Rizal was often referred to as "The First Filipino" and in this episode, Carmina and Patch begin to understand why. They discuss his immense love for the Philippines and his tireless efforts to assert its identity amidst colonial oppression. But that's not all - listen to them talk about his early life, his many loves, and his BFF. Learn, too, about how he was the most productive exile who ever lived.
To learn more: The First Filipino: The Award-Winning Biography of Jose Rizal, Whatever happened to Josephine Bracken? , Dr. Jose Rizal Execution, Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho: Dr. Jose Rizal memorabilia, milyon-milyon na ang halaga ngayon? , Interesting facts about Jose Rizal and Blumentritt, Jose Rizal’s contribution to the development of Philippine agriculture, Salcedo Public Auctions, and Jose Rizal Myths: The Most Outlandish Rumors About Rizal
To support FilTrip, go to the Patreon page here and PayPal page here.
Visit https://filtrip.buzzsprout.com. Drop a note at thefiltrip@gmail.com.
Thanks to FilTrip's sponsor SOLEPACK. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
See https://www.buzzsprout.com/privacy for Privacy Policy.
Rizal was often referred to as "The First Filipino" and in this episode, Carmina and Patch begin to understand why. They discuss his immense love for the Philippines and his tireless efforts to assert its identity amidst colonial oppression. But that's not all - listen to them talk about his early life, his many loves, and his BFF. Learn, too, about how he was the most productive exile who ever lived.
To learn more: The First Filipino: The Award-Winning Biography of Jose Rizal, Whatever happened to Josephine Bracken? , Dr. Jose Rizal Execution, Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho: Dr. Jose Rizal memorabilia, milyon-milyon na ang halaga ngayon? , Interesting facts about Jose Rizal and Blumentritt, Jose Rizal’s contribution to the development of Philippine agriculture, Salcedo Public Auctions, and Jose Rizal Myths: The Most Outlandish Rumors About Rizal
To support FilTrip, go to the Patreon page here and PayPal page here.
Visit https://filtrip.buzzsprout.com. Drop a note at thefiltrip@gmail.com.
Thanks to FilTrip's sponsor SOLEPACK. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
See https://www.buzzsprout.com/privacy for Privacy Policy.
Welcome to FilTrip, a podcast where we explore everything fun, weird, and in between about the Philippines. And now a quick shout out. Check out Manila Candle. Manila Candle features Filipino inspired scents like Tagaytay, Palawan, Ube Halaya and Buco and Mango. They also have fun ones like Ay Nako and Bahala Ka Sa Buhay Mo.
Patch:Enjoy their car fresheners, wax melts and merchandise to visit manilacandle.com and take a trip to the Philippines through their scents.
Carmina:Back to our show.
Patch:Today's trip is a holiday trip, and a holiday trip is when we talk about a specific holiday observance festival or celebration and our personal experiences with that holiday. In this episode, we will be talking about Alde.
Carmina:This was first decreed by the president of the revolutionary government, Emilio Aguinaldo, on December 20th, 1898. And the first celebration was on December 30th, 1898, as a National Day of mourning for Rizal. And just to remind everyone, Dr. Jose Rizal was executed on December 30th, 1896, just two years before he decreed. And then it was again enacted by the American Colonial government in 1902 to show the Filipinos. They were more pro Filipino than the Spanish colonizers.
Patch:I was wondering why they didn't choose his birth.
Carmina:It seems Emilio Aguinaldo did it to perhaps boost morale while he was also trying to stand up the Philippine Revolutionary government. And the Americans seized on that idea to ease their colonial rule in the Philippines. That's how influential he was. A lot of people were doing things in his name, whether he approved of it or not, right?
Patch:That's right.
Carmina:I don't know about you, but I was struck that he died when he was only 35 years old. And especially if we consider everything that he accomplished. I mean, I was trying to remember what I was doing when I was 35 years old.
Patch:<laugh><laugh>.
Carmina:I definitely did not accomplish even like 0.01% of everything that he did.
Patch:He was so accomplished.
