RIZAL-Farolan

RIZAL
A PLAY BY EDMUNDO FAROLAN
Copyright April, 1996

SUMMARY

Rizal is a historical drama of the life, loves and death of the national
hero of the Philippines, Jose Rizal Alonso. The play begins and ends
with his execution at Bagumbayan by a Spanish firing squad after he
is condemned to death for treason. In-between, the play traces this
Philippine patriot’s life--from his graduation at the Ateneo de Manila,
his travels through Europe, his novels Noli me tangere and El
Filibusterismo written during his sojourn there, his founding of the Liga
Filipina which resulted in his exile to Dapitan, and finally his trial,
condemnation and death.

SET DESCRIPTION

The set, not unlike the Shakesperean stage, would have two levels,
allowing for multiple staging. The upper area will be used for balcony
scenes, ship decks, and other scenes requiring upper level staging.
The lower area of the stage will be utilized for street scenes, battle
scenes, and ground level staging.
There are no heavy backdrops or complicated scene changes; only a
play of lights that fade in and fade out on different areas of the stage
to distinguish scene changes, as well as music and sound effects to
show a transition from one scene to another, or mood changes.

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CHARACTERS (In the order of appearance)

Jose Rizal Alonso

Spanish Officer
Fr. Pablo Ramon, S.J.
Mexican student
Columbian student
Peruvian student
Crisostomo Ibarra
Padre Damaso
Don Anastasio (Tasio)
Elias
Maria Clara
German lady (Rizal’s acquaintance)
English lady (Rizal’s acquaintance)
Graciano Lopez Jaena
Servant
Padre Florentino
Simoun
Reporters
Andres Bonifacio
Apolinario Mabini
English lady (companion of Josephine Bracken)
Josephine Bracken
Parents (Dapitan)
Governor General Blanco
Generalisimo Aguinaldo
Clerk of Court
Military Judges
Friar Judges
Prosecuting Attorney
Defense Attorney
Soldiers, Revolutionaries, etc.

ACT I

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PROLOGUE

Screen in the background: ‘Bagumbayan, December 30, 1896’. Sound of marching drums fade
in. Jose Rizal is blindfolded and has his hands tied behind his back. He faces a firing squad of
Spanish soldiers. A friar is reading a prayer book and giving his last blessing to Rizal.

SPANISH OFFICER: Alto!

Spanish soldiers aim at Rizal whose back is to the soldiers.

SPANISH OFFICER: Fuego!

The soldiers fire at Rizal who turns around and gets shot in front. He falls facing the sky. Drums
are played as scene fades out.

Scene 1

Screen flashes in the background: ‘Ateneo de Manila, March 1877. It is the old Ateneo Muncipal
de Manila. Fr. Pablo Ramon, S.J., Rector of the Ateneo, is on an elevated platform. It is Rizal’s
High School Graduation. Ramon is making an announcement in front of the whole student body.

RAMON: And last but not least, Valedictorian with straight sobresalientes and the winner of the
Drama contest for his play Consejo de los Dioses, Jose Rizal Alonso.

Applause. Rizal ascends platform.

RAMON: Enhorabuena, Pepe.

RIZAL: Gracias, padre.

Scene 2

The family--parents and relatives hug Rizal. Friends and students gather around Rizal after the
graduation to congratulate him. A lot of improvised chatting. As they exit:

FRIEND 1: Congratulations for the high marks, Pepe. Where are you going to university?

RIZAL: Sto. Tomas.

FRIEND 2: What will you be taking?

RIZAL: Medicine.

Lights fade out slowly as Rizal , family and friends exit, chitchatting.

Scene 3

Screen fades in: ‘July, 1881. University of Sto. Tomas’. Rizal is on a lectern reciting his prize-
winning poem “A la juventud filipina”. The poem may be read by the actor in its entirety or
portions of it. It might be a good idea to start off in Spanish for the first few verses then in its
English translation, then end in Spanish again. The following free English translation is my
attempt to make the poem more contemporary:

!Alza tu tersa frente,

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Juventud filipina, en este dia!

Luce resplandeciente
Tu rica gallardia,
Bella esperanza de la Patria mia!

Soar in your grandiose geniality

Infusing noble thoughts,
Lancing vigorously
Faster than the wind
Towards your glory!

Throw away, Oh Filipino Youth,

the heavy chains that weigh heavy
on your poetic genius, and ascend
on wings of fantasy
To seek Olympus in the clouds

And taste the nectar of sweet poetry

as you alone can rival the celestial music
of the melodious nightingale!

Run towards the sacred flame of genius

and with your magic brushes paint
the beauty of Apollo’s beloved,
the enchanting Phoebus.

Dia, dia felice,

Filipinas gentil para tu suelo!
Al potente bendice,
Que con amante anhelo
La ventura te envia y el consuelo!

Applause from audience. Fade out.

Scene 4

Screen: ‘ Madrid, 1884’ . The scene opens in a bar where students of the University of Madrid
hang out. Rizal is drinking tinto(red wine) or cervezas with international students from South
America. Rizal talks about the injustice of the Friars. The South Americans feel the same way
with what’s happening in their countries.

RIZAL: The Friars. They’re the cause of our ignorance.

MEXICAN: What do you expect? They need to control the country. And what better way than to
keep us ignorant?

COLOMBIAN: The Jesuits are the worse. Those blackbirds in their black suits. They’re the
devil incarnate.

Everyone laughs.

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RIZAL: I am a Jesuit graduate and that’s where I learned what Machiavellism is. There’s a term
for them in one of our Philippine dialects: suitic from Jesuitic...

PERUVIAN: What does it mean?

RIZAL: Cheater!

Everyone laughs.

MEXICAN: Well, they have the best lands.

RIZAL: Except for the Dominican friars. I was brought up by these two orders. First at the
Ateneo under the Jesuits and then Medicine under the Dominicans at the University of Sto.
Tomas.

COLUMBIAN: That’s why you’re twice the rebel we all are.

Laughter.

RIZAL: Seriously now. What’s happening and why is all this happening?

MEXICAN: Rizal, as though you don’t understand human nature. You, the poet, writer,
doctor...are you blind to the meaning of greed? The greed that inhabits mankind in search for
power and wealth?

PERUVIAN: Here we are in Spain and we are talking against her.

RIZAL: I love Spain; I just don’t like Spaniards.

COLUMBIAN: Except for the women!

ARGENTINIAN: Here, here! Para las mujeres de Espana!

Everyone lifts their glasses.

RIZAL: You latinos are going to turn me into a playboy!

COLUMBIAN: Es la naturaleza latina! You should know that. You’re Filipino!

RIZAL: Everyone stand up and toast to ourselves!

MEXICAN: Brindis!

ALL: A Filipinas y Latinoamerica!

They drink and lights fade out.

Scene 5

Screen: ‘ Heidelberg, 1885’ . Rizal is writing Noli me tangere. Voice over excerpts of the Noli, in
Spanish first, then in English, start off each of the scenes followed by actual dramatizations of
these scenes, as though Rizal, as he writes, visualizes these scenes.

A: Ibarra is in a carriage riding through Manila on his way to his home town, San Diego.

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Voice over as Rizal writes, first in Spanish then in English and as voice over fades out, the
scenes as described below are put in mise-en-scene :

RIZAL (writing, voice over): El coche de Ibarra recorria parte del mas animado arrabal de
Manila; lo que en la noche anterior le ponia triste, a la luz del dia le hacia sonreir a pesar suyo
( voice over fades out then fades in to English:)

Ibarra rides off towards the square of San Gabriel, and is soon crossing one of the busiest
districts of Manila.

Ibarra on a carriage, smiling, as he looks out , as described by Rizal:)

VOICE OVER (continuing):The hustle and bustle everywhere, so many carriages and cabs at a
dash, Europeans, Chinese, and natives, each dressed after their own fashion, fruit pedlars,
messengers, sporters stripped by the waist, foodshops, inns, restaurants, shops, carts pulled by
carabaos, the noise, the incessant movement, the sun itself, a certain smell, the colours --he
had almost forgotten what Manila was like.

Voice over as these scenes go on as described...

RIZAL (voice over): The streets had still not been paved. The sun shone two days in a row, and
the streets dissolved into clouds of dust that covered everything,blinding passers-by and sending
them into fits of coughing; it rains a day, and the streets become a marsh, gleaming at night with
the reflected lanterns of carriages that splash mud on the pedestrians on the narrow sidewalks as
far as five metres away. How many women had lost their embroidered slippers in the
mud!(Women angry as they lose their slippers. In another part of the stage, prisoners fixing the
roads described as follows:) In time the prisoners would show up to repair the streets; shaven-
men wearing short-sleeved shirts and knee-length pants lettered and numbered in blue, chained
in twos, rags wrapped around their ankles , burnt by the sun, driven to exhaustion by the heat,
exertions, and the whips of the trusties who derived their peculiar pleasures from flogging their
fellows. The prisoners are tall men with stern faces, who never smile but whose eyes flash when
the whip falls on their shoulders. (A prisoner is whipped.) A passer-by tosses a cigar butt. It is
picked up by the nearest prisoner and hidden in his straw helmet. The other prisoners watche the
other passers-by with unfathomable looks. Ibarra absorbs the noise they make: the dull thud of
rock being crushed to fill up the holes in the streets. Ibarra remembers a boyhood event: It had
been high noon; the sun’s rays fell mercilessly. Under a poor shade of a lonely cart lay one of
these unfortunates, unconscious, his eyes staring wide. Two of his fellows were silently putting
together a bamboo litter, without anger, without sorrow, without impatience--that, it was said, was
what the natives were like. You today, our turn tomorrow, they seemed to be telling themselves.
People hurried by without a glance; the women passed, looked and went on their way; the sight
was common enough, so common that hearts had grown calloused. The carriages rolled by, their
varnished bodies gleaming in the rays of a brilliant sun in the cloudless sky. He alone, a boy of
eleven, newly arrived in town, had been touched; he alone, he felt sure, had slept badly because
of it.

RIZAL VOICE OVER (as scene continues to be dramatized on stage): But that had been long
ago. Turning his attention back to the city, Ibarra notices that the honest old pontoon bridge is
gone. It had been a good bridge for all its faults, rising and falling with the tides of the river
Pasig, which more than once had battered and destroyed it.

The almond trees in the square of San Gabriel had not grown much, and were as thin as ever.

The Escolta, the main business street, seemed to him less attractive than when he last seen it, in
spite of a new building decorated with draped female figures, which had taken the place of a
group of warehouses.

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He found the new bridge more worthy of note, while the houses on the right bank of the river
among bamboo clumps and groves, where the Escolta ended opposite the Island of Romero,
reminded him of the chilly mornings when he paddled past them bound for the baths of Uli-Uli.

He meets carriages drawn by the teams of magnificent ponies, carrying businessmen on their
way to their offices, still half asleep, military men, Chinese in foolish and ridiculous postures,
grave friars, canons, and in an open carriage, sees Father Damaso, himself, serious and
frowning.

Scene freezes as Damaso and Ibarra stare at each other from their carriages. Lights fade out
from this scene.

B. Lights fade in. We see Rizal writing as Voice over in Spanish then in English, as in
Scene A above:

RIZAL (voice over as he writes): Estamos a diez de noviembre, la vispera de la fiesta. Saliendo
de la monotonia habitual, el pueblo se entrega a una actividad incomparable en la casa, en la
calle, en la iglesia, en la gallera y en el campo: las ventanas se cubren de banderas y
damascos de varios colores; el espacio se llena de detonaciones y musica; el aire se impregna y
satura de regocijos...

A lot of commotion. Townspeople are preparing for the Fiesta. Roosters are being prepared for
tomorrow’s Cockfights, Bamboo archs being constructed, Food being prepared, etc.

C. Old Tasio’s house. Ibarra goes through the garden of Don Anastasio and up the stairs
to his room. Tasio is an old man, bent over, writing in his study. Collections of insects
and leaves are hung on the walls among maps and old bookcases crammed with printed
volumes and manuscripts in disarray. He is so absorbed in his writing he doesn’t notice
Ibarra who as he is about to withdraw not wanting to disturb him.

