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Ferdinand Blumentritt: An Austrian Life for the

Philippines
by
Harry Sichrovsky (1983/87)

The story of Jose Rizal's closest friend and companion


Courtesy of sterreichischer Bundesverlag

Manila, Philippines, 1987


ISBN-971-136-024-1 (pbd)
971-136-025-x (pbk)

"Der Revolutionr von Leitmeritz".

Copyright: sterreichischer Bundesverlag


Gesellschaft m.b.H., Wien, 1983.
Technical preparation by the National Historical Institute Manila, Philippines

Printed by Vera Reyes, Inc.


Quezon City, Philippines

Professor Harry Sichrovsky was born in Vienna to an old Austrian family. His great
grandfather, Heinrich Ritter von S., was founder and general secretary of the Kaiser
Ferdinands-Nordbahn, the first long-distance railway line in the country. His uncle,
Rudolf von S. was founder and president of Austria's first steamship service to the United
States, the Austro-American Lloyd.

Mr. Sichrovsky spent the war years as an exile from Nazi Germany in England. In 1942,
he volunteered for the British Army and served for almost five years in India, Malaya,
Ceylon, Burma, and at Lord Mountbatten's Headquarters at Kandy. His experiences in the
Army stimulate his keen interest towards Asian socio-political affairs. After the war, he
returned to his homeland, took up Journalism and, at the same time, continued his studies
on Asian affairs. He stayed in Asia several years and has done extensive reporting on
Asian subjects and has written books on India, Korea, China and South East Asia. He had
done interviews with China's Prime Minister Chou-En-Lai, India's Indira Gandhi and
other heads of state of the Asian region.

Professor Sichrovsky is a board member and lecturer of the Ludwig-Boltzmann Institute


of China and South East Asia Research in Vienna, and was a visiting fellow at Nairobi
University in Kenya. In 1983 he was a speaker in the 17th Jose Rizal Lecture at Fort
Santiago, Manila. Since 1970, he has been foreign editor of ORF, Austria's Radio and TV
Service specializing on China, Korea and South East Asia.

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Foreword*

It is one of the ironies of history that Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt is better known and
honored in the Philippines than in his native Austria. As the author says hardly anyone in
Austria today knows Dr. Blumentritt.

On the other hand, every Filipino schoolboy is familiar with his patronage of the Filipino
patriots who imposed on themselves a veritable life of self-exile in Europe in order to
carry out their propaganda movement for the reform of the Spanish colonial
administration in the Philippines. Dr. Blumentritt lent his distinguished scholarship in
support of the noble efforts of those patriots whose aspirations were in complete accord
with his liberal spirit. For his scholarship and for his active contribution to their cause, he
was made an adopted son of Pasig and an honorary member of the Philippine Academy.

But Dr. Blumentritt is best remembered by Filipinos for his enduring friendship with their
national hero, Dr. Jos P. Rizal. Both men had a natural chemistry for each other, brought
about by their mutual respect for each other s intellect. They carried on a long and
famous correspondence. It was Blumentritt who encouraged Rizal to finish his two social
tracts, the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo when the latter was about to be
discouraged. And it was Blumentritt who singled out Rizal among his distinguished peers
in the Philippine propaganda movement, saying that "not only is Rizal the most famous
man of his own people, but the greatest man the Malayan race has produced".

It is perhaps a truism that a prophet is not known in his own Nazareth. And for this
reason, I especially welcome the scholarship of Harry Sichrovsky to make known not
only to his countrymen but also to the rest of the world the life of a distinguished
Austrian whose name and memory is secured in Philippine history.

CARLOS P. ROMULO
Former Foreign Minister
Republic of the Philippines

*This is the 1983 Foreword to the German Edition

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Preface A

Hundred years have passed since the historic meeting between Jose Rizal and Ferdinand
Blumentritt. The thoughts that were exchanged between these remarkable personalities,
their vision of human rights, of independence and of international relations, continue to
stir our emotions. Their dialogue, and the strength Rizal and Blumentritt, two so different
characters, got out of their feeling of solidarity - all have, in my opinion, not lost
importance today.

I am content that Professor Sichrovsky's work is now being made accessible to the
Philippine reader, thus giving an insight into the European background of this historic
friendship.

I should like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation to Dn Serafin D.


Quiason, Chairman of the National Historical Institute, and his staff, for their keen
interest in the project and their technical assistance. A special word of thanks is due to
Peter Wagner, Honorary Consul of the Philippines in Salzburg, who has generously
sponsored the printing and to Filipinas Foundation Inc. for the translation. I also take
great pleasure in thanking my predecessor, Ambassador Friedrich Posch, whose initiative
has made the publication of this translation possible.

The author, Professor Harry Sichrovsky, and the holder of the Copyright,
Oesterreichischer Bundesverlag, Wien have generously dedicated this publication to the
memory of Dr. Jose Rizal's friendship with Ferdinand Blumentritt and Rizal's visit to
Austria hundred years ago.

May this book contribute to more knowledge about the friendship between Rizal and
Blumentritt.

Bay this book contribute to further strengthen the friendship between Austria and the
Philippines.

OTMAR KOLER
Ambassador of Austria

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Preface B

This is an engaging work on the best friend not only of Dr. Jos Rizal but also of the
Filipino people, an Austrian scholar in whom many of the strands that made the history
and development of the Philippines in the last decade of the Spanish colonial period and
early American regime were knotted. What is principally examined and more correctly
surveyed is how the close friendship between Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt and Dr. Jos
Rizal was forged to the point of true brotherhood and also the indefatigable role of Dr.
Blumentritt in defending through his prolific writings and correspondences the cause of
the Filipino struggle for justice, freedom and independence. Students and admirers of our
national hero can only be grateful to the author, Professor Harry Sichrovsky for providing
us a wealth of information in portraying Dr. Blumentritt's life and achievements and for
the happy facility in combining the long-known sources with newer additions to the work
to produce a useful contribution that the readers must take into account.

SERAFIN D. QUIASON
Chairman
National Historical Institute

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The Scene of Action
Actually, it all began with a stroll. In the capital city of the Philippines, which
we shall call Manila and which in Tagalog - the main dialect in the Philippines
- is called "Maynilad". The word maynilad is composed of the words niay
which means "there is" or "there are", and nilad, a name of flowering shrub
which, in the olden days, grew in abundance on the banks of the bay of Manila.

In former times, it was really just a village on the banks of the Pasig river,
ruled by the two rajahs Sulaiman and Matanda. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the
Spanish conqueror of the Philippines, concluded a pact of peace and friendship
with the rajahs, as it was customary then, and even much later. It brought,
however, neither peace nor friendship to the native partners in the pact. On
May 19, 1571, Manila was officially declared a Spanish city. It remained such
for 327 years. Then it became an American city for almost half a century, and
subsequently a Japanese city for another five years. Today, Republican Metro
Manila numbers four cities with thirteen municipalities and has a total of more
than five million inhabitants.

If one wandered through the city, which is bursting at the seams, one would
find it difficult to imagine that some hundred years ago the Englishman, John
Foreman, complained about how dull and boring it was in the narrow streets
here, the monotony of which was broken only by the religious processions
which took place almost every day. Except for a bullfight arena, there were no
amusement arcades, no street cafes, no theaters, no opera house, no interesting
books. There were only five newspapers under strict censorship, which, under
the supervision of the Catholic orders, were allowed primarily to bring news
from the Spanish and French court records, official proclamations and musty
anecdotes.

Today, the city Iooks like a little New York, with its mad traffic, thousands of
bars, restaurants, department stores, cinemas, sport fields; with the difference
that the people living here are brown and somewhat smaller. And that the noise
and scents of a civilization inimical to the environment mingle with the noise
and scents produced by the Orient. And the way it is everywhere in the
Metropolis, two social worlds meet: Tondo, the slums of bamboo and
corrugated iron-sheet huts, accessible through marshy mudpaths, and Makati,
the Wall Street of Manila, with its palaces of banks, insurance companies, and

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luxury hotels, with the foreign legations and residential villages of millionaires
watched over by security guards.

But our route leads further on to Rizal Park, the heart of the city. The former
site of the execution of the national hero, Jose Rizal, is found here, now marked
by his bronze monument whose statue juts. out from the deep blue waters of the
bay, surrounded by the grounds of the old fort and endless rows of palm-trees.

To the left are the remaining structures of lntramuros, the old city: the
Cathedral, Fort Santiago, the San Agustin Church. These are all that the Second
World War left of a city with eight gates, eleven churches, three monasteries,
88 public buildings, and 363 residential houses. A little behind all that, was
Santo Tomas, the oldest university in Asia, which was founded by the
Dominicans in 1611.

We move farther out, over the Ayala Boulevard at some distance from the
Malacaang Palace along the riverbank, once the residence of Spanish and
American governors general; today, the official residence and office building of
the President of the republic. And finally, in the suburbs of San Juan (sic) the
noisiest and most colorful commercial and business quarter of the city, we
reach the destination of this stroll. There, at every point where the wide Rizal
Avenue is intersected by a street, is the sign bearing the fateful name, which
truly, does not fit at all in this picture: the name which the Filipinos can hardly
pronounce correctly, but which everybody knows: Avenida Blumentritt. And a
few steps away, the pharmacy, Farmacia Blumentritt. A restaurant carries the
same name. Even the jeepneys, those small buses put together originally from
army jeeps, ornamented with chrome, and decorated in the most garish colors,
and without which the traffic confusion in the capital city would even be more
chaotic, show on their signboards that they are going to "Blumentritt".

Our curiosity is aroused. Curiosity? No, astonishment. How did this name
come about here? Who or what was or is "Blumentritt"? A plant, an animal, an
apparatus, a work of art or a person? We do not know that this street has borne
this name for 70 years; that there a dozen plazas, streets, bridges, buildings in
this country of islands, which carry this name; that the bearer of this name is
honorary citizen of numerous Philippine cities; we do not even know that
Blumentritt was Austrian. We only have a feeling of how Filipinos must admire
him.

