Dr. Jose Rizal and Calamba

(Excerpts of speech delivered at the First National Conference of Calambenos in America held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Norwalk, California on November 14, 2014).
Among the fondest childhood memories I cherish were the times I spent in my grandfather Lope Elepano’s home in Calamba, Laguna where my mother and her siblings were born. I remember as a child walking by myself all over the town from the church in front of the giant pot (the “banga”), all the way to the market (the “palengke”). My favorite spot, which I visited frequently, was the childhood home of Dr. Jose Rizal, our national hero. I visited his actual modest home, just a block from my Lolo Lope’s residence, before it was moved to a large mansion beside the church to accommodate the throng of tourists paying homage to Rizal and adding revenue to the town’s coffers.Dr. Rizal is the most honored Filipino of all time. Even in the United States, there is a Rizal Park and a Rizal Bridge in Seattle and statues of him adorn the U. S. landscape from San Diego to Philadelphia. We celebrate Rizal Day (formerly on December 30, now on June 19) in Philippine consulates and embassies worldwide often with a reading of his most famous poem, My Last Farewell (“Mi Ultimo Adios”), in Spanish, no less.
From our history books, we learned that Jose Rizal was an eye surgeon, a linguist, a great lover, and a writer of revolutionary novels. As Calambenos, we bask in his glory, sharing a common hometown with the greatest Filipino who ever lived.
But was Calamba just the place where Dr. Rizal happened to have been born? Is Calamba nothing but a footnote in the biography of Dr. Rizal?
Jose Mercado y Alonso was born in Calamba on June 19, 1861. Later, when he studied in Manila at the Ateneo Jesuit school, he changed his name to “Jose Rizal because his brother, Paciano Mercado, was wanted by the authorities for being an associate of the martyred priest, Fr. Jose Burgos, and it was feared that he would not be accepted as “Jose Mercado”. [Later, after Rizal’s martyrdom, the entire Mercado family changed their surname to Rizal.]
Rizal graduated from the Ateneo with a bachelor of arts degree at the age of 16. He then enrolled in the College of Medicine at the University of Santo Tomas in 1878. After completing his medical studies at the U.S.T., he went to Barcelona, Spain in 1882 to further his medical studies. He also studied philosophy receiving both a doctorate in medicine and a licentiate degree in philosophy in June of 1885.
To pursue his specialty in ophthalmology, Dr. Rizal then trekked to Paris to study under the tutelage of the surgeon who introduced ophthalmoscopy and advanced ocular surgery in France, Dr. Louise de Wecker. Rizal specialized in the operation of the cataract. Rizal then went to Heidelberg, Germany to pursue further studies in ophthalmology under Dr. Otto Becker of the famed Augen-Klinik.
While in Germany, Dr. Rizal started writing his first novel, Noli Mi Tangere (Touch Me Not), about the stark conditions in the Philippines. It was self-published in Berlin at a cheap price (2,000 copies for 300 pesos). From its original in Spanish, the book was later translated into German and Tagalog (and 10 other languages since then).
During his whole time in Europe, Rizal was actively involved in the Ilustrado Movement lobbying for reforms in the Philippines. He was the acknowledged leader of the Filipino exiles. In 1885, when he announced that he was returning to the Philippines, the unanimous consensus of his friends and supporters was for him not to go, as he would surely be arrested.
Despite their warnings, Dr. Rizal left Marseilles, France on July 3, 1887 on a month-long voyage to Manila. The reason he studied medicine and especially, ophthalmology, was to cure his mother’s cataract problem which threatened to make her blind.
When Dr. Rizal arrived in Manila, there was no one there to greet him, not even the Spanish police. After a few days, he left for Calamba to see his family. When he arrived in his hometown, he was given a hero’s welcome, the Calambeno who made good.
Dr. Rizal removed the cataract of his mother, his first surgical operation, and it was a huge success. His beloved mother could finally see. Word quickly spread that a “German doctor” had arrived who could make the blind see. Everyone with an eye problem trooped to Calamba to be treated by “the German doctor” who charged according to the financial means of the patient.
Meanwhile, the Spanish friars, who were the objects of ridicule in Rizal’s novel, agitated for his arrest. The Dominicans at U.S.T. submitted a report on August 30, 1887 declaring: “The work Noli Me Tangere has been found heretical, impious and scandalous from the religious perspective, anti-patriotic and subversive from the political point of view, injurious to the Spanish government and its proceedings in the islands.”
But there was another reason the Dominicans wanted to get rid of Dr. Rizal and it had everything to do with Calamba.
[To be continued.]
(Send comments to Rodel50@gmail.com or mail them to the Law Offices of Rodel Rodis at 2429 Ocean Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 or call 415.334.7800).