TASIO: (noticing Ibarra) Oh you’re here .

IBARRA: I’m sorry ..you’re busy..I’ll come back another day.

TASIO: It’s okay. I was doing a little writing, but there’s no hurry. I need a break anyway. Can I
help you?

IBARRA (approaching Tasio): Yes. (Noticing Tasio’s writing.) This is interesting. Are you
working on hieroglyphics?

TASIO (laughing): No. I use symbols when I write.

IBARRA: But why should you bother writing in code?

TASIO: So no one can read what I write.

IBARRA (inquisitive): But why do you write if you don’t want to be read?

TASIO: I’m not writing for this generation but for those yet to come. If this generation could read
what I have written, my books will be burned, my whole life’s work. But future generations will
decipher these characters and say: ‘Not everyone slept during the night of our forefathers!’

Contemplative pause.

IBARRA: I came to talk to you about a matter of some importance. Yesterday afternoon...

TASIO: (interrupting): They arrestd Elias.

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IBARRA (surprised): How did you know?

TASIO: I saw the Muse of the Constabulary.

IBARRA: Who’s that?

TASIO: The Lieutenant’s wife. You didn’t invite her to your party, but everybody in town knows
the story. She is shrewd and mean. She reads her husband’s official reports and instructions,
and when he returned drunk, she lost no time in sending the sergeant and his squad out to your
picnic, to spoil it and get even with you. Be careful. Eve was a good woman; she was made by
God Himself. Dona Consolacion is a bad woman, or so they say, and nobody knows where she
came from!.. To be good, a woman must have been, at least, some time, a virgin or a mother.

IBARRA (smiling then draws some papers from his wallet): My late father was in the habit of
asking your advice on certain matters. I have a plan which I must make sure will succeed. I
want to build this school for my fiancee. (Shows the building plans to Tasio.) I’d like to know
whom I should win over to make my plan succeed. You know everyone here. I’ve just arrived
from abroad and I’m almost a stranger in my own country.

TASIO (carefully examining the plans, his tears moist): You’re going to do what I once dreamed
of doing--a poor madman’s dream! My advice to you is never to ask my advice!

IBARRA looks surprised.

TASIO: People will take you for a madman the way they did to me. People believe that those
who don’t think as they do are crazy and that’s why they think me crazy. I’m grateful for it
because the day I regain my reason according to their standards, they’ll take away the little
freedom I have left as a rational being. And who knows! They may be right because I don’t think
nor live according to their laws. My principles, my ideals are different. They think the Mayor is
smart because he has never learned to do anything except serve chocolate to the parish priests
and suffer Father Damaso’s bad temper. But now, look at him. He’s rich! So, everyone thinks:
“There’s a man with brains! He started with nothing and now, he’s rich!”

But look at me. I inherited wealth and rank; I spent my life studying; and now, I”m poor, unfit for
any office. They all say “He’s a fool. He doesn’t know what’s happening” . The priest nicknames
me “pseudo-intellectual” and suggests I’m realy a charlatan who’s showing off what I learned in
the university. Maybe I’m really crazy and they are the sane ones. Who can tell?

Pause.

My second piece of advice is to consult the parish priest, the Mayor and all the persons of rank.
Of course, they’ll give you bad advice--foolish, worthless--but you don’t have to follow it. Just
pretend you’re following it; make them believe you’re doing what they want you to do.

Pause.

IBARRA: Your advice is good but difficult to follow. Must I carry out my plans under cover?
Can’t what is good be done in spite of everything? Truth does not have to dress up like Error in
order to prevail.

TASIO (emphatic): But no one loves the naked truth! What you say is good in theory but it is
feasible only in the dream-world of youth. Take the school master. He wanted to do good, with
the sincerity of a child, and all he got was jeers and laughter. You tell me you’re a stranger in
your own country. I believe you. You made a bad start the very day you arrived. You humiliated
a friar who has a reputation among the townspeople of being saintly and wise. I hope to God you
have not compromised your future! Just because the Dominicans and the Augustinians look
down on the coarse habit of the Franciscans, their rope girdles and their open sandles; and just
because a famous professor of the University of Santo Tomas once recalled that Pope Innocent

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III had described the Rule of the Augustinians as more fit for pigs than for men, don’t imagine
that all these friars will not join hands when the time comes to confirm what one of their
procurators declared: “The lowest lay-brother is more powerful than the Government with all its
soldiers.” Cave ne cadas. Beware lest you fall! Money talks, and the golden calf has many
times ousted God from His altars, even in the days of Moses.

IBARRA (amused, smiling): I am not so pessimistic. Life in my own country doesn’t seem to me
to be that dangerous. I believe your fears are a little exaggerated, and I hope to be able to
achieve all my objectives without meeting any serious opposition from them.

TASIO: You will if the friars don’t help you. The friar will only have to hitch the rope round his
waist or shake the dust from his habit. On the slightest pretext, the Mayor would then refuse you
tomorrow what he grants you today. And no mother would allow her child to go to your school.

IBARRA: I can’t believe the friars are so powerful as you make them out to be. Even supposing
what you say is true, I should still have on my side all sensible people and the Government
which has the best of intentions and high objectives, and openly seeks the good of the
Philippines.

TASIO (muttering): The government? The government, you say? However desirous it may be
of improving the country for its own sake and that of the Mother Country, however much this or
that official may remember the generous spirit of Ferdinand and Isabella and pledge himself to it,
the Government itself sees nothing, hears nothing, and decides nothing except what the parish
priest or the head of a religious order makes it to see, hear and decide. It is convinced that it
rests on them alone; that it stands because they support it; that it lives because they allow it to
live; and that the day they are gone, it will fall like a discarded pupet. The Government is
intimidated with threats to raise the people against it, and the people cower at the Government’s
armed forces. This is the basis of a strategy that is quite simple, but it works for the same
reason that cowards in cemeteries take their own shadows for ghosts and the echoes of their
own voices for calls from the dead. So long as the government does not deal directly with the
people it will not cease to be a ward, and will live like those idiots who tremble at the sound of
their keeper’s voice. The government does not plan a better future; it is only an arm, the
convent is the head. Because of the inertia with which it allows itself to be dragged from failure
to failure, it becomes a shadow, loses its identity, and, weak and incapable, entrusts everything
to selfish interests. If you don’t believe me, compare our governmental system with that of the
countries you have visited.

IBARRA (interrupting): Oh, that’s too much. Surely it’s enough to satisfy us that our people do
not complain or suffer like those of other countries, thanks to the Church and the benevolence of
our rulers.

TASIO: The people do not complain because they have no voice; they do not move because
they are in a stupor. And you say that they do not suffer because you have not seen how their
hearts bleed. But some day you will see and hear. Then woe unto those who draw their strength
from ignorance and fanaticism, who take their pleasure in fraud, and who work under cover of
night, confident that all are asleep. When the light of day reveals the monstruous creatrures of
the night,the reaction will be terrifying. All the forces stifled for centuries, the poisons distilled
drop by drop, all the repressed emotions, will come to light in a great explosion. Who shall then
settle the accounts, such accounts as the peoples of the world have presented from time in those
revolutions that history records in blood-stained pages?

IBARRA: God, the government and the church will not allow such a thing to happen. The
Philppines is religious and loves Spain. Of course there are abuses, there are shortcomings, I
don’t deny it, but Spain is working out reforms to correct them. Spain is not egotistical.

TASIO: I know, and that’s the worst of it. The reforms that come from above are disregarded by
the lower bureaucracy because of greed and vice--the get-rich quick syndrome and the
ignorance of the masses who allow all this to happen. Abuses aren’t corrected by a Royal

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Decree if authorities do not watch over its implementation and if there is no freedom of speech
to speak against these petty tyrants. Plans remain plans, abuses will continue, but the Minister
in Spain, nevertheless, will sleep peacefully, thinking that these reforms are being implemented.
Besides, if a high official comes with great and generous ideas, he immediately begins to hear
the following comments : “Your Excellency doesn’t know the country, Your Excellency doesn’t
understand the temperament of the natives, Your Excellency is spoiling them, Your Excellency
will do well to to trust Mr. So and so, and so forth and so on, while behind his back, he is taken
for a fool. And as his Excellency really does not know the country which he thought was
somewhere in South America, aand besides has defects and weaknesses like any man, he finally
allows himself to be convinced. His Excellency also must keep in mind that he sweated and
suffered much to get this position, and that he’ll only be here for three years, and that he’s
getting old and must think of his future rather than quixotic enterprises--a modest home in
Madrid, a little townhouse in the country, a good pension to show forth in Court. These are the
things he must work for in the Philippines. Let’s not ask for miracles. Let’s not expect the
foreigner who comes only to make his fortune and then go home, to take an interest in the
welfare of the country. What does he care about the blessings or the curses of a country which
he does not know and where he has no memories or loved ones? To be satisfying, glory must
ring in the ears of those we love, within the walls of our homes, in the air of our native country
where we shall be laid to rest. We want glory to warm our graves, so that we may not be
reduced to nothing and something of ourselves may yet remain. We cannot promise any of
these things to those who come to guide our destinies. The worst of it is that, just when they
have begun to learn what their duty is, it is time for them to leave.

Fade out.

D. Fade in on another part of the stage. Ibarra is now with Elias. The dialogue starts in
the original Spanish then into English:

ELIAS: Solos, en verdad, somos nada; pero tomad la causa del pueblo. Unios al pueblo. No
descigais sus voces. Dad ejemplo a los demas. Dad la idea de lo que se llama una patria!

IBARRA: Lo que pide el pueblo es imposible; es menester esperar.

ELIAS: Esperar! Wait? That’s all we do . Wait! We’ve waited enough. Waiting is suffering.

IBARRA: I won’t be the one who’ll lead our people by force. Never! If ever I see our
countrymen rising in arms, I’ll be on the Government’s side and fight back. I want what’s good
for my country and that’s why I want to start a school. I want to do it through education, through
intellectual progress and enlightenment, a cultural revolution, and not an armed revolution.

ELIAS: But don’t you see? Without an armed revolution, we’ll never obtain freedom!

IBARRA: But I don’t agree that freedom can be obtained that way.

ELIAS: Without an armed revolution, there is no freedom. Without freedom, there is no

enlightenment. You yourself admit you’ve been away too long and you hardly know what’s
happening to our country. I can see it now. Battles begin with ideas that come down to the
masses who have to shed their blood for the motherland. Don’t you see how everyone is
awakening? The dreams of liberty and freedom have been with us for centuries! God will not
abandon us. He has never abandoned other struggles of people in their struggle for liberty. And
he will not abandon us.

Fade out. Sound of drums in the blackout.

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E. Fade in: sweet nostalgic music of ‘Canto de Maria Clara’:

Dulces las horas en la propia patria

Donde es amigo cuanto alumbra el sol;
Vida es la brisa que en sus campos vuela,
Grata la muerte y mas tierno el amor!

Ardientes besos en los labios juegan,

De una madre en el seno al despertar;
Buscan los brazos a cenir el cuello,
Y los ojos sonriense al mirar.

Dulce es la muerte por la propia patria,

Donde es amigo cuanto alumbra el sol;
Muerte es la brisa para quien no tiene
Una patria, una madre, y un amor.

Sweet are the hours in one’s own motherland

Where the sun shines friendly
And the sweet breezes touch the fields
Where death appeases and love is tender.

Ardent kisses play on lips

As one awakes on a mother’s bosom
Arms embracing her neck
Eyes smiling and beholding.

Sweet it is to die for the motherland

Where the sun shines friendly
Where death is the wind for whom
There is no country, no mother, no love.

Maria Clara & Ibarra on the azotea. Background music: Melody of ‘Canto de Maria Clara’ as
this scene progresses:

MARIA CLARA: Has pensado siempre en mi? No me has olvidado en tantos viajes? Tantas
grandes ciudades con tantas mujeres hermosas?