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All of this will come of later, after years of research, investigations, inquiries,
verifications; after reading many books, after studying many documents and
letters, after looking at many photographs and maps. And so, piece by piece, a
step at a time, a chapter of history is being created, full of adventures and
fascinations, full of absurdities and improbabilities, which cannot be made up,
which only life and reality can write down. And in which one must no longer
keep for one's self. Hence, this book

A Dossier
Ferdinand Blumentritt was born on September 10, 1853, in Prague and died on
September 20, 1913, 10 days after his sixtieth birthday in Leitmeritz in
Bohemia. His father, who had the same first name was born in Prague (1815)
too, and died there in 1894 as a retired revenue official. His mother, the former
Amalia Schneider, was a daughter of the imperial accountant, Andreas
Schneider, from Vienna. Blumentritt finished secondary school in Prague, and
obtained a degree in history and geography at the Karis-University of Prague,
and at 24 came to Leitmeritz to become a professor in the non-classical
secondary school, whose director he was from 1900 to 1910. So far, the career
of Blumentritt did not differ from thousands of other officials in public
education of the Austro-Hungarian nionarchy.

Strangely enough, a document of the Philippine Parliament (the so-called


Philippine Assembly) sheds a light in the darkness. Published in 1914 in
Manila under the title The Life and Works of Ferdinand Blumentritt,
Blumentritt himself gives information about his ancestors:
"A story is told in my family, according to which the grandmother of my father
is a descendant of the governor of the Philippines by the name of Alcazar. An
aunt of my father was the widow of a Peruvian creole who met his death in the
massacre at Ayacucho, that is, among the ranks of troops loyal to the
government (The decisive battle of Ayacucho in Peru on December 9, 1824,
between the troops of Bolivar and those of the Spanish viceroy, brought the end
of the Spanish rule in South America). This aunt emigrated to Prague and I
recovered in her house those impressions which determined my life: the love
for the Spanish colonial world."

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Blumentritt relates that he, hardly skilled in reading, made travelogues and
historical works about Latin America and the Far East his favorite reading
matter. His schoolmates called him the "Spaniard". "However, in order to be
able to read these books in the original language, I had to learn Spanish,
Portuguese, Italian, French, English and Dutch, even though I was still small
and had no teacher."

Blumentritt writes that, of all those peoples and countries, he was most
interested in the Philippines. As a professor in Leitmeritz then, he was able to
devote his attention fervently to the study of the archipelago of 7,000 islands.
Humbly, Blumentritt kept secret his being an authority in Tagalog, the chief
dialect recognized today as its national language. And he justifies, not only for
the first time, nor for the last time, his political engagement for the Philippines:
"Although my love for the country never incited me to separatist or anti-
Spanish endeavors, the Spaniards and the resident monks in the Philippines
attacked me vehemently. This persecution, these insults, could, nevertheless,
not deter me from continuing the defense of the rights of the Philippines before
the entire world."

Based on investigations, it is reported in the documentation of the Philippine


Assembly that a representative of the Advocate General's branch at court
martials (legal counsel in military courts), Andres Alcazar, in fact served as
governor and attorney-general from February to December, 1616, during the
absence and after the death of the Governor-General, Juan de Silva. This
Alcazar might have been a forefather of Blumentritt. Thus the bow is drawn
from the Philippines to Prague and Leitmeritz and through the friendship with
Jose Rizal back to the Philippines.

Of Chinese and Malays or the Versatile


Scholar
The versatility of Blumentritt is revealed at first sight in his works which are
still preserved. As a twenty-five-year old teacher of German, geography, and
history at the classical secondary school, he publishes in 1879 the Tratado
Anonimo, about an uprising against Charles V of Spain. The work of an
unknown contemporary, translated from Spanish by Blumentritt, gives an
account of the uprising of the Junta Santa, the holy alliance in Segovia, on July
29, 1520. This association, the "comunidad" (with its members, the

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"comuneros") plots one of the first movements of the middle class against the
nobility of Spain. Don Carlos, regent of Castille and Aragon, and born in
Flanders, had incurred the enmity of the Spaniards when he apportioned the
highest offices to his Flemish favorites, who, in addition, unexpectedly
received defense aid for the comuneros in the person of the Walloon
Archbishop of Toledo and Primas of Spain. Everything comes to a
confrontation, when, after the death of Emperor Maximilian I on June 28, 1520,
the twenty-year-old prince is crowned emperor (Charles V).
The comuneros declare Segovia a republic and demand, in a written petition to
the young emperor, some reforms to the constitution, which would mean the
removal of the power of the aristocracy and the de facto administration of the
cities by the comuneros. The grandees are alarmed; they see their privileges
and properties in danger and press the Emperor to make a counter-attack. The
short-lived freedom of the Republic of Segovia lasts from October 1520 to
April 1521. Then the Emperor abolishes all the rights that had already been
granted; despotism and reaction set in.

In his youth, Blumentritt already manifests his liberal democratic, if not


altogether republican, tendencies, although there can be no doubt about his
loyalty to the imperial family and to the fatherland, as the following (in the
original text) proves:

The Picture of the Emperor


You are my sovereign . . . I look up to you,
Upwards on the wall, where from the picture
You glance down at me
Your eyes, oh yes, kind, gentle,
The eyes of a father, because that's what you are, are you not?
You are that, you are the father of millions,
Not just a bearer of your majestic crowns;
Regarding you, God did not inscribe the supreme power alone;
People do not want to fear, but love,
And these people, they love - why? You ask?
Oh, look at him, his countenance tells us more than the song of the minstrel
could say about the concern,
about the anxiety - and the pain which have etched deep furrows on the brow of
the Emperor.

Oh, that we must stay at a distance from him,


Tearfully I would like to kiss the creases,
The wrinkles which tell us how immensely he has suffered,

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How he has fought for his empire's welfare
How the wound of the heart has never scarred for him
Since he saw him die in the new world, his brother,
Now then the heir of his throne
He had to bury him in this grave, this noble man
Beautiful of mind and body.
How, in a foreign country, a rogue slayed his lovely wife
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
I love you - not duty alone , guides me
I shall follow your flags obediently,
Not because the loyalty of the Teutons runs in my blood and compels me to be
loyal;
No, but because, from your heart, from your wounds, a spring of love gushes,
which has found its way into our breasts
Because you are dear to us: a man, even without a crown.
Thus I shall live for you as one of your loyal followers
And will fear neither privation nor death.
If you call us to protect your throne
And if, one day, they should bury me,
I shall want to have in the coffin, a portrait of the Emperor.

If, at the eleventh hour, Blumentritt had perhaps preferred the Philippine flag to
the portrait of the monarch, this was not to the prejudice of his loyalty to the
emperor.

A year after the Tratado (1880), Blumentritt publishes a treatise, The Chinese
in the Philippines, which even today reads like a novel of adventure. It sketches
the historically substantiated career of the Chinese pirate Limahon, who, in the
year 1574, ploughs into the Philippines with a fleet of 200 ships and 10,000
men to conquer Manila. He almost succeeds with the coup de rrrairr. He has
already gained a footing in several parts of the city; then he is driven back by
the Spaniards. The pirate is able to escape clandestinely from the fatal attack.
He dispatches an armada of small boats with baskets, which, from afar and in
the brilliance of burning torches, looks like manned ships. While the Spaniards
give chase to the supposed armada, Limahon is able to escape with his fleet.
His camp with a private pagoda and a harem with 1,500 women is to be
discovered later. Thereafter, Blumentritt gives an account of the peaceful
development of the Chinese rnigration and the emergence of the Chinese
district in Manila - Parian, with the cemetery of a unique quaintness which still
exists today. The coffins of the dead are kept in regular villas and splendid

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country houses. Thus, nothing is denied the ancestors; they are provided for
with cooking facilities, refrigerators, radios and television sets, yes, even with
telephones. They can even go for a stroll in the garden enelosed by wrought-
iron gates and fences. The ancestors can have a heart-to-heart talk with the
surviving family on Sundays and holidays. And everyone is contented: the
deceased, with the company and luxury afforded them, the living, with the fact
that they acquired a week-end house cheaply, for the reason that since the
houses on top of the tombs are considered mausoleums, therefore they are
exempt from real estate taxes.

In effect, Blumentritt perceived and foresaw that the Chinese were never sure
of their lives. Like the jews, they were - as they are up to now in many
countries of Asia - exposed to persecutions, and like the jews, were met with
hatred and envy because they were hardworking, clever merchants. But again
and again they returned because, as Blumentritt so rightly declares about the
Spaniards and the Filipinos, "one thing they knew was that without Chinese
trade, without Chinese industry, the Philippines could not exist."

An inexhaustible source of the universal talent of Blumentritt is found in the


year books of the Royal and Imperial Modern National Secondary School.
What usually was a soporific record of such institurecord of such an institution,
with its auditing reports, division of hours and pupil statistics, has developed
into a colorful cycle of versatile subject matter, which, above all, raises the
question of how Blumentritt, in addition to his duties as professor, and later as
head master, which keeps him busy, was able to undertake such studies and
researches. Here are just a few of such subjects:

The linguistic territories of Europe at the end of the Middle Ages compared
with the conditions of the present time. Reflections on the linguistic frontiers
and ethnographic concepts in the fifteenth century and at the end of the
nineteenth century.

Manuscripts from the sixteenth century. The granting of the marketing rights
to Baron Lobkowitz by Emperor Maximilian II and the market town of Lower
Georgental (in the immediate vicinity of Leitmeritz) by Emperor Leopold I.
Indentures of a sculptor from Prague to his apprentice.

Alphabetical List of the most commonly-used water color hues "prepared for
the amateur". (Here Blumentritt narrates private and amusing stories from his

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youth about colors; as introduction, he gives a list of 800 colors together with
their English, French, and Italian names).

Alphabetical list of school dissertations.


The major works, however, are the papers about the Philippines like, for
instance, the first publication of the Catechism in the Ilonggot dialect (1893).
Hardly 30 years old, and 4 years before his contact Jose Rizal, Blumentritt
publishes in 1882 in Gotha an essay, which modestly entitles "Essay on
Philippine Ethnography". Along with the essay is a map of the island empire,
which is superior and accurate to the map of the Spanish colonial
administration and which elicits universal admiration. And this, in spite of the
fact that Blumentritt has never in his life set foot on Philippine soil. As early as
this work, Blumentritt's partisanship for the Filipinos and against Spanish
sovereignty is apparent. The manners and customs, traditions and cultural
levels of 51 tribes are described in separate chapters.