Carmina:He was described by one of his close friends as sort of the comet that passes through Earth once or twice in a century.
Patch:Carmina in the future. Is that how you're going to describe me?<laugh>?
Carmina:If you want to, I'll describe you like that right now.<laugh>
Patch:Okay.<laugh>. But that's very touching.
Carmina:One thing that I was very thankful about is the wealth of information that we have about Dr. Jose Rizal. Sometimes we have a really hard time looking for facts and information about a certain person, and we certainly found that with Andres Bonifacio. But Dr. Jose Rizal was such a prolific writer, articles, essays, books, and most importantly, he journaled. He also wrote so many letters to so many people, and that's a lot of the source of information about him.
Patch:In addition, he's well traveled. He touched so many lives around the world, so he left quite a mark in different places. There's much information about him, not only in the Philippines, but abroad. So that really helped too.
Carmina:That's true. So I feel like he's the first international man of mystery, not Austin Powers
Patch:<laugh>.
Carmina:Okay. So early. What do we know about him?
Patch:He was born in Calamba Laguna on June 19, 1861 to Francisco Rizal Mercado and Teiodara. Alonso Y Quintos.
Carmina:He was only one of two boys and a family of eleven.
Patch:Imagine being one of his siblings. The insecurity,
Carmina:You know, I, I would be like, no competition here, bro. It's all yours< laugh>.
Patch:But at the same time though, I know that we grew up knowing he was privileged, but I thought that they owned the land, but they really were just renting from Dominican Friers.
Carmina:Well, it was very rare for Indios to really own their land. And you mentioned the Friers. They were so dominant in Filipino's lives during the Spanish colonial period, because to maintain Spanish authority throughout the Philippines, the Spanish government would've had to deploy thousands and thousands of men. That would of course, cost Spain millions and expenses. And with changing political power set would've been very unstable. So they instead relied on Friers to be the administrators in the country. And since their tool religion was very effective, not just in the Philippines, but also in the other colonies, they became a very important tool of the Spanish government. So the Frier was not just a priest, he was also a landlord, a school master, and you know, the law and order authority of wherever they were, the government officials really bowed to them. And they were indispensable to Spanish colonialism. So that's why Rizal's family came to be leasing under these Dominican Friars, because the Dominicans were in charge in Raul's hometown of Calamba Laguna. The other thing that surprised me, Patch was his order in the family. He was the seventh of those eleven that we mentioned. The eldest i n his family is Paciano, who was ten years older. He figures really heavily in Al's life and was more of a second father to him than a brother. His mom was a business w oman, also a little bit unusual during that time. And she was involved in her k ids' learning because she herself knew how to read and write. But she was also a devout Catholic. His dad was described as a very supportive and sensitive father. He was already over 40 when Rizal was born. Through his hard work, he was able to generate enough wealth to be one of the first Filipinos who built a stonehouse in Calamba Laguna, which i s very unusual for that time. And he was even able to acquire a second one. So that enabled his family to educate their children and to even send Rizal ab road. So P atch, one thing that I was wondering,
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:His mom's maiden name was Alonzo, and his father's last name is Mercado. He was the only person in his family who used Rizal.
Patch:Mm-hmm.< affirmative>.
Carmina:And the reason is our dear friend, do you remember when we were talking about Filipino names and Claveria? Yes. There were so many Filipinos who had the same last names, or sometimes in the same family, multiple last names.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Carmina:Because there were so many Mercados unrelated to each other. And his family was given a second surname of, but his family preferred to use Mercado in their daily lives. The other reason was because Paciano, his older brother, was a bit of a liberal himself. And earlier in his life, since he was 10 years old, was already very involved in a lot of activities that branded him as a liberal. So for example, he was the housemate of Father Burgos.
Patch:What?
Carmina:Yes. So when Father Burgos was executed, Paciano became associated with him. But you know, he also had his own political and social justice beliefs. So when Rizal started studying, because you know, he was 10 years older than Rizal, right?