IBARRA: Podria yo olvidarte? How can I forget you? How can I turn my back on a promise? A
sacred promise I made to you? Do you remember that night? It was a stormy night. You saw
me crying over my mother’s corpse. You came to me and put your hand on my shoulder. Your
hand that I hadn’t touched for a long time. . .

MARIA CLARA: And I said ‘You’ve lost your mother. I never had one.’ And I cried with you.

IBARRA: You loved her. And she loved you like a daughter.

MARIA CLARA: And it rained outside and there was lightning and thunder.

IBARRA: But for me, it was music to my ears as I looked at the pale smile of my mother. Then I
held your hand and I swore to love you, to make you happy, and now, I am renewing my vow to
you. (Holds both hands. ) How can I ever forget you? You were always in my mind wherever I
travelled. The picture of you in my mind was my consolation in those lonely times abroad. I
imagined you running barefoot in the beaches of Manila, as you looked at the distant horizon,
wrapped in the warm light of early dawn; in my thoughts, I heard you sing that nostalgic,
melancholy tune that awoke sad memories in me, then happy memories of our childhood, our

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games, and all those joyful moments in the pueblo. I always saw you as the spirit, the poetic
reincarnation of my country, the beautiful, simple, innocent, loving daughter of that great country
Mother Spain...

Fade out. Fade in Maria Clara music with lyrics.

After this chapter-scene, Rizal’s girl friend, a German fraulein calls him to bed. A little comic
twist.

FRAULEIN: Pepe, are you coming to bed?

RIZAL: Yes, Greta, I’m coming.

Scene 6

Screen: ‘Berlin, 1887’. Book launching of Noli me tangere. Literary people are gathered around
congratulating Rizal.

PUBLISHER: Ladies and gentlemen. May I have your attention?

Noise dies down.

PUBLISHER: I am proud to publish this excellent novel NOLI ME TANGERE from our Herr
Doctor Jose Rizal who is, in our eyes, a son of Berlin, a son of Germany.

Applause

RIZAL (speaking in German): Danke, Herr Doktor. I am proud to be a son of Berlin, a son of
Germany. (Applause.) I would like to read an excerpt of my novel, actually, the dedication To
my Country. It is the nationalist fervor I had assimilated during my stay here in Germany. In this
dedication, I talk of a cancer, a cancer that is eating up my country. The cancer of greed that the
colonialists, particularly those of the religious orders, are inflicting on my countrymen.

Reads.

‘In the midst of human ills, there is a cancer so malignant that just a slight contact irritates and
causes very acute pains. How many times, dear Motherland, when I call you to mind, have I
wanted to evoke you in the midst of these modern civilizations and compare you to them. But
instead, your image appears to me afflicted with a social cancer.

‘Now, desirous of your well-being, which is also ours, and seeking the best cure, I shall do to you
what the ancients did with their sick: expose you and your sickness on the steps of the temple so
that each person who would pass by and pray to his god, would propose a remedy.

‘To this end, I shall attempt to recreate faithfully your condition; I shall lift part of the veil that
covers the disease, sacrificing everything for the sake of truth, even my own ego, because as
your son, I also suffer your cancer.’

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Fade out.

Scene 7

Screen: London, June, 1888.

Rizal on his desk writing. He writes Mariano Ponce, a contributor of La Solidaridad in Barcelona.
Voice over:

Dear Mariano:

I received your letter today. I’m sorry to hear La Solidaridad isn’t doing very well in Barcelona,
and I can see your frustration. I know you haven’t had much success in your journalistic
endeavours, but that doesn’t mean you should stop writing. Not all of us are born journalists or
writers. For me, writing is secondary. What is important is to think and act correctly, work for a
goal, and the pen is there to express all this.

What one expects of a Filipino of our generation is not being a literati, but rather, being a good
person, a good citizen who contributes to the progress of his country with his head, his heart, and
perhaps our arms. We can and must work always with our heart; and with our arms, when the
opportune moment comes.

Now the principal instrument of the mind and the heart is the pen.

Screen shows Rizal writing in Spanish while voice over English translation accompanies it.

Ahora el instrumento principal del corazon y de la cabeza es la pluma; otros prefieren el pincel,
otros el cincel; yo prefiero la pluma. Ahora, no nos parezca el instrumento como el objeto
primordial; a veces con uno malo se hacen obras muy grandes, digalo el bolo filipino. A veces
con una mala literatura pueden decirse verdades grandes.

Yo no soy inmortal ni invulnerable, y mi mayor alegria seria verme eclipsado por una pleyade de
paisanos a la hora de mi muerte, que si a uno le matan o le ahorcan, que le sustituyan veinte o
treinta al menos para que se escarmienten de ir ahorcando o matando. Muchos no quieren
quemar las hormigas porque dicen que mas se multiplican. Por que no seriamos hormigas?

Voice-over accompaniment:

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RIZAL-Farolan

...Others prefer to express their thoughts and feelings through painting or sculpture; I prefer the
pen. This instrument might not be of great consequence, although it could produce great works.
Sometimes bad literature could express great truths. I’m not saying that I or my writings are
literarily immortal and invulnerable. In fact, my greatest joy is to see myself eclipsed by
innumerable countrymen at the hour of my death. If they kill or hand one patriot, let 20 or 30
take his place so that out of fear, the oppressors will stop the hangings and killings. They say
‘Don’t burn ants because the more they multiply’. I wish we were ants.

Fade out

Daytime. Piccadilly or Hyde Park, London.

Improvisation of actors, as follows:

Rizal meets an English lady in the Park. They become friends. Eventually, he has an affair with
her. The scene could probably open in the Park and Rizal, in his poor English, is asking for
directions. A conversation ensues where they plan to teach each other languages: She teaches
Rizal English and Rizal teaches her Spanish and Tagalog. Words like ‘Amor’ ‘Mahal kita’, and
other flirtations lead to their affair. Actors can improvise. Excellent challenge for actors.

Scene 8

Screen: Barcelona, 1889.

A banquet in honor of Rizal who is made honorary president of La Solidaridad. Marcelo del Pilar,
Mariano Ponce, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and other Filipino patriots, members of the Hispano-
Filipino Association, who had gone to Spain to work for colonial reform, are present. Lopez
Jaena, who is an accomplished orator, introduces Rizal.

LOPEZ JAENA: It is with great honour that I present the honorary title of President of La
Solidaridad to this emminent nationalist, creator of that scathing novel Noli me Tangere recently
published and acclaimed in Germany. His ideals have inspired us to write what we have written
in La Solidaridad, the very essence of Solidarity.

Spanish provinces abroad, including the Philippines, have found in LA SOLIDARIDAD inspiration
towards their legitimate aspirations for reform. They find in our publication solutions to the evils
that wrack these suffering provinces abroad.

Our publication, inspired by our compatriot Rizal’s novel Noli me tangere, exposes the gangrene
that is corroding the societies of these provinces: the immorality in the administration of the
justice system, our economy and our government, now a cause of worry by other countries of the
world.

Our goal is basically political, and it is not limited to any particular school of thought or system.
All we seek is Spanish integrity in the Philippines, in particular. We seek reforms which are the
natural aspirations of people of this age- a better life style, and not the brushing aside of
politcians who answer: “We’ll see.”

We want to give a helping hand to our motherland as well as other provinces in Latin America
under Spain, indicating the problems we are undergoing and possible solutions that will lead to
reforms.
Let me now pass the lectern to our honorary president, Jose Rizal.

Applause.

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RIZAL: Muy amable, Graciano. Thank you. My dear countrymen: I am deeply honoured by the
title you have bestowed on me as Honorary President of La Solidaridad. I hope it will fluorish in
the months to come. I am impressed by the credentials of the members of the Editorial board.
They have been well-selected, and I am sure that the goals of this publication under their
guidance will surely be put into effect.

Although I do not doubt that my advice would be useless (polite laughter frm members) the
contribution of each member is doubtlessly invaluable. However, if your purpose in writing is just
fill up a blank piece of paper, I might as well start off and write some vulgar observations which
you all are familiar by now from my writings (laughter).

Let me start off by saying that in new societies, there should rein a spirit of tolerance.
Discussions should be dominated by a tendency towards reconciliation rather than the inimical
spirit of opposition. No one should feel resentful for losing in a polemica. If an opinion is not
accepted, the author, instead of feeling dejected, should wait for another occasion to bring out
his viewpoint. The individual should not override the well-being of Society as a whole. His amor
propio which is an expression of his subconscious individuality should not take over in
discussions that are for the common good. That way, we won’t have hurt feelings and
discontent. It would be a good idea to have in mind this formula when propositions, projects, etc.
Are being prepared: This is our opinion if all the other members do not object. This
formula or something similar to it should govern any discussion.

I’ve seen too many discussions going awry because of ego trips. The decision of the majority
must be sacred and unquestionable. There should be a sentiment of honour and good will.
Don’t expect hopnours nor awards for what you do. Anyone who does his duty in the hope of
getting an award afterwards will only be disappointed. It is human to never feel completely
compensated for a job well done. And in order that no one feels discontent nor fully
compensated for work done, it is better to just do your job and not expect anything in return. In a
country like ours where injustice reins, it is better to remember that injustice is the prize of those
who do their duty.

Applause. Fade out.

Scene 9

Screen: Brussels, 1890. Rizal is writing El Filibusterismo. As he writes, in a small corner of the
stage, scenes from this novel are enacted in different areas of the stage:

RIZAL (voice over): El Filibusterismo. Capitulo diecisiete. La feria de Quiapo. (Writing as voice
over goes from Spanish to English; scenes are dramatized in different areas of the stage similar
to Noli me tangere scenes above.)

‘La noche era hermosa y la plaza ofrecia un aspecto animadisimo. Aprovechando la frescura de
la brisa y la esplendida luna de enero...people were crowding to amuse themselves, to see and
be seen.

A. One part of the stage is illuminated. It is the fiesta in Quiapo. Sets as described in the
narration. Actors mime as Rizal describes what is happening:)

RIZAL: ..Music and twinkling lanterns added to the festive mood. Long lines of stalls glittering
with tinsel and couloured decorations displayed masks, coloured balls, tin toys, miniature trains
and carts, mechanical horses, toy steamships with miniature boilers, Lilliputian porcelain wares,
foreign dolls, blonde and smiling and beside them, native dolls, serious and pensive in aspect,
like little ladies beside gigantic children. The beating of little drums, the toot-toot of tin horns, the
nasal music of accordions and organs, combined in a carnival concert, and through it all the
crowds came and went, shoving, stumbling, with their faces turned twards the stalls so that

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collisions were f requent and comical. Coaches had to slow down and the coachmen had to
incessantly shout Tabi! Tabi!

Government employees, military personnel, friars, students, Chinese, girls with their mothers or
aunts, exchanging greetings, winks from the men, and more or less cheerful comments.

Scene and actors freeze. Lights fade out. Music stops abruptly.

Another part of the stage is illuminated. It is a a secluded retreat house beside the sea. The
open windows show the restless surface of the sea which merges with the horizon in the
distance. Father Florentino, an old priest, is alone playing a grave and melancholy tune, long
notes, prayerful but robust, on a reed organ to the accompaniment of the crashing waves and the
moans of the melancholy woods.

Servant enters.

SERVANT: Father, Simoun wants to speak with you.

The old priest goes to the next room, another area of the stage which is illuminated as he walks
in. It is a well-aired room with a wooden floor made of broad and well-polished boards and
furnished with a heavy armchair of an old-fashioned design, unvarnished and undecorated.
There is a huge wooden bed with four posts holding the crown of the mosquito net. Beside it is a
table littered with bottles, lint and bandages. A praying-desk at the foot of a crucifix and a small
library suiggests this is the priest’s own room. The windows are wide open and we hear the
sea’s laments. On the bed is Simoun who is really Ibarra (from Noli). His face, a hidden pain in
the contortion of its features, a look of anxiety in his eyes, lips twisted in grimace.

