Lesson One

Rizal’s Life: Family, Childhood and Early Education

By the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

examine about Rizal’s family, childhood, and early education;
describe the efforts, diligence and determination of Rizal to achieve excellence in
his early education;
compare and contrast Rizal’s family and the family of the present; and
identify the people and events that influence Rizal’s early life.
VOCABULARY

Chinese mestizo – a person of mixed Chinese and Filipino ancestry

principalia – the ruling and usually educated and upper class in Spanish colonial
Philippines
Bachiller en Artes – Bachelor of Arts degree bestowed by colleges or universities
Spanish Cortes – Spain’s law making or legislative body
Ilustrado – a term which literally means “enlighted ones” or the Filipinos educated in
Europe
Masonry – fraternal organization which strives for moral betterment
Pedagogical Activities:
1. Multi-Media Instruction
1.1 Published module for Lesson 1 in canvas
1.2 Power Point Presentation on Module 2: Lesson 1
2. Discussion/Lecture - Exchange of opinions and ideas on people and events
that influenced Rizal’s life, growth as a propagandist and identifying the factors
that led to his execution.

Explore

A biography narrates how a person has lived during a certain period of time. It
presents not only the life of an individual and how he/she has influenced the society but
also how an individual and his/her ideas have been shaped by historical events. Jose
Rizal lived in the nineteenth century, a period in Philippine history when changes in
public consciousness were already being felt and progressive ideas were being
realized. Studying Rizal’s biography, therefore, will lead to a better understanding of
how Rizal devoted his life in shaping the Filipino character.

