The hero of the Filipinos The story of José Rizal, poet, patriot and martyr
“I do not mean to say that our liberty will be secured at the
sword’s point, for the sword plays but little part in modern
affairs, but that we must secure it by making ourselves worthy of
it, by exalting the intelligence and the dignity of the individual,
by loving justice, right, and greatness, even to the extent of
dying for them; and when a people reaches that height God will
provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, the tyranny will
crumble like a house of cards, and liberty will shine out like the
first dawn.
“Our ills we owe to ourselves alone, so let us blame no one. If
Spain should see that we were less complaisant with tyranny and
more disposed to struggle and suffer for our rights, Spain would be
the first to grant us liberty, because when the fruit of the womb
reaches maturity woe unto the mother who would stifle it! So, while
the Filipino people has not sufficient energy to proclaim, with
head erect and bosom bared its rights to social life, and to
guarantee it with its sacrifices, with its own blood; while we see
our countrymen in private life ashamed within themselves, hear the
voice of conscience roar in rebellion and protest, yet in public
life keep silence or even echo the words of him who abuses them in
order to mock the abused; while we see them wrap themselves up in
their egotism and with a forced smile praise the most iniquitous
actions, begging with their eyes a portion of the booty—why grant
them liberty? With Spain or without Spain they would always be the
same, and perhaps worse! Why independence, if the slaves of to-day
will be the tyrants of to-morrow? And that they will be such is not
to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.
“Señor Simoun, when our people is unprepared, when it enters the
fight through fraud and force, without a clear understanding of
what it is doing, the wisest attempts will fail, and better that
they do fail, since why commit the wife to the husband if he does
not sufficiently love her, if he is not ready to die for her?”
Padre Florentino felt the sick man catch and press his hand; so he
became silent, hoping that the other might speak, but he merely
felt a stronger pressure of the hand, heard a sigh, and then
profound silence reigned in the room. Only the sea, whose waves
were rippled by the night breeze, as though awaking from the heat
of the day, sent its hoarse roar, its eternal chant, as it rolled
against the jagged rocks. The moon, now free from the sun’s
rivalry, peacefully commanded the sky, and the trees of the forest
bent down toward one another, telling their ancient legends in
mysterious murmurs borne on the wings of the wind.
The sick man said nothing; so Padre Florentino, deeply thoughtful,
murmured: “Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden
hours, their illusions, and their enthusiasm to the welfare of
their native land? Where are the youth who will generously pour out
their blood to wash away so much shame, so much crime, so much
abomination? Pure and spotless must the victim be that the
sacrifice may be acceptable! Where are you, youth, who will embody
in yourselves the vigor of life that has left our veins, the purity
of ideas that has been contaminated in our brains, the fire of
enthusiasm that has been quenched in our hearts? We await you, O
youth! Come, for we await you!”
Feeling his eyes moisten, he withdrew his hand from that of the
sick man, arose, and went to the window to gaze out upon the wide
surface of the sea. He was drawn from his meditation by gentle raps
at the door. It was the servant asking if he should bring a light.
When the priest returned to the sick man and looked at him in the
light of the lamp, motionless, his eyes closed, the hand that had
pressed his lying open and extended along the edge of the bed, he
thought for a moment that he was sleeping, but noticing that he was
not breathing touched him gently, and then realized that he was
dead. His body had already commenced to turn cold. The priest fell
upon his knees and prayed.
So Ibarra dies with his revenge unaccomplished, and the priest takes
the box in which the dead man’s great wealth is supposed to be
contained and without opening it throws it into the sea.
Only an artist would have thought of such an ending.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SAFE-CONDUCT
Failure was all he reaped at Madrid in his efforts to win some measure
of justice for his family, a fact that hardly could have astonished him
then and seems but normal now. In the seats of authority was no man
that loved justice so much as he feared the huge political machine set
up by the friars and administered (through particularly appropriate
selection) by the ruffian Weyler. Early in 1891, Rizal returned to
Paris, where he revisited his former friends, and so passed to Ghent.
There he settled himself to the finishing of “El Filibusterismo” and
worked without further interruption until the book was done and on its
way to the publisher.
Powerful influences now seemed to draw him again to the East; it is
likely that but for his book he would have gone thither direct from
Madrid when he learned how little help he might expect from the gross
and inert government. The situation of his family caused him a
harrowing anxiety. [159] It was for his sake that they were subjected
to the abominable persecutions of the petty tyrants of the existing
System. His soul revolted at the idea that they should be thus
tormented while he was safely out of the range of his enemies’ venom.
