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A.Paulita Roa

SOMETIME ago, I received this text message from my cousin, Atty. Caridad R. Valdehuesa, that I decided to write about it in this column. Because she is fluent in Spanish, I would at times request her to translate into English some old Spanish documents and recently, I asked her help in translating a portion of Jose P. Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios. That done, she then sent me this text message:

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“I wonder why the Spaniards executed him (Rizal) during the happiest season of the year. They were adding ignominy to injury!”

What a very profound statement!

To us, Filipinos, we hold dear the Yuletide as the happiest season of the year. Col. Jose de Togores, the judge that handed down the death sentence to Rizal, knew this full well. Togores was the military governor of the Segundo Distrito de Mindanao known also as the Misamis province for many years. He and his family resided in Casa Real in Cagayan de Misamis (Cagayan de Oro) and was popularly known as the governor who loved to celebrate the town fiesta in a lavish way. He extended the fiesta celebration to August 31st, the feast day of Our Lady of Correa, the patron saint of all the bullfighters or matadors. Bullfights were held every afternoon during the fiesta week in the town plaza–the combined area of the present Gaston Park and the City Tennis Courts.

So why did Togores chose Dec. 30 as Rizal’s execution day? My conjecture was that he probably wanted to dampen the Christmas spirit of of the Indios (Filipinos) and send this chilling message across the country that no one was to be held above the Spaniards and the colonial regime. I see a parallelism in this with the death of Jesus Christ. He was executed on Passover, the holiest day of the Jews where they celebrate as well as commemorate the departure of their ancestors from Egypt, their land of bondage, to the promised land.

On Dec. 29, the eve of Rizal’s execution, his mother, Dona Teodora, together with some members of her family, stood for many hours outside the gate of  Malacanang Palace, hoping to speak to Gov. Gen. Polavieja and plead for the life of her son. But he refused to see her. However, on that same day, in his cell in Fort Santiago, Rizal sat down and did what he knew best–write. It was here that he wrote the soul stirring poem, “Mi Ultimo Adios” or My Last Farewell. I am in awe at the extraordinary courage and strength that our hero displayed hours before his death and I imagine that he calmly wrote these opening lines  in Spanish:

Adios patria adorada (Farewell beloved country)

Region de la sol querida (Treasured region of the sun)

Perla del mar de oriente (Pearl of the orient sea)

Nuestro perdido Edén! – (Our lost Eden!)

This poem is an open testament of his great love for his country, his people and even to his “dulce estrangera” or sweet stranger or foreigner, his beloved Josephine Bracken. It was as if he was saying to one and all, “It is finished!” and that he is now at peace at the thought of dying.

So on the bright early morning of Dec. 30, 1896, Rizal walked calmly to Bagumbayan and where he even noted the building of his beloved school, the Ateneo Municipal. He was executed by Filipinos who were part of the Spanish colonial army. A large group of Spanish soldiers stood nearby with loaded rifles, ready to shoot at the Filipinos should they fail to carry out the execution. Rizal’s death further fueled the anger and resentment of the Filipinos against the Spaniards around the country.

Two years later, it was all over. On Dec. 28, 1898, the last group of Spaniards left Cagayan de Misamis for good. There was a ship in Zamboanga that was to bring them back to Spain. Shortly afterwards, the people elected for the first time their own local officials under the Aguinaldo revolutionary government. Rizal’s death helped brought down the 333 years of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines.

Today, we all regard Jose P. Rizal as our national hero. His life and death has enriched our identity and pride as Filipinos even to this present generation. And through the decades, we have been celebrating three big events during our happiest season of the year–Christmas, Rizal’s day and the New Year.

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