Blumentritt on the degree of culture of the inhabitants: "... and that they are not
as untalented as the Spanish priests would declare is proven not only by the fact
that, besides their own language, they often speak two other dialects of the
neighboring Malayas, but also by the fact that the Negritos, among the
Malayan Irayas in Northeastern Luzon, were induced to settle and even to
undertake agriculture ..."

"Elementary school education is compulsory. Each municipality has its school.


Spanish is supposed to be the medium of instruction, which, however, up to
very recently, has seldom been the practice outside the environs of Manila,
since the friars have opposed, tooth and nail, the "Indios" (the name at that time
for the Malayan inhabitants of Dutch Indies, Malaya, and the Philippines)
acquisition of the Spanish language, because by this means, they would lose
their middle-man role between the Spanish authorities and the Indios ... one
marvels at the relatively great number of those who can read and write."

Blumentritt lives, works, acts and gives lectures for the Philippines; he suffers
and rejoices with this country; he has built the Philippines, her atmosphere, her
essence, her character, her customs, her habits, her language, around himself: ".
. . he began to philippinize himself to such an extent that his palate adapted
itself to the taste of the Philippine eater and his aesthetics to our art. Even the
few Filipinos who paid him a personal visit could eat our favorite dishes at his
table and admire products of our industry and the excellent works of our artists

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in his house, which was, so to speak, a Philippine museum. His library, his
work-table, were full of books, brochures, periodicals, manuscripts, notes, all of
which had something to do with the country of his choice. Everything breathed
of Philippinism in his house. Even his little daughter answered to the name
Loleng (the Philippine version of Dolores/Lola) ... one day, when his only
daughter had reached the marriageable age, Blumentritt told me of a dream
which he had the night before. In this dream, he had a conversation with a
Filipino, the father of a young man, regarding a possible marriage of the latter
with his daughter. He explained this dream further by saying that he, in fact,
had really toyed with the idea of seeing his daughter Loleng married to a
distinguished Filipino of excellent reputation. And like the father, Loleng too,
shared his enthusiasm for everything Philippine." (Vida y Obras de Ferdinand
Blumeritritt, Manila, 1914).

It turned out, however, differently. Dolores married a lawyer from Kufstein,


Dr. Karl Pickert, who later became the publisher of the "Leitmeritzer Zeitung"
(Leitmeritz Newspaper). Their son, Harald, a well-known painter, was
imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Nazi time.

In the "Leitmeritzer Boten" (Leitmeritz Herald) of May 15, 1962 (published in


Fulda, Federal Republic of Germany), Karl Hahnel, son of a grammar school
professor, who served under the directorship of Blumentritt describes,
according to the stories of his father, the position which Blumentritt held in his
hometown: "The research work of Director Blumentritt was not considered as
an eccentricity - today, one would say it was an idiosyncracy - possibly of a
person with varied interests. On the contrary, it was so extraordinary that he
made all the members of the teaching staff take part in it and talked about his
successes freely. His letters often brought many exotic stamps, which he gave
to my father. He often allowed others to take part in the things he loved in a
totally unusual manner: He invited the teaching staff for breakfast in his official
residence. During such breakfasts, he served culinary delights of unknown
concoctions and offered very good wine. One of his specialties was the peculiar
preparation of rabbits. Later I found again recipes by him for this preparation in
the cookbook of my mother. Since my old man himself had a weakness for
good cuisine, it was no wonder that rabbits were then kept at home, which often
brought, besides pleasures to the palate, some pieces of fur clothing for the old
winter months for us children."

An international convention was held in December,1961 in Manila in


commemoration of the l00th anniversary of the birthday of the national hero,
Jose Rizal. Among the official speakers was Irmtraud Webern, a daughter of

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the Dolores already mentioned and grand- daughter of Ferdinand Blumentritt:
"I was still a child, when many of your prominent countrymen came to us in
Leitmeritz. The best friend of my father was Jose Rizal. Everything in the
house of my grandfather breathed of the spirit of the Philippines. During meals,
Philippine food was served, there was a library full of books and manuscripts
about your country. The whole house resembled a museum with its large
collections of Philippine graphics and paintings. My mother answered to the
name Loleng, the name which Rizal gave her. Jose Rizal loved her dearly and
one of my cherished mementos is a birthday card of Rizal to his little Loleng.
Blumentritt had such compassion and such love for the Philippines that it
became almost a passion. In spite of the immense distance, he was fascinated
by every event, by every person from the Philippines. Can you imagine what
despair possessed our family when it received the news of the death of Jose
Rizal? Of course, we knew of this tragedy only from the stories of our parents,
but it has remained in our memory forever."

His former pupils remember Blumentritt as a somewhat small, highly spirited


man, who made the lessons constantly enjoyable with anecdotes, amateur
theatricals and drawings. "We liked him very much and always waited at the
windows of the class room until we saw him hurrying towards the schools
across the town square."
(From Leon Maria Guerrero's The First Filipino, Manila, 1977)

Ancarnacion Alzona, the translator of the collected correspondence between


Rizal and Blumentritt, wrote in appreciation of Blumentritt's services, in the
foreword of his (sic) work: "An active and energetic defender of the cause of
the Philippines, he won the affection of all the Filipinos in Spain and became
their ally, friend and adviser. Although he never visited the Philippines, he had
at his disposal a remarkable knowledge of her history and culture, acquired
through diligent searching and indefatigable studying, worthy of admiration. ...
The calumniators of the Philippines attacked him because of his sympathy for
the Philippines and on account of his open support of their fight. It was,
however, impossible for them to deter him from it. He remained an honorable
friend of the Philippines. The Filipinos have preserved for him a loving
memento for his loyalty and faithfulness ... His name is henceforth inseparably
linked with the name of our national hero."

The list of his awards and memberships to learned societies would do any
"Who is who?" credit:

Royal Imperial Privy Councilor

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Knight of the Royal Spanish Order of Isabela the Catholic
Honorary member of the Spanish-Philippine Society, Madrid
Member of the Royal Imperial Geographical Society, Vienna
Member of the Society for Commercial Geography, Madrid
Corresponding member of the Geographical Society, Madrid
Member of the Royal Institute for Language, Geography and
Ethnology of the Dutch Indies, The Hague
Member of the Society for Earth Studies, Amsterdam
Member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Pre-
History (Early History)
Member of the Geographical Society, Lima, Peru
Member of the Academy of History, Manila
Corresponding member and delegate of the Indo-Chinese Academic
Society, Paris
Member of the Royal Spanish-Philippine Society of the Friends of the
State, Madrid
Member of the Welcome Society, Tokyo
Owner of the gold medals of the Philippine exhibitions in Madrid, 1887,
and at St. Louis, 1904
Member of the Royal Imperial Military Sciences Club of the Officers'
Corps of the 29th Division, Theresa City (Theresien stadt)
Member of the Board of Examiners for aspirants of the one-year
voluntary service

The list of the honors could mislead one to the view that Blumentritt was an
introverted, eccentric scholar, who was always buried his archives, unworldly,
and sullenly scornful of the provincialism his cramped native land. He was,
however, abscilutely none of the things. According to the statements of his
contemporaries, he remained always a natural, affectionate and unassuming
person, sometimes given to melancholy moods, and often visited by illness
which also made travelling difficult for him. Perhaps because of this he never
sought the wide world, in spite of all his cosmopolitanism. He simply remained
rooted to his cramped little native county, although with his knowledge and his
prestige in the professional world, he could easily have assumed a position of
authority in the big academic centers. He preferred to stay in his Leitmeritz
and, as it were, influence the destiny of the world decisively from his study
room - and not without far-reaching results either.

Nevertheless, he did not neglect taking care of his hometown. For years he was
a member of the municipal council. "I take full interest in the agitation to

15
overthrow the present city council because of its nepotism. I am writing articles
for our local newspapers now ... "he writes in one of his letters.

The Disparate Brothers


Blumentritt's commitment to the Philippines was, therefore, a matter of family
tradition, passion and immense interest. In any case, he would certainly hav
become a specialist in this field, worthy of mention. That he became much
more than just that, is traced back to a harmless letter written as if accidentally,
and which arrived in the beginning of August in the year 1886 in Leitmeritz.
The sender of this letter was completely unknown to the professor.
Heidelberg, the 31st of July 1886
Honorable Mr. Professor Ferdinand von Blumentritt

Dear Sir,
Since I heard that you are studying our language and have already
written some books about it, therefore allow me to send you a valuable
book which a countryman of mine wrote. The Spanish portion is just
mediocre, because the author was only a simple writer, but the Tagalog
portion is good and is in the dialect as it is spoken in our province.
Please accept the assurance of my esteem.

J. Rizal
Upper Neckar Street II

Enclosed with the letter was a book, which, no doubt, served merely as a
reason for making contact. With this letter began a friendship, indeed, a
fighting partnership lasting for life. But who was the sender of that letter?

Jos Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was 8 years younger than
Blumentritt. He was born on June 19, l861, in Calamba, in the province of
Laguna, north of Manila, which is at a beautiful inland lake and which, until
today, is a favorite excursion and holiday spot of the Filipinos. Rizal had
Malayan, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish ancestors. The Rizals were a family of
wealthy merchants and landowners, as well as middle-class intellectual and
cosmopolitan thinkers. Rizal's maternal grandfather was representative to
the Corts, the Madrid Parliament. His relatives were lawyers, mayors,
teachers; some were educated in Europe and had a command of several
languages. Jose had 9 brothers and sisters, his oldest sister Trinidad died only

16
in 1951. In such a background, therefore, it hardly attracted attention that at
three years of age, Rizal could already read and write and that he recited his
first poem in Latin before the class when he went to school at the age of eight.
He studied in the Santo Tomas University and went to Madrid when he was 21
years old where, after only three years, he finished medicine and a year after
that, philosophy and literature. He graduated with honors in both courses of
study. Rizal specialized in eye-surgery and continued his studies in Heidelberg,
Paris, London, and Berlin.

