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1. THE LOVERS OF
RIZAL

2. RIZAL AND ROMANCE
• Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines,
great propagandist, novelist, was also known to
very good in courting women, he met quite a lot
of women in his years. Known to be a smooth
talker, Rizal charmed these women with his
intelligence, charisma and wit.
• Some label him a womanizer, in my opinion
though, he had respect with all the women that he
had relationships with and he never had a
relationship with two women at the same time.

3. A short background of the
women he encountered
in his short but eventful
life.

4. SEGUNDA KATIGBAK
• She would be Rizal’s first infatuation, unfortunately she
was already engaged to another man.
• They first met in a party in Rizal’s grandmother’s house
and to Rizal, it was love at first sight. Rizal, knew from
the very beginning that their story would not have a
happy ending for she was already engaged to someone.

5. LEONOR VALENZUELA
• Rizal’s next object of affection was a woman named
Leonor Valenzuela, a tall girl of regal bearing. She was
Rizal’s neighbor, regularly visiting her house during
social gatherings. Rizal courted her with love notes
written with invisible ink, which could only be read by
heating the note over a candle.
• After Rizal left for Europe however, their romance ended
and she accepted suitors and attended social parties.

6. LEONOR RIVERA
• Being Rizal’s sweetheart for 11 years, Leonor Rivera was
considered a reason as to why Rizal was prevented from
falling in love with other women in his travels. She was
also known to be the inspiration for one of Noli Me
Tangere’s characters, Maria Clara.
• Leonor’s Mother was against their relationship, often
hiding the letters that Rizal sends to her. Their exchange
of letters lasted 6 years, being “lovers by correspondence.

7. • After some time, she stopped receiving letters from Rizal. She
was not aware that her mother bribed two post office clerks to
give her all the letters and gifts from Rizal.
• Leonor was forced by her mother to marry Henry Kipping, a
young English engineer. He was responsible for the completion
of the railroad from Bayambang to the Ferrocarril de Manila
(railroad from Manila-Dagupan).
• Rizal's letters to Rivera were burned and the ashes were kept
inside a box covered with her dress with the letters “J” and “L”
embroidered on it.

8. CONSUELO ORTIGA
• Consuelo Ortiga y Rey, the prettier of Don Pablo Ortiga’s
daughters, fell in love with him. He dedicated to her A la
Senorita C.O. y R., which became one of his best poems.
• The Ortiga's residence in Madrid was frequented by Rizal
and his compatriots. He probably fell in love with her and
Consuelo apparently asked him for romantic verses.
• He suddenly backed out before the relationship turned
into a serious romance, because he wanted to remain
loyal to Leonor Rivera and he did not want to destroy hid
friendship with Eduardo de Lete who was madly in love
with Consuelo.

9. O SEI SAN/SEIKO USUI
• She was the daughter of a Japanese samurai. Rizal met
her when she was 23 years old, serving as his interpreter
during his stay in Japan. She taught him Japanese culture,
language and art.
• Charmed by her beauty, elegance and intelligence, Rizal
was almost tempted to stay in Japan, the Spanish
Legation even offered him a lucrative job, but alas his
mission was of utmost importance to him.
• When Rizal left for the United States, he told her in a
note that he had spent a happy golden month with her and
that he do not know if he can have another.

10. GERTRUDE BECKETT
• An English girl, she was the daughter of Rizal’s landlord,
Charles Beckett. After his brief stays in Japan and the United
Sates, Rizal chose to live in London, the capital of the United
Kingdom. The eldest of three sisters, she was described as a
curvy lady with cheerful blue eyes, brown hair, rosy cheeks and
thin lips.
• Her affection for Rizal was clear, she spent more time assisting
him than their other boarders and showered him with all her
attention. Ultimately though, Rizal backed out from the
romance and decided to leave London to be away from
Gertrude so that she may forget him.

11. NELLI BOUSTEAD
• Nellie Boustead was the daughter of the wealthy Anglo-
Filipino businessman Eduardo Boustead. The Boustead family
welcomed Rizal in his stay in France.
• After learning of Leonor Rivera’s marriage to Henry Kipping,
Rizal entertained the thoughts of courting another woman.
• The center of this idea would be the highly educated, cheerful,
athletic, beautiful and morally upright Nellie.

12. • One of the more memorable things about their romance was
when Antonio Luna, who made rather distasteful comments
about her, and Rizal almost had a duel to the death, only being
stopped when Luna apologized for his comments, conceding
Nellie to Rizal in a most chivalrous way.
• Unfortunately, their relationship did not end in marriage as
Rizal did not want to convert to Protestantism as Nellie
demanded, and when the time that Rizal had to leave had come,
they parted as friends with no hard feelings.

13. SUZANNE JACOBY
• A Belgian lady, Rizal met her when he stayed in Brussels
as the cost of living in Paris was too expensive, he stayed
in a boarding house managed by two Jacoby sisters,
Suzanne and Marie.
• Rizal however did not seem to reciprocate the feelings as
intensely as her. Rizal did not even mention her in his
letters to his friends. When the time that Rizal had to
(once again) leave, she wept, Rizal only leaving her with
a box of chocolates.

14. • Two months later, she wrote him a letter, saying “after
your departure, I did not take the chocolate. The box
is still intact as on the day of your parting. Don’t delay
too long writing us because I wear out the soles of my
shoes for running to the mailbox to see if there is a
letter from you. There will never be any home in
which you are so loved as in that in Brussels, so, you
little bad boy, hurry up and come back…”
• Rizal returned to Brussels one more time in April
1891 but not specifically for her, as he just busied
himself with revising and finalizing his manuscript of
El Filibusterismo.

15. JOSEPHINE BRACKEN
• In the last days of February 1895, while still in Dapitan, Rizal
met an 18-year old petite Irish girl, with bold blue eyes, brown
hair and a happy disposition. She was Josephine Bracken, the
adopted daughter of George Taufer from Hong Kong, who
came to Dapitan to seek Rizal for eye treatment.
• Rizal was physically attracted to her. His loneliness and
boredom must have taken the measure of him and what could
be a better diversion that to fall in love again. But the Rizal
sisters suspected Josephine as an agent of the friars and they
considered her as a threat to Rizal’s security.

16. • Rizal asked Josephine to marry him, but she was not yet ready
to make a decision due to her responsibility to the blind Taufer.
Since Taufer’s blindness was untreatable, he left for Hon Kong
on March 1895. Josephine stayed with Rizal’s family in
Manila. Upon her return to Dapitan, Rizal tried to arrange with
Father Antonio Obach for their marriage. However, the priest
wanted a retraction as a precondition before marrying them.
Rizal upon the advice of his family and friends and with
Josephine’s consent took her as his wife even without the
Church blessings. Josephine later give birth prematurely to a
stillborn baby, a result of some incidence, which might have
shocked or frightened her.

17. • During Rizal's exile in 1896, Bracken had affirmed her
willingness to help Rizal's cause by joining the 'Katipunan' in
Imus, Cavite. Rizal, foreseeing his death, asked Fr. Vicente
Balaguer, S.J., a Jesuit priest who later detailed Rizal's last
days and served as Bracken's messenger, to marry them. Some
historians believe that Balaguer had married the two on 5:30
a.m. of 30 December 1896, an hour before Rizal's death at
'Bagumbayan', where she also revealed to Rizal's closest
friends and family members that she was married to him.