My Hero

My Hero

(May 3,2016)

Dr. Jose Rizal


Realonda) (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino polymath, nationalist and the most prominent advocate for reforms in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is considered the national hero and the anniversary of Rizal's death is commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day. Rizal's 1896 military trial and execution made him a martyr of the Philippine Revolution.The seventh of eleven children born to a middle-class family in the town of Calamba, Laguna, Rizal attended the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree sobresaliente. He enrolled in the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and then traveled alone to Madrid, Spain, where he studied medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid, earning the degree of Licentiate in Medicine. He attended the University of Paris and earned a second doctorate at the University of Heidelberg. Rizal was a polyglot conversant in at least ten languages.He was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.[5] These are social commentaries on the Philippines that formed the nucleus of literature that inspired dissent among peaceful reformists and spurred the militancy of armed revolutionaries against 333 years of Spanish rule. As a political figure, Rizal was the founder of La Liga Filipina, a civic organization that subsequently gave birth to the Katipunan[6] led by Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo. He was a proponent of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution.

Rizal was born in the Philippines' Laguna Province. He studied medicine in Manila but left to complete his degree in Spain in 1882. While in Europe, Rizal wrote multiple works that exposed the immorality of Spanish colonial rule and advocated for reform in the Philippines, particularly rallying for equal treatment of Filipinos, curbing the power of Spanish friars and allowing for Filipino representation in the Spanish political system. When Rizal returned to the Philippines, he founded a group that championed non-violent protest. Despite his peaceful ways, he was exiled from the Philippines to the island of Mindanao.

Eventually, Rizal was allowed to return to the Philippines as an army doctor, but within a year of his return, a Filipino nationalist society called the Katipunan revolted. Though Rizal had no connections to the group and did not approve of the group's violent methods, Rizal was nonetheless arrested, tried, convicted of sedition and executed by public firing squad on Dec. 30, 1896. Rizal's execution further sparked opposition to Spanish rule, and in 1898, the Philippines were liberated from Spanish rule.