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:And since Paciano was already kind of hot<laugh> in the eyes of the friars. He Advised his brother to use Rizal so a s not to be associated with him.
Patch:Oh, so it's more of survival.
Carmina:And this is really where you'll see his brother is kind of this unsung hero in his life, because of his guidance. And I want to think he probably also influenced Rizal's sense of social justice.
Patch:I'm sure he did. Now that we've learned that he was basically besties with one of the three priests that influenced the revolution, essentially, right?
Carmina:Mm-hmm.<affirmative> Patch, I don't know if you read this, but Rizal was, was described as a sensitive boy. He really, in a lot of the writings, was described to take to hearts lights that he received. And most of these, and his school boy years were driven by his being a probinsyano, on top of which he was small, both in height and in weight. Some stories depicted him as initially being underestimated or picked on. He did compensate by being assertive and fearless when it came to showing his intellectual abilities, especially with the Spaniards that he went to school with. He wanted to prove that he wasn't inferior to them just because of his race. A lot is said about his intelligence, right?
Patch:Mm-hmm.
Carmina:<affirmative> from a very young age, he showed talent in reading, writing, artistry.
Patch:He was also good in sports, right? Fencing?
Carmina:Right? He took to fencing because he knew that he couldn't compete in the other sports that would require physical stature. And then the other thing that he compensated with apparently, was with the ladies.<laugh>.
Patch:We all are aware of his prowess with the ladies. Like he had a lot of girlfriends
Carmina:And all over the world. So here's a rundown of results, ladies. His first love was a woman named Segunda. Then he had two Leonaras in his life. There was a Consuelo in Spain, Seiko in Japan, Gertrude in London. There were two sisters in Paris. One of them he got into a fight with, with General Antonio Luna. Then there was Suzanne in Brussels, then Patty in London. And finally Josephine Bracken all of this talk about being a ladies man. I can see it. Because Rizal was really this renaissance man. He sculpted, he painted, he drew, he read a lot of books. So he probably was a really interesting conversationalist. And he picked up languages really quickly.
Patch:Yeah. Apparently he knew how to converse in ten languages.
Carmina:I can just imagine, you know, men wanting to be friends with him and women falling for him because of all of these talents. Wherever he went, he cultivated friendships with intellectual scholars and influential people. And Patch, I don't know about you, but it was so fascinating to me that so many Filipinos, not just Rizal, studied abroad in Europe
Patch:Because of the travels of all these educated Filipinos. They wanted to bring back new thoughts of what the new world is, how the Philippines could be. Yeah. So basically their travels really did help in the birthing of this revolution.
Carmina:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And you know, we talk a lot about the very many negatives of being colonized by Spain, but this is really one of the positives. Like we said, Rizal was very well traveled. He went everywhere. But it really wasn't all fun in games for him. He was financed by his family back home, and they weren't always able to give him what he needed. So Rizal really had to rely on the kindness of friends and strangers, even if he had a lot of pride and didn't always want to accept help. One of the people prominent in Rizal's Life is an Austrian named Ferdinand Blumentritt. And if you remember a Patch, there are places named after Blumentritt in the Philippines.
Patch:Yeah.
Carmina:So just a little bit about the man. Ferdinand Blumentritt. He was born in Prague on September 10th, 1853. He was a beloved teacher in a secondary school and was a lifelong scholar. He was eight years older than Rizal. So he really was a mentor to him. Rizal somehow heard Blumentritt as studying Tagalog and wrote to him, you know, wherever Rizal went. He was proud of being a Filipino. So he expressed his appreciation in this letter and sent Ferdinand Blumentritt a book on arithmetic that was written in Tagalog in Spanish. But by that time, Blumentritt himself had already published several articles and essays about the Philippines. All in all, they said about 250 essays and articles. And I was like, why was he so interested?
Patch:Did he ever travel to the Philippines prior to meeting Rizal?
Carmina:Apparently never set foot in the Philippines.
Patch:Interesting. Okay.
