Rizal traveled to Europe in 1882 to study medicine. He experienced hardship as a student with little money. Letters from friends and family in the Philippines expressed sadness over his departure. Rizal observed corruption among Spanish clergy and officials in the Philippines. He excelled in his studies in Madrid and Berlin, mastering eye surgery and medical diagnosis. Rizal encouraged his sister to pursue education, seeing it as important for Filipino women. He remained critical of the Spanish colonial system and the abuses of power by friars.
2. The Journey
May 1, 1882 - from Calamba to Manila
P 356 - allowance
" I do not know why every time I pick up your letters, I cannot
keep the tears from my eyes, especially the first letter you
wrote after you had left where you said that you had passed by
the house on Monday morning, on your way off, and I was
sleeping and so could not see you any more.Mother also tells
me you took very little money with you so that I am always
worrying how you are. That is why I want to send you the
diamond ring; tell me to whom would be best to send it so that it
may get to you safely...."
Saturnina Hidalgo to Jose Rizal, 26 September 1882
Requoted from The First Filipino
3. "....Poor girl, what tears has she not shed from the first
days when she arrived from her hometown and did not find
you in the house but instead five thousand leagues from
Manila! Your sister Maria can tell you about it, because
she was in tears before her. One day she told me that she
was not in the mood for anythingm not even for her
intimate friendsm and that she wanted to dye all her
clothes. I replied that she should not despair because the
years pass by quickly.... and that one of your greatest
sorrows, if not the only onem when you left was that you
had to be separated from her. We have to console her
some way!"
Jose M. Cecilio to Jose Rizal, 16 September 1882
Requoted from The First Filipino
4. On the ship with 37 other passengers
" Tonight Messrs. Barco, Morlan, Pardo, Buil, and others were
talking. A lot was said about the government in the Philippines.
Criticisms flowed as never before. I discovered that everyone
in my poor country lives in hopes of sucking the blood of the
Filipino, friars as well as administrators. There may be
exceptions, they claim, but few and far between. This is the
source of great evils and enmities among those who quarrel
over the booty....."
Requoted from The First Filipino
5. El Amor Patrio, Diaryong Tagalog, June
1882
"...The love of country can never be expunged once it has
entered the heart because it bears a divine mark that makes it
eternal and imperishable...
...Beautiful and great is the country when her sons, at the
call of battle, make ready to defend the ancient land of their
ancestors; fierce and proud, when from her high throne sees
the stranger flee in panic before the invincible phalanx of her
sons; but when, divided in opposing camps, they destroy one
another, when anger and rancor devastate the fields, the towns
and the cities, then shem in shame, tears her garments and,
throwing away her scepter, puts on mourning for her dead.
Whatever, then, be our situation, let us love her always and let
us desire nothing but her good.....
6. .... You who have lost your heart's ideals....you who wish to
love but find no one worthy, look to your country, love her!
Love her, yes, but no longer as she was loved in other
times, with the practice of ferocious virtues, denied and
condemned by true morality and the natural law, nt by the
display of fanaticism, destruction and cruelty, no; a brighter
dawn is on the horizon, softer and more peaceful, the
messanger of life and peace, the true dawn, in brief, of
Christianity, the harbinger of happy and tranquil days. It
will be our duty to follow the arid but peaceful and
productive paths of Science which lead to progress, and
thence to the union desired and called for by Jesus Christ
in His night of sorrow..."
Written in Barcelona, Spain
7. Rizal in Madrid
Universidad Central - course leading to licentiate in Medicine,
Philosophy and letters
Academia de San Fernando - painting and sculpture
Madrid Ateneo - French, English and German
School of Sanz and Carbonell - fencing
January 1883 - Italian
September 1883 - took an examination in Roman Law leading
to Law
8. Sample of Rizal's monthly expenditures
Source: Ambeth Ocampo, Rizal Without the Overcoat
Jan 4 For the barber and the 1.10
cursed Christmas present
Jan 5 Los Cuatro Reynos de la 14.20
Naturaleza subscription
Jan 6 Wandering Jew 10.00
Works of Horace and Dumas 2.50
Supper with a friend
32.00
9. Jan 9 without spending a cent
Jan 12 Bath 2.00
Teatro de la Comedia 2.10
A dish
newspaper and 0.30
refreshment 0.35
Jan 15 One pen knife 0.30
Jan 16 Postage stamps 1.30
Ball of yarn 0.50
Jan 20 1/10 of a lottery ticket 3.00
Laundrywoman
Domestic postage stamp 3.00
0.10
10. Jan 27 Today I had my picture taken at Otero 10.00
Half dozen postcards with cover 3.00
1/10 of lottery ticket 3.00
A box of matches 0.10
Jan 29 Candles (one pound, 6) 1.25
Tickets for the dance 1.00
Coffee, refreshments, and tip 1.70
Jan 30 Review for the degree 30.00
Postage stamps for letters and periodicals 2.80
A handkerchief 0.45
Streetcar 0.30
Excelsior Ball 2.50
Jan 31 One book 1.00
Arte de Estudiar 2.50
11. " Money spent 257.88. Food for this month
71.75. Total 329.63. This exense, which for me
is large, is due to the review and the dinner
which I gave. The books I bought also
contributed to it."
Rizal
12. Paciano Mercado's letter to Rizal,
26 May 1883
" As soon as his death was known, the Vicar Fray Villafranca
came to collect the money of the Church recorded in the books,
but as it happened that the safe was closed and the key was in
Manila, by virtue of the apostolic power of the Church, he
summoned our father to the hacienda: there he commanded
him to pay the amount that was inside the safe, intimidating him
with threats revealing to the Archbishops the secrets of the
dead man, that in a way concern a member of our family; as a
result of the pressure; father had to pay the money in gold and
it was returned to him in silver three weeks later. Intimidating
an old man with threats of unearthing secrets that he might
have is a truly repulsive behavior."
