Reader Oscar M. Buenconsejo, 94-year-old World War II veteran, of Sta. Cruz, Manila, asks: “Our national hero’s father was Francisco Mercado and mother was Teodora Alonzo, so why was he named Jose Protacio Rizal?”
In answer I must cite history scholars. His complete name was Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda. The first and second names came from the Catholic calendar: June 19, Rizal’s birth date, is the feast day of Saints Jose and Protacio. He had to drop the surname Mercado for security reasons.
National Artist Nick Joaquin wrote in “Manila, My Manila: A History for the Young,” 1990: “To the Jesuits’ Ateneo came, in June of 1872, an eleven-year-old Laguna boy, very small for his age, and frail-looking. The surname he gave the Ateneo was not the surname his family used. The Mercados of Calamba had decided that their son Jose was to use the surname Rizal. His elder brother, Paciano Mercado, had been involved with the notorious Father Burgos. So his parents wanted the little Jose freed from the perils associated with the name Mercado.”
In “Jose Rizal, Filipino Doctor and Patriot,” published by Manuel Morato in 1981, is this account by Spanish researcher Jose Baron Fernandez, translated by Lilia Hidalgo-Laurel, PhD: “The name of Rizal’s mother was Teodora Alonso Quintos, and according to some notes of Rizal’s brother Paciano, ‘the birth certificate of Jose bears the name Realonda because there was a time when many Filipinos had the custom of adding the name of the godmother or godfather to the child’s name. Thus, when his mother Teodora was baptized, the name Realonda (her godmother’s), was added to her name, and later to Rizal’s.’ Rizal himself gave, in a letter to Blumentritt, the complete name of his mother: Teodora Alonso Quintos Realonda. As regards the family name, this was a matter of selection, in conformity with the order in force about the middle of the 19th century, to the effect that the natives choose the family name they wished from a list provided for this purpose. Rizal’s father, however, ignored these orders and reapplied for the name Rizal. The petition was rejected by the Spanish authorities, but despite this, the Mercado family used the name Rizal as a second family name. Jose was the first to use the family name ‘Rizal’ in 1872 when he went to Manila to enroll at the Ateneo Municipal, directed by the Jesuits. There was a good reason for the change. Only six months had elapsed since the Cavite Mutiny of 1872. This event was to have a profound effect on the ideological genesis of Jose, despite the fact that he was only 11 years old at the time. His brother Paciano had contacts with Father Burgos, who was executed as a consequence of the uprisings. The name Mercado thus became subject to suspicion. Hence, the adoption of Rizal as the first family name.”
Secretary of Education Alejandro Roces, in his Philippine STAR column “Roses and Thorns,” wrote on June 19, 2010: “José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was born on June 19, 1861 to Francisco Mercado Rizal y Alejandro and Teodora Alonzo y Quintos. He was born a small child, a physical stature for which he was known his entire life. His sisters would say: ‘Jose was a very small child.’ The house he grew up in was well situated in Calamba; right next to the church at the edge of the plaza. His family’s prosperity was based in agriculture; from the Dominican hacienda they would lease land. Rizal was of mixed descent. His Chinese immigrant ancestor added the name Mercado, with the name ‘Rizal’ was of a then more recent vintage. In 1849 Governor-General Narciso Claveria ordered that all Filipinos select a surname from a list. Don Francisco chose the name, ‘Rizal’. The original form was Ricial, which means ‘growing again’ and referred to new growth in the fields. However, they still used Mercado. Why did our hero choose Rizal when he went to school? From ‘Rizal In Excelsis’ by Felice Sta. Maria: ‘Paciano, Pepe’s brother had good reason for his recommendation. He stopped schooling at San Jose College because his housemate, Father Jose Burgos, was executed as a subversive in February… He did not want Pepe’s future jeopardized by his relation to a Mercado, a suspected liberal.’ Paciano though would become a central figure in his younger brother’s life, including providing financial and moral support while Rizal was in Europe. And it was on the foundation that nationalists like Father Burgos and others created that Rizal would build his new vision of the Philippines.”
Note: “s” and “z” were interchangeable, as in Alonso and Alonzo; as were “c” and “s” in Protacio and Protasio.
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