LESSON PROPER

Rizal’s Family
Jose P. Rizal was born on June 19, 1861 in the town of Calamba, province of
Laguna. Calamba, then a town with around three to four thousand inhabitants, is
located at 54 kilometers south of Manila. It is found in the heart of a region known for its
agricultural prosperity and is among the major producers of sugar and rice, with an
abundant variety of tropical fruits. On the southern part of the town lies the majestic
Mount Makiling, and on the other side is the lake called Laguna de Bay. The wonders of
creation that surrounded Rizal made him love nature from an early age. His student
memoirs show how his love of nature influenced his appreciation of the arts and
sciences (Coates, 1992).
Francisco Mercado, the father of Rizal was a wealthy farmer who leased lands
from the Dominican friars. Francisco’s earliest ancestors were Siang-co and Zun-nio,
who later gave birth to Domingo Lam-co (Rizal’s great grandfather), the family's paternal
ascendant who was a full-blooded Chinese who came to the Philippines from Amoy,
China in the closing years of the 17th century. He was baptized in Binondo (adopting
the name “Domingo”) in 1697 and married a Chinese half-breed by the name of Ines de
la Rosa of a known entrepreneurial family in Binondo and later settled in the estate of
San Isidro Labrador owned by the Dominicans. In 1731, they had a son whom they
named Francisco Mercado. The surname “Mercado,” which means “market,” was a
common surname adopted by many Chinese merchants at that time (Reyno, 2012).
Francisco Mercado (1818-1898), who was the youngest of 13 offspring’s of Juan
and Cirila Mercado was born in Biñan, Laguna on April 18, 1818. Being in a privileged
family, he had a good education that started in a Latin school in Biñan. Afterwards, he
attended the College of San Jose in Manila. Following Governor Narciso Claveria’s
decree in 1849 which ordered the Filipinos to adopt Spanish surnames, Francisco
Engracio Mercado added the surname “Rizal” from the word “ricial” meaning “green
field” as he later settled in the town of Calamba as a farmer growing sugar cane, rice,
and indigo. He died in Manila in 1898.
Teodora Alonso (1826-1911), mother of Jose Rizal, was the second child of
Lorenzo Alonso and Brijida de Quintos, one of the wealthiest family in Manila. She was
born on November 8, 1826 and was educated at the Colegio de Santa Rosa. About his
mother, Jose Rizal says, "My mother is a woman of more than ordinary culture; she
knows literature and speaks Spanish better than I. She corrected my poems and gave
me good advice when I was studying rhetoric. She is a mathematician and has read
many books" (Letter to Blumentritt, November 8, 1888). She died at the age of 85 on
August 16, 1911 in Manila.
Because of Francisco and Teodora’s industry and hard work, their family became
a prominent member of the principalia class in the town of Calamba. Their house was
among the first concrete houses to be built in the town.
 Jose Protacio Rizal was the seventh child and the second son in a family of
eleven children. His siblings were the following:
1. Saturnina (b.1850-d.1913), later married to Manuel T. Hidalgo of Tanauan,
Batangas;
2. Paciano (b.1851-d.1930), during the Philippine Revolution, Paciano became a
revolutionary general and retired to farming after the conflict. Though he was
thought to be a bachelor during his life, he actually had his own family;
3. Narcisa (b.1852-d.1939), married to Antonio Lopez, a teacher from Morong,
Rizal;
4. Olimpia (b.1855-d.1887), married to Silvestre Ubaldo, a telegraph operator
from Manila;
5. Lucia (b.1857-d.1919), married to Mariano Herbosa of Calamba;
6. Maria (b.1858-d.1945), married to Daniel Faustino Cruz of Biñan, Laguna;
7. Jose (b.1861-d.1896), married to Josephine Bracken of Hongkong;
8. Concepcion (b.1862-d.1865), died of a disease at the age of 3;
9. Josefa (b.1865-d.1945), head of the women chapter of the Katipunan, died
unmarried;
10. Trinidad (b.1868-d.1951), a member of the Katipunan, unmarried; and
11. Soledad (b.1870-d.1929), married to Pantaleon Quintero of Calamba.
Rizal was affectionate to all his siblings. However, his relation with his only brother,
Paciano, was more than that of an older brother. Paciano became Rizal’s second father.
Rizal highly respected him and valued all his advice. It was Paciano who accompanied
Rizal when he first went to school in Biñan. It was also him who convinced Rizal to
pursue his studies in Europe. Like Rizal, Paciano had his college education in Manila
but later decided to join the Katipunan and fight for independence. After the revolution,
Paciano retired to his home in Los Baños and led a quiet life until his death in 1930.
At the time of Rizal’s birth, the Philippines was governed by Governor Jose
Lemery, after whom the town of Lemery, Batangas was name after. It was a time of
relative peace as the Moro raids on Luzon has stopped as the Spaniards had acquired
new steamships in 1848 to defeat the fastmoving vintas and caracoas. Moro power was
on the wane as the capital of the Sulu sultanate fell to the hands of the Spanish force
under Governor General Antonio Urbiztondo in 1851.
In Spain, on the other hand, discontent was growing under the monarch, Queen
Isabella II who ruled in 1833. The empire was mismanaged by her decadent rule and by
the year 1868 she was overthrown by her generals Francisco Serrano and Juan Prim
and was exiled to France.
The Filipino middle class meanwhile continued to grow owing to opportunities in
agriculture and trade. Children from the middle class families sought higher education in
the colonies colleges and became part of its intellectual citizens called ilustrados. The
word ilustrados came from the Spanish word ilustrar which means “to be enlightened.”
These enlightened ones included European trained students who believed in using
reason rathr than blind faith in searching the truth, as well as members of the
freemasonry who were seen as a threat to the domination of the Church in the
Philippines.
Childhood and Early Education
Rizal had good memories of childhood in Calamba. As a family, they prayed
together during the Angelus. There are times when they would stay in the garden
exchanging stories. It was in this garden where he learned to appreciate nature. Rizal’s
childhood was full of love and care shown to him by his parents and siblings. Due to his
poor health Rizal had a personal servant who, after the daily Angelus, would tell him
legends and fairy tales. These stories made him become interested in myths and
folklores.
As a young boy, Rizal demonstrated intelligence and learned easily. His first
teacher was Doña Teodora who taught him how to pray. He was only three years old
when he learned the alphabet. At a very young age, he already showed a great interest
in reading books. He enjoyed staying in their library at home with his mother.
Eventually, Doña Teodora would notice Rizal’s skill in poetry. She would ask him to
write verses. Later, she felt the need for a private tutor for the young Rizal.
Just like the other children from the principalia class, Rizal experienced
education under private tutors. His private tutor was Maestro Celestino followed by
Maestro Lucas Padua. But it was Leon Monroy, a former classmate of Rizal’s father,
who became his third tutor, honed his skills in basic Latin, reading, and writing. This old
teacher lived at the Rizal home and instructed Jose in Spanish and Latin. Unfortunately,
he did not lived long. He died five months later. After Monroy’s death, the hero’s parents
decided to send their gifted son to a private school in Biñan. This home education from
private tutors prepared Rizal to formal schooling which he first experienced in Biñan.
Aside from his immediate family, Rizal’s three uncles added to Rizal’s inspiration.
Gregorio Alberto was a lover of books. He taught him to work hard, to think for himself
and observe life keenly. His uncle Jose who was educated in Calcutta, India
encouraged him to sketch, paint and sculpture, while his uncle Manuel looked after his
nephew’s physical development. He taught Rizal swimming, fencing, wrestling, and
other sports.
The foremost talent manifested best by Rizal was poetry. The first poem he wrote
when he was 8 years old was entitled Sa Aking mga Kabata (To my Fellow Children). It
was a praise to the native language of the Tagalogs which became the basis of the
coountry’s national language. In the same poem he appealed to the readers to love their
native tongue. Through this poem Rizal manifested a nationalistic inclination through the
appreciation of the country’s culture and heritage. The poem read:
Sa Aking mga Kabata
Kapagka ang baya’y sadyang umiibig
Sa kanyang salitang kaloob ng langit
Sanlang Kalayaan nasa ring masapit
Katulad ng ibong nasa himpapawid

Pagka’t ang salita’y isang kahatulan

Sa bayan, sa nayo’t mga kaharian
At ang isang tao’y katulad, kabagay
Ng alin mang likha noong Kalayaan.