His brilliant mind reached into almost all of the fields of art - his works as
sculptor and woodcarver, in painting and in the graphic arts testify to this fact,
even more than those as a poet and writer. All the same, like Blumentritt, Rizal
was, first and foremost, a genius in languages. He is said to have had a
command of 22 languages. In any case, he corresponded regularly in Spanish,
Portuguese, French, Italian, English, German, and Dutch. Evidence of this are
the facsimiles of the letters to Blumentritt written in perfect German. Those
letters are still preserved. Rizal did translations from Latin, Greek, Arabic,
Hebrew, Swedish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit and, of course, from
several dialects of his native country. And just like Blumentritt, different
successful careers in all parts of the world, in Spain and in his native country,
were available to him, be it as physician, as writer, as politician, perhaps even
as artist. He preferred to give up everything in order to sacrifice his life in the
end for the freedom of his people.

His short life was like an odyssey. There was hardly any big city in Europe
which he would not get to know through a short visit, or a long sojourn. In
addition to his professional work, he found time to write two novels which
would have a decisive influence on the events in his native land: in 1887,
the Nli me tangere and in 1891, the El Filibusterismo. Indeed, with all his
active work for the liberation of the Philippines, ignoring all danger, he was,
time and again, drawn homewards. For instance, in the summer of 1887, he
immediately plunged into the fight for the rights of the tenant farmers in his
native town of Calamba, and thereby ran into the fiercest confrontation with the
Dominican monks, the landlords. Soon Rizal posed such a danger to his own
family and friends that he had to leave the country once again.

He sets out for Hongkong at the beginning of 1888 and returns to Europe, first,
to London via Japan and the U.S.A. He continues his world trip to Madrid
passing through Paris and Brussels. Three years later, however, he returns to
Paris and Brussels. Three years later, however, he turns eastwards once again,
in defiance of all the warnings of his friends, believing that he has found in

17
Hongkong a residence near his country, where he could stay for a longer period
of time. He is able to banish from his mind the proximity of his country for half
a year. In the summer of 1892, Rizal returns to the Philippines, again casting
aside all misgivings, is arrested after a few days and spends more than 4 years
as an exile in the southern part of the archipelago. Just barely after his release,
he is arrested again under fantastic circumstances. At Christmas in the year
1896, he is sentenced to death for high treason and executed.

He would find in Blumentritt his truest comrade, teacher, adviser, comforter -


yes, even father and brother, as he frequently said, in one person. Yet, they
were a disparate pair, considering their social backgrounds, origin and
lifestyles, actually, hardly imaginable: Blumentritt, the headmaster and civil
servant, loyal to the emperor, duly appointed head of the family and patriarch,
mainstay of the established society, symbol of stability and conservatism -
Rizal, the Asian revolutionary, the restless spirit, who stalked from country to
country, the rebel and conspirator, whose aim was to overthrow the established
order in his native country; who was never able to raise is own family, was
rather the center of interest in numerous love-affairs in the countries of his
odyssey. And finally, Blumentritt, the loyal Catholic subject alongside Rizal,
the enemy of the friars, fighting the all-encompassing secular power of the
church.

And yet all this would not hinder the emergence of a center of the Philippine
revolution in the sleepy town of Leitmeritz. There, in the little official residence
of the professor, which became the meeting place of the Filipinos in exile,
plans were devised, campaigns preared, and heated debates were conducted.
And at least, some of the things which came out of the study of Blumentritt
later had their efect on the destiny and history of the Philippines, yes, even
changed the political face of Asia.

The first months of the correspondence can be likened to an exploration. Each


one tries to probe into the other's character, to know his views on this and that
question, to determine how far the knowledge of the pen-friend goes, perhaps,
above all, how much sympathy and understanding will be called for by the
problems of the other. This process of getting acquainted through letters was
apparently successful, because soon the time seemed ripe for the two to meet in
person, which, to be sure, both must have looked forward to more with
curiosity than with certainty, and thereby to make firm a 10-year friendship, or
a correspondence lasting just as long, and which at the end would comprise 200
letters.

18
World History Made in Leitmeritz
As far back as October 1886, Jose Rizal wrote that he might want to stay one
more year in Germany and Austria, in order to improve his German, because he
has not yet been initiated into the intricacies of the different prefixes, the ver-,
er- an- and others, which often seemed very strange to him. It was for this
reason that in the next spring he would want to linger a few days in Leitmeritz,
also to get to know the Bohemian life. He gave his thanks in advance, and
assured that the hospitality offered him would be reciprocated in the
Philippines. At this time, Rizal knew little yet about the family of his friend; he
did not know that Blumentritt was married and that he sent only belatedly,
greetings to the "esteemed wife".

In anxious anticipation of this first meeting, which - as he perceived correctly -


would doubtless be decisive for both their paths of life in the future, Rizal
defined in his still somewhat awkward German:
"It is sufficient to eat just once, in order to get a proof of the culinary art". In
the meantime, his short and niggardly letter could even be likened to the meal
of poor people; one began and ended the meal with potatos. Blumentritt offers
to exchange pictures in the next letter. Rizal accepts this offer gladly because
"up to now we are like two blind and deaf men; we talk to each other without
seeing or hearing each other."

Meanwhile, Blumentritt keeps busy helping his friend further. Most of all, he
opens to him the door to knowing some of the most illustrious scholars of his
time in Europe. The shy Rizal, who, as he writes, did not want to disturb the
noble gentlemen, nonetheless enthusiastically established contacts with them.
They, of course, provided him access to an illustrious circle, a circle which was
of greatest value to the promotion of Philippine interests. One such contact for
Rizal perhaps was with ethnologist Fedor jagor, who made journeys lasting for
years to Southern Asia and to Southeast Asia for the ethnologic collections of

19
the Berlin Museum. He also wrote basic works about Singapore, present-day
Indonesia and the Philippines. Thus, Rizal was eventually taken even into the
exclusive Anthropological Society of Berlin. There, he was allowed to make
speeches. He was also admitted into the Geographical Society, as he writes, "to
take part in the monthly banquets too, where I was able to get acquainted with
the famous Virchow. The scholar told me jokingly that he would like to study
me ethnographically. I answered yes, out of love for knowledge. During the
meal, I sat beside him and he understood my broken German rather well. We
still drank beer with Baron von Dankelmann and two others, up to twelve
thirty. I spent a beautiful and memorable night among German scholars."

Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), doubtless the most prominent scientist of the


nineteenth century, was working with unequalled versatility on different facets
of development. He is considered as the founder of modern pathology as well
as of modern anthropology and an authority in early history. He was likewise a
historian of medicine, a pioneer of practical hygiene, a supporter of popular
education. As an impassioned liberal and co-founder of the progressive party,
he ranked among the most embittered enemies of Bismarck, as well as of the
church, at least, as far as it stood in the way of his efforts towards the
dissemination of knowledge in the country.

At that time, Rizal certainly could not have surmised that ten years later, the
members of this reputable society would come together for a commemorative
meeting in order to assess his life and works after his execution .

One day before the last day of the year 1886, Rizal informs his friend that he is
thinking of leaving Berlin on April 1, in the company of his friend, Maximo
Viola, to come to Leitmeritz via Dresden. This friend, a countryman of Rizal,
was a physician too and a fellow fighter in the group of Filipinos in exile. And
on May 4, 1887, the German Day of Repentance at that time, Rizal is able to
notify his friend, that he will have the pleasure of embracing him on the
thirteenth of May. At the same time he asks him not to come to the train station,
but rather to wait in the house, until they will have looked up their hotel and
after half an hour will have been able to pay their respects to the Blumentritt
family.

In vain - the whole Blumentritt family, Ferdinand, his wife, Rosa, (nee Mller,
the daughter of his former landlord), the children, Fritz, Dolores, and Konrad,
gather to receive Rizal and Viola at 1:30 in the afternoon at the platform in the
train station. They are triumphantly led to the Hotel Krebs, the most elegant

20
hotel in town. There, they are given just enough time to freshen up a little and
then they proceed to the house of Blumentritt, where a banquet is already
waiting. And for four days, the guests cannot get over their astonishment over
the native specialties served them right in the middle of Bohemian Leitmeritz:

Adobo: pork, chicken or fish, sometimes all three, stewed in vinegar, garlic, and lard
Lechon: roasted suckling filled with tamarind or laurel leaves and served in a sauce made from pig liver
Lumpia: the Malavan variation of the Chinese spring roll filled with minced meat, soybean sprouts and
vegetables and sprinkled with soy sauce
Pancit: a noodle dish with meat, eggs and shrimps
Kare-
beef in a peanut butter sauce and, in the Spanish tradition, even dishes such as
kare:
Pacella: rice with meat, poultry or seafood with tomatoes, peas and olives

The guests were, nevertheless, impressed not only by the hospitality but more
so by the friendship and attention shown to them. Every morning after
breakfast, Blumentritt punctually appeared at the hotel to discuss the program
for the day. He took his friends to the museum, to places of interest in the city
and introduced them to the leading citizens. And, in the evening, once again,
the highlight of the day - the irresistible banquet in Blumentritt's house, which
the guests craved for, followed by conversations lasting for hours, during which
one heard the buzz of Spanish and German intermingled together. And it was
closer to the hours of day than to those of night when Blumentritt took the
friends back to the hotel.

The visit of Rizal becomes a minor state event for Leitmeritz, as can be
gleaned in the "Leitmeritzer Zeitung" (Leitmeritz Newspaper) of May 18, 1887:
"Today, two gentlemen from the Philippines, Dr. Jose Rizal and Maximo Viola,
arrived for a visit to Professor Blumentritt. Both belong to the Tagalog branch
of the Malayan race, and might be the first ones among their people to step on
Leitmeritz soil. Under the able supervision of Professor Blumentritt and Robert
Klutschak, they saw places of interest in our city and signed their names in the
memorial book of the city after they had been introduced to Mayor Gebhardt.
On Saturday evening, the gentlemen attended a board meeting of the
Leitmeritz Mountaineering Club. The chairman welcomed the guests who
came from afar. Mr. Rizal, who is not only an excellent poet but also an artist,
responded in a speech which was as witty as it was thoughtful. It was received
with approval by the audience. The two departed from here for Prague on
Tuesday from where they will proceed to Switzerland through Vienna; there
the two will go their separate ways: Don Maximo Viola will travel to Spain;

21
Don jose Rizal, who has been staying for 15 months on German soil,
Heidelberg, Leipzig and Berlin, the capital city of the German Empire, where
he was designated a member of the Anthropological Society there, will return
via Naples, Suez and Singapore to his beautiful motherland."