FLORENTINO: Are you in pain, Simoun?

SIMOUN: Somewhat. But I’ll be all right.

FLORENTINO (clasping his hands): My God, what have you done? What did you take?
(Reaches towards one of the bottles.)

SIMOUN: (grimace on his face) Useless. Nothing can be done. What else did you expect me to
do? Not later than eight o’clock..dead or alive..dead, yes, but not alive. (Laughs but then starts
grimacing in pain.)

FLORENTINO: My God, why did you do this?

SIMOUN: Compose yourself. What is done cannot be undone. Shakespeare. Didn’t Macbeth
say that? (Snickers.) I must not fall alive into anyone’s hands, they might wrest my secret from
me. Do not fret, don’t lose your head. There’s nothing you can do. Listen to me. Night is falling
and there’s no time to lose. I must tell you my secret. I must give you my last will. It’s essential
to me that you see my whole life. At this particular moment, I want to unburden myself. I want
to resolve a doubt. You have such faith in God. I want you to tell me if there is a God.

FLORENTINO: An antidote, Simoun. I have apomorphine, a quick emetic..(rummaging for the

right bottle) ether, chloroform...

SIMOUN: Useless, useless. Don’t lose time or I shall go with my secret.

The old priest places the armchair at the head of the bed, sits and leans to listen to Simoun.

I came back from Europe 13 years ago full of hope and happy illusions. I was going to marry the
girl I loved. I was ready to do good and forgive all thos whod id me wrong so long as they left
me in peace. But it was not to be that way. My enemies plotted against me. I lost my
reputation, my position, love, prospects for the future, freedom..everything. I escaped death

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only because of the heroism of a friend. But I swore revenge. With the money I had inherited, I
fled the country and gone into trade. I took part in the Cuban wars, helping both sides but always
to my advantage: trading guns and ammunition for my own personal gain. I met a major there
and won his confidence by lending him money. We later became close friends and after a dint of
bribes, I secured him an assignment in the Philippines where he was made a General and I used
him as my tool for my personal revenge impelling him through his insatiable greed to commit all
kinds of injustice against my enemies.

FLORENTINO: God will forgive you, Simoun. He knows we are liable to deceive and be
deceived. He has seen what you have suffered and in allowing you to be punished for your
crimes by suffering death at the hands of the very men you instigated, we can see His infinite
mercy. He has frustrated your plans, one after the other, even the best, first with the death of
Maria Clara. Let us obey His will and give Him thanks.

SIMOUN: In your opinion, it would be His will that these islands...(brief pause, hesitating)

FLORENTINO (Finishing the question):... should continue in their miserable condition? I don’t
know the answer. I can’t read the mind of God. But I know He has not forsaken those peoples
that in times of decision have placed themselves in His hands and made Him the Judge of their
oppression; I know that His arm has never been wanting when, with justice trampled and all other
recourses at an end, the oppressed have taken up the sword nd fought for their homes, wives,
children, and those inalienable rights that, in the language of the German poet Goethe, shine
above us unbreakable and untouchable like the eternal stars. No, God is justice and He cannot
abandon His own cause, the cause of freedom without which no justice is possible.

SIMOUN (angry): Why then has He forsaken me?

FLORENTINO (sternly): Because you chose a means of which He could not approve. The glory
of saving a country cannot be given to one who has contributed to its ruin. You believed that
what crime and inquity had stained and deformed, more crime nd more iniquity could cleanse
and redeem. This was a mistake. Hate only creates monsters just as crime creates criminals.
Only love can work wonders. Only virtue can redeem. If our country is some day to be free, it
will not be through vice and crime, it will not be through the corruption of its sons who are
deceived and bribed. Redemption presupposes virtue...virtue gives way to sacrifice which
ultimately gives way to love.

SIMOUN: Very well, I accept your explanation. I was wrong. But because I was wrong, did this
God of yours deny freedom to my countrymen and spare others more evil than me? What is my
crime compared to the crimes of those who govrn us? Why should this God of yours give more
importance to my iniquities than to the cries of the innocent? Why did He not strike me down
and then work towards the people’s victory? Why allow so many who are worthy and just to
suffer and, without lifting a finger, find satisfaction in their sufferings?

FLORENTINO: The just and the the worthy must suffer so that their ideas may be known and
spread. The vessel must be shaken or broken to release the perfume. The stone must be struck
to raise a spark. There is something providential in the persecution of tyrants, Simoun.

SIMOUN: I knew that. That’s why I encouraged tyranny...

FLORENTINO: Yes, my friend, but it was filth that spread more than anything else. You
fomented social corruption without sowing a single idea. This fermentation of vices could inspire
only nausea, and if anything had sprouted overnight it would have been only a toadstool because
only toadstools grow spontaneously in garbage. Of course, the vices of government are fatal to
it and kill it, but they alsokill the society in which they are bred. An immoral government is
matched by a demoralized people; an administration wwithout conscience, by greedy and servile
townsmen and outlaws and robbers in the mountains. The slave is the image of his master; the
country, of its govrnment.

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Pause.

SIMOUN: Then, what’s to be done?

FLORENTINO: Persevere and work hard.

SIMOUN (sarcastic): Persevere and work hard! It’s easy to say when there is nothing to work
for. If this God of yours requires such sacrifices from men who can scarcely be sure of the
present and doubt there will be a future for them. (Pensive) If you had only seen what I had
seen: unfortunate wretches suffering unspeakable tortures for crimes they never committed;
fathers of families torn from their homes to work uselessly on highways that crumbled the next
morning...bridges meant to be built only to bury their families in misery. Perseveramce! Work!
Will of God! Persuade these people that they are murdered for their own salvation, that they
work for the prosperity of their homes. Endure, persevere, suffer...what kind of God is that?

FLORENTINO: A most just God, Simoun. A God who punishes our lack of faith, our vices, the
little regard we have for dignity and the civic virtues. We tolerate vice and therefore become
accomplices in it. Sometimes we go so far as to applaud it. It is only just tht we should suffer
the consequences and that our children do the same. He is the God of freedom, Simoun. He
makes us love it by weighing its yoke on our shoulders. Heis a God of Mercy and of justice who
improves us through His punishments and grants happiness only to those who have merited it
with their efforts. The school of suffering tempers the spirit. The fighting arena strengthens the
soul. I do not mean to say that our freedom must be won at the point of a sword; the sword now
counts for very little in the destinies of our times; but I do say that we must win our freedom by
deserving it, by improving the mind and enhancing the dignity of the individual, loving what is
just, what is good, what is great, to the point of dying for it. Whena people reach these heights,
God provides the weapon, and the idols and the tyrants fall like a house of cards, and freedom
shines in the first dawn. Our misfortunes are our own fault, let us blame nobody else for them.
If Spain were to see us less tolerant of tyranny and readier to fight and suffer for our rights, Spain
would be the first to give us freedom because, when the fruit of conception reaches the time of
birth, woe to the mother that tries to strangle it! But as long as the Filipino people do not have
the sufficient vigour to proclaim, head held high and chest bared, their right to a life of their own
in human society, and to guarantee it with their sacrifices, with their very blood; as long as we
see our countrymen feel privately ashamed, hearing the grown of their rebelling and protesting
conscience, while in public they keep silent and even join the oppressor in mocking the
oppressed; as long as we see them wrapping themselves up in their selfishness and praising with
forced smiles the most despicable acts, begging with their eyes for a share of the booty, why
give them independence? With or without Spain they would be the same, and perhaps worse.
What is the use of independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And no
doubt they will, because whoever submits to tyranny, loves it. Simoun, as long as our people are
not prepared, and enter the struggle deceived or compelled, without a clear idea of wht they are
to do, the best planned movements will fail and it is better that they shoulld fail. Why give the
bride to the groom if he does not love her enough and is not ready to die for her?

Long silence. Simoun takes Florentino’s hand and presses it. The priest waits for him to speak
but Simoun is silent. Only the strong sound of the waves are heard through the window. He
notices now that Simoun is still, his eyes closed, and his hand which had pressed his is now
open and limp. For an instant he thinks that Simoun is asleep but observing no signs of
breathing, he touches him gently and thenrealizes that he is dead and already turning cold. He
feels his eyes moisten, and engrossed in his thoughts, whispers: (or this could be a voice over
first in Spanish, then English, then towards the end, he can face the audience and say it as in a
speech)

FLORENTINO: (sadly) Donde esta la juventud que ha de consagrar sus rosadas horas, sus
ilusiones y entusiasmo al bien de su patria? Donde esta la que ha de verter generosa su sangre
para lavar tantas verguenzas, tantos crimenes, tanta abominacion? Pura y sin mancha ha de
ser la victima para que el holocausto sea aceptable!...Donde estais jovenes, que habeis de
encarnar en vosotros el vigor de la vida que ha huido de nuestras venas, la pureza de las ideas

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que se ha manchado en nuestros cerebros y el fuego del entusiasmo que se ha apagado en

nuestros corazones?...Os esperamos, oh jovenes, venid, que os esperamos!

Quick blackout. Only the sound of the waves are heard in the dark.In the background, voice-
over:

Where are you, oh youth, who will dedicate your innocence, your idealism, your enthusiasm to
the good of the country? Where are you who will give generously your blood to remove so much
shame, crime, and abomination? Pure and immaculate must the victim be for the sacrifice to be
acceptable. Where are you, young men and young women, who are to embody in yourselves
the vigor of life that has been drained from our veins, the purity of ideals that have gone dry in
our minds, and the fire of enthusiasm that is gone from our hearts? We await you, oh youth,
come! We await you! (Repeated echoing of these last phrases as voiceover fades)

Scene 10

Screen: Ghent, 1891.

Bright lights come up. Newspaper boys shouting “Book launching of El Filibusterismo.
International success.” In all languages. Screen displays flashes of International newspaper
articles, headlines, praising this scathing novel. MULTIPLE SCENES on stage with different
actors commenting about the novel in different languages to show this is an international
bestseller. Again, actors improvise. The last scene shows Rizal in a press conference being
interviewed by reporters:

REPORTER 1: Doctor Rizal, how do you feel about the international success of your second
novel?

RIZAL: I’m happy it’s being read internationally.

REPORTER 2: Do you think you’ll get into trouble with it?

RIZAL: I am already in trouble.

Laughter from reporters.

REPORTER 3: Are you Simoun in this novel?

RIZAL: Some of my ideas I’ve expressed through Simoun, as well as other characters like
Padre Florentino, and the old philosopher, Tasio.

REPORTER 4: Were you trying to symbolize Maria Clara as the new Philippines?

RIZAL: If that’s how you want to interpret it.

REPORTER 5: Was Maria Clara a personification of a real person you were in love with in your
youth in the Philippines?

RIZAL: Partly, yes.

REPORTER 5: Why do you make fun of the friars in your novels?

RIZAL: I don’t make fun of them. I use scathing satire perhaps as a tool to reflect their
grotesquerie, as in Valle Inclan’s esperpentos or Quevedo’s satires on life. It’s a technique.

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REPORTER 6: The friars in the Philippines and other religious orders won’t like it, would they?

RIZAL: In my novels, I do not satirize or comment against all religious orders, or religion, or
friars. I was educated by the Jesuits who form part of a religious order. You can also read that in
my novels, Father Florentino is a priest and he plays a key role, symbolic, if you want to call it
that, in the shaping of the youth of the land. I’m just trying to say that ...yes, there were those
religious orders or some priests, particularly in small parishes outside of Manila, who did abuse
their powers...took advantage of the young women in their parishes, was greedy,gluttonous,
etcetera and used their ecclesiastical powers to take advantage of my people. These are the
people I attack in my novels. No more questions, thank you.

As lights fade out, reporters still asking questions as Rizal exits. Blackout. Sound of drums and
somber music reflecting Rizal’s approaching fate: his death.