Ang hindi magmahal sa kanyang salita

Mahigit sa hayop at malansang isda
Kaya ang marapat pagyaming kusa
Na tulad sa inang tunay na nagpala.

Ang wikang Tagalog tulad din sa Latin,

Sa Ingles, Kastila, at salitang anghel,
Sapagkat ang Poong maalam tumingin
Ang siyang naggawad, nagbigay sa atin.

Ang salita nati’y tulad din sa iba

Na may alfabeto at sariling letra,
Na kaya nawala’y dinatnan ng sigwa
Ang lunday sa lawa noong dakong una.

At the age of nine, Rizal left Calamba with his brother to study in Biñan. After
one-and-a-half hour of travel, they reached the town on board a carromata. They went
to the house of their aunt where Rizal stayed for more than a year. Before leaving his
brother, Paciano introduced Rizal to the teacher, Justiniano Aquino Cruz, who was also
Paciano’s former teacher. The school was also the house of his teacher. Rizal
described him as a tall, thin, long-necked man with a body slightly bent forward. He
wore a shirt woven by the women of Batangas and as a teacher he was quick to
reprimand his students. He was quick to discipline them for any infractions with a short
thin stick, especially if the wrong answer is given. This was the old system of education
at the time. The infliction of pain was made to ensure that the student remembers the
lesson. This was a severity to Jose’s young mind. According to him, a day did not pass
that he did not receive a few strokes from his teacher’s short stick.
Immediately after he was assigned a seat in the classroom, his teacher asked
him if he knew Spanish and Latin. His answer to both questions was “a little, Sir,” which
elicited laughter from his fellow students. Later the young frail boy became the object of
bullying from his classmates especially from Pedro, the son of the schoolmaster. It
came to a point of a brawl. Later learning the wrestling skills he learned from his uncles,
Jose eventually defeated the class bully. Jose never backed down from a fight. At times,
he was defeated by stronger students, and on one time he nearly cracked his skull after
an arm-wrestling with his classmate named Pedro Lakundanan.
The class, as described by Rizal (P. Jacinto, 1879), was in a nipa house, about
thirty meters away from his aunt’s house. Everyday, Rizal would wake up early and
either hear mass at four o’çlock in the morning or study his lesson first and go to mass
after. After returning home, he would take breakfast and go to class from which he
would come out at ten o’clock. He would then again go to school at two o’clock and
come out at five. He would pray with his cousins at six and then study for a while before
going to sleep.
In Biñan, he excelled in Latin, Spanish and other subjects. He also had painting
lessons under Maestro Cruz’ father-in-law, Juancho, an old painter. Rizal’s leisure hours
were mostly spent in Juancho’s studio where he was given free lessons in painting and
drawing. He was also very popular, that some of his classmates spread rumors to
discredit him. Many times he was punished for his alleged wrongdoings. At the end of
his schooling, Maestro Justiniano recommended that Jose should be sent to Manila. In
December 1871, he bade farewell to this school and his teacher. He also collected
pebbles from the river as souvenirs, knowing that he will never return to Biñan. After the
Christmas of that year Don Francisco decided to send Jose to Manila to continue his
studies. Rizal returned to Calamba after one-and-a-half year of schooling in Biñan. He
went home on board the steamship Talim and was accompanied by Arturo Camps, a
Frenchman and friend of his father (P. Jacinto, 1879).
A Taste of Injustice
In June 1871, an incident in the family forever changed Rizal’s view of Filipino
society. Doña Teodora was accused as an accomplice of Jose Alberto of trying to
poison the latter’s wife. Don Jose was a rich landowner who went on a trip to Europe
and when he returned he found his household in disarray and that his wife was
committing adultery as she was found to be living with another man.
Doña Teodora tried to mediate between the feuding spouses. Don Jose’s wife
connived with the alferez or the police chief of Calamba to have Don Jose and Doña
Teodora arrested for trying to poison her. Jose Rizal said that the alferez and his men
were so brutal in placing his mother under arrest. According to him the official had a
grudge against his family because he did not provide fodder for his horse for a time. The
alferez had forgotten at one time he was a guest in their house and was treated as a
friend of the family.
 Rizal had witnessed official injustice before, having seen as a young boy ordinary
folks being whipped just for not saluting to the civil guard. He never thought that
injustice could be so severe as to deprive his family a mother during the early years of
his life. He developed the perspective that there is injustice in this world and this could
be done by people who should have been one’s friends. In his writings about his life,
Rizal wrote that he developed a distrust of people especially when it comes to people in
power.
Another incident which carved an indelible mark on Rizal’s mind was the
execution of the Filipino secular priests Fathers Mariano Gomes, Jose Burgos, and
Jacinto Zamora. The three priests were implicated in the Cavity Mutiny of January 20,
1872. The mutiny began from the discontent of the workers in the Cavite arsenal. The
new government of Governor General Rafael de Izquierdo revoked their exemption from
compulsory community labor and increased tax deduction from their monthly pay. The
workers were joined by the soldiers of the arsenal led by a Sergeant Lamadrid. It was
thought that they be joined by soldiers in Manila who would fire rockets to signal their
joining the insurrection. The ensuing mutiny was quelled by loyal forces.
The Cavity mutiny provided the pretext for the conservatives to eliminate the
Filipino Liberals. Spanish forces arrested several known liberals and Filipino secular
priests including Toribio H. del Pilar the brother of the propagandist Marcelo H. del Pilar.
Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora were identified by a false witness named
Francisco Zaldua, who pointed out that the three priests were indeed out to lead a
government that would overthrow the Spaniards and install Father Burgos as the future
leader of the Philippines. Despite the protests and insufficient evidence, the three
priests were garroted at Bagumbayan on February 17, 1872. The other accused were
deported to Guam in the Marianas and were never allowed to return as long Spain ruled
the Philippines.
At that time Rizal was a young boy of 11 years. When he asked why the three
secular priests were executed, he was told to hush up as the Spaniards had become
suspicious about anyone wishing to know about what happened in 1872. The
GOMBURZA execution awakened the nationalism of the Filipinos, yet at the same time,
they became aware of the fact that anyone or anything threatening Spanish superiority
in the country could be severely dealt with. Filipinos with liberal tendencies could be
threatened with reprisals. The Rizal family had a special relationship with one of the
priests, as Father Burgos was a professor and friend of Paciano. Their link with the
martyred priests was treated with suspicion by authorities. Paciano quit college after the
execution and related the story of their martyrdom to his younger brother.
Several years later, Jose Rizal wrote about Burgos: “He awakened my intellect
and made me understand goodness and justice. His farewell words I will always
remember – I have tried to pass on to you what I received from my teachers. Do the
same for those who come after you.” Jose dedicated his second novel El Filibusterismo
to the memory of the GOMBURZA priests, offering it as “a tardy wreath on your
unknown tombs!”

