For Me... J. P. Rizal! by Steve Lee

I choose a citizen like Dr. Jose Rizal as an ideal citizen of the Philippines. Born as José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, he was born the seventh child of the eleven children of Francisco Engracio Rizal Mercado y Alejandra II and Teodora "Donya Lolay" Morales Alonso Realonda y Quintos. His other siblings, namely: Saturnina (1850-1913), Paciano (1851-1930), Narcisa (1852-1939), Olympia (1855-1887), Lucia (1857-1919), Maria (1859-1945), José Protasio (1861-1896), Concepcion (1862-1865), Josefa (1865-1945), Trinidad (1868-1951) and Soledad (1870-1929). Rizal was a 6th-generation patrilineal descendant of Domingo Lam-co, a Chinese entrepreneur who sailed to the Philippines from Jinjiang, Quanzhou in the mid-17th century.[9] Lam-co married Inez de la Rosa, a Sangley native of Luzon. To free his descendants from the Sinophobic animosity of Spanish authorities, Lam-co changed the surname to the Spanish "Mercado" (market) to indicate their Chinese merchant roots. In 1849, Governor-General Narciso Claveria ordered all Filipino families to choose new surnames from a list of Spanish family names. José's father Francisco adopted the surname "Rizal" (originally Ricial, the green of young growth or green fields), which was suggested to him by a provincial governor, or as José had described him, "a friend of the family". However, the name change caused confusion in the business affairs of Francisco, most of which were begun under the old name. After a few years, he settled on "Rizal Mercado" as a compromise, but usually used the original "Mercado". Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, José dropped the last three surnames at the advice of his brother, Paciano Rizal Mercado, and the Rizal Mercado family, thus rendering his name as "José Protasio Rizal". Aside from Chinese ancestry, recent genealogical research has found that José had traces of Spanish and Japanese ancestry. His maternal great-great-grandfather (Teodora's great-grandfather) was Eugenio Ursua, a descendant of Japanese settlers, who married a Filipina named Benigna (surname unknown). They gave birth to Regina Ursua who married a Tagalog Sangley mestizo from Pangasinán named Atty. Manuel de Quintos, Teodora's grandfather. Their daughter Brígida de Quintos married a Spanish mestizo named Lorenzo Alberto Alonso, the father of Teodora. Austin Craig mentions Lakandula, Rajah of Tondo at the time of the Spanish incursion, also as an ancestor.

Rizal's first teacher was Justiniano Aquino Cruz of Biñan, Laguna (unofficial first teacher though, was his mother, Teodora Alonso). He was then sent to Manila and enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila. He graduated one of nine students in his class declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education at the Ateneo to obtain a land surveyor and assessor's degree, and at the same time at the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Arts and Letters where he studied Philosophy and Letters. Upon learning that his mother was going blind, he enrolled at the university's medical school to specialize in ophthalmology but did not complete the program claiming discrimination made by Spanish Dominican friars against Filipino students.[ Without his parents' knowledge and consent, but secretly supported by his brother Paciano, he traveled to Europe. He was in Madrid in May 1882 where he studied at the Universidad Central de Madrid and earned the degree, Licentiate in Medicine. His education continued at the University of Paris and the University of Heidelberg where he earned a second doctorate.
In Berlin he was inducted as a member of the Berlin Ethnological Society and the Berlin Anthropological Society under the patronage of pathologist Rudolf Virchow. In April 1887 he delivered an address in German before the group on the orthography and structure of the Tagalog language. He left Heidelberg a poem, "A las flores del Heidelberg," which is a prayer for the welfare of his native land and a hope for better relations between East and West.
At Heidelberg, the 25-year-old Rizal completed his eye specialization under the renowned Otto Becker.

In the hope of securing political and social reforms for his country and at the same time educate his countrymen, Rizal, the greatest apostle of Filipino nationalism, published, while in Europe, several works with highly nationalistic and revolutionary tendencies, published two books, namely Noli me Tangere and El filibusterismo. These writings angered both the Spaniards and the hispanicized Filipinos due to their insulting symbolism. They are highly critical of Spanish friars and the Church. Rizal's first critic was Ferdinand Blumentritt, a Czech professor and historian whose first reaction was of misgiving. Blumentritt was the grandson of the Imperial Treasurer at Vienna in former Austro-Hungarian Empire and a staunch defender of the Catholic faith. This did not dissuade him however from writing the preface of El Filibusterismo after he had translated Noli me Tangere into German.

Noli Me Tangere was finished in Berlin, Germany on March 29, 1887. Rizal had no money to publish his book and was trying to survive by eating one meal a day, consisting mainly of bread and coffee. When later he told his old friend Fernando Canon about this "dark period", he said: "I did not believe that Noli would ever be published. I was in Berlin, heartbroken, weakened, and discouraged from hunger and deprivation. I was on the point of throwing my work into the fire as a thing accursed and fit only to die; "Man's extremity," says an ancient proverb "is God's opportunity." A telegram came from Maximo Viola, a rich young Filipino whom Rizal had known in Madrid, saying he was on his way to visit Berlin. "It revived me," said Rizal. "It gave me new hope. I went to the station to receive him and spoke to him about my work. He said he might be able to help me. I reflected and then decided to shorten the book, and eliminated whole chapters...but these will have a place in the continuation...I plan to publish seven volumes about Philippine conditions." With funds provided by Viola, Noli was printed a few weeks later. One of the first copies was sent to Blumentritt. In the accompanying letter, Rizal said: "I have not wept over our misfortunes, but rather laughed at them. No one would want to read a book full of tears...The incidents which I have related are all true and have actually occurred. I can prove this statement. Bound copies were boxed and sent to some friends in Barcelona and Madrid. A clever ruse was employed to get them into the Philippines disguised as merchandise.