Carmina:So there's several theories about why. One theory was because his great-grandmother was Latin American. In relation to that, he was fascinated with Christopher Columbus's exploits as well as Ferdinand Magellan. The other theory had to do with his study of Spanish history. And that's what led to his interest in the Philippines. There were apparently many other scholars that he was affiliated with who shared some kind of interest in the Philippines.
Patch:Apparently Ferdinand Blumentritt's great-grandmother was a descendant of a former governor General of the Philippines. Mm. His name was Andres Alcazar. He related very much to that part of his family history, and he began to be interested in the Spanish colonial world. He, in fact, learned to speak fluently in Spanish. He also learned Portuguese, French, Dutch, Italian, English, and finally, Tagalog.
Carmina:There were a lot of correspondences between him and Rizal in Tagalog,
Patch:His favorite daughter was Dolores, who he gave a second name. The second name was Loleng.
Carmina:<laugh>. Nice.
Patch:And he even wanted her to marry a Filipino.
Carmina:The one story that I just wanted to share that I found really so cute,<laugh>, was when RIzal met Blumentritt in person for the first time.
Patch:Carmina, was it love at first sight,<laugh>?
Carmina:Well, they were already in love because they were writing to each other for many years before that.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:Rizal had given word that Rizal was going to be visiting, you know, Blumentritt's part of the world with a friend. And even told him what his train schedule was gonna be. He told Blumentritt not to pick him up at the train station, cuz you know, he didn't wanna inconvenience the guy. And so he was very adamant that he was going to call on Blumentritt after he arrived. But lo and behold, when Rizal's train pulled into the station, Blumentritt was there waiting for him.
Patch:Ooh.
Carmina:And Blumentritt arranged receptions and his honor, Rizal was invited to the Town's Mountaineer society and Rizal gave a speech there in German, when in fact he'd only been learning it for 11 months. Blumentritt was so proud of his mastery of the German language and was basically Fanboying.
Patch:< Laugh>. Mm-hmm.< affirmative>
Carmina:Plus results visit was even written about in the local paper. The local paper was published on May 18th, 1886. And the story was picked up and was featured in other papers all over Europe.
Patch:I guess his speech was really impressive.
Carmina:So I think maybe that was more the fascination and the reason why this article was picked up multiple times all over Europe. They both cried when they parted. And you know that comment that I said earlier about Rizal being a rare comet that passes once every one or two centuries? That came from Blumentritt.
Patch:That's so sweet.
Carmina:Are you gonna be like that to me? Patch<laugh> or I to you?
Patch:<laugh>. I mean Carmina.
Carmina:If only then listeners can see the eye roll<laugh>. And speaking of his travels, Rizal wrote his famous books, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo and Abroad. He really struggled to publish these. But did you know he published a book in Between? I mean, so much as said about these two books that this middle one is forgotten a lot.
Patch:What did he publish?
Carmina:So just to remind people, he left for Spain in 1883 when he was 22 years old to study. During that time, we know that he traveled a lot. And also during that time, he was writing the Noli. The Noli was published in 1887, and that made a splash because of all of the controversial topics that he covered there featuring our beloved friars.<laugh>.
Patch:Right.
Carmina:So we're not gonna spoil it for people who have not read the book. But the fryers didn't take kindly to their characterization in the book. And people should know that a lot of things in the Noli and Fili were influenced by results'. Personal life, for example, his family experienced a lot of unfair treatment from the friars. So the friars had a lot to do with injustices and equality in both results, personal life and in what he perceived as injustices to the people of the Philippines, especially in Calamba where he lived. So when he came back to the Philippines after the Noli was published, he was being watched, he was forced to leave the Philippines again. And then he lived in London in 1888, where he discovered Antonio Morga's Chronicles called Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, which was published in Mexico in 1609. If Rizal hadn't been traveling all over the world and hadn't been introduced to many of the scholars that we were talking about earlier, he would never have had access to this book. And Antonio Morga, a lot has written about him too. And since this is not about Antonio Morga, I'll just encourage people to look him up. But Antonio Morga was in the Philippines from 1594 to 1604. And he basically worked for two Governor generals. But when he stayed there, he wrote about Filipino life, Philippine culture, and documented that Filipinos were already very advanced in culture and trade before the Spaniards arrived, which was in direct contradiction to what was being taught to the Filipinos up to that time. Because many of the Filipinos were being told basically that we were poor. We were uneducated and uncivilized before the Spaniards arrived. So there was already fake news and disinformation even at that time,<laugh>. But this one lasted first centuries. So really, I think Rizel is the first fact checker.
