1. Achievements of
Jose rizal
Rizal attended the Ateneo De Manila University, earning a
Bachelors of Arts. He enrolled in Medicine and Philosophy and
Letters at the University of Santo Thomas and then traveled
alone to Madrid, Spain where he continued his studies at the
Universidad Central de Madrid, earning the degree of Licentiate
in Medicine. He attended the University of Paris and earned a
second doctorate at the University of Heidelberg, Rizal was a
polyglot conversant in at least ten languages. He was a prolific
poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most
famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo. these are social commentaries on the Philippines
that formed the nucleus of literature that inspired dissent
among peaceful reformists and spurred the militancy of armed
revolutionaries against the Spanish colonial authorities.
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6. Rizal’s life
In full known as Jose Rizal y Mercado, or Jose Rizal y Alonzo. Born on June 19,
1861 and died on December 30, 1896 in Manila. Patriot, physician, and man of
letters whose life and literary works were an inspiration to the literary works were
an inspiration to the Philippine nationalist movement.
Rizal was the son of a prosperous landowner and sugar planter of Chinese-Filipino
descent on the island of Luzon; his mother, Teodora Alonso, one of the most
highly educated women in the Philippines, exerted a powerful influence on his
intellectual development. Educated at Ateneo de Manila and the University of
Santo Tomas in Manila, in 1882 he went overseas to study medicine and liberal
arts at the University of Madrid. A brilliant student, he soon became the leader of
the small community of Filipino students in Spain and passionately committed
himself to the reform of Spanish rule in his home country. He never
advocated Philippine independence. The chief enemy of reform, in his eyes, was
not Spain, which was going through a profound revolution, but the Franciscan,
Augustinian, and Dominican friars, who held the country in political and economic
paralysis.
7. Rizal continued his medical studies in Paris and Heidelberg; in 1887 he wrote his first
novel, Noli me tangere (“Touch Me Not”), a passionate exposure of the evils of the friars rule,
comparable in its impact to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s exposure of Negro suppression in the
United States, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A sequel, El Filibusterismo (1891, “Filibusterism”)
established his reputation as the leading spokesman of the Philippine reform
movement. In1890 he wrote an edition of Antonio Morgas’ Succesos de las Islas Filipinas,
which showed that the native people of the Philippines had a long history before the coming
of the Spaniards. He became the leader of the Propaganda Movement, contributing
numerous articles to its newspaper, La Solidaridad, published in Barcelona. Rizal’s political
program, as expressed in the columns of the newspaper, included integration of the
Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament), the
replacement of the Spanish friars by native Philippine priests, freedom of assembly and
expression, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law.
Against the advice of his parents and friends, Rizal returned to the Philippines in 1892. When
he founded a nonviolent reform society, the Liga Filipina, in Manila, the Spanish arrested and
deported him to Dapitan in northwest Mindanao. He remained in exile for four years, doing
scientific research and founding a school and hospital. In 1896, however, an insurrection led
by the nationalist secret society, the Katipunan, broke out; although he had no connections
with that organization or any part in the revolt, he was arrested and tried for sedition by the
military. Found guilty, he was publicly executed by a firing squad in Manila. His martyrdom
convinced Filipinos from Spain. On the eve of his execution, while confined in Ft. Santiago,
Rizal wrote Ultimo Adios (“The Last Farewell”), a masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse.
