fiftieth anniversary of Rizal's birth was observed throughout the
Archipelago with exercises in every community by public schools now
organized along the lines he wished, to make self-dependent, capable
men and women, strong in body as in mind, knowing and claiming their
own rights, and recognizing and respecting those of others.
His father died early in the year that the flags changed, but the
mother lived to see honor done her son and to prove herself as worthy,
for when the Philippine Legislature wanted to set aside a considerable
sum for her use, she declined it with the true and rightfully
proud assertion, that her family had never been patriotic for
money. Her funeral, in 1911, was an occasion of public mourning, the
Governor-General, Legislature and chief men of the Islands attending,
and all public business being suspended by proclamation for the day.
A capitol for the representatives of the free people of the
Philippines, and worthy of the pioneer democratic government in the
Orient, is soon to be erected on the Luneta, facing the big Rizal
monument which will mark the place of execution of the man who gave
his life to prepare his countrymen for the changed conditions.
NOTES
[1] -- I take the liberty, here, of citing an instance of this. In
1861, when I found myself on the West Coast of Mexico, a dozen
backwoods families determined upon settling in Sonora (forming an
oasis in the desert); a plan which was frustrated by the invasion
at that time of the European powers. Many native farmers awaited
the arrival of these immigrants in order to take them under their
protection. The value of land in consequence of the announcement of
the project rose very considerably.
[2] -- See Appendix.