Patch:Yeah. Add that to his many talents.
Carmina:Even though he really wanted to write his sequel right after Nly, he basically undertook this project. Patch, guess how many pages the A ntonio M orga b ook was?
Patch:I have no idea.
Carmina:It was 360 pages and he copied it by hand and added his annotations to it.
Patch:Wow.
Carmina:So it took him four months and he published it in Paris in 1890. So we already know that Noli and Fili were really, uh, what we can call hot books.<laugh>.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:So after he published El and came back to the Philippines, he was really a very polarizing figure. And the Friers were onto him. Add to that, if you recall, in the Philippine independence episode right after his second homecoming in the Philippines, he founded the La Liga Filipina and was arrested within days of the founding of that organization. And that's what led to his exile to a place called Dapitan.
Patch:While he was in the, he was a proponent of agriculture and in relation to that, irrigation, not only for the plants, but also as a source of clean water for the community. But really his initiatives, they say were really to benefit the people.
Carmina:There was also a deeper reason why he was cultivating the Dapitan.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:So as I mentioned earlier, the friars were very impactful in every aspect of Filipino lives. And in Calamba Laguna where he grew up, not only was his family involved in agriculture, so was, you know, basically the entire town.<laugh> actually the entire Philippines. Right. That's one of the main vehicles of wealth that was being extracted from the Philippines by the Spaniards. Because Rizal was from Calamba. And because Rizal was already showing signs of social activism and was espousing all of these ideas, the retaliation was not just towards his family, but also towards the citizens of Calamba. There was this very well documented case between the Dominican friers and the tenant farmers in Calamba that escalated all the way up to the, the higher ranks of government. Of course, who would win in those kinds of disputes? Right? It was gonna be the f riars.
Patch:Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:So there were a lot of people including results, family who were really being squeezed and their means of livelihood was very much impacted by all of these injustices. And so there were a lot of Calambans who were being exiled from Calamba. So one of the other things that Rizal was trying to do was finding resettlement areas for these displaced citizens to go to. So before Rizal was exiled to Dapitan and he was already exploring other places where he could find resettlement of exiled townspeople of Calamba, one of them being North Borneo, I of all places, this was how deep-rooted resolves desire was to help the people in Calamba. Because he felt personally responsible for a lot of the persecution that they were experiencing just by being associated with him. Cuz apparently Calamba was already a very liberal town that already was experiencing a lot of unrest. Plus the fact that Rizal came from there. A lot of the townspeople supported his ideas.
Patch:And apparently Carmina, he was also speaking of this whole Calamba controversy, he advised his family not to pay the friars rents. At that time, other tenants followed suit and did the same. So his influence really was quite expansive.
Carmina:So a lot is said about his exile in Dapitan, he already talked about his efforts towards improving agriculture there. So apart from all of his agricultural pursuits, he opened a clinic. And a school, he continued to study all kinds of things, including the history of Mindanao. And then in Dapitan, he identified more than 200 species of seashells. He collected reptiles, crustaseans, Beatles, like all kinds of wildlife because he was still corresponding with all of his scholar friends in Europe.
Patch:So yeah, apparently he also, um, was able to improve the region's fishing industry. Somehow. He introduced the pukutan, which is a ring net system. He had many contributions while he was there.
Carmina:So one of his European scholar friends asked him to send specimens of all kinds of animals. There was one particular scholar friend who specialized in butterflies. So there were correspondences between Rizal and this professor where the professor was scolding Rizal for his lack of technique and killing and sending the butterflies<laugh>.
Patch:Okay.
