Court ordered Rizal to pay P1M

TEACHER TO THE NATION. A statue of Dr. Jose Rizal in Fort Santiago, Intramuros, Manila, shows the national hero as a teacher, which he really was during his exile in Dapitan. The nation commemorates Monday the 117th anniversary of Rizal’s martyrdom. ARNOLD ALMACEN

One hundred and seventeen years ago, Jose Rizal was executed in the killing fields then known as Bagumbayan, or the new land. He had been tried for treason and convicted for being, in the words of the prosecution, “the living soul of the revolution.”

It was not enough to snuff out his life, however. The revolution had caused damage to the State that the court set at P1 million, to be paid from the doomed man’s assets.

Rizal declared that he did not own much: some property in Dapitan, his professional books, medical and scientific instruments, a letter of credit amounting to P73.76. The only things of value he had on his person in his Fort Santiago prison cell he had turned over to his captors. These were a gold tie pin with a bee design and a pair of gold cufflinks with several tiny pearls and two amethyst stones.

Rizal wrote two novels that have sold thousands of copies since his death but his estate and his family did not earn from it. What he owned at the time of his death Rizal acquired from the practice of medicine, and a windfall from winning the lottery. He valued his books above all and kept the best from his library with Jose Ma. Basa in Hong Kong, out of reach of the Spanish authorities in Manila. He had a modest art collection, with paintings by his friends Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo that are worth far more today than they were in Rizal’s lifetime.

The State did not think much of the personal effects Rizal had left for his family: a rosary, an alcohol burner, a handful of letters, a pocket watch and some devotional books placed in his cell to prepare him for death. On the flyleaf of the Spanish translation of Thomas à Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ” he had inscribed: “To my dear and unhappy wife Josephine. December 30th 1896 Jose Rizal.”

After his death, the Rizal family requested that his tiepin and cufflinks be returned as keepsakes. But then how was Rizal’s estate to pay for the damages even if the estimate was later lowered from P1 million to P100,000?

The Registar of Deeds in Laguna certified that there was no property in Rizal’s name in their records, but in Dapitan were confiscated the following:

— Two pieces of land in Sitio (settlement) Daanglungsod, in the town of Lubungan. The first was land acquired from Sixto Carreon for P110. Its location was described thus: “Bounded on the north by lands of Don Santos Daimiel; on the south by lands of Moises Adverulos y Arroyo, alias Mangulong; on the east by the river of the old town of Lubungan; on the west by hill country of the public domain. It has an area of approximately 34 hectares, 47 ares and 50 centiares, and a stand of more or less 2,000 abaca plants.” (A centiare is equal to 1 square meter. An are is equal to an area exactly 10 meters by 10 meters, or 100 square meters.)

The second was land described thus: “Bounded on the north by lands of Angelo Alamang; on the south by land of Feliciano Eguia; on the east by the river of the old town of Lubungan; and on the west by land of Dionisio Adveruelos. It has an area of approximately 58 ares and 58 centiares, and a stand of 1,000 abaca plants more or less. The total area of both pieces is thus approximately 25 hectares, 6 ares and 8 centiares, with a stand of 3,000 abaca plants, more or less, the greater part of which is ready for stripping.”

Rizal owned a third property which he described thus: “A piece of hilly and stony land whose area is estimated to be approximately 18 hectares; bounded on the north by land of Celestino Acopiado and in part by hill country of the public domain; on the east by hill country of the public domain; and on the south and west by the Bay of Dapitan on which is found the following—a house of light materials, of bamboo and palm-leaf thatch with wooden posts and plank flooring, measuring 10 meters and 5 centimeters long and 11 meters and 40 centimeters wide; a shed of bamboo and palm leaf thatch with wooden posts and plank flooring, measuring 15 meters long and 7 meters and 10 centimeters wide. Both house and shed are in good condition.”

On this land were: 31 coconut trees, 10 bamboo trees, and a number of fruit trees. Rizal acquired this land from the public domain, with the exception of a small piece, which was the property of Lucia Pabangon that he purchased for P8.

Owning a beach-front property, Rizal operated a vessel of the kind called vilus, “unfinished, measuring 19 meters by 85 centimeters from stern to stern, 1.65 meter breadth of beam and 1.30 meters depth of hold, and two masts containing the following: one-half jar of white lead, one bamboo container of balao, three lengths of abaca cable (one of 10 fathoms two of 8), a pile of lumber, 58 buri mats for the sail and an anchor.”

These properties were not enough to pay for the damages incurred by the claimant State. They were not enough to pay for the loss of the Spanish colony later acquired by the United States for $20 million.

A little over a year after his execution, on Jan. 20, 1898, Rizal’s cufflinks and tiepin were turned over to his mother. His father had by then died without seeing these souvenirs of his filibustero of a son, who was recognized as a hero in his lifetime and posthumously named the National Hero of the Philippines.

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