After his consultations with the Filipinos in Madrid the gloomy outlook
in the Philippines was more than before a burden on his thought. He
must have known that this time, as he had forecasted in his writings,
revolt would be more than local. He could hardly hope to be allowed to
land in the Islands, but Hong-Kong was a convenient point from which to
watch developments and to put forth his influence; and as to his family
he began to have a purpose that if carried out would take them beyond
the power of Spanish officers to hector and to wound. In October, 1891,
he sailed for Hong-Kong, where he hoped to establish himself in his
profession, to gather his family, and to be ready to help his
countrymen with the cautionary wisdom of which he held them to be most
in need.
His hopes of professional success were better founded than he knew.
Almost at once he stepped into a large practice. This is not the usual
experience of new physicians in a new field, but his fame as an oculist
had gone before him. For the first time in his life he had unpledged
money in his purse. He sent to the Philippines for his sister Lucia,
who happened then not to be in jail nor exiled nor pinioned to the
miseries of procrastinating law-courts, and in her company he tasted
something of the novelty of ease. The project he had half formed about
the rescue of his harassed relatives took him in the following spring
to Borneo. As it seemed to him virtually certain that his enemies would
continue to pursue any one known to be near or dear to him, and there
was no career for them in Hong-Kong, he purposed to found a new
homestead for them under another flag. They were a numerous family, and
inasmuch as the peculiar ideas of revenge we have found to be current
in the Spanish colony made his second cousin or his great-grandmother a
quite feasible substitute for himself in the way of vicarious
atonement, it was necessary to remove them all. In North Borneo the
British authorities offered him on attractive terms an area of fertile
land adapted to his purposes. He went to look at it, found it in all
respects suitable, and resolved to carry out his plan of a Rizal family
refuge. [160]
From his happy country of those days not a soul could depart without
the sanction of the Government. To secure this for anybody connected
with him would be hard enough; even for an individual and a temporary
absence like Lucia’s it was hard. How much harder it would be to rescue
a whole tribe, and all so hated! Revenge was not so to be cheated, nor
the account of “Noli Me Tangere” left unsettled. If passports were to
be had at all, a personal explanation and appeal offered the best
chance. This he determined to attempt, if he could have some reasonable
promise of safety, being more inclined to go because thereby he might
again see his father and mother.
It was the Philippines in one of the recurrent spasms of reform that he
must now approach—sure sign in itself that a storm was brewing. A new
governor-general, one Eulogio Despujol, expert, as was afterward
proved, in the unctuous shaking of hands and the agile escape from
promises, had arrived with much éclat and promulgated a liberal
program. Rizal wrote to him, asking for permission and a safe-conduct
to visit Manila.
In reply he received through the Spanish consul at Hong-Kong a passport
and an unequivocal assurance of his safety in the Philippine Islands.
So equipped, he sailed with his sister Lucia, June 26, 1892. [161]
For this he has been much criticized on the ground that to return to
Manila was inconsistent with his former experiences there and virtual
deportation thence. If any one had been furnished with convincing
knowledge of the duplicity of the Philippine Government, surely it was
Rizal. By the same token, it was said, he knew well the murderous
attitude of the governing class toward him, and to go deliberately to
the thrusting of his head into those jaws was madness. These, again,
are but the strictures of ignorance. Rizal returned to the Philippines
under a compelling sense of duty. At whatsoever cost to himself he must
try to rescue his family from the tireless pursuit of the Interests he
had offended, and the North Borneo project was clearly the way to
achieve this. But it was a plan about which the Government would be
certain to object. If nothing else were handy, there was always the
argument that it would draw inhabitants of the Islands into an alien
territory, and this reasoning could be met only by face to face
encounter with the governor-general.
But Rizal was never deceived as to the nature of the trap into which he
was walking. Weighing all the chances he knew he was not likely to
emerge alive. Therefore, he prepared and left with a friend two
documents [162] to be made public if his enemies should succeed in
killing him.
The first of these was addressed “To the Filipinos” and constituted his
farewell to the people he had served so loyally, and a last confession
of his faith. Men still study it for other reasons than he imagined. It
is not only an expression of his professed creed but a revelation of
his soul and inmost thinkings on life and death. He shows here that in
his mind he had made no stranger of the great mystery but had looked
upon it and without misgivings. There is no bravado in his attitude
toward it; he is unafraid because he has come to the logical conclusion
that there is nothing about death to be afraid of. When he shall go and
how do not concern a man, but only that his death shall mean something
for the general cause. In this spirit he begins his letter: [163]
The step I am about to take is undoubtedly attended with peril, and
I need not say to you that I take it after long deliberation. I
understand that nearly all my friends are opposed to it; but I know
also that hardly any one else comprehends what is in my heart. I
cannot live on and see so many persons suffer injustice and
persecution on my account; I cannot bear longer the fact that my