Rizal Sesquicentennial broadening horizons Part II

CEBU, Philippines - Without the knowledge of his parents, Jose’s uncle Antonio Rivera was able to secure secretly a passage ticket for him to board the Salvadora for Spain. This was made possible through the help of his other relatives and his friend Chenggoy (Jose Cecilio). But his Jesuit teachers in Ateneo knew of his going abroad, having been consulted earlier. Armed with letters of introductions to important persons in Madrid, Jose asked his brother Paciano take him to Manila. Paciano also gave him P356 as pocket money. Jose boarded a boat for Singapore from where he took another boat, the French steamer Djemnah, for Europe.

After one and a half months’ travel, he arrived in Madrid where the liberal atmosphere greatly impressed him. At the Central University of Madrid, he enrolled in Medicine and in Philosophy and Letters. And as often as his time allowed, he went to the San Fernando School of Fine Arts to take art courses. He bought books and avidly read them and lost himself in hard work and study whenever loneliness weighed on him. Attacks of homesickness inspired him to write “You Ask Me for Verses.” He joined the Circulo Hispano-Filipino whose members were Filipino residents in Madrid and some Spanish-born students. He wrote El Amor Patrio wherein he expressed his love of country. In La Solidaridad, he published The Indolence of the Filipinos to refute the Spanish criticism that the Filipinos were lazy. He said that the colonial policy of divesting the Filipinos of the fruits of their toil, the climate that was conducive to the slow tempo of progress, the lack of incentives to work harder were some causes why the Filipinos were seemingly indolent. His other articles were Ingratitude, Without a Name, The Philippines in the Spanish Cortes, and The Philippines a Century Hence.

At the Ingles Restaurant on June 25, 1884, on the occasion of the Filipino celebration of the victory of Luna and Hidalgo in the Fine Arts Exposition in Madrid, he eloquently said that “Juan Luna and Felix R. Hidalgo are glories of Spain in the Philippines...that genius was a patrimony of all, cosmopolitan like space, like God.”

In 1884, he obtained his Licentiate in Medicine, followed by a Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters on June 19, 1885. By this time, he already started writing the Noli Me Tangere but he wanted further training in his profession. He left for Paris in 1885, to become an assistant in the clinic of Dr. Louis de Wecker, a famous ophthalmologist. In 1886, he was in Heidelberg, Germany, where he got acquainted with Doctors Otto Becker and Hans Mever. He attended lectures in psychology and history at the University of Heidelberg. In Leipzig, he translated Schiler’s William Tell to Tagalog and in Berlin, befriended Dr. Feodor Jagor, author of Travels in the Philippines.

The Noli was ready for publication when he was in Berlin but he did not have the money to print it. Luckily, Dr. Maximo Viola arrived and loaned him P300 to print the first 2,000 copies. He later paid his loan with the money he received later from his brother, Paciano. Dr. Viola noticing Rizal’s failing health invited him for a tour of Europe. In Leitmeritz, in Austrian Bohemia (Czechoslovakia), they met Ferdinand Blumentritt, professor of geography in the Municipal Anthenum, who became a life-long friend of Jose. By this time, after 11 months, he had mastered the German language.

The Noli me Tangere was circulated in Europe but was banned in the Philippines. Many copies were smuggled into the country and reached the homes of enlightened Filipinos. Rizal’s parents, relatives and friends advised him to stay out of the country because the Noli had made him a “marked man”. By this time, he was already an ophthalmologist and, feeling it was his moral obligation to save the sight of his mother, he decided to come home.

On July 23, 1887, he sailed from Europe aboard the SS Djemnah for Singapore. From there, he switched to SS Haiphong and arrived in Manila on August 5, 1887. In Calamba, he operated on the eyes of his mother and restored her sight. He also treated many people who sought his help. The common folk referred to him as Dr. Uleman (German) since he came from Germany. To wean his townspeople from gambling and vices, he established a gymnasium and introduced ball games, sipa, arnis and fencing. He explored the nearby fields, hills, and mountains and on Mt. Makiling hoisted a banner.

From Calamba, he was summoned by Governor General Emilio Terrero to Malacañang because of a complaint by the friars about the Noli. Rizal told the friars that he was only actually portraying the conditions in the Philippines. Liberal-minded Terrero, anxious of his safety, provided him a bodyguard, Lieutenant Jose Taviel de Andrade. Once more summoned to the Governor General’s palace, he was to hear from the authorities that his book Noli was heretical, impious and scandalous to the religious orders and injurious to the government and to the political order in the Philippines. Whereupon, Governor General Terrero wishing to protect him further, advised him to leave.

Source: Filipinos in History (Volume 1), a publication of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines. (FREEMAN)