No, today is not Dr. Jose Rizal’s birthday, as some tweets would have you believe. Today is the day our national hero got shot for the role his novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo played in the anti-colonial revolution against the Spaniards.
Malacañan Palace’s Facebook page shared a newspaper clipping from The Record-Union, a daily from Sacramento, dating back to December 30, 1896 and detailing Rizal’s fate.
According to the article:
Dr. Rizal sentenced to death
Madrid, Dec. 29 — Advices from Manila show that Dr. Rizal, a prominent resident, has been sentenced to death for fermenting rebellion. He will probably be shot. On his trial, which was before a court-martial, Dr. Rizal admitted that he was the author of the constitution of the Philippine League, the object of which was revolutionary, but denied that he had taken any active part in the rebellion.
According to the Facebook page:
On December 29, 1896, Dr. Jose P. Rizal was read his death sentence. The rest of Rizal’s day would be composed of visits by priests and by his family. To his sisters, he would give away his possessions—and it was to his sister Trinidad that he would bequeath an alcohol burner (lamp) with a copy of “Mi Ultimo Adios.”
On December 30, 2013, we marked the the centennial of the Rizal Monument, which was built as the tomb and memorial to Jose P. Rizal and has since then served as the de facto symbol of our nationhood.
Photo courtesy of Philippine-American War website by Arnaldo Dumindin.
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