Evaluate

Activity 1. Briefly answer the following:

1. Describe the background of Rizal’s ancestry that might have contributed to his
life and early education.
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2. Who were the important persons that influenced Rizal in his intellectual pursuits?
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3. Give a comment on how education works or being operated during Rizal’s
elementary years.
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4. Narrate the incident when Doña Teodora was arrested.
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Activity 2. Creating an Infographic of Rizal’s Life
Divide yourselves into groups of 5. As a group, pick one aspect of Rizal’s life
(e.g., family, early education, etc.). Research further on this aspect of Rizal’s life and
create an infographic the best way you can. Be creative in your design and
presentation.
This activity will serve as one of your major outputs for the midterm period.
Submit the task as a document file on canvas or by my 2nd e-mail
(maletin10.gened@gmail.com) on or before October 31, 2020, at 11:00 PM.
Failure to comply at the given time will mean a deduction of 5 points.
Please be guided by the rubric given below:

CREATION OF INFOGRAPHIC RUBRIC

Criteria 3 2 1
Use of class time Used class time well Used some of the Did not use the
to get the project class time to get class time to get
done. the project done. the project done.
Relevance of All graphics are Some of the None of the
graphics related to the topic, graphics are related graphics are
thus making the topic to the topic. related to the
easy to understand. topic.
Accuracy of At least 5 accurate At least 3 accurate No accurate facts
content facts are displayed facts are displayed are displayed on
on the infographic. on the infographic. the infographic.
Attractiveness The infographic is The infographic is The infographic is
attractive in its attractive but incredibly messy
design, layout, and slightly messy. and poorly
colors used. designed.
Choice of words The choice of words The choice of The choice of
and grammar is appropriate and words is slightly words is
there are no appropriate and inappropriate and
grammatical errors. there are a few there are many
grammatical errors. grammatical
errors.
References:
Adanza, Estela G. and Libert A. Acibo. Jose P. Rizal: Ang kanyang buhay, ginawa at
naging bahagi sa Himagsikang Pilipino. Manila: Rex Book Store, 2002.
Obias, Rhodalyn, Mallari, Aaron and Janet Estella. The Life and Works of Rizal. Quezon
City: C & E Publishing, 2018.
http://joserizal.ph/ed01.html
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/dr-jos-protasio-rizal-mercado-y-alonso-
2000.php