Even the newspapers of Prague reported about the visit to Leitmeritz and
called Rizal and Viola "extremely talented and charming gentlemen." The
entries in the guest book are preserved: Rizal wrote that he was a native of the
city of Calamba; Viola of Bulacan (a province in the north of Manila). Rizal's
speech in the Mountaineering Club created a general stir, specially when the
members of the audience learned that he had begun his German studies just the
year before. Blumentritt embraced his friend and said it was difficult enough to
extemporize a speech in one's native language let alone in a foreign language
which one has just learned quite recently.

Blumentritt thought of a special surprise for the last but one evening of Rizal
and Viola in Leitmeritz. He invited the guests to a tavern in the woods on an
Elbe islands this time, to Austrian and Bohemian instead of Filipino delicacies.
To bid farewell, Rizal and Viola insisted on inviting friends and the Blumentritt
family to the Krebs Hotel on the evening before their departure.

The following morning finds the Blumentritts gathered in full at the train
station. It was May 17, 1887. Rizal hands a portrait in sketch to his friend. He
has made the sketch of his friend hurriedly during a break for rest after lunch.
Everyone has tears in his eyes; they embrace each other silently. And as the
train moves out of the station at 9:45 in the morning, it is only the little
Dolores, who - like a butterfly, Rizal writes later - runs after the train, until it
disappears.

What the friends consulted about, discussed, perhaps even agreed upon, during
the three days is not known: What is certain is that this meeting changed the
lives of the two decisively. A friendship begun in letters does not always keep
what it seems to have promised when the writers are face to face each other.
Yet for Blumentritt and Rizal, this problem did not last even for a minute. They
fell into each other's arms like long-lost brothers. And for Rizal, Blumentritt
indeed remained a brother for life, not less loved and esteemed than his own
brother, Paciano.

They seemed to be each other's ideal complement. Here the quickreacting,


nervous and extremely intelligent Blumentritt, who jumps into the fight with

22
just as much feeling as certainty of knowledge. Because it was henceforth to be
a fight. The purely academic Philippinist who has made his name famous
through the description of peoples, languages, marriage customs and burial rites
would soon become a rebel, a revolutionary, a politician, who, sooner or later,
would have to come into conflict with the religious authorities - the
establishment, one would say today - and yet remain a loyal civil servant of the
royal imperial monarchy, devoted to the state and to the emperor. And he
remained thus. Blumentritt was the older, better-placed and more established
one, very knowledgeable in the ways of officials, authorities, the constant
factor; Rizal, on the other hand, was the homeless vagabond, pursued, restless
and lonely, who, all of a sudden, found strong support, a fortress for his ideas in
the middle of Europe. Blumentritt did not have any difficulty in understanding
the sentiments, the mentality, and the problems of his friend, Rizal, and of the
latter's homeland - thanks to his long years of study. He saw Rizal as a living
object and proof of this.

Blumentritt could not have an inkling that one day his name would have as
much meaning in the Philippines as that of his friend's; that one would not be
able to study, analyze and publish the one without the other. It would be
superfluous to reflect now upon the course Rizal would have taken without
Blumentritt; how the development of the Philippine revolution would have
proceeded. The fact remains - the beginning of the friendship between
Blumentritt and Rizal was like the conclusion of an unwritten covenant, whose
consequences were to be felt in the subsequent decades. However absurd and
grotesque this may sound: History was made in those days of May in the year
1887, a piece of world history.

Just two days after his departure from Leitmeritz, Rizal writes from Brnn,
stirred by the experience, confused, disturbed, filled with joy and
discouragement, and at the same time with a sudden loneliness:
"My eyes must be dry already; I can no longer produce tears ... I will try not to
disappoint the good hearts of the noble people of Leitmeritz ... will tell myself,
but you are not alone; here in a corner of Bohemia, you have noble, modest,
good souls. Act and think as if you were with them ... Indeed, I am at heart a
Leitmeritzer too, as you are a Filipino.

On May 20,1887, Rizal arrives in Vienna with Viola and stays in the Hotel
Metropol on Morzin Square. This later on became the accursed and wretchedly
infamous headquarters of the Gestapo, (the Nazi Secret Police). (The building
was destroyed in the second World War, a memorial tablet in the park at Franz-

23
josef's Quay below the Ruprecht Church calls to mind the victims of the Hitler
regime.) Later, Rizal visited Linz and Salzburg too.

Rizal could not forego expressing publicly his enthusiasm about, and his
gratitude and devotion to his friend. He writes in "Espaa en Filipinas", the
Madrid periodical of the Philippine emigrants, an ovation which later was
placed as introduction of the collected correspondence between the two friends.
Today, it is still regarded as a basic evaluation of Blumentritt by the national
hero of the Filipinos. Rizal calls Blumentritt a rare example of unselfishness
and self-denial, a historian, who writes history, neither to enhance the glory of
his country nor to put down the enemies, neither to falsify nor to confuse
political, religious or speculative views through a selection of facts. "Our
historian is a foreigner. He is writing in a country which has never aspired to
add the shabby pearl of the Orient to its crown. Ever since his youth, he has
devoted his time to these studies with the perseverance of the Austrian, fired
solely by his love for and devotion to this country, perhaps with the singular
hope of winning the feeble thanks of this blind and mute nation."

The Philippines, which Blumentritt calls his golden dream, demanded, so Rizal
says, from his friend, all his energy, his admirable determination, his brilliant
mind. Rizal calls Blumentritt the first historian of the Philippines who is not
content with being a mere copyist, a transcriber. Through his extensive studies
and analysis, he succeeds in giving a thorough and objective picture of a
country, which he has never visited.

Rizal mentions here the private library in Leitmeritz, the writing tables strewn
with letters, newspaper clippings, periodicals and maps. Rizal writes that
Blumentritt is working for the Philippines without any thought of distinctions,
titles and offices. The only thing that one could reproach him with is his
treatment of the inhabitants of the country: he treats them with immense
kindness and consideration instead of treating them like underdogs and semi-
savages.

Finally, Rizal goes into the religious views of Blumentritt: "Although the
author is a good Catholic, devoted to the Roman Church, he never confuses
dogma with fanaticism, nor man with God, neither does he accept everything
propagated under this trademark as the authentic, divine truth. Neither
optimism nor pessimism moves him, nor does he uphold one in order to bring
down the others."

24
For a long time, this very problem would become an arena of an impassioned
argument; an arena in which both friends would cross their intellectual swords
in an embittered battle, that is, until they found themselves on the same side of
the fence.

The Frailes or whose Side is God?


For the professor from Leitmeritz, a faithful and devout Catholic, the
missionaries and monks were naturally the bearers of culture and the apostles
of civilization. Moreover, they brought to the natives, who from Blumentritt's
liberal view were not wild and cannibalistic, the blessings of the educational
system, of hygiene, the institution of law and order, of certain moral concepts,
which doubtless were incompatible with some - at least to Western eyes -
"immoral" customs of the inhabitants. Indeed, in all his studies, Blumentritt
seems, first of all, to have failed to see, or at least, underestimated the political
significance of the clergy.

Because the Philippines was conquered and held by the sword and the cross, a
kind of cleric colonialism emerged. The demarcation lines and jurisdictions
between the secular and religious authorities were removed through the union
of the church and state; they served both God and King. The most powerful
organizations of the church were the monastic orders and their members, the
"Frailes" or "brothers". About the end of the nineteenth century, at the time of
Rizal and Blumentritt, there were approximately 2,600 monks, who actually
governed the Philippines. There were among them 346 Augustinian friars, 327
Recollect friars,107 Franciscan friars, 233 Dominican friars, 42 jesuit friars, 16
Capuchin friars, and 6 Benedictine friars. The monks or "Regulares", who
throughout were always Europeans, were almost all Spaniards, and lived in
monasteries, took care, and were in command of the army of the Philippine
priests, who were called seculars or "Seculares" or priests who did not belong
to orders. They lived in the villages and had contact with the people. The
priests were, however, governed by the friars. About 1890, only 150 out of
1,013 priests were under the control of Seculares. A faster population growth
and the increase and expansion of the parishes would have increased the
number of native priests employed. But the monks opposed this. It came
increasingly to bitter confrontations between the white and the colored priests,

25
to the first manifestations of Philippine nationalism, awakened by the racism of
the monks. Although the Madrid government was represented by the
governorgeneral, who, as representative of the King, should be all-puwerful,
the real rulers were the monastic generals and the archbishop of Manila.
Moreover, the church had stability on its side, which the crown lacked because,
in consequence of the numerous government crises in the mother country from
about 1853 up to the end of the Spanish rule in the year 1898, there was a total
of 41 governors in the Philippines, but only 5 archbishops.

The friars had a final say in evervthing. They owned the biggest and the best
land, which they leased to the farmers. What is more, each Filipino had to pay
tribute in monev or natural produce of the soil, and in addition, render forty
days of forced labor (this was later reduced to fifteen days); this was the so-
called "polo". The friars determined the appointment and dismissal of
government officials, the confiscation of properties, the deportation of wrong-
doers. They decided on education, the press, the amount of taxes, the military
service. They set the fees for baptism, weddings and funerals. And they lived in
concubinage with native women, something which, doubtless, is not shown in
statistics, but which was, at that time, an open secret. The millions of half-
breeds, whose descendants populate the Philippines today, are sufficient proof
ot this.

Above all, however, the friars were sworn enemies of progress, determined to
ruin even the moderate reforms of the Madrid government for the relaxation of
the colonial regime in the Philippines, so as to preserve its ruling position. It
was, therefore, just a matter of time before the efforts of Blumentritt towards
the emancipation of the Filipinos would arouse the wrath of the monks - very
much to the surprise of the well-meaning and fine Catholic civil servant, who
could not know the dimensions this altercation would assume.