13. Rizal's Reply to Paciano, 20 July 1883
" I have sincerely regretted the death of the parish priest, not
precisely because of our friendship, but because he was a
good priest, rara avis, something not easy to find. My blood
boils every time I read what you say of Fr. Villafranca, but I am
glad that his behavior confirms and justifies my dislike for him:
if he had acted otherwise, perhaps I would be obliged to
recognize my mistake. A bonzo or a brahman could not do
worse than that: if they, the priests, the virtuous ministers of
God, demand secrecy and avoid scandal with big words; if they
who believe in being simple like doves and wise as serpents,
they who speak about respect for old people and the dead, they
who always talk about fasting, prayer and Mass, they who have
God on their lips while stealing the coins of poor man to enrich
themselves; while threatening to reveal the faults
14. committed during youth, dishonoring the way the illustrious
memory of a wise old man, who has probably cried his faults
and has been less hypocritical than his would be judges....No
less than that should be expected from a follower ("adepto" of
the friars, and this fact shows that I am fair in my opinions. If I
had been there I would have challenged him to expose the
faults of the dead priest and would have shown him to be like a
dung beetle that devotes its days on earth to unearth dirt and
rubbish. Let us see who would dare cast the first stone at the
dead Fr. Leoncio, and I am sure that everyone from the
Archbishop to Fr. Ambrosio would not feel invested with
authority to do it. Woe to those who can only confront
knowledge and virtue with stupid dogmatism to do it. I believe I
can perceive the petty hatred of those miserable individuals".
15. "Well, let's see if they get to enjoy the profits of those
thanksgiving masses, I don't know if heaven will close its ears
when these requests, motivated by ignorance and greed, reach
it. When I see so much fanaticism, mixed with all those vile
passions, when I see so much misery in those....."
18. Excerpt from the Speech Delivered at
the Banquet
" Just as a mother teaches her child to speak so as to
understand his joys, his needs, his sorrow, so also Spain, as a
mother, teaches her language to the Philippines, despite the
opposition of those who are so short-sighted and small-minded
that, making sure of the present, they cannot foresee the future
and will not weigh the consequences, soured nurses, corrupt
and corrupting, who habitually choke every legitimate sentiment
and perverting the hearts of the people, sow in them the seeds
of discord whose fruit, a very wolf's bane, a very death, will be
gathered by the future generations..."
Requoted from The First Filipino
19. MIGUEL DE • Liberal
• 33rd degree freemason
MORAYTA • Head of the Spanish Gran
Oriente
• Rizal's History Professor
GIORDANO BRUNO
• Dominican priest who was
condemned to death by the
Roman inquisition because
of his public defense of
atheism
Source: Javier de Pedro,
Rizal through a Glass Darkly
20. Letter of Professor Miguel Morayta to
Rizal, 23 January 1883
"On the last days of February, the group will celebrate the
birthday of Giordano Bruno with a literary soiree. Only
students' papers will be read. As I am aware of your
remarkable worth, I beg you to send me one of your writings....
The evening will be dedicated to the defense of freethinking,
and there is plenty of room for other issues, besides Giordano
Bruno.."
Requoted from Rizal: Looking through a Glass Darkly
21. " I will not get my degree's certificate while Creus is still rector
of the university. I do not want my most glorious personal
document to be signed by a man that everyone detests....(a
man) without dignity, although learned, very learned. Where he
to sign it, I would tear it up."
Rizal, 26 November 1884
22. Rizal to Ricardo Carcinero
Dapitan, Zamboanga
“ In Madrid they know perfectly well what the friars
do here (in the Philippines), so much so that in
the first talks I had with Pi and (Aureliano)
Linares Rivas, when the latter belonged to the
Liberal Party, they made me realize things which
I, born in that country, did not know. Like them I
could mention to you many who were equally
informed of the lives and miracles of the friars in
the Philippines.”
23. Paris, 1885
Mastered technique of eye operations
Dr. Louis de Wecker Dr. de Wecker’s Clinic
24. Germany, 1886
Mastered the technique of diagnosis
DR. BECKER’S CLINIC
DR. OTTO BECKER
25. “It is a pity that here in the Philippines, the principal
adornment of women almost always consists of
clothes and finery rather than knowledge…..if these
qualities that nature gives the women there were
exalted by intellectual qualities, as it happens in
Europe, the Filipino family has nothing to envy the
Europeans for. For this reason, now that you are still
young and you have time to learn, it is necessary that
you study by reading and reading attentively. It is a
pity that you allow yourself to be dominated by
laziness when it takes so little effort to shake it off. It
is enough to form only the habit of study and later
everything will go by itself.”
Letter of Rizal to his sister Trinidad
27. To my country:
In the catalogue of human ills there is to be found a cancer so malignant
that the least touch inflames it and causes agonizing pains; afflicted
with such cancer, a social cancer, has your dear image appeared to me,
when, for my own heart’s ease or to compare you with others, I have
sought, in the centers of modern civilization, to call you to mind.
Now, desirous of your welfare, which is also ours, and seeking the best
cure for your ills, I shall do with you what was done in ages past with
sick, who were exposed on the steps of the temple so that the
worshippers, having invoked the god, should each propose a remedy.
To this end, I shall endeavor to show your condition, faithfully and
ruthlessly. I shall lift a corner of the veil which shrouds the disease,
sacrificing to the truth everything, even self-love, for, as your son, your
defects and weaknesses are also mine.
The Author
Europe, 1886