Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot Part 15

On the field of battle, 'mid the frenzy of fight, Others have given their lives, without doubt or heed; The place matters not--cypress or laurel or lily white, Scaffold of open plain, combat or martyrdom's plight, 'Tis ever the same, to serve our home and country's need.

I die just when I see the dawn break, Through the gloom of night, to herald the day; And if color is lacking my blood thou shalt take, Pour'd out at need for thy dear sake, To dye with its crimson the waking ray.

My dreams, when life first opened to me, My dreams, when the hopes of youth beat high, Were to see thy lov'd face, O gem of the Orient sea, From gloom and grief, from care and sorrow free; No blush on thy brow, no tear in thine eye

Dream of my life, my living and burning desire, All hail! cries the soul that is now to take flight; All hail! And sweet it is for thee to expire; To die for thy sake, that thou mayst aspire; And sleep in thy bosom eternity's long night.

If over my grave some day thou seest grow, In the gra.s.sy sod, a humble flower, Draw it to thy lips and kiss my soul so, While I may feel on my brow in the cold tomb below The touch of thy tenderness, thy breath's warm power.

Let the moon beam over me soft and serene, Let the dawn shed over me its radiant flashes, Let the wind with sad lament over me keen; And if on my cross a bird should be seen, Let it trill there its hymn of peace to my ashes.

Let the sun draw the vapors up to the sky, And heavenward in purity bear my tardy protest; Let some kind soul o'er my untimely fate sigh, And in the still evening a prayer be lifted on high From thee, O my country, that in G.o.d I may rest.

Pray for all those that hapless have died, For all who have suffered the unmeasur'd pain; For our mothers that bitterly their woes have cried, For widows and orphans, for captives by torture tried; And then for thyself that redemption thou mayst gain.

And when the dark night wraps the graveyard around, With only the dead in their vigil to see; Break not my repose or the mystery profound, And perchance thou mayst hear a sad hymn resound; 'Tis I, O my country, raising a song unto thee.

When even my grave is remembered no more, Unmark'd by never a cross nor a stone; Let the plow sweep through it, the spade turn it o'er, That my ashes may carpet thy earthly floor, Before into nothingness at last they are blown.

Then will oblivion bring to me no care, As over thy vales and plains I sweep; Throbbing and cleansed in thy s.p.a.ce and air, With color and light, with song and lament I fare, Ever repeating the faith that I keep.

My Fatherland ador'd, that sadness to my sorrow lends, Beloved Filipinas, hear now my last good-by!

I give thee all: parents and kindred and friends; For I go where no slave before the oppressor bends, Where faith can never kill, and G.o.d reigns e'er on high!

Farewell to you all, from my soul torn away, Friends of my childhood in the home dispossessed!

Give thanks that I rest from the wearisome day!

Farewell to thee, too, sweet friend that lightened my way; Beloved creatures all, farewell! In death there is rest!

For some time such belongings of Rizal as had been intrusted to Josefina had been in the care of the American Consul in Manila for as the adopted daughter of the American Taufer she had claimed his protection. Stories are told of her as a second Joan of Arc, but it is not likely that one of the few rifles which the insurgents had would be turned over to a woman. After a short experience in the field, much of it spent in nursing her sister-in-law through a fever, Mrs. Rizal returned to Manila. Then came a brief interview with the Governor-General. He had learned that his "administrative powers"

to exile without trial did not extend to foreigners, but by advice of her consul she soon sailed for Hongkong.

Mrs. Rizal at first lived in the Basa home and received considerable attention from the Filipino colony. There was too great a difference between the freedom accorded Englishwomen and the restraints surrounding Spanish ladies however, to avoid difficulties and misunderstandings, for very long. She returned to her adopted father's house and after his death married Vicente Abad, a Cebuan, son of a Spaniard who had been prominent in the Tabacalera Company and had become an agent of theirs in Hongkong after he had completed his studies there.

Two weeks after Rizal's execution a dozen other members of his "Liga Filipina" were executed on the Luneta. One was a millionaire, Francisco Roxas, who had lost his mind, and believing that he was in church, calmly spread his handkerchief on the ground and knelt upon it as had been his custom in childhood. An old man, Moises Salvador, had been crippled by torture so that he could not stand and had to be laid upon the gra.s.s to be shot. The others met their death standing.