Blumentritt must have defended the church in the Philippines soon after the
beginning of the correspondence, because Rizal thanks Blumentritt for his good
and kind perceptions about religion and he admits that the friars did bring many
good things; of course the Filipinos paid well and amply for them. The friars
received wealth on earth and in heaven in exchange for their Christian efforts.
With ironical allusions to the situation in the country, Rizal says that the friars
exchanged the fields of his Philippine forefathers for tracts of land in heaven.
The farmers, however, had to lead, aside from their Christian life, a temporal
one. He tries to explain to his friend (in his still somewhat droll German) the
difference between Catholicism here, there, and everywhere: "Dear Sir: You
know our country through books, books written by the friars, the Spaniards,

26
and the foreigners; they copy from each other. If you had been like me, born
and brought up in our villages, then you would have heard what our farmers
believe, say, think, and suffer and thus you would surely think differently about
Catholicism in the Philippines. I have had opportunities to study the religions in
Europe. I found Christianity beautiful, great, splendid; Catholicism,
stimulating, poetic ... we and our farmers know nothing at all about all this!
Please pardon these remarks which I am writing frankly. You will probably
find them strange because you have never heard of such things ... "

It was the first warning to Blumentritt that a territory existed which, up to now,
had lain outside the scope of his studies and upon which a new world of
problems seemed to be revealed to him. Because of his work for the
Philippines, specially his distribution and translation of Rizal's works,
Blumentritt was forced into a round of altercations with the clergy. Thus, Rizal
is soon to deplore the news of his friend that the jesuits and the Augustinian
friars had stopped their correspondence with him. Rizal consoles him,
nevertheless, with the remark that whoever refuses an exchange of views is
doubtless not worth the friendship. He adds that above all, the friars should
consider Blumentritt's views since he was neither a Spaniard nor a Filipino.

Meanwhile, Blumentritt himself has resorted to the pen, and in a report,


referred to the government system in the Philippines as a "bureaucratic-
military" rule subordinated to the clergy; a government system in which anyone
who opposed the caste regime of the friars was denounced as a rebel. Arrest,
banishment and imprisonment were daily occurrences; any Philippine
intellectual who did not get on very well with the church, was not even for a
moment, sure that he would not be arrested. ("sterreichische Monatsschrift fr
den Orient" (Austrian Monthly Journal for the Orient), Vienna, 1888).

Blumentritt becomes even more caustic in a short note to Rizal in Paris, when
he says that the friars and "Quioquiapistas" (the monicker for Spanish anti-
Philippine political publicists) have lost all their senses, and that their
champions among the monks represented a suicidal policy because they "have
an ill-fated hand and a poisoned tongue.

Blumentritt would not have done justice to his reputation as an exact scientist
had he not, (or, with extreme precision had it), done it out with the friars in an
exhaustive analysis.

27
In a detailed presentation of Philippine political situation ("Unsere Zeit", (Our
Time) Leipzig, 1889) he gives, first ot all, historical examples of monastic
dictatorship, like that of the fate of Governor-Marshall Bustamante-Bustillo,
who, together with his son was suddenly attacked by armed friars and
murdered, because he carried out reforms and had the corrupt bishop of Manila
arrested. This was the bishop who, after the murder of the representative of the
king, took the reins of the government himself.

Blumentritt quotes Governor Anda, who corroborates that the natives were
flogged by the friars when they spoke Spanish. Why? "Since the Spanish
officials do not have a mastery of the native dialects, and if, on the other hand,
the Indios do not understand Spanish, then the friars are the only ones who can
act as mediators between the government and the governed and, thereby,
become indispensable to both." And Blumentritt draws the conclusion:
Hence, stupidity, ignorance as bases of the monastic rule.

The war for independence of the Spanish colonies in Latin America since the
beginning of the past century stimulated the hysteria of the colonial rule, that
Spain could well lose the Philippines. That was the signal for the friars to make
themselves indispensable as upholders of the status quo: to issue to themselves
and for themselves, true to the explanation which they themselves spread,
licences for ever thing which they deemed necessary for the realization of this
objective: "A friar outweighs a battalion of soldiers." In fact, up to the days of
the Philippine revolution in the late '90's, the Spanish occupation army was
limited to 11,000 men for the huge archipelago, which, transferred on the
European map, would extend from Florence to Stockholm and from London to
Tangiers.

Sharp-wittedly, Blumentritt discerned the effect of the stupefying policy of the


friars. All the same the enlightenment was not to be halted; ideas spread, but it
would no longer be the enlightenment of the church, rather the liberal
enlightenment from the ideas of Rousseau, Voltaire, and the Freemasons. The
friars believed that they had found a weapon even against this. By accusing the
representative of the enlightenment ot being an enemy of the Spanish crown
and, therefore, of being a rebel and a traitor to his country. When, finally, wider
and wider circles of native priests also turned against the "oppressive and
unbounded supremacy of the regulares", these friars, in opposition to the
teachings of the Church, did not hesitate to accuse the Filipinos wrongfully of
belonging to an inferior race with limited intelligence, in the same manner that
a part of the white South African church is still doing now.

28
The result was that hatred and contempt for the monks spread among the
people. Nevertheless, even in the protest movement, the loyalty for Spain still
prevailed, as revealed in written petitions and demonstrations of ovations to
Spain and, to the King, which at the same time, however, demanded the
expulsion of the friars. "Almost all of the educated natives want the collapse of
the monastic rule because they see in the friar the censor, the braggart, the
enemy of every liberal, progressive, even just human-dignity movements,"
writes Blumentritt.

He cites from a book of Father Bustamante which came out in Tagalog in


which the latter tries to prove how detrimental the knowledge of the Spanish
language is for the Indio. He is supposed to just tend his carabao and ricefields;
knowledge and education are not supposed to be for him because whoever
separated from the carabao would become an enemy of the church and king.
Thus, according to Blumentritt's opinion, the clergy is abandoning its
traditional weapon of light and knowledge and is subscribing to stupidity,
ignorance, fanaticism. It classifies attendance in school as a temptation to
apostasy and treason.

It is small wonder that Blumentritt is disturbed and makes clear in his resum
how, as a devout Catholic, after difficult fights and after rescinding all trust
which he might have given to the orders in advance, now disappointed, must
have reached a new attitude: "I admit that up to this time I had always hoped
that the Philippine orders would, mindful of their glorious past, direct their
energies to the reform of their policy. I still hoped that the friars would get tired
of playing the abject role of myrmidons (Italian police beadles) and delators,
(common informers, people who give statements to the police, here with the
meaning of denunciators). I was grievously disillusioned."

Church Tax for Locusts


How the farmers experienced the rule of the clergy in practice is shown in a
letter of Rizal's brother-in-law, Manuel Hidalgo,which Rizal transmitted to
Blumentritt. It is reported how, on the occasion of a locusts plague, the clergy

29
condemned the insects and blessed the sugar cane fields for a fee of four pesos
per family. Of course, the locusts were not eliminated, but instead multiplied in
such a manner that the farmers resorted to the old "impious" methods of
striking the plague-spirits dead.

When there is a "fiesta", the statue of the Holy Virgin is carried through the
village under the direction of the priest, the police chief, and the army
commander. The priest collects all the money that he can manage to get hold
of, with the remark that this or that saint would transfer to the next village.
Should the farmers complain that they needed the money for the tax collector,
then the friars would explain that he who has done his obligation to God would
not fear anything from the side of the state. But when the time comes for
paying taxes, the farmers often have to give up what is left of their harvest and
go hungry.

The flower festival is celebrated every year in May in the province of


Batangas. The young girls have to pay the priest five to six pesos daily for
every floral offering to the statue of the Virgin Mary. Each member of the
parish has to pay a fixed amount for the holy mass, for the ringing of the church
bells, for the blessings, for the preaching and so forth. "By this means, the
curate collects some two thousand pesos in the month of May alone. The fee
for a wedding has been raised from four to seven pesos, the charges for a
funeral from one to four pesos, for baptism, from three to ten pesos. The school
teachers donate amply to the priest in order to retain their positions; the parents,
on the other hand, donate to the teachers so their children will get good grades.
Thus the vicious circle of corruption and bribery is perpetrated." Thus writes
Rizal's brother-in-law.

In his sharpest attack by then against the clergy, Rizal attempts to explain to his
friend the reasons for his fight against the friars by admitting the possibility of
having cast the stone with such energy that it hit religion as it went past the
heads of the friars. Of course the priests use religion not only as shield but also
as weapon, fort, citadel, and armor. And in order to attack those who are hiding
behind religion, it was necessary to attack the false religion as well: "They
misuse the name of religion for some pesos. They cry 'religion' to carry off
innocent girls, "religion" in order to secure an interest, "religion" in order to
ruin the tranquility of the maniage and of the family, if not perhaps the
respectability of the women. How should I not oppose this religion with all my
might, when it is the first cause of our sufferings and sorrows ... Christ did the
same with the religion of His land, when the Pharises misused it."

30
No doubt Blumentritt has to concede a few days later: "My brother,
unfortunately your remarks about the misuse of religion are well-aimed and
correct. In the same way are men lead astray by precious gold and exquisite
diamonds to deviate from the path of virtue: the greatest crimes have been
committed in the name of religion." Blumentritt asks indignantly whether the
Spanish world is made solely of fanatics, lunatics, ignoramuses, braggarts, and
corrupt men. And in anticipation of new attacks from one of the friars:
"Perhaps he will choose as subject "Apage satanas" (Yield, Satan!) But they
will not get off without an answer.

Blumentritt's disillusionment rises to indignation and bitterness, when he


learns of the harassment and persecution of the Rizal family by the friars.
Rizal's piece of land was on an hacienda of the Dominicans in Calamba. A
dispute lasting for years about the lease taxes led to the Rizals being ejected
from their house. They were driven out, the furniture put out on to the street.
Rizal's old mother was arrested on petty grounds, and while under arrest had to
march for hours in the heat with a police escort; and with police and military
assistance, the house of a friend of the Rizals was set on fire by order of the
Dominicans. Families passed the night out in the open; the Dominicans forbade
the neighbors to take them in.

Blumentritt is disconcerted; he takes the destiny of his friend to heart. But he


does not acquiesce, on the contrary, he immediately thinks of an international
enlightenment campaign in the newspapers. "One must tell the whole world,
how inhumanly, how barbarously, the most sacred human rights are being
trampled down upon, under the banner of religion and of Spain." He quotes the
Italian Caducci: "How long, Lord, would the brazen pack make fun of the
sacred; theology in spirit and meanness in the heart! ' However it may be, one
must not lose heart.

