Things you won’t ever know about Rizal

Waiting for execution is not the best of times.

Jose Rizal distracted himself from depression and self-pity by scribbling. But where are these papers today? Nobody knows.

During his last meeting with his mother and sisters, he pointed to a small alcohol stove on his desk and whispered to one of his sisters, in English so that the guards would not understand: “There is something inside.”

Rizal hid his “Ultimo Adios” in that cocinilla, folded so neatly his sisters had to take it out using their hairpins.

On the eve of his execution in December 1896, Rizal stuffed papers in his pockets and even in his shoes, assuming that his corpse would be turned over to his grieving family. But the Spanish colonial government would not risk public veneration of the “Martyr of Bagumbayan,” and he was dumped in an unmarked grave at the Paco cemetery.

His body was exhumed almost two years later, but the papers he carried to his grave had deteriorated. What were in those papers? Nobody knows.

Still quite a lot

One would think that a century and a half since Rizal’s birth, and having dissected and debated on him in many academic conferences, we would have exhausted all there is on the hero.

But the truth of the matter is there is quite a lot out there that we may never know.

Some 25 years ago I entered the National Archives for the first time, scanned the catalogue, and asked to see documents on Rizal.

While I was waiting for the bundle to arrive, one of the researchers came up to me and in a most condescending way declared: “Gasgas na yan! Ano pa ba ang maidadagdag mo? Naisulat nang lahat ukol kay Rizal.” (That’s old hat! What else can you write when everything has been written about Rizal?)

My youthful enthusiasm for research was doused by someone who bragged about knowing everything in the National Archives. My self-esteem may have been deflated, but pricking my pride was something else. I decided to stay.

When the bundle arrived, I undid the string and opened the thick Manila paper wrapping to reveal a small stack of documents. On top of the stack was a note from the prewar director of the National Library, James Alexander Robertson, saying that all the Rizal-related materials in this file had been transferred from the National Archives to the National Library!

There was nothing by Rizal in the bundle but there was a lot on him in it, especially the hitherto unknown and unpublished correspondence of his sisters.

My journey of a thousand miles began with a first step that day, and from then on Rizal became my career.

Rizal’s 3rd novel

Having studied Rizal for more than half my life, I realize that there are some gaps in our knowledge and wish these may be filled by the discovery of new material.

The last major find consisted of the Spanish drafts of a third novel after “Noli Me Tangere” (1887) and “El Filibusterismo” (1891).

In Hong Kong in 1892, Rizal began a novel in Tagalog but gave up and started again in Spanish. These drafts were inaccessible in the vault of the National Library. Worse, the papers were mislabeled as the borrador (or drafts) of the “Noli.” Correcting a simple cataloguing error led to the revision of the Rizal canon that now accepts “Makamisa” as his third, albeit unfinished, novel.

It is said that at around the time that “Makamisa” was being written, Rizal’s elder brother Paciano translated the “Noli” from the original Spanish into Tagalog. Rizal corrected this himself, making it the definitive Tagalog translation.

Paciano’s grandchildren may have been too young to know, but they say it might be one of the many papers in his lakeside home in Los Baños, now long gone.

In Dapitan, Rizal wrote a treatise on folk beliefs and the mangkukulam (witch) titled “La curacion de los hechizados” (or The Cure of the Bewitched).”

It is said that he wrote another study on the Malay, “Sakit latar,” or the mali-mali of the Filipinos. This is another of his missing works.

Correspondence

My interest in Rizal’s women led me to references in two entries to the prewar Jose Rizal biography contest. These works were later published as “Great Malayan” by Carlos Quirino and “Biografia de Rizal” by Rafael Palma.

Quirino said he consulted the letters of a certain Gertrude Beckett in the National Library, and even quoted passages from them. These letters are not extant.

Palma, in a footnote, said there were letters from a certain Suzanne Jacoby to Rizal in French in the National Library. These letters are likewise not extant and believed to be among the casualties of the 1945 Battle for Manila that saw the destruction of much of the city, including the National Library.

What has intrigued me all these years is that the letters of Beckett and Jacoby are missing from Teodoro M. Kalaw’s compilation of  Rizal’s correspondence.

This five-volume work in six books is known to scholars as the “Epistolario Rizalino” and is the primary source from where we drink.

But is it complete? Why were the Beckett and Jacoby letters left out? Is it because these letters were considered insignificant, or perhaps too personal or graphic for public consumption? We will never know because they are now long gone.

25 unread volumes

I thought, wrongly, that I would get my life back after June 19, 2011. I thought I would use the next decade and a half reinventing my life, exploring a new area of historical research.

But Rizal remains. With the slim chance of any more long-lost manuscripts coming to light, we still have the 25 volumes of writing he left behind for a nation that does not read him.

As many who played connect-the-dots as children know, there comes a time when you can glean the complete picture even if there are missing dots or gaps. Will we ever know Rizal fully?

I doubt it because we only know what he wanted us to know. We will never know what papers he hid or destroyed; thus, he will continue to fascinate Filipinos for the next 150 years.