That bravery and cruelty do not usually go together was amply demonstrated in Polavieja's case and by the volunteers. The latter once showed their patriotism, after a banquet, by going to the water's edge on the Luneta and firing volleys at the insurgents across the bay, miles away. The General was relieved of his command after he had fortified a camp with siege guns against the bolo-armed insurgents, who, however, by captures from the Spaniards were gradually becoming better equipped. But he did not escape condemnation from his own countrymen, and when he visited Giron, years after he had returned to the Peninsula, circulars were distributed among the crowd, bearing Rizal's last verses, his portrait, and the charge that to Polavieja was due the loss of the Philippines to Spain.

The Katipunan insurgents in time were bought off by General Primo de Rivera, once more returned to the Islands for further plunder. The money question does not concern Rizal's life, but his prediction of suffering to the country came true, for while the leaders with the first payment and hostages for their own safety sailed away to live securely in Hongkong, the poorer people who remained suffered the vengeance of a government which seems never to have kept a promise to its people. Whether reforms were pledged is disputed, but if any were, they never were put into effect. No more money was paid, and the first instalment, preserved by the prudent leaders, equipped them when, owing to Dewey's victory, they were enabled to return to their country.

On the first anniversary of Rizal's execution some Spaniards desecrated the grave, while on one of the niches, rented for the purpose, many feet away, the family hung wreaths with Tagalog dedications but no name.

August 13, 1898, the Spanish flag came down from Fort Santiago in evidence of the surrender of the city. At the first opportunity Paco Cemetery was visited and Rizal's body raised for a more decent interment. Vainly his shoes were searched for a last message which he had said might be concealed there, for the dampness had made any paper unrecognizable. Then a simple cross was erected, resting on a marble block carved, as had been the smaller one which secretly had first marked the spot, with the reversed initials "R. P. J."

The first issue of a Filipino newspaper under the new government was entirely dedicated to Rizal. The second anniversary of his execution was observed with general unanimity, his countrymen demonstrating that those who were seeing the dawn of the new day were not forgetful of the greatest of those who had fallen in the night, to paraphrase his own words.

His widow returned and did live by giving lessons in English, at first privately in Cebu, where one of her pupils was the present and first Speaker of the Philippine a.s.sembly, and afterwards as a government employee in the public schools and in the "Liceo" of Manila.

With the establishment of civil government a new province was formed near Manila, including the land across the lake to which, as a lad in Kalamba, Rizal had often wonderingly looked, and the name of Rizal Province was given it.

Later when public holidays were provided for by the new laws, the anniversary of Rizal's execution was in the list, and it has become the great day of the year, with the entire community uniting, for Spaniards no longer consider him to have been a traitor to Spain and the American authorities have founded a government in conformity with his teachings.

On one of these occasions, December 30, 1905, William Jennings Bryan, "The Great American Commoner," gave the Rizal Day address, in the course of which he said:

"If you will permit me to draw one lesson from the life of Rizal, I will say that he presents an example of a great man consecrated to his country's welfare. He, though dead, is a living rebuke to the scholar who selfishly enjoys the privilege of an ample education and does not impart the benefits of it to his fellows. His example is worth much to the people of these Islands, to the child who reads of him, to the young and old."

The fiftieth anniversary of Rizal's birth was observed throughout the Archipelago with exercises in every community by public schools now organized along the lines he wished, to make self-dependent, capable men and women, strong in body as in mind, knowing and claiming their own rights, and recognizing and respecting those of others.

His father died early in the year that the flags changed, but the mother lived to see honor done her son and to prove herself as worthy, for when the Philippine Legislature wanted to set aside a considerable sum for her use, she declined it with the true and rightfully proud a.s.sertion, that her family had never been patriotic for money. Her funeral, in 1911, was an occasion of public mourning, the Governor-General, Legislature and chief men of the Islands attending, and all public business being suspended by proclamation for the day.

A capitol for the representatives of the free people of the Philippines, and worthy of the pioneer democratic government in the Orient, is soon to be erected on the Luneta, facing the big Rizal monument which will mark the place of execution of the man who gave his life to prepare his countrymen for the changed conditions.

NOTES

[1] -- I take the liberty, here, of citing an instance of this. In 1861, when I found myself on the West Coast of Mexico, a dozen backwoods families determined upon settling in Sonora (forming an oasis in the desert); a plan which was frustrated by the invasion at that time of the European powers. Many native farmers awaited the arrival of these immigrants in order to take them under their protection. The value of land in consequence of the announcement of the project rose very considerably.

[2] -- See Appendix.