Once again he speaks about the sufferings of his friend's family: "They cry out
to heaven above for vengeance. This occasion must be used to show the
European and American world the injustice and harshness of the Philippine
government." He leaves no doubt about his not being broken and his pursuing
the fight: "I am now working on a second article which the friars will like even
less. And there too, I am pulling down the masks from their faces."

The friars know no other way of helping themselves than by defamation and
false reports. They spread, as Rizal tells his friend, the rumor that Blumentritt

31
has realized his "mistake" and has gone over to the side of the friars; that he
will discontinue his polemics.

Blumentritt is amused and at the same time furious. The friars are either very
stupid or they presume the stupidity of the Filipinos when they give themselves
the pleasure of portraying me as a deserter. It is actually very sad for us to have
to fight against such stupid enemies. On the other hand, it is fortunate for the
Philippine cause that the friars have only intriguers and not men of talent,
Blumentritt says. Almost all of the libelous reports which the friars have
written so far are rubbish. Instead of helping their own cause, publications of
that kind would only be detrimental to them. "I have not failed to devote eve
free moment of my time to the Philippines . . . We must not lose ourage,
because God only helps him, who helps himself ..."

Rizal cannot forget the Calamba incidents. "Every time I hear the wretched
stories of the poor peasants from whom the Dominican friars took everything -
homes, rice, household effects; mother and children left behind weeping, I
think of the poor Estanislava, who, sick as she was, and with four little
children, took up the fight against the priest, the soldiers and Spaniards during
the absence of her husband. After that she lay seriously injured in bed for many
days, but she kept her house and rice for her children.

Rizal, however, tells about other friars, like one of his former teachers, a
Dominican too, who condemned the incidents in Calamba and even defended
Rizal's books. That is raw barbarism, Rizal quotes the priest, the deed in
Calamba is that of a mad man. In the end, the Archbishop also expressed his
disapproval publicly, and swore that he had nothing to do with it; that the order
to drive away the peasants came from the Monastery. Of course the matter does
not end there. Rizal says in his letter, quoting Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Here is
still the smell of blood; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand!"

With difficult inner conflicts, the good Catholic Blumentritt - who remained
that up to the end of his life - arrives at a new view of the role of the church and
the friars in the Philippines. For Rizal, the venture to enlighten his friend was
the longest, most difficult but also most successful process of persuasion in his
life, in the judgement of the British biographer of Rizal, Austin Coates. The
greatest and only serious barrier between them was thereby removed.
Misgivings were cleared away; henceforth, they would truly become one heart
and one spirit; a pair of brothers. The development of Blumentritt from a purely

32
academic researcher and ethnologist to an indefatigable, extremely well-
informed and most eminent champion of the Philippine cause began.

If anything at all, Blumentritt gave himself nothing but troubles. Again and
again he complained about his state of health to his friend: "Got up from the
sick bed just today, caught quite a cold and suffered a hoarse throat: This
ailment was terrible for me, because, on account of it I was prevented from
indulging in my vice, smoking ... I am altogether a complete wreck, half blind
and nervous, and more than anything else, prone to colds. With fervent longing
I am already looking forward to summer. That is the only season during which
I feel very well. Unfortunately, our summer is quite short."

After the weather has improved, he immediately says cheerfully that he could
now take up his vice again: "I am now frequently taking walks again, because,
fortunately for me, we have sun and warmth. I feel very well and I am smoking
again, one cigar a day. The first cigar which I smoked was a Philippine cigar.
The Compa a General de Tabacos de Filipinas has an agreement with the
Austrian government about Philippine tobacco being sold in some cities under
certain conditions. Luckily, Leitmeritz is one of these cities."

Yet sooner, he complains once again: "On Tuesday, I developed such


congestions around the head that I thought it was the end of me. I am all tired
and sluggish because for weeks I have not gone anywhere else but to lectures.
My head is aching too, and I can sleep only very little."

Another time, Blumentritt tells his friend that his wife and children are sick
with colds and, more than it, his youngest son has swallowed an apricot stone.
His inability to work must have been the worst trial for a restless spirit. "I am
still not in a condition to work with my head," he complains after a rather long
illness. "I look out of the window like an idler, an intelligent activity. Your
invalid friend." Blumentritt fears 'hat his lungs are not as healthy as they have
been before. Of course their family doctor laughs at him about this, but he is
not deceiving himself.

Thus, for the same reason, it becomes clear why Blumentritt never travelled
far. Once he cancelled a possible meeting with Rizal, because "my nerves
would not be able to stand the flurries of a long train ride." And a former
female student of his says that the professor "suffered very much from
seasickness and had become seasick even on a steamer on the Elbe."

33
However, in his good days, Blumentritt seemed, along with his passion for
smoking, not averse at all to drinking a full glass of wine. "This morning, when
I woke up with a terrible hangover (I went drinking yesterday), the mailman
brought me your dear letter ..." he writes. And if it was a question of
corresponding with his friend, Blumentritt was even willing to set aside his
professional duties, as for instance, when he hoped for bad weather when they
had a school excursion: "I hope it will rain tomorrow, then I shall write you a
long letter. Therefore, rain, rain, rain ..."

Blumentritt is active as a chronicler too. We learn about a big flood in


Bohemia, "of a terrible inundation", which made the Elbe rise to 6.72 meters
above the normal level. "The environs of Leitmeritz are like a lake; several
villages under water, the misfortune is great," the letter says, "and the
Karlsbrcke (Karls bridge) in Prague is partially destroyed, including its
exquisite statues that resisted successfully for 500 years the impact of the
waves of the Moldau river."

In a correspondence about the different national cuisines, Rizal is glad that the
Bohemian cuisine is quite like the Philippine cuisine, in contrast to the cuisines
of the neighboring countries in the north: "We are really up to our ears with
their food and are tired of the Northern German cuisine, which spoils our
stomachs . . ." Instead of wine, he prefers drinking water and beer in the
restaurants in order to adapt himself to the local taste and not to attract
attention.

When Rizal plans to bring more Philippine students to Europe, he gets


Blumentritt's advice regarding expenses and accommodation. 'Students who
have a private residence, but take their meals in a restaurant live more
expensively than the ones who take their meals with their landlords. And if
some live, as they did in Manila, that is, vive en republica, then, naturally, the
expenses will become cheaper. Among the Filipinos, as among our Italians,
who are not tavern people, life is anyway cheaper; they live more frugally ..."
And it would just be very like the precise and thorough Blumentritt to promise
to draw up complete lists of such expenses.

The friends exchange little presents. Blumentritt sends Rizal a photograph of


the children. He had Loleng photographed while wearing the Philippine lace
collar. Rizal reciprocates with a packet of cigarettes and dried Philippine
flowers as well as with an unusual hand-made lighter, to which he attaches the
directions for use in a drawing. Blumentritt is pleased with the flowers from the

34
land which he loves. He immediately learns their Tagalog names and shows the
lighter as a curiosity to the Physics professor in the school.

The friends tell each other even about their dreams, which naturally, revolved
around their subsequent meeting or Blumentritt's visit to the Philippines. "Day
before yesterday, I dreamt that I was in Calamba and living in your house."
Blumentritt writes. "Your mother brought me a cup of coffee and then I chatted
with Paciano. The dream was very vivid. Our farmers used to say that the souls
of sleeping people visit each other."

Rizal dreams likewise, about the visit of his friend to the Philippines. But the
dream was not as beautiful as yours ... I was furious, because the wine, the
bread and other European food were forgotten and you could not eat anything. I
told the servants: What will the Professor say about our hospitality when he
returns to Europe one day ... ?"

Of course, Blumentritt knew that he would have felt happy in Rizal's house.
For him, the dreams were an expression of a melancholic certainty that his wish
would never come true.

"It would perhaps be my greatest luck if I could see the Philippines, but I doubt
very much whether it would ever come true ... I am a fatalist in many matters.
And thus I think that we shall not see each other again on this earth." As a
consolation for Blumentritt, this prophecy of his does come true:" And if it
should not happen, then I still know that my heart and my name shall live in the
Philippines!"

"Students who have a private residence, but take their meals in; restaurant live
more expensively than the ones who take their meal with their landlords. And if
some live, as they did in Manila, that is vive en republica, then, naturally, the
expenses will become cheaper Among the Filipinos, as among our Italians, who
are not tavern people, life is anyway cheaper; they live more frugally ..." And it
would just be very like the precise and thorough Blumentritt to promise to draw
up complete lists of such expenses.

The friends exchange little presents. Blumentritt sends Rizal a photograph of


the children. He had Loleng photographed while wearing the Philippine lace
collar. Rizal reciprocates with a packet of cigarettes and dried Philippine
flowers as well as with an unusual hand-made lighter, to which he attaches the
directions for use in a drawing. Blumentritt is pleased with the flowers from the

35
land which he loves. He immediately learns their Tagalog names and shows the
lighter as a curiosity to the Physics professor in the school.

The friends tell each other even about their dreams, which naturally, revolved
around their subsequent meeting or Blumentritt's visit to the Philippines. "Day
before yesterday, I dreamt that I was in Calamba and living in your house."
Blumentritt writes. "Your mother brought me a cup of coffee and then I chatted
with Paciano. The dream was very vivid. Our farmers used to say that the souls
of sleeping people visit each other."

Rizal dreams likewise, about the visit of his friend to the Philippines. But the
dream was not as beautiful as yours ... I was furious, because the wine, the
bread and other European food were forgotten and you could not eat anything. I
told the servants: What will the Professor say about our hospitality when he
returns to Europe one day ...?"

Of course, Blumentritt knew that he would have felt happy in Rizal s house.
For him, the dreams were an expression of a melancholic certainty that his wish
would never come true.

"It would perhaps be my greatest luck if I could see the Philippines, but I doubt
very much whether it would ever come true ... I am a fatalist in many matters.
And thus I think that we shall not see each other again onthis earth." As a
consolation for Blumentritt, this prophecy of his does come true:" And if it
should not happen, then I still know that my heart and my name shall live in the
Philippines!"

Seldom does Rizal breathe a word about his amorous adventures even to his
close friend. Blumentritt, nevertheless, knows his friend well enough to guess
between the lines the state of his friend's heart; thus, when Rizal has a broken
heart: "I surmised something like that from your letter on New Year s day and
told it immediately to my wife: Something is wrong with Rizal, and a woman is
behind it." Blumentritt's words of consolation to his friend were: " ... But if she
could afford to abandon a Rizal, then she did not come up to the level of his
intellect. She is like a child who threw away a diamond in exchange for a
pebble. In short that was not a woman for Rizal. La donna e mobile - so sing
the Italians."

