CALAMBA CITY, Laguna – In time for the commemoration for the 121st Martyrdom of National Hero Dr. Jose P. Rizal on Saturday, a Calambeño professor in history and graduate studies and shrine curator reminisced the happier days their compatriot and the city’s illustrious son spent during his childhood days here.
Interviewed by PNA, Dr. Mariano J. Garcia, retired professor in Political Science, History, and Graduate Studies at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños (UPLB) and University of the East (UE), said that Rizal was no doubt an intelligent and talented man, but he had a lot of sense of humor.
Prof. Garcia said that a niece of barber Mang Ilyong Belan, named Aling Simeona vda. de Alibutud, told him that Jose, his father Francisco Mercado Rizal, and elder brother Paciano used to have their haircut sessions with the popular barber at the Rizal ancestral house.
Aling Simeona said that Jose was nicknamed “Ute” besides all the other Joses nicknamed Pepes, Pepings and Pepitos that were popular Calambeño names during Rizal’s time.
It was at that instance when the barber Tiyo Ilyong discovered that Jose Rizal has a bigger head that was disproportionate to the boy’s physique, prompting Paciano to advise Ute to do some workouts to gain body tone to match his big head, said Garcia.
Jose was the seventh of the 11 Rizal siblings with eldest Saturnina, Paciano, Narcisa, Olympia, Lucia, Maria, Concepcion, Josefa, Trinidad and the youngest Soledad.
“But Simeona revealed there are many other Calambeña lasses who had a crush on Jose Rizal, including her, because he was friendly, intelligent, good-looking and poked fun with his playmates and peers,” Garcia said.
Jose was the only child who used the surname Rizal, which his father Francisco chose from a Spanish government’s directive for Filipino inhabitants to sport a surname following the Claveria decree and the Madrid Directory.
The other siblings used Mercado, a surname inherited by Francisco whose father was a migrant Chinese named Domingo Lam Co, who was a merchant or “market man” thus obtaining the Spanish “Mercado,” referring to “taga palengke” or market.
Dr. Garcia, also said that because of Rizal’s penchant for physical fitness, he put up a gym and taught Calambeño kids various sports from fencing or “eskrima” and the javelin throw and chess.
The 88-year old professor, who was the Laguna College for Business and the Arts (LCBA) vice president for academic affairs, also revealed that Rizal’s association with the Calambeño youths was highlighted when he led a trek to the Mt. Makiling peak where he cut a bamboo pole and dug a hole to plant it.
“But before Rizal erected the pole where a white hanky was tied to it, he urged his peers and playmates to write their names on a piece of paper and bury them in the hole where Rizal erected the bamboo pole,” Garcia said.
He said that Rizal told his peers that someday, youths from all over the land would gather at the site, a vision fulfilled later when Los Baños hosted the 10th World Scout Jamboree from July 17 to 26, 1959 dubbed as “The Bamboo Jamboree” because of the Mt. Makiling venue which teemed with bamboo and nipa palms then.
More than 12,000 scouts from 44 countries participated in the historic world event at the Mount Makiling.
According to Garcia, Rizal was a simple guy who preferred simple living like eating his favorite chicken tinola with squash because the Rizals’ had owned a farm and patriarch Francisco was also a farmer and a tenant in one of the haciendas run by the Dominican friars in Real Village here.
Since the fish variety of ayungin, kanduli and biya abound in Laguna de Bay during that time, Rizal had come to like the “sinigang na ayungin” prepared by his mother Teodora.
Rizal also loved strolling at the coastlines of the Laguna Lake where he drew inspiration to write poems, memoirs about his travel, one of which was his boat ride by the lake where one of his slippers fell. This incident prompted Rizal to throw the other slipper so that other people who found the pair could use them.
“Rizal used to travel with his mother, father and family members on board the steamboat as the mode of sea transport that plied the route from Pasig to Calamba and Sta. Cruz, Laguna,” the university professor said who expressed regret of the dire state of the lake now, compared to his time when people could bathe, fish and enjoy the boat ride there.
Garcia confirmed that the “slipper” incident did happen at the Laguna Lake and not in San Juan River where Rizal used to stroll at its banks, because then the river was clean but was not deep enough for bancas to travel freely.