El Filibusterismo is the sequel to Noli and was also written in Spanish. Rizal began the work in October 1887 while practicing medicine in Calamba. In London (1888), he made several changes to the plot and revised a number of chapters. Rizal continued to work on his manuscript while in Paris, Madrid, and Brussels, finally completing it on March 29, 1891 in Biarritz. It was published the same year in Ghent. A compatriot, Valentin Ventura, learned of Rizal’s predicament and offered him financial assistance. Even then Rizal was forced to shorten the novel quite drastically, leaving only thirty eight out of the sixty four chapters of the original. Inspired by what the word filibustero connotes in relation to the circumstances in his time, and his spirits dampened by the execution of the three priests, Rizal aptly titled the second part of the Noli, El filibusterismo. To honor the trio, he dedicated the book to them: "To the memory of the priests, Don Mariano Gomez (85 years old), Don Jose Burgos (30 years old), and Don Jacinto Zamora (35 years old) who were executed in the Bagumbayan Field on the 28th of February, 1872." As Blumentritt had warned, these led to Rizal's prosecution as the inciter of revolution and eventually, to a military trial and execution. The intended consequence of teaching the natives where they stood brought about an adverse reaction as the Philippine Revolution of 1896 took off thereafter.

As the leader of the reform movement of Filipino students in Spain, he contributed essays, allegories, poems, and editorials to the Spanish newspaper La Solidaridad in Barcelona under the pen names Dimasalang and Laong Laan. His writings center on liberal and progressive ideas and are an appeal for equal rights for Filipinos. He shared the same sentiments with members of the movement: that the Philippines is battling, in Rizal's own words, "a double-faced Goliath--corrupt friars and bad government". His real interest, however, was in writing historical articles based on ancient Spanish sources showing the Filipinos the level of their culture at the time of the Spanish contact. Eventually, he begun to publish under his own name, and also urged del Pilar to do the same to show the Spaniards that they were not afraid to defend their positions.
In July 1892, Rizal was arrested days after he founded La Liga Filipina and deported to Dapitan in the province of Zamboanga, a peninsula of Mindanao.[25] He was implicated in the simmering rebellion because of his association with Bonifacio and his men who founded the militant Katipunan. In Dapitan he supervised the building of a small hospital and a water supply system, and in the house where he lived, opened a small school where boys were taught and engaged in farming and horticulture, including the planting of abaca in the thousands.

By 1896, the rebellion fomented by the Katipunan, a militant secret society, had become a full blown revolution, proving to be a nationwide uprising and leading to the first proclamation of a democratic republic in Asia. To dissociate himself, Rizal volunteered and was given leave by the Spanish Governor General Ramon Blanco to serve in Cuba to minister to victims of yellow fever. Blanco later was to present his sash and sword to the Rizal family as an apology.

Before he left Dapitan, he issued a manifesto disavowing the revolution and declaring that the education of Filipinos and their achievement of a national identity were prerequisites to freedom.

Rizal was arrested en route, imprisoned in Barcelona, and sent back to Manila to stand trial. He was implicated in the revolution through his association with members of the Katipunan and was to be tried before a court-martial for rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy. During the entire passage, he was unchained; no Spaniard laid a hand on him, and had many opportunities to escape but refused to do so. Rizal was convicted on all three charges and sentenced to death. Governor General Blanco, who was sympathetic to Rizal, had been forced out of office, and the friars had placed General Camilo de Polavieja in his stead, sealing Rizal's fate.

Moments before his execution by a firing squad of Filipino native infantry of the Spanish Army, backed by an insurance force of Spanish troops, the Spanish surgeon general requested to take his pulse; it was normal. Aware of this, the Spanish sergeant in charge of the backup force hushed his men to silence when they began raising '¡vivas!' with the partisan crowd. His last words were those of Jesus Christ: "consummatum est",--it is finished. He was secretly buried in Paco Cemetery in Manila with no identification on his grave. His sister Narcisa toured all possible gravesites and found freshly turned earth at the cemetery with civil guards posted at the gate. Assuming this could be the most likely spot, there being ever no ground burials there, she made a gift to the caretaker to mark the site "RPJ", Rizal's initials in reverse. Thus rests Rizal, a writer, a peacekeeper, a beloved son, a wanted brother, a patriotic friend not only to the Filipinos, but to all of human kind.

Now I chose Dr. Jose Rizal as my model citizen example because he was a man who, without a doubt, displayed his Filipino citizenship by attempting to liberalize his country by using a non-violent movement. He not only promoted peace but he also sought to enlighten the youth by means of educating these young people into realizing the current Philippine situation and how to fix it. This to me shows that Dr. Jose Rizal is a citizen exemplar without a shadow of a doubt

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Rizal