Carmina:And then apparently it's suddenly the correspondence has suddenly stopped because a lot of these professor's letters were still saying, you still haven't learned how to do it, blah, blah, blah. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was a falling out between the two of them. And then someone even asked him to report on volcanic activity and earthquakes. And so the commentary in this book was like, well nevermind that he was inan and very far away. For example, from the Taal volcano<laugh>.
Patch:Mm-hmm.< affirmative>.
Carmina:But Rizal entertained all of these requests because his thinking was if it was going to help propagate knowledge, interest and study about the Philippines, he was willing to do anything and everything. And of course, while he was there, there were continuous efforts by the friars to have him repudiate his books. Spies were apparently sent to set him up. So imagine that he was in exile for four years and for four years he was constantly being harassed. One other thing that we really should be talking about, he also opened a clinic. By this time, Rizal was already well known as an Ophthalmologist when he was in Europe. He apprenticed under a surgeon in Paris where he was able to operate on so many patients and really honed his surgical skill. And he was also able to apprentice under a German doctor where he was able to hone his diagnostic skills of eye issues. One of the reasons why he became an Ophthalmologist is because his mother was going blind. And in fact he did operate on his mother several times. But this is also very significant because he was sought out, you know, for his medical and surgical skills. And this is what led him to meet Josephine Bracken.
Patch:Didn't she bring her father to him for treatment?
Carmina:Yeah, so Josephine Bracken was born to Irish parents. Her father was in the military, so they were living in British Hong Kong. Her mom died giving birth to her, then she was given up for adoption. It was this adoptive father that Josephine brought to the Philippines to seek Rizal out. And so I had a question, how would Josephine have known about Rizal in British Hong Kong? And I recalled Rizal and his family for a time were exiled in Hong Kong and became very well known for his ophthalmology skills. So the love story between Josephine and Rizal was also very juicy.
Patch:Tell me more.
Carmina:So when Rizal met Josephine, she was 19 and he was 34. So as we know, Josephine brought her father to be operated on by Rizal. And within weeks, apparently Rizal would ask Josephine to marry him. Their love story was really very ill fated because Josephine was a devout Catholic and he was excommunicated. Nobody wanted to marry him and Josephine, which did cause a lot of friction in their relationship, and even Rizal's family of course, had very negative opinions about the fact that they were living together. So all in all, Rizal and Josephine were together for a little over two years. Did you ever wonder what happened to her after Rizal died?
Patch:Josephine stayed with the Katipuneros until May, 1897. And she even wrote about her life.
Carmina:She went back to Hong Kong and there met and married another Filipino named Vicente Abad. But they lived in Cebu for a few years and had a daughter named Dolores. She died in Hong Kong on March 15th, 1902 at the age of 26.
Patch:Apparently she contracted tuberculosis.
Carmina:So Patch, we come to Rizal's story that is very sad, which is his execution. So we talked a little bit about this in our Philippine independence episode. He was asked by the Katipuneros to join in the revolution. And he was said to have refused. Not because he didn't want the Filipinos to be independent, but because he just did not think that it was ready.
Patch:And many believed he really was a pacifist.
Carmina:Another backstory that I found out was apparently he was working with his friends in Europe to get the Philippines represented in the Spanish Cortez. Which is basically what the equivalent of the U S Congress was gonna be here. So there were these parallel efforts, the revolution on one hand, and Philippine representation i n t he Spanish government on the other. And so at that time when these conflicting forces were converging in Rizal's life, his friends were advising him to distance himself from the revolution. And one of the ways in which they were trying to do that was by having him volunteer as a medic in Cuba to demonstrate to the Spanish government that he wasn't really a subversive and that he was more for this more peaceful path towards Philippine representation. He was already on his way when he was intercepted and brought back to the Philippines. So after he was brought back to the Philippines, he was immediately imprisoned. So Patch, it was really heartbreaking to read about his last few days. One anecdote that struck me when his mom and his sister Trining visited him for the last time, he apparently handed Trining an alcohol lamp. And because Trining knew how to speak in English, Rizal said to her in English, there is something in this because the Spaniards did not understand English<laugh>. And so it was a secret message to his sister. When his sister opened, the lamp found Rizal's last poem called, Mi Ultimo Adios, or the Last Farewell. T his poem was brought by Josephine to Andres Bonifacio. And that's how undress Andres Bonifacio came to translate this i n Tagalog and made it accessible to the m asses. His execution was very well documented. So we're not really going to d o d well on that here. But I did want to mention one thing. There was an antique c ollector in the Philippines who bought an album from an American veteran. And when he was flipping through the album, he came across one picture that he was not expecting to see. And that was the picture of Rizal's execution.