Scene 11

Screen: Hong Kong, June 1892

RIZAL (writing): The decision I’m going to make is a risky one. But I thought about it well.

Screen flashes: Manila, July 1892

He stands up and addresses members of the Liga Filipina. This transition should show that from
his thoughts and letter in Hong Kong, he now delivers the speech in Manila.

RIZAL: I know that coming back to Manila was a decision you oppose. But you don’t know the
sentiments of my heart. You see, I can’t go on living knowing that my countrymen suffer injustice
and persecution because of my cause. I can’t go on living seeing my brothers and their families
persecuted like criminals. I prefer to face death and my happiness is seeing the freedom of
these innocent people who are unjustly persecuted.

Applause. Comments “Here, here!” from audience.

I know that for now, the future of my country gravitates towards me; that if I die, others will live,
and consequently, many will long for this.

Reaction from audience: “No”, “Don’t say that”, “It’s not true, Don Jose”, etc.

I understand your concern. But what else can I do? I have my conscience to answer to. I’ve got
obligations to families who are suffering because of me, to my own family, my parents, whose
painful sighs reach my soul. I know that I alone even to the point of my death, will make these
families of my countrymen restore the happiness they so richly deserve, giving back to them the
peace of their homes. I have nothing left but my parents. But my country has many patriots who
can take my place and still be at an advantage.

Reaction: But we need you, sir, etc.

Thank you. Let me just explain that I do want to show those who put aside patriotism that we all
here know what it is to die for our country. It is a right, it is a duty. It is our conviction.

Warm applause

What matters death if one dies for what he loves, for his country, for the ones he loves?

Reaction: applause, “Yes, yes”, etc.

If I only knew that I was the only pillar supporting Philippine politics, and if I was truly convinced
that my countrymen would use my services, then I would have doubts. But I am convinced that

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there are other patriots who can take my place with better advantage. In fact, there are others
among you who think that I have gone over board and my services are no longer needed and
that I should be reduced to inaction.

Reaction from audience: ‘Who?’ “No one among us” “Of course not”..Everyone looks at each
other, some guilty faces in the audience.

I have always loved my country, and I am sure that I will always love her upto the last minute of
my life. My future, my life, my joys, all these I have sacrificed for love of country. However my
luck turns out, I will die blessing her and wishing for the dawn of her redemption!

Applause from members of the Liga: Mabini, Bonifacio, etc.

Rizal then is approached by Bonifacio.

RIZAL: We have to wait and try through peaceful reform.

BONIFACIO (impatient): I’m tired of waiting! We’ve been waiting and suffering all these years!

RIZAL: We can’t win victories through violence. We have to educate our people and let them
attain liberty through peaceful negotioations.

BONIFACIO: You know we’ve been patient enough. You tried through LA SOLIDARIDAD in
Spain. What did it bring us? Nothing. All your speeches and writings on reform fell on deaf
ears!

RIZAL: I can’t allow you to do this. Why shed blood? Give hisotry time; let’s work together.
Give me one last chance.

Silence.

BONIFACIO: All right. I’ll stay low. But I know it’s not going to happen. I, however, respect you
and I’ll give you time to try again through peaceful means. But if it doesn’t work, revolution is
inevitable.

RIZAL: I understand.

Fade out. Drums.

Lights on Apolinario Mabini who follows up on Rizal’s ideas in the Liga:

Mabini, on wheelchair, gives a speech in front of members of the Philippine League for Reforms
. The actor can start off first in Spanish, then continue in English:

MABINI: Muchos hablan de libertad sin comprenderla; muchos creen que, en teniendo libertad,
ya se puede obrar sin freno, lo mismo para el bien que para el mal, lo cual es un grandisimo
error. La libertad es solo para el bien y jamas para el mal; va siempre de acuerdo con la razon y
la conciencia recta y honrada del individuo. El ladrom cuando roba no es libre, pues que se deja
arrastrar por el mal, se hace esclavo de sus propias pasiones; y cuando lo encerramos, lo
castigamos precisamente porque no quiere emplear la verdadera libertad.

La libertad no quiere decir que no obedezcamos a nadie, pues precisamente no exige que
ajustemos nuestra conducta a la accion directora de la razon y reguladora la justicia. La libertad
dice que no obedezcamos a cualquiera persona; pero si, manda que obedezcamos siempre a la
que hemos puesto y reconocido como la mas apta para dirigirnos, pues de esre modo
obdeceriamos a nuestra propia razon. Un ejercito que se desbanda, desobediciendo a sus jefes,
falta a la verdadera libertad porque perturba el orden e infringe la disciplina, que la razon misma

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ha impuesto; es decir, que varios hombres juntos no harian nada sin unidad de movimiento ni de
fin, si cada uno tirara por su lado.

Many talk of freedom without understanding what it means. Many think that in having freedom,
you can do anything you want, whether it’s good or whether it’s bad. This is a big mistake.
Freedom is only for the good and never for the bad. It always agrees with reason and the right
and honorable conscience of the individual.

A thief when he steals isn’t free at all. He is being dragged by wrongdoing and he becomes a
slave of his own passions. When we put him to jail, we punish him precisely because he refuses
to act in accordance to true freedom.

Freedom doesn’t mean we don’t have to obey anyone. What it means is we have to conduct
ourselves in accordance to reason and justice. Freedom means that we just don’t obey anybody.
But it obliges us to obey whomsoever we place in authority because we have chosen that
individual as the right person to guide us. That way, we are obeying reason and our own
conscience.

An army that breaks up because it does not obey its leaders lacks true freedom because the
soldiers go against discipline which is precisely what reason has imposed on them. In other
words, individuals acting on their won will not obtain anything because without unity, the end will
not be met.

Applause. Shouts. Commotion. The guardias civiles raid the meeting and Rizal and other
members are arrested.

Bonifiacio escapes and starts his underground resistance movement: The Katipunan. Actors
improvise secret meetings.

Scene 12

Court scene. Rizal in front of a military judge.

JUDGE: You have been found guilty of illegal meetings with members of your subversive group,
the Liga Filipina. This is a very serious offense. Let this serve as a warning. You are hereby
sentenced to do community service in the town of Dapitan, in the province of Zamboanga,
Mindanao, for an indefinite period of time. Court is adjourned.

He pounds on gavel. Fade out.

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ACT II
Scene 1

Screen: Dapitan, 1892-96.

A. Voice over in Spanish. On the Screen as the Spanish voice over is read is my English
translation of Rizal’s poem, Mi Retiro. The description of where Rizal lives in Dapitan--a small
hut by the sea, by the mountains, etc. is reflected on stage by the scenery described in the
poem. Rizal is standing looking at the view. The scne has to be poetic, as poetic and lyrical as
this poem. Director is free to use multimedia effects as this poem is read:

RIZAL: (VOICE OVER)

Su techo es fragil nipa, su suelo debil cana,
sus vigas y columnas maderas sin labrar:
nada vale, por cierto, mi rustica cabana;
mas duerme en el regazo de la eterna montana,
y la canta y la arrulla noche y dia la mar.

Un afluente arroyuelo, que de la selva umbria

desciende entre penascos, la bana con amor,
y un chorro le regala por tosca caneria
que en la callada noche es canto y melodia
y nectar cristalino del dia en el calor.

Si el cielo esta sereno, mansa corre la fuente,

su citara invisible tanendo sin cesar;
pero vienen las lluvias, e impetuoso torrente
penas y abismos salta, ronco, espumante, hirviente,
y se arroja rugiendo frenetico hacia el mar.

Del perro los ladridos, de las aves el trino,

del kalaw la voz ronca solos se oyen alli;
no hay hombre vanidoso ni importuno vecino
que se imponga a mi mente, ni estorbe mi camino;
solo tengo las selvas y el mar cerca de mi.

El mar, el mar es todo! Su masa soberana

los atomos me trae de entes que lejos son;
me alienta su sonrisa de limpida manana,
y cuando por la tarde mi fe resulta vana
encuentra en sus tristezas un eco el corazon.

De noche es un arcano!...Su diafano elemento

se cubre de millares y millares de luz;
la brisa vaga fresca, reluce el firmamento,
las olas en suspiros cuentan al manso viento
historias que se pierden del tiempo en el capuz.

Diz que cuentan del mundo la primera alborada,

del sol el primer beso que su seno encendio,
cuando miles de seres surgieron de la nada
y el abismo poblaron y la cima encumbrada

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RIZAL-Farolan

y do quiera su beso fecundante estampo.

Mas cuando en noche obscura los vientos se enfurecen

y las inquietas olas comienzan a agitar,
cruzan el aire gritos que el animo estremecen,
coros, voces que rezan, lamentos que parecen
exhalar los que un tiempo se hundieron en el mar.

Entonces repercuten los montes de la altura,

los arboles se agitan de confin a confin;
aullan los ganados, retumba la espesura,
sus espiritus dicen que van a la llanura
llamados por los muertos a funebre festin.

Silba, silba la noche, confusa aterradora;

verdes, azulles llamas en el mar vense arder;
mas la calma renace con la proxima aurora
y pronto una atrevida barquilla pescadora
las fatigadas olas comienza a recorrer.

Asi pasan los dias en mi oscuro retiro,

desterrado del mundo donde un tiempo vivi;
de mi rara fortuna la Providencia admiro:
guijarro abandonado que el musgo solo aspiro
para ocultar a todos el don que tengo en mi!

Vivo con los recuerdos de los que yo he amado

y oigo de vez en cuando sus nombres pronunciar:
unos estan ya muertos, otros me han olvidado;
mas que importa?...Yo vivo pensando en el pasado
y lo pasado nadie me puede arrebatar.

El es mi fiel amigo que nunca me desdora

que siempre alienta el alma cuando triste la ve,
que en mis noches de insomnio conmigo vela y ora
conmigo, y en mi destierro y en mi cabana mora,
y cuando todos dudan solo el me infunde fe.

Veo brillar el cielo tan puro y refulgente

como cuando forjaba mi primera ilusion;
el mismo soplo siento besar mi mustia frente,
el mismo que encendia mi entusiasmo ferviente
y hacia hervir la sangre del joven corazon.

Yo respiro la brisa que acaso haya pasado

por los campos y rios de mi pueblo natal;
acaso me devuelva lo que antes le he confiado:
los besos y suspiros de un ser idolatrado,
las dulces confidencias de un amor virginal!

Al ver la misma luna, cual antes argentada,

la antigua hipocondria siento en mi renacer;
despiertan mil recuerdos de amor y fe jurada...
un patio, una azotea, la playa, una enramada,
silencios y suspiros, rubores de placer...

Mariposa sedienta de luz y de colores,

sonando en otros cielos y en mas vasto pensil,

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RIZAL-Farolan

deje, joven apenas, mi patria y mis amores,

y errante por doquiera sin dudas, sin temores,
gaste en tierras extranas de mi vida el abril.

Y despues, cuando quise, golondrina cansada,

al nido de mis padres y de mi amor volver,
rugio fiera de pronto violenta turbonada:
vense rotas mis alas, deshecha la morada,
la fe vendida a otros y ruinas por doquier.

Lanzado a una pena de la patria que adoro,

el porvenir destruido, sin hogar, sin salud,
venis a mi de nuevo, suenos de rosa y oro,
de toda mi existencia el unico tesoro,
creencias de una sana, sincera juventud.

Ya no sois como antes, llenas de fuego y vida

brindando mil coronas a la inmortalidad;
algo serias os hallo; mas vuestra faz querida
si ya no es tan risuena, si esta descolorida
en cambio lleva el sello de la fidelidad.

Me ofreceis; oh ilusiones! La copa del consuelo,

y mis jovenes anos a despertar venis:
gracias a ti, tormenta; gracias, vientos del cielo,
que a buena hora supisteis cortar mi incierto vuelo,
para abatirme al suelo de mi natal pais.

Cabe anchurosa playa de fina y suave arena

y al pie de una montana cubierta de verdor,
plante mi choza humilde bajo arboleda amena,
buscando de los bosques en la quietud serena
reposo a mi cerebro, silencio a mi dolor.