The historical San Juan River in Bañadero, a village which obtained its name from the Spanish term “bañar” for “to bathe”, was a frequent site that Rizal visited because it was a walking distance from his home, now declared as the National Historical Commission’s Calamba Rizal Shrine.
He said that Rizal loved to mingle with playmates at the San Juan River site because it teemed with fruit trees, vegetables, bananas and his association with the youths may have inspired him to write the poem “Sa Aking Mga Kababata” (To My Childhood Friends).
Rizal also frequented the village Lecheria (named from the Spanish term “leche” or milk) because it was the town center for milk produced from goat and cows at that time upon his elder brother Paciano’s advice to exercise there and drink milk to make him fit.
When Rizal won the lottery while exiled in Dapitan, he wrote to his mother Teodora in Calamba to ask what she wanted as a Christmas gift, narrated Garcia.
But the mother, instead of getting her “balato” from the pot money, told Rizal her Christmas wish was just for Rizal to do what he used to do and observe while in Calamba – never to forget to pray the Angelus, always to receive the communion and hear mass.
“When you do these, you (Rizal) have the best Christmas presents for me,” quoted Garcia on Rizal’s mother Teodora’s reply.
Garcia also confirmed that while Rizal was a social activist and a revolutionary through his writings and literatures, and youth involvements, the Calambeño hero never supported an armed struggle against the Spanish colonizers.
He said Rizal reasoned out that the revolutionaries did not have the support of a foreign country, did not have arms to match the enemies and did not have money and the adequate preparation to launch such a “bloody” fight which could only lead to many lives lost among the Filipinos.
He added that Rizal, in fact, cautioned the revolutionary movement leaders to underscore education among Filipinos, to have enlightenment and to be prepared for the kind of upheaval as they see fit during the social realities at that time.
He divulged that Rizal’s elder brother Paciano even aborted a plan for a “prison break” hatched by the revolutionary movement generals led by Gen. Diego Mojica to free Rizal from his detention at Fort Santiago because “Jose Rizal and his family have already accepted his fate at the looming execution and sentenced to die by firing squad in Bagumbayan and the attempt was just a waste of lives among those who wanted Rizal out from jail.”
Meanwhile, Rizal Shrine curator Zarah Escueta also shared that Rizal’s favorite spots at the ancestral house were the library where his mother Teodora taught him Latin, math, “caton” or the Spanish alphabet and other subjects and the “azotea” (terrace) for the story-telling sessions.
Escueta said that Rizal also spent his pastime at the “kubo” a nipa hut as the playhouse for the Rizal siblings, right at the backyard of the Rizal ancestral house.
“Jose played with his sisters, but he also preferred to stay alone while doing painting, drawing and sculpting. It was there when he sculptured the bust of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Rizal had drawn inspiration from the life and works of the famous French statesman and military leader,” Escueta revealed.
His sisters even kidded him when he showed them his sculpture masterpiece at a young age but Rizal retorted “huwag ninyo akong pagtawanan.” The piece of art seemed to manifest Rizal’s early foresight and wisdom, Escueta added.
She disclosed that right after Rizal’s execution in Luneta, Calambeños were told that a monument in Rizal’s honor would have been erected at the Mercado-Rizal ancestral house which was purchased by Don Isidro Cailles, the Laguna governor at that time from the Dominican friars for only PHP27,000.
But, townsfolk rejected it because the popular request was to restore the ancestral house and convert it to a shrine as a perpetual symbol and gesture of homage and highest admiration for Dr. Jose Rizal.
Escueta also divulged that the Mercado-Rizal household particularly Jose had the penchant for “halayang mangga” (mango), pancit miki and pancit lang-lang fare.
She said that the “muebles” (furniture) were also donated either as original fixtures or reconstructed based on the original stuffs from the Rizal clan and donors when the house was declared a shrine in the 1950s.
She also said that part of the shrine collections is the bronze cast sculpture of the “child Rizal” and his pet dog “Venganza” although there is yet another Rizal pet which could be part of the collections named “Alipato,” the pony that Rizal used to ride in going around town and to his favorite place in Lecheria village here.
She said that the shrine and museum gallery are now interactive to lure the millennial generation particularly the students and youths and visitors to the Rizal Shrine. (PNA)