Patch:What? The actual execution?
Carmina:Yes.
Patch:Okay. Wait, is this picture available to the public?
Carmina:I actually am going to link a YouTube video in our show notes. It's corroborated by a man named Hilario Martinez. He was 72 when he was interviewed by the Sunday Times Magazine before he died. But this man was apparently part of the drum corps during the execution. And in this picture, there was also a dog that was on a leash being held by one of the bystanders. And this man Hilario described how this dog apparently ran towards Rizal's body and circled his corpse and started crying. Some people were saying that it could have been Rizal's Pet.
Patch:It sounded like it.
Carmina:And speaking of fines related to, in recent years, there were many auctions of Rizal's personal belongings. Correspondences that fetched millions and millions of pesos. One of them is a ratan luggage that he used to carry the manuscript of Noli. There was another one, which was a wood sculpture that also serves as a lechon tray.
Patch:<laugh>.
Carmina:It was of a Filipino man lifting what looks like a barbel.
Patch:Just came across weird, outlandish rumors.
Carmina:<laugh>? Yes. I came across some of them too. Okay, you go first.
Patch:Obviously that's exactly what it is. Outlandish. But one of them was Jose Rizal was a serial killer.<laugh>.
Carmina:Yeah. Apparently there were these rumors that he was Jack the Ripper.
Patch:Exactly. So some believe he was Jack the Ripper note the initial JR, right? Yes. And since Jack the Ripper was never identified, and he was active in London, white Chapel District in 1888, his victims were female prostitutes. And he dismembered them with a skill that is fit for a medical practitioner, a surgeon. Since Rizal was in London during that time. And the killing coincidentally stopped when he left London. He is a doctor himself that he quite possibly could be J ack R ipper
Carmina:<laugh>. Yeah. That was the time when he was copying an Antonio Morga book.
Patch:Apparently slaying quite literally
Carmina:<laugh>. Well, have you heard about this one then? He's Hitler's father.
Patch:Yeah.
Carmina:Hitler was born on April 20th, 1889. For Hitler to have been conceived by Rizal, he would've had to have been participating in the conception of Hitler<laugh> the year before. But he was not in Germany during that time.
Patch:Well, there's just one more. Jose Rizal rose from the dead and became a chicken.
Carmina:What? There's so many things wrong with that, but okay, why?
Patch:Okay, so when they were transferring RIzal's remains to the Paco Cemetery, his remains vanished. And in its place was a white rooster, which flapped its wings and flew to Cavite.
Carmina:Oh my.
Patch:So, but they're saying that this information could have been used as a propaganda to inspire the Cavitenos to join the uprising. So those were the ridiculous urban legends.
Carmina:Well, Patch, I am really so happy that we decided to tackle this huge and important topic of Rizal and we barely even scratched the surface. There's so many backstories explanations, context for his two novels. And I think it's fitting to recall what was said to be his last words."Consummatum est,” meaning, it is finished.
Patch:And that's our episode. We hope you join us on our next trip.
Carmina:O siya, siya!
Patch:Ingat! Thanks for listening to FilTrip with Carmina and Patch. Support FilTrip through Patreon or PayPal, and follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever all podcasts are downloaded.
Carmina:Thanks to FilTrip sponsor, Solepack, a functional shoe accessory bag. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.
Patch:Email us at thefiltrip@gmail.com.