The greatest happiness for both is, to be sure, when mail comes from the
friend. "When I came home from teaching at 12:00, my wife came to meet me

36
with a ringing call: 'There's a letter from Rizal!' I hastily tore the envelope and
read your dear lines. I have not had such a pure joy for a long time ..."
Blumentritt writes of the fear which he felt when he has not heard from his
friend for a long time. That just showed to him how very much he loved him.

The joy over mail from Leitmeritz is not less either. During one of his sojourns
in his native country, Rizal gives an account of how Blumentritt's letters are
received. The entire family gathers to hear, first of all, how the letter sounds in
the strange German original, which Rizal reads aloud. Then the translation, and
afterwards, the numerous questions: How old is the professor? How old is his
wife? How do they both look like? The same questions are asked about the
children and often the question asked is whether the little ones could already
speak that difficult German.

Rizal describes how popular the professor is in Calamba, even if the people
cannot pronounce his name. Bulmentritt, Bumentritt, Blumentirit, Bulmentirt,
Bumentir, Bulumentir, Bulumentirit and a dozen more version of the
Professor's name circulated among the people as names denoting affection.

Noli me tangere
Even as a student and a budding physician in Madrid, the twenty- four year old
Rizal had already reached the decision of writing a novel. Where he got the
time to do it remains puzzling, since along with his medical subjects, he was
also learning several languages, English from German textbooks, French from
Italian textbooks, and ancient and modern history as well. Eventually, in
addition to all of these, he translated into Tagalog Schiller's William Tell and
several fairy tales of Andersen.

Now he wanted to describe the life of his people in a small provincial town in
a novel. Did he want to find a place in the history of his country as a novelist?
Was it his intention to add to his numerous talents as physician, historian, poet,
sculptor, that of a literary man as well? Was his work meant as an agitatory
contribution to the freedom fight of the Philippines? Did he plan, did he know
what he would evoke with it, what significance his book would have for the
further development of the history of his country?

37
Questions with no answers. The fact remains that he began writing in Madrid,
where he finished about half of the book, continued the work in Paris, and
ended it in Leipzig. He put the final touches on the book on February 21, 1887.

First of all, however, he had no money for the publication. Since the book was
written in Spanish, he could not hope to publish it in Madrid, since the contents
would immediately be censored. At any rate, no Spanish printer would take the
risk. And that outside of Spain, printing in a foreign language was somewhat
expensive. His brother, Paciano, sent him three hundred pesos and in the end, it
was the wealthy Maximo Viola, who, despite the resistance of the modest
Rizal, paid the printing expenses of two thousand copies. Some three weeks
later, in the middle of March, the first copies came out of the printing presses of
the "Setzerinnungsschule des Letter-Vereins, Berliner Buchdrukkerei AG"
(Guild school of typesetters, berlin Book Printing Press Co.). The well-known
Spanish writer, Vicente Blasco Ibaez, volunteered his services as consultant
and proof reader.

Rizal named his book Noli me tangere, in German Rhre mich nicht
an or Berhre mich nicht (in English, Touch me not). The title has its origin in
a famous biblical passage; the Gospel of John, twentieth chapter, which
narrated how Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. It says in
Verse 17: "Then Jesus speaks to her: Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended
to My Father. But go to My brothers and tell them: I am going to My Father, to
My God and your God." Rizal had seen in the Prado Museum in Madrid the
famous painting of Corregio which depicts the scene.

Rizal wanted perhaps to express with the novel, that for the first time he was
dealing with problems and conditions, which up to then no one dared to touch
on. Or, that the Spanish colonial regime, with its censor, had not, up to then,
given the permission to make reference to these matters. In any case, the title
can only mean that, here, reference was made to a taboo, which up to then was
considered untouchable.

The Noli, as it would soon be called, owing to the Spanish partiality for
contractions, and under which name it is familiarly called today, has, in many
ways, autobigraphical features: Crisostomo Ibarra, son of a wealthy landowner,
returns from his studies from Madrid to the provincial town of San Diego,
located near Manila. He does not know that his father, Rafael, was arrested
while he was away, because he had defended a child against the brutaliiy of a
tax collector. Rafael dies in prison, but the priest, Padre Damaso, denies him a

38
Christian burial, because he considers him a free-thinker, who never went to
confession. When the young Ibarra learns of the fate of his father, he
immediately want to wreak vengeance. So then he sets a plan. Instead, he will
put up a modern school and will emancipate the people through liberal
education. Ibana has been engaged for a long time, to the daughter of Capitan
Tiago, Maria Clara. Padre Salvi, the new parish priest, however, is himself
secretly in love with the girl and does everything not only to prevent the
marriage, but also to get Ibarra out of the way.

At the laying of the cornerstone of the school, Ibarra almost loses his life in an
accident, apparently planned and set in motion intentionally, had he not been
saved in the nick of time by the mysterious boatman, Elias, who later on in the
novel is somehow always to appear suddenly, and at the right moment. Padre
Damaso is also an avowed enemy of Ibarra and of his marriage plans. During a
banquet on the occasion of the opening of the school, Damaso hurls such
insults against Ibarra's dead father that Ibarra lunges at the priest. Ibarra is
promptly excommunicated because of the assault on the priest. He is prohibited
from seeing his fiancee. In the meantime some native priests of the lower
clergy, especially chaplains, prepare an insurrection.

Here, also, it is obviously a provocation, because not only is the uprising


nipped in the bud through the betrayal of a priest but also the friars spread the
rumor that Ibarra led the rebellion and financed it with his money. Ibarra is
arrested, the evidence against him is fabricated through his letters from abroad
to Maria Clara. These letters contain critical remarks against the Spanish rule.
And, once again, the mysterious Elias is at hand to help Ibarra escape from
prison. They flee in Elias' boat. On the way, they are apprehended by
constables who open fire. One of the two is killed, though it remains a mystery
up to the end of the novel, whether it is Ibarra or Elias. In the meantime it
becomes apparent that Padre Damaso is in reality the father of Maria Clara. The
girl, who thinks that Ibarra is dead, refuses to marry a relative of the priest and
enters the convent.

All of this is depicted in exaggerated melodrama, although occasionally not


without humor. According to present literary concepts, the Noli is a
sentimental, trivial novel. To be sure, it conformed to the social novels of the
epoch of a hundred years ago. Rizal himself declared that he was influenced by
Dickens, Zola, and Daudet, but above all, by Alexandre Dumas and his Count
of Monte Cristo.

39
Judged purely by its content, it is difficult to believe that the Noli, in the final
analysis, had a similar signal effect for the Philippine revolution as UncIe
Tom's Cabin had for the liberation of the Negro slaves in North America. The
Noli is often compared to this novel.

The comparison becomes evident only when one considers some special
features. First of all, Rizal, as already mentioned, assimilated here many events
from his personal history. And even more, as an innocent, persecuted leader of
a revolution, which he neither wanted nor organized, Rizal anticipated his own
action for which, in the end, he paid with his life. In his letters to Blumentritt,
Rizal stresses the fact that every character in the Noli is drawn from real life,
that every episode can be repeated on any day in the Philippines, that he
experienced not only the events depicted in the novel but also even much worse
ones.

The real explosive value of the book lies in its dialogues which take up
subject-matters and present them to the public for the first time; subject-matters
which, until then, were at best only whispered in secret, which precisely, in the
sense of the title - no one dared touch on. As early as the first debate, Padre
Damaso cursed and swore against the proposed reforms of the government in
Madrid, which were meant to make the lives of the "indolent natives" easy.
Yet, are the natives really born lazy? "Or is that foreign traveller right, who
says that we Spaniards raise the complaint about the indolence of the natives
merely to justify our own indolence, and the lack of progress in our colony, as
well?" Ibarra asks in return.

In a conversation with Tasio, a wise, old philosopher of the town, who explains
to him the almighty power of the friars, Ibarra himself assumes the role of a
sceptic, who defends the friars against an altogether too severe criticism: "I can
not imagine that the brothers are as powerful as you describe them. And
granted that, the people and the government, which have the best intentions for
the Philippines are on my side," Ibarra, who is seeking support for his school
project, asserts.

"The government, the government," the old man exclaims mockingly, "the
government hears nothing, sees nothing, and decides nothing which the priest
or the general of the order has not, of course, heard, seen or decided already ...
The government does not plan for a better future, it is just the arm, but the head
which moves it is the monastery."

40
And to the objection that the people neither complained nor suffered, hence
would be able to live under the protective wing of the church, the old man says
in reply, that one does not hear the complaints because the people have no
voice, because they live as if in a daze, because no one sees their hearts bleed.
Yet, one day, the reaction will be dreadful, when all those forces which have
been suppressed and strangled for centuries, when all repressed and stifled
feelings will erupt into a powerful explosion.

In the discussion between Ibarra and the mysterious Elias, the contrast between
revolutionaries and reformists is once again exposed. Elias presents his
program: "Radical reforms in the army, in the clergy, in the justice machinery
... more concern of the government for human dignity, more security for the
citizen, less privileges for an authority which misuses them."

Ibarra promises to bring his influence to bear in Madrid in order to achieve


reforms, though there are necessary evils, to keep law and order upright. Elias
counters by demanding a radical cure for the evils. The state is an organism,
infected with a chronic illness. Indeed, he would be a bad physician who would
restrain only the symptoms without going to the root of their causes and
destroying it.

In the last conversation, the roles are suddenly changed. On account of his
experiences, Ibarra becomes a revolutionary, while Elias, who is apparantly
well-versed in underground work warns against hasty, ill-prepared actions.
Nevertheless, to no avail. He advises Ibarra to lead the fight from Spain, where
the latter has influential friends. Elias warns against initiating a war in which
only the defenseless and innocent would be the victims. Ibarra, however, averts
that he has been blind, and now the blindfold has been removed from his eyes.
Now he sees the cancerous growth, which is destroying the society and which
has to be operated on. And he ends with a burning call: "I want to become an
agitator, a real agitator. I want to call on the