ENGLISH ON SCREEN (author’s free translation):

Its roof fragile nipa, its floor soft bamboo

Its rafters and columns coarse lumber
My rustic, humble hut worth nothing
But it sleeps in the bosom of an eternal mountian
And sings to the sea night and day.

A flowing rivulet descends among crags

Bathing the somber forest with love,
A stream flows through wild reeds
singing a melody in the silent nights
crystallline nectar in the heat of the day.

If the sky is serene, the stream runs tamely,

Its invisible cithara chanting ceaselessly;
but when the impetuous rains and torrents come,
it rushes, hoarse, foaming and seething against rocks and abysses
and plunges frantically against the sea.

I have the forests and the sea surrounding me.

Dogs barking,the cheerful trilling of the birds,
The hoarse voice of the kalaw are the only sounds I hear.
There are no vain or curious neighbours around

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to disturb my activities.

The sea, the sea is everything! Its sovereign mass

brings to me the atoms of beings far, far away
its crystal-clear morning smile cheers me
and in the afternoon when my confidence is at a low
it finds a hopeful echo in my heart.

The night ‘tis mysterious. Translucent,

it explodes innumerable lights. Fresh breeze,
shining firmament, sighing waves telling tales
lost in the mantle of time.

They tell of the world’s first dawn, the sun’s first kiss
lighting up the bosom of the universe;
they tell of the thousands of beings surging from nothingness,
populating abysses and lofty summits.

But when dark night comes, the winds turn furious

and the restless waves churn; the air is filled with cries
that make the spirit shudder: voices in unison, praying, lamenting
voices exhaling from those drowned at sea.

The mountains echo their loftiness, trees animated

animals restless, thickets resounding,spirits saying to the plains
they go, beckoned by the dead to a funeral feast.

Whistle, oh confused terrigying night!

Green, blue flames of the burning sea!

Then, suddenly, the soft hush of calm reborn with coming dawn
as a brave fisherman in his diminutive boat crosses the weary waves.

Thus do the days pass in my retreat

Exiled from the world where once I lived;
Abandoned boulder to whose moss I alone confide
Concealing from others the gift I have within me,
Thanking God for the uniqueness of my destiny.

I live with the memories of those I love

At times I hear their names: already some are dead,
Others have forgotten me. But what does it matter?
I live thinking of the past no one can take from me.

Faithful are friends who don’t dishonour me

Who encourage the soul when ‘tis sad
Who in sleepless nights remembr and pray for me
in my exile; and when all doubt,
he alone instills faith.

Already I have faith and I hope that the day will shine
when ideas shall vanquish brutal force,
that after strife and agony,
a sonorous voice happier than mine
will sing the song of triumph!

I behold the pure and refulgent sky

as I did in my youth, my first illusion,

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kissing my withered brow

the same kindling of fervent enthuse,
youth’s heart seething .

I breathe the breeze passing perchance through fields and rivers

of my hometown. It may perhaps return to me what one day to it I confided:
the kisses and the sighs of an adored being,
the sweet secrets of a viriginal love.

I behold the same silvery moon,

The old melancholy in me I feel reborn
Awakened are thousands of memories of love and pledges...
a courtyard, a porch, the seashore,
the silence and the sighs, the blushes of pleasure.

Oh, I, a butterfly thirsty for light and colors,

dreaming of other skies and gardens
I left my loves, my country, while scarcely a youth,
roaming everywhere, without doubt, without fears,
spending my life in the spring of foreign lands.

And afterwards I, a tired swallow, chose to return

to the nest of my parents and my love,
suddenly a fierce and violent thunderstorm raged,
broken are my wings, my abode in shambles,
faith sold to others, ruins everywhere.

Cast against a rock of a country I adored,

the future destroyed, no home, no honor,
you come to me anew rosy and golden
as in the dreams of my youth....Oh motherland!
You are my entire existence, my only treasure,
restoring agains the faith of my lost youth.

No longer are you as you were then, full of fire and life,
offering a thousand crowns to immortality; now I find you somber,
your smile thwarted, no longer effulgent, yet bearing
the marks of constancy.

You offered me illusions in my young awakening years

that cup of solace roused in my youth. Thank you, tempest!
Thank you, winds of heaven! You knew when to stop my uncertain flight
and return me home to my native land.

Beside wide seashores sands smooth and fine

Beside the greenness at the foot of the mountain
I build my humble hut beneath a pleasant grove
Seeking serene quietude from the forests
Resting my thoughts, silencing my pains.

Scene 2.

Scene shows Rizal treating patients in his clinic in the town of Dapitan. An elderly lady is
accompanied by a younger lady : this is Josephine Bracken.

LADY: Your reputation travels worldwide, Doctor. I heard about your expertise in ophtamology.
This lady I met in Hong Kong was impressed by you. I went to Manila to look for you and they
said you moved to Dapitan.

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RIZAL: I’m happy you found me. (Looks at Josephine) And may I help you?

LADY (smiling): I’m sorry. I forgot to introduce you. This young lady is Josephine Bracken who
has been accompanying me in my search for you.

RIZAL (flirting): You’re very beautiful.

JOSEPHINE (blushing): You’re too kind, doctor.

RIZAL: How long will you ladies be in town?

LADY: I was thinking of leaving as soon as I finish my consultation with you. The next ferry to
Manila leaves in two days.

RIZAL: (looking at the blushing Josephine) I think you should stay longer. Enjoy the beaches of
Dapitan. I would like to invite you to be my guests. I have a humble home beside a beach and a
mountainside..

LADY: You’re too kind, doctor but..

RIZAL: I insist...

LADY: Well, if you insist...Josephine?

JOSEPHINE: I don’t mind. I would be interested in exploring the area. I love nature, and I find
the flora and fauna here very interesting.

RIZAL: Then it’s settled. Miss Bracken, please excuse me.

He leads the lady into his inner clinic for her checkup.

B: In the forest with the sea in the background. Sound of birds.

JOSEPHINE: The flora and fauna here is amazing. (Pause. Sound of bird.) What is that
hoarse sound?

RIZAL (laughing): That bird is called KALAW. This is his habitat.

He looks at her, amused at her innocent expression.

JOSEPHINE: This is wonderful. I wish I could stay longer, but my friend has to leave for
England, and must get to Hong Kong by next week to catch her ship. And I must accompany
her.

RIZAL: That’s sad.

JOSEPHINE: Why do you say that?

RIZAL: I’ll miss you. Your presence this past week filled my moments of loneliness. Will you
come back?

JOSEPHINE: I don’t know. I’ll write.

RIZAL: (holding her hand tenderly) Thank you. I look forward to seeing you again.

FADE OUT.

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FADE IN. Rizal waving goodbye to Josephine and the elderly lady as they board their ferry back
to Manila. Voice over as Rizal waves:

Josefina, Josefina,
Que a estas playas has venido
Buscando un hogar, un nido,
Como errante golondrina;
Si tu suerte te encamina
A Shanghai, China o Japon
No te olvides que en estas playas
Late por ti un corazon.

Josephine, Josephine;
you have come to these shores
in search of a home, a nest,
like a wandering swallow;
If luck takes you to
Shanghai, China or Japan,
don’t forget that on these shores
a heart throbs for you.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN: 1893. In a schoolhouse. Rizal is surrounded by children and their parents, Spaniards
and Filipinos. Many are Spanairds married to Filipinos.

PARENT 1: This is a noble effort on your part, doctor.

RIZAL: We must educate the youth of our land. They will one day be the leaders of tomorrow.

PARENT 2: I’m happy that we have someone like you here in Dapitan. You have brought
enlightenment to these dark parts of the Philippines.

RIZAL: I enjoy it here. With my profession as a doctor and now an educator, I’m kept pretty
busy.

PARENT 3: Congratulations and thank you.

A teacher gathers the children together and they sing a Spanish song as lights fade out.

FADE IN: 1895. In Rizal’s home in Dapitan. Rizal is writing. Josephine Bracken enters.

Rizal turns. Surprise in his face. Stands. Silence as both stare into each other’s eyes.

JOSEPHINE: I’m back.

RIZAL: I hope for good.

JOSEPHINE: For good!

Rizal approaches Josephine and kisses her passionately.FADE OUT

FADE IN: Late 1895. Josephine is reading a letter. Rizal enters.

RIZAL: Is everything all right?

JOSEPHINE: I have to leave, Pepe.

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RIZAL: Why? Are you unhappy here?

JOSEPHINE: It’s not that. It’s a family matter. I have to return to Ireland.

RIZAL: Are you leaving me?

JOSEPHINE: I miss my folks. I love you. I’ll be back. Don’t worry.

RIZAL (smiling sadly, approaching her): Josephine, Josephine you’ve come to these shores
searching for a home, a nest, like a wandering swallow...

JOSEPHINE (embracing Rizal): That was a beautiful poem you wrote about me, Pepe. I’ll never
forget you...

RIZAL: Don’t forget that on these shores throbs my heart for you.

Fade out.

FADE IN: Early 1896. Visit from Bonifacio. He is accompanied by two other katipuneros.

BONIFACIO: The time is ripe, doctor. I’m tired of waiting. It’s time to rise in arms.

RIZAL: What arms? Your bolos? How can your bolos fight against the arms and ammuniton of
the Spaniard? Be patient. Prepare well.

BONIFACIO: We have been preparing. We are going to get the Spanish garrison in Balintawak,
then move towards Malacanang.

RIZAL: I’m still against this.

BONIFACIO: But we need your leadership.

RIZAL: I’ve always been against revolution and violence, you know that. My kind of revolution
has always been a peaceful one. You know that from last we talked 4 years ago.

BONIFACIO: I gave you time! Look what they’ve done to you. Exiled you to this god-forsaken
place in the middle of nowhere. And now you’re all meek and humble. Where was that fire that
raged in your heart four years ago? You inspired all of us and now you’re putting us down. The
country is falling apart, and it’s time to make our move!

RIZAL: I’m sorry to disappoint you, Andres. I’m leaving the country in June. I’ve accepted a
medical position in Cuba.

BONIFACIO : What? When we need you here the most and you’re leaving? What kind of a
patriot are you?

RIZAL: You’ll never understand my way of looking at things.

BONIFACIO: And you call yourself a patriot? Turning your back to our country?

RIZAL: I love my country, Andres. More than you know. Later, you will understand why I’m
doing what I’m doing.

BONIFACIO: Later, you say. When it’s too late!

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(Bonifacio storms out of Rizal’s house with his two companions. Quick fadeout. Drums beating
in the blackout.)

Scene 3

July 31, 1896. Rizal standing on deck of ship facing audience. Voice over:

Canto del viajero

Hoja seca que vuela indecisa

Y arrebata violento turbion,
Asi vive en la tierra el viajero
Sin norte, sin alma, sin patria ni amor.

Busca ansiosa doquiera la dicha,

Y la dicha se aleja fugaz:
Vana sombra que burla su anhelo!
Por ella el viajero se lanza a la mar!

Impelido por mano invisible

Vagara de confin en confin;
Los recuerdos le haran compania
De seres queridos, de un dia feliz.

Una tumba quiza en el desierto

Hallara, dulce asilo de paz:
De su patria y del mundo olvidado...
Descanse tranquilo, tras tanto penar!

Y le envidian al triste viajero,

Cuando cruza la tierra veloz...
Ay! No saben que dentro del alma
Existe un vacio do falta el amor!

Volvera el peregrino a su patria,

y a sus lares tal vez volvera
Y hallara por doquier nieve y ruina,
Amores perdidos, sepulcros, no mas.

Ve, viajero, prosigue tu senda,

Extranjero en tu propio pais;
Deja a otros que canten amores,
Los otros que gocen; tu vuelve a partir.

Ve, viajero, no vuelvas el rostro,

Que no hay llanto que siga al adios;
Ve viajero, y ahoga tus penas;
Que el mundo se burla de ajeno dolor.

