Who was Jose P. Rizal?
Jose Rizal was a voice. He was the voice behind a revolution
Rizal was to the Philippines what Thomas Paine was to America.
Jose Rizal was also the voice of reason. He was to southeast
Asia, what Cicero and Ovid were to Rome.
Jose Rizal was a multitalented man. Aside from being a skilled
surgeon and eloquent writer, Rizal also mastered 22 languages.
Everything from Arabic, to Chinese, to Greek, to Latin, to English,
to Japanese, and his native Tagalog.
Rizal was also an educator, a poet, a sculptor, a physician, an
architect, a physician, a novelist, a musician, a historian, a farmer
an economist, a philosopher, a cartoonist, a theologian, a reformist.
He is to this day considered the pride of the Malay race.
Jose Rizal was born in June 19, 1896 in Laguan. He is considered
a Filipino national hero.
He traveled abroad and studied in America, Asia and Europe.
Rizal studied medicine and philosophy and all those fields listed
above. His exposure to liberal ideas made him an opponent to the
Spanish rule in the Philippines.
In 1891, Rizal finished his magnum opus, Noli Me Tangere. This
novel exposed the abuses that the Filipinos endured beneath
Spanish rule.
This irked the Spanish, yet he continued to speak out against them,
writing El Filibusterismo.
In 1896, when revolution broke out, Rizal was arrested. He was
held at Fort Bonifacio, where he was put under a military court
charged with treason and rebellion. Rizal was sentenced to death
On the march from his cell to the execution site, Rizal kept his head
down and his steps small. When the guns fired, Rizal turned
around so he could face death head on.
His mayrtdom was a much needed spark in the fight for
independence. To this day Jose Rizal is considered a patriot and
an honored national hero