Why the Catholic Church
should apologise to Rizal's mother
By Dean Reyes Bocobo in Manila/Philippine Daily Inquirer | Asia
News Network
Manila (Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN) - Coming so swiftly on the
heels of Christmas and the Slaughter of the Innocents, the annual Rizal Day
holiday on December 30 usually passes fleetingly by as just another blessed day
off, before we all plunge merrily into the noisy revelries and celebrations of
New Year's Eve.
[In the late 20th Century, some of the well-known speakers on Rizal Day began
those festivities a little early, perhaps even before or during their
oratories!]
Headed by President Benigno S. Aquino III, this year's Rizal Day
event at the Luneta features a full-dress reenactment and commemoration, by the
Knights of Rizal and the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, of the 1912
transfer of Rizal's remains in an urn, from the custody of his family in their
house in Binondo into the hands of the public for a wake at the Ayuntamiento in
Intramuros, then burial at the Luneta.
There is an historic photograph taken in the City of Manila on Rizal Day 1912,
showing the urn with the bones of Jose Rizal borne on a military caisson drawn
by six black horses, and flanked by an honour guard of the Knights of Rizal
[with caps and striped sashes] and white-clad members of the Grand Lodge of
Free and Accepted Masons. The location of this 1912 event is now the Plaza
Binondo de San Lorenzo Ruiz.
How the twists and turns of history produced amazing moments in time, frozen in
these historic photographs, is poignantly told by Asuncion Lopez Bantug,
granddaughter of Sisa, the sister of Rizal, in her classic biography "Lolo
Jose: An Intimate Portrait of Rizal" [Manila: Intramuros Administration,
1982]. It turns out to be an intimate portrait also of the mother of Jose
Rizal, Dona Teodora Realonda Alonso Rizal (1827-1911) and of his entire family.
She describes the events following the execution of Jose Rizal on December 30,
1896, how his mother was denied custody of his remains, how he was denied a
Catholic Church burial on consecrated ground and how he was secretly buried at
Paco Park in an unmarked grave.
As Bantug wrote: "The previous evening (December 29, 1896), Dona Teodora
had gone from one official to another, begging to be given her son's body after
the execution. None was moved by her pleas-except for the mayor of Manila, Don
Manuel Luengo, who acted on his own to grant her wish. She and Don Francisco
spent the morning of the execution secluded in the house of my Lola Sisa, with
whom they had been staying, on and off, since their eviction from Calamba. Lola
Sisa had ordered a coffin for her brother and it was sent in a hearse to the
Luneta as soon as word came that all was over.
"What was my Lola Sisa's consternation to learn that the body was gone-and
nobody able, or willing, to tell her where it had been taken. She hurried to
the city cemetery at Paang Bundok [where, in a farewell note, my Lolo Jose had
expressed a wish to be buried], but no body had been taken there. She made the
rounds of the suburban graveyards, but in none had there been a burial that
morning. Other members of the family were going from one authority to another,
begging to be told where the body had been buried, but were met only with
silence and a shrug.
"But my Lola Sisa refused to give up. She continued her round of the
graveyards-and was finally rewarded. At the Paco Cemetery, the old city
graveyard no longer in use, she noticed Mayor Manuel Luengo and some army
officers inspecting a grave. When they left, Lola Sisa hurried to the site. It
was a freshly dug grave and could only be that of her brother. She went to the
sexton and persuaded him to mark the grave with the small marble slab she
carried. The marble slab, designed by family friend Doroteo Ongjungco, was
inscribed with three letters, RPJ-my Lolo Jose's initials in reverse. The
family feared that a more explicit tombstone might prompt the authorities to
remove the body and hide it elsewhere, to prevent any public veneration of the
Rizal grave. It is said that a guard was placed at the Paco Cemetery to
discourage snoopers."
The Rizal family did not gain custody of his remains until the end of the
Spanish colonial regime at the hands of Commodore Dewey in 1898. Rizal's bones
were exhumed from the cold oblivion of Paco in the wake of the Mock Battle of
Manila Bay.
"Two years later, in the turmoil that followed the American occupation of
Manila, his family seized the chance to recover my Lolo Jose's body unhindered
by Church or State," wrote Bantug. "Spain had fallen in the
Philippines; American troops took over in Manila on Aug. 13, 1898. Four days
later, on Aug. 17, my Lola Sisa, accompanied by her daughter Angelica, sculptor
Romualdo Teodoro de Jesus, Higino Francisco and Doroteo Ongjungco, went to the
Paco Cemetery and had the grave dug up.
"The body was found to have been buried directly into the earth, without a
coffin. Nevertheless, the clothes were still recognisable, though whatever my
Lolo Jose had hidden in his shoes had long rotted away. A vertebra showing a
bullet wound was kept in a glass and silver cup in Lola's house.
"The remains were taken to my Lola Sisa's house, where Higino Francisco
and Romualdo Teodoro de Jesus themselves reverently washed the bones. They were
later placed in an ivory urn carved by De Jesus. This urn was venerated in
frequent public ceremonies during the 1900s, when Rizal began to be honoured as
the National Hero of the Philippines."
And so in the repose of his family's bosom, in his mother's everlasting
solicitude, Rizal's bones lay for 14 more years. Unbeknownst to them and
shortly thereafter, Americans such William Howard Taft [the first Civil
Governor under American Occupation] and Henry A. Cooper [Dem., Wisconsin] had
discovered Rizal for themselves through his writings, while wrestling with the
thorny question of what America ought to do for, about, or with the
Philippines.
In 1901, the United States Philippine Commission issued Decree No. 243
authorising a suitable monument for Jose Rizal, with funds for its construction
to be raised by public subscription. A worldwide design contest for the future
Rizal Monument elicited work from the creme-de-la-creme.
The proclaimed winning design, which was a fantasy in Italian Carrara marble by
Carlo Nicoli ["Al Martir de Bagumbayan"] was, however, never built.
The simpler second place winner, "Motto Stella" by Swiss artist
Richard Kissling, is what we find in the Luneta today.
Bantug described the culmination of a monument building process that apparently
outlived Dona Teodora by 1912.
"In 1912, the foundations were laid for a monument at the Luneta that
would also serve as the final tomb for the hero's mortal remains. On December
29, 1912, the urn containing the remains was borne in solemn procession from
the family's house to the Ayuntamiento, that fine Marble Hall that had been a
symbol of Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines. [Teodora Alonso was laid in
state in the same location the previous year.] In the salon of the
Ayuntamiento, the urn was enshrined on a magnificent catafalque surrounded by
innumerable floral wreaths, offerings of the nation. Throughout that night, the
Knights of Rizal and other patriotic groups as well as the public kept vigil
round the catafalque."
"Next morning, December 30, 1912-16th anniversary of the martyrdom-the urn
was borne to the Luneta on an artillery caisson drawn by six horses. Thousands
joined the procession and thousands more lined the streets.
"At the Luneta, the obsequies were led by acting Governor-General Newton
W. Gilbert and the two ranking statesmen of the Philippine Assembly, Sergio
Osmena and Mariano Ponce, the latter one of Rizal's dearest friends. Then the
urn was deposited in the centre of the base over which would rise the
monument...
"The monument they accomplished has become a national landmark, the most
visible tribute of the nation to its greatest son.
"But neither of his parents lived to see his monument."
Rizal's father, Francisco, died in Manila in 1898. His mother, Dona Teodora,
died in August 1911 just a year and a half before Rizal's burial at the Luneta
on December 30, 1912, the event whose centenary we commemorate today. She had
lain in state in the very same Ayuntamiento the year before Rizal was buried at
the Luneta.
In the year 2000, the good Pope John Paul II offered apologies on behalf of the
Vatican to all who had been wronged or harmed in history by the Catholic
Church, notably to Galileo Galilei for the events of over three centuries ago
involving his predecessor Urban VIII and the whole question of the Earth being
the Centre of the Universe.
He called on all the prelates of the Catholic Church in various countries to
follow his example in making such historic apologies for wrongs that need
acknowledging.
I think the Philippine Catholic Church does owe such an apology to Rizal's
mother for their inhumane treatment of him, even as a convicted demiurge of the
Philippine Revolution, in denying her custody of his remains. The Philippine
Church has not heeded the call of Pope John Paul II in any matter within their
realm. They must think that, unlike him, the infallibility gives them
impeccability.
It was cruel and unjust to deny Dona Teodora such a pitiable request after the
State and Church had united in executing him and satisfying their blood lust
against the insurrectos through him.
I appeal for historic apologies to her and not for Jose Rizal [who'd neither
want nor need it]. Or else the Church should suffer forever the present
exclusion from Philippine history that has continued unabated since 1912, when
final funeral rites for the national hero before final interment at the Luneta
were given to the Masons, and denied to the Catholic Church.