ENGLISH (on screen):

Dry leaf in uncertain flight

seized in a violent storm,
Thus lives the traveller on this earth
With no direction, no soul, no country, no love.

He seeks happiness everywhere

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And happiness moves away fleeting

His shadow mocking at his yearning
Because of her the traveler goes to sea!

Bound by an invisible hand

He wanders from sea to sea:
Memories of loved ones,
Memories of happiness,
Keep him company.

Perhaps he finds a desert tomb

Sweet haven of peace
Away from his country, all the world forgotten
Where he can rest in peace after so much suffering.

The sad traveler is envied as he swiftly voyages,

Ah! They know not that in his soul
An emptiness of lost love lurks.

The traveller shall to his home and country return

To find nothing more than snow and ruin,
Death and lost loves.

Go, traveler, follow your course,

A stranger in you own homeland!
Let others sing of love,
Let others sing songs of joy!
But you again go away.

Go, traveler, don’t look back,

For there are no tears to follow your goodbye;
Go, traveler, and drown your sorrows,
For the world mocks at the sufferings of another.

Scene 4.

Screen: August, 1896.

A. Scene opens with Bonifacio and the members of the Katipunan. This is the historic ‘Cry of
Balintawak’. Red flags of the Katipunan and the katipuneros staging this historic scene. Tableau
of Bonifacio and his bolo and the KKK flag as the scene ends.

B. Governor General Blanco declaring state of War (one area of stage) & Aguinaldo (another
part of the stage) responding:

Lights fade in on Blanco’s area.

BLANCO: (reading) I, Ramon Blanco y Erenas, Marquis de Pena y Plata, Governor and Captain
General of the Philippines, availing myself of the powers vested in me, and as a result of the
acts of rebellion during the last few days at different points in the territory of this province,
seriously disturbing peace and order, make it imperative that severe measures be taken to
suppress any insurrection, do hereby order:

Article 1: The provinces of Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Laguna, Cavite,
and Batangas are declared to be in a state of war.

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Article 2: By virtue of this decree, any person accused of crimes contrary to public order,
treason, acts which endanger the peace and independence of the State or against the form of
government, offenses against or disrespect to the authorities and their agents, and ordinary
crimes committed during a rebellion or uprising, shall be subject to martial law.

Article 3: Those guilty of open rebellion and the crimes defined in the foregoing article, either of
those provided for in the Code of Military Justice, shall be tried immediateley by the proper
Council of War.

Article 4. All leaders of the uprising or rebellion, whenever caught “in flagrante” shall be given an
immediate trial.

Article 5. Those who are found on, or who had been at the scene of an action, audience who are
captured fleeing, or in hiding, after having been with the rebels, shall be treated as presumably
guilty of the crimes mentioned in the foregoing article.

Article 6. The Council of War established in the respective cases by the Code of Military Justice
shall be of competent jurisdiction to take cognizance of the trials instituted on account of the
commission of any of the crimes mentioned.

Article 7. Rebels who shall surrender to the authorities before the expiration of 48 hours after the
publication of this proclamation, shall be exempt from the penalty for insurrection, excepting the
leaders of the rebellious groups and those who are accomplices in said crimes. The leaders
referrred to shall be pardoned the penalty which they may have incurred if they surrender within
the period fixed upon, and the next low penalty in its minimum of medium degree shall be
imposed.

Article 8. Participants in the rebellion only who shall surrender within the period mentioned
without having committed any acts of violence, as well as those who, having bound themselves
to continue to the end, should denounce it in time to avoid the consequences shall be exempt
from any penalty.

Article 9. Every suspicious group which may be formed shall be resolutely dispersed by force;
such persons who do not surrender being arrested and held subject to the orders of the
government.

Article 10. The administrative and judicial civil authorities shall continue to act in all matters
within their jurisdiction, which do not refer to public order, confining themselves with regard to the
latter, to the powers which the military authorities may issue or delegate to them, being obliged in
either case to inform the latter at once of any news or information which may come to their
knowledge.

Signed, in Manila, the 30th day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
ninety six.

Blackout. Drumbeats.

Fade in another part of the stage.

AGUINALDO (in his balcony of his home in Kawit, Cavite addressing the citizens of the town):
My fellow countrymen. I am very sorry to inform you that on August 30, 1896, Don Ramon
Blanco, Captain and Govenor General of the Philippines, declared war against eight Tagalog
provinces, namely, Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Laguna, Batangas, and
Cavite. Because of this, I am inviting you to join me in rising against Spain and break the chains
of slavery that have bound us with her all these hundred years. (Applause, shouts.) As an
answer to this delcaration of war, we started to rebel against his tyrannical race, and I am very
glad to inform you that the towns of Cavite el Viejo, Noveleta, and San Francisco de Malabon
are already free and the government is now in the hands of Filipinos. Here in Cavite el Viejo, we

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succeeded in disarming the civil guards, and the provincial command at Noveleta is already in
our hands.

So I am inviting all of you to follow suit. Do all you can to overpower the enemy. Remember
that the strength of our army will depend upon your cooperation.

I am confident that your patriotic hearts will heed this call of our Motherland. Conquer your foes
there, but try not to kill anyone, especially if he is Filipino. I believe this is the only way by which
our Mother Country can be freed from slavery.

The Philippines presents today a spectacle without precedent in her history: the conquest of her
liberty and her independence, the most noble and lofty of her rights--a heroism which will place
her on the same level as civilized nations inspire them. We know that real progress in a people
is based upon liberty and independence. Hence, this right inspires the most noble and sublime
emotions which a citizen can feel--feeling them he should not yield to the fear that our interests
or our families may suffer, nor should he tremble at shedding blood to break the chains of
slavery, which we have dragged for three hundred years of tyranny and abuse.

A proof of the truth is this: that the revolution is found on justice and right, as shown by all
civilized nations, for none of them will allow the slightest encroachment upon the merest hand’s
breath of their domain without pouring out the last drop of blood in defense of the integrity of the
nation.

Citizens of the Philippines: we are no savage people; let us try to follow the example of the
civilized nations of Europe and America; the time has come to shed the last drop of our blood to
conquer our beloved liberty.

The Spaniards, conquerors of this our adored land, accuse us of ingratitude and tell us that we
should repay them for opening our eyes by placing their yoke on our neck. It is a false argument
by which they desire to deceive us. For the civilization introduced by Spain during her three
centuries in these lands is superficial and at the bottom, a mere fraud, since her effort has been
to keep the masses in ignorance, destroying or quenching the center of real light which has
slowly begun to burn in the hearts of a handful of Filipinos, who merely on account of their
intelligence are now victims of the persecutions of the government. The results are these
deportations, decrees of exile, and other acts of tyranny which for some years have been
carried on here. Tell me--have we not paid a full measure for our great advancement during the
three centuries in which Spain has used our blood and our sweat? Spain, who is not satisfied
with her shameful exploitation of us, spits in our face and calls us carabaos, lazy creatures, apes,
and other shameful names!

Disgusted reactions from the audience: “Down with the Spaniards!”, etc.

People of the Philippines! The hour has come to shed our blood to conquer our rights and
liberties. Let us band ourselves around the flag of the revolution whose motto is Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity!

Applause. Shouts.

A central committee of the revolution composed of six members and a President will be charged
with the continuation of the war, will organize an army of thirty thousand men, with rifles and
cannon, for the defense of the pueblos and the provinces which adhere to the new Republican
Governemnt, which will establish order while the revolution sspreads through all the islands of
the Philippines. The form of the government will be like that of the United States of America,
founded upon the most rigid principles of liberty, fraternity, and equality. Every town which
adheres to the cause of the revolution will be defended and protected by the revolutionary army
against attack of the enemy.

Applause. Shouts. “Liberty, Fraternity, equality!”

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FADEOUT.

C. Different areas of the stage light up showing Aguinaldo’s Armed Revolution against Spain.
Multiple battle scenes on stage showing confrontation between Spanish soldiers and Aguinaldo’s
revolutionaries. Alternating victories and defeats between Aguinaldo and Spanish troops.

Scene 5.

Screen: Barcelona, October 3, 1896.

Actors mime the following subscenes a & b to the beat of drums:

A. Rizal arrives in Barcelona but is immediately detained by Spanish authorities . He is put in a

Barcelona prison awaiting his departure to the Philippines.

B. Rizal is returned to ship enroute to Manila as a prisoner.

Scene 6.

Screen: Manila, November 3, 1896.

To the accompaniment of drums, actors mime all of this scene: Rizal, in chains, escorted by
soldiers, arrives in Manila and immediately brought to Fort Santiago to be encarcerated.
Movement from upper stage (ship) to bottom part of stage (Fort Santiago).

Scene 7.

Screen: November 20, 1896.

Court Martial of Rizal begins. The ambience in this scene is that of a mock trial. Everybody
knows Rizal is going to be found guilty. Even his defense attorney knows it’s a losing cause.
Friars are present and called as witnesses. They denounce his two novels as treason to God
and country.

Day 1.

CLERK OF C0URT: All rise!

A tribunal of 6 judges enter. Two of them are Friars. The other four, including the Chief Judge,
are military. They take their places. All sit after the judges sit.

CHIEF JUDGE: Will the defendant rise?

Rizal and his lawyer stand.

CHIEF JUDGE: Jose Rizal Alonso, you are being tried for treason. How do you plead?

RIZAL: Not guilty, your honor.

CHIEF JUDGE: (to the prosecution and defense attorneys)Your opening statements.

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PROSECUTOR: (addressing the tribunal)Your honors. We have before you a man known for
his sedition. He has incited the rebellion of August 1896, inspiring his fellow men through his
rebellious novels, Noll me tangere and El Filibusterismo. Let me put these two novels as Exhibit
a & b. While in Spain, in the name of reform, he has incited his countryment there, Marcelo de
Pilar, Graciano Lopez Jaena and others towards rebellious activities in the form of publications
such as La Solidaridad, a seditious anti-Spanish publication, denouncing the friars of this land
and mocking the government of Spain in the Philippine Islands. I put as exhbit C a copy of La
Solidaridad, where the author has published an article denouncing the friars of the islands.
When he returned to the Philippines, despite his exile to Dapitan, he continued influencing such
rebels as the katipunero Andres Bonifacio through a subversive organization he formed, La Liga
Filipina, which eventually led to the insurrection four months ago.

Your honors. The case is obvious. Let this trial be swift. The defendant is obviously a pre-
meditated murderer of state policies, as well as an anti-friar propagandist. His activities are
blatantly seditious, and the only punishment for his acts of treason is public execution. Thank
you.

JUDGE I: Attorney for the defense.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your honors. Dr. Rizal has dedicated his life to enhancing a better way
of life for his people. His novels, activities with La Solidaridad, and other writings were written to
awaken Spain to the abuses of Spanish authorities, especially the friars, here in the archipielago.
He loves Spain; he is not in any way anti-Spanish. His anti-friar writings were directed only to a
handful of friars who had abused and taken advantage of their positions to exploit Filipino
women and the ignorance of the Filipino masses. His love for Spauin and the Philippines is
expressed in Ibarra’s words in his novel Noli me tangere, Chapter 26: “God, the Government
and the Church will not allow (a revolution) to happen. The Philippines is religious and loves
Spain, and she will realize how much the Mother Country is doing for her. Of course, there are
abuses and shortcomings, but Spain is working out reforms to remedy them.”

Your honors, is this not a sincere attempt of Dr. Rizal to reach out to Spain to simply ask for
reforms for abuses committed here? How can this be called treasonous or seditious? Thank
you.

JUDGE 2: It is almost 12, and the trial is adjourned for ten a.m. tomorrow.

CLERK: All rise.

All rise as the judges leave. Fade out.

Day 2.

The scene opens with everyone in their places.

JUDGE 2: Prosecution, you may call your witness.

PROSECUTOR: I only have one witness, your honors. Jose Rizal Alonso!

Rizal approaches the witness stand.

CLERK : Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so
help you God?

RIZAL (one hand on bible, the other hand raised): I do.

PROSECUTOR: Your name and occupation.

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RIZAL-Farolan

RIZAL: Dr. Jose Rizal y Alonso, Doctor of Medicine.

PROSECUTOR: Dr. Rizal, are you the author of these two novels, Noli me tangere and El
Filibusterismo? (Shows both novels.)

RIZAL: Yes sir.

PROSECUTOR: How would you translate Noli me tangere?

RIZAL: Touch me not.

PROSECUTOR: Why did you call your novel thus?

RIZAL: I was referring to a certain group of people who were considered untouchables.

PROSECUTOR: Untouchables? Why?

RIZAL: Because whatever they did, the law couldn’t touch them. They got away with anything.

PROSECUTOR: And who are these untouchables?

RIZAL: A few members of a religious order in the Philippines.

Commotion. The chief judge says “Order in the court!” The two friar-judges whisper to each
other, and turn pale.

PROSECUTOR: Going to your second novel, El filibusterismo. Why did you entitle it such? It
sounds subversive.

RIZAL: It means that.

Commotion. People nodding their heads as though saying Rizal is being suicidal.

PROSECUTOR: So, you do admit being seditious.

RIZAL: The novel is fiction. I am referring to a fictitious situation where subversiveness is the
theme.

PROSECUTOR: It is disguised as fiction. In my opinion, you are reflecting real people,

including yourself as traitor and a subversive!

RIZAL: That is your opinion, sir.

PROSECUTOR: It is my opinion and the opinion of a great many people, Dr. Rizal. You are
condemning yourself with your writings. (To the Defense Attorney) Your witness.

DEFENSE ATTORNEY: No questions.

CHIEF JUDGE: If there are no more questions of this witness, we will adjourn for the day. You
may step down Dr. Rizal.

Rizal takes his place.

CHIEF JUDGE: Before the summation tomorrow, the judges in this tribunal will have a chance
to cross-examine Dr. Rizal. Court is adjourned till 10 tomorrow morning.

Day 3.

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Scene opens as in previous scene. Everyone is in his place.

CHIEF JUDGE: (to the prosecution and defense): Are you ready for your summations?

PROSECUTION & DEFENSE: We are, your honor.

CHIEF JUDGE: Before we go to that, the members of the tribunal would like to ask Dr. Rizal a
few questions. Dr Rizal, you are still under oath. Please take the stand.

Rizal takes the witness stand.

FRIAR JUDGE 1: Dr. Rizal, in your novels, particularly Noli me tangere, you refer to two friars,
Fr Damaso and Fr Salvi. Were you basing these two charcters on true-to-life members of a
religious order?

RIZAL: Yes, your honor.

FRIAR JUDGE 2: Who were they?

RIZAL: They were a number of friars I had met through the years. They did not represent two
particular friars. I made up these two characters based on a number of members of different
religious orders whom I had the opportunity to get acquainted with or know about from friends
and family.

FRIAR JUDGE 1: You describe them quite negatively in your novels. You make fun of the friars
who are representatives of God to save mankind from the devil! Let me read a passage from
Noli, chapter 11, even the title and subtitle are subversive: “The bosses”, you call us! Then, as
a subtitle, you say “Divide and Rule--Machiavelli”. Here is how you describe Fr Salvi and Fr
Damaso:

“...Fr Salvi was most assiduous; when he preached..he was very fond of preqching..he had all
the doors of the church closed like Nero who did not allow anyone to leave the theatre while he
sang...”

Laughter from the audience.

CHIEF JUDGE: (hitting his gavel) Order, order!

FRIAR JUDGE 1: And sarcastically you go on to say “...but Father Salvi did it for the good, and
Nero to the detriment of souls...

Snickers from audience.

FRIAR JUDGE 2: In this same chapter, you make it appear that the friars inflicted cruelty out of
sadism. You say: “FATHER SALVI PUNISHED THE FAULTS OF HIS SUBORDINATES WITH
FINES AND FLOGGED THEM ONLY RARELY, UNLIKE FATHER DAMASO WHO HAD FIXED
EVERYTHING WITH BLOWS OF HIS FIST AND STICK, DELIVERED WITH A GUFFAW...ONE
COULD NOT THINK BADLY OF FR DAMASO BECAUSE OF THIS; HE WAS CONVINCED
THAT ONE COULD DEAL WITH NATIVES ONLY WITH BLOWS, A FELLOW FRIAR HAD SAID
SO IN A BOOK, AND FATHER DAMASO BELIEVED IT BECAUSE HE NEVER CONTRDICTED
THE PRINTED WORD, TO THE DISCOMFORT OF MANY.

Audience laughs again.

CHIEF JUDGE: Order, order!

FRIAR JUDGE 1: This is outrageous, a contempt against the servants of God on earth.

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FRIAR JUDGE 2: I have nothing more to add. This is obviously a blatant attempt against
morality and the commandments of God.

CHIEF JUDGE: You may step down, Dr. Rizal.

Rizal steps down.

CHIEF JUDGE: Summations.

PROSECUTOR (very confident): Your honors. There is really nothing else to add. You
yourselves have cross-examined the witness and from his own mouth, he confesses being a
subversive he says, in the “guise of fiction”. What fiction? He himself admits his characters are
based on true characters.

What else, your honors, but to sentence this man to death the sooner the better before he
causes any more trouble in our land?

Sits.

DEFENSE: Let me reiterate my opening statements. Dr Jose Rizal is not guilty of treason. On
the contrary, he is a patriot. What he has done is open people’s eyes to the abuses committed
on his people. He has to be commended for his action, not berated. He has made aware of the
cancer that is corroding our society because of the licentiousness and immorality that these so-
called servants of God who, instead of uplifting the Filipino people to the levels of true
spiritualism, are soffocating them with physical abuse, and exploiting them to satisfy their greed
and lust. Rizal only did what he did because of his true spirit of patriotism.

Audience applauds.

CHIEF JUDGE: Order, order. Having heard the summations, we, members of the tribunal will
recess and meet tomorrow to give our verdict. Court is adjourned till 10 tomorrow morning.

Scene 8.

Screen: December 29, 1896.

Same scene as above. A courthouse in Fort Santiago, Intramuros. The tribunal of judges, some
composed of Dominican friars. The sentence is read. Rizal is found guilty of treason and
sentenced to death the next day at dawn at Bagumbayan.

CLERK OF COURT: All rise.

The judges take their places. All sit.

CHIEF JUDGE: Will the defendant rise?

Rizal rises.

CHIEF JUDGE: Dr Jose Rizal Alonso, the tribunal finds you guilty of treason. Before sentence
is passed, do you have anything to say?

RIZAL: Yes, your honor.

Moment of silence.

When I was abroad, I was told by my countrymen not to return. That it was better for me to
remain in exile because surely, death would be inevitable. Even before you pass your sentence,
I already know that death is the only sentence for treason. But I am ready to die for love of

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country. Death, the passage towards my country’s birth. Death, because in dying I will see my
countrymen freed from this bondage, this slavery that has dominated us for four centuries.

I love Spain, but the Spaniards who came to rule my country did not respect the laws of
humanity. They came in the spirit of barbarism, and not civilization. They came to rape and
pillage the culture that once was pristine.

Let my martyrdom like the martyrdom of Fathers Burgos, Gomez and Zamora in 1872 to whom
my second novel El Filibusterismo was dedicated, spark more patriots who will take my place.
Viva Filipinas! Viva la libertad!

AUDIENCE: Viva, viva!

JUDGE: (with gavel) Order, order! Guards, clear the court! Clear the court!

Riot ensues. The civil guards come and drag away the rioteers. Once the court is cleared,
CHIEF JUDGE speaks:

CHIEF JUDGE: Dr. Rizal, a rebel to the end. It is the decision of this tribunal to sentence you to
public execution tomorrow at dawn in Bagumbayan. (Hurriedly) Court is adjourned!

Drums. Guards put shackles on Rizal and take him out. His atorney is also arrested and
dragged away.

Scene 9.

Evening, December 29, 1896. Rizal writes his ‘Ultimo Adios’ and hides his poem in a lamp which
he gives to his sister, Trinidad, before he is executed. Voice over of Ulltimo Adios first in Spanish
then in English and it continues on to the next scene, the final scene, where it echoes in Spanish:
‘Morir es descansar’. Again, English is my own free verse translation from the original:

Voice over, low keyed:

Adios, patria adorada, region del sol querida,

Perla del mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido eden,
A darte voy alegre, la triste mustia vida;
Y fuera mas brillante, mas fresca, mas florida,
Tambien por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.

Screen flashes scenes as they are described in the poem as voice over continues, and Rizal
writing:

In fields of battle, my countrymen fight deliriously,

Giving their lives with no regrets, with no doubts.
The place of death matters not: in glory, on the scaffold,
on open fields in combat, or even cruel martyrdom.
‘Tis all the same if they fight for home and country.

I die at the burst of dawn.

Oh, Motherland, if you need
to tint the dawn with reddish hue,
pour my blood to gild her
with a reflection of nascent light!

My dreams of youth were to behold you one day,

Oh Jewel of the Orient Sea,

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Your dark eyes with no tears,

Your brow with no wrinkles,
Your cheeks unblushing,
Your head held high, proud and majestic.
Dream of my life, Oh Motherland, my ardent desire...
My soul that soon will depart cries “Hail to thee!”
Oh, ‘tis magnificent to fall to give you flight!
To die to give you life, to die under your sky,
To sleep eternallly beneath your enchanted soil.

If some day, you should see through the thick grass

A simple, humble flower sprouting over my sepulchre,
Pluck it and raise it to your lips to kiss my soul!
Then I will feel on my brow beneath the cold tomb
The warmth of your tenderness, the warmth of your breath.

Let the moon see me with its serene and gentle light;
Let the dawn radiate its fleeting splendour;
Let the winds wail their murmuring melancholy;
And if a bird descends from the sky and alights on my cross,
Let it sing its canticle of peace.

Let the scorching sun dry the rains

And restore the sky to its blueness.
Let a countryman cry over my grave
And during serene afternoons when someone prays for me
Pray too, Oh Motherland, that I may rest in God.

Pray for all who died without fortune,

For those who, tormented, suffered painfully;
For our poor mothers who cry bitterly for us;
For orphans and widows, for tortured prisoners,
And pray for yourself, Oh Motherland, that one day,
You willl see yourself redeemed.

When the cemetery is shrouded with night’s darkness.

And only the dead keep vigil,
Do not disturb their mysterious sleep.
Perhaps you might hear the strings of a cithar or harp:
It is I, dear Motherland, singing a song to you!

When my tomb is forgotten

With no cross or stone to mark its place,
Let a countryman plow and scatter it with his hoe.
And my ashes, before they return to nothingness,
Let it form into dust to lie on your soil.

Then it no longer matters that I am forgotten:

I will be part of you--your space, your valleys, your sphere;
I shall be even more vibrant: aroma, light, color, song, whisper, sighs--
Constantly repeating the essence of my faith!

Oh, adored Motherland! Sorrow of my sorrows!

Dear Philippines, listen to my last goodbye!
I leave everything behind: my parents, my loved ones.
I go where there are no slaves,
Where executioners and oppressors there are none,
Where faith does not kill,

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Where He who reigns is God.

Goodbye, dear parents, dear brothers and sisters, fragments of my soul,

Childhood friends,
Give thanks that I rest from this weary day,
Goodbye, dulce extranjera, my beloved, my friend, my joy
Goodbye, dear countrymen
To die is to rest
Morir es descansar

Voice over echoing repeatedly:

Morir es descansar!

EPILOGUE.

The scene opens exactly as in the Prologue, where Rizal is marched in to be executed. The only
difference would be this time the drums are accompanied by background Voice over of ‘Ultimo
Adios’ which stops abruptly after “Morir es descansar” which echoes on and on when the shots
are fired. Shots echo throughout the theater. All freeze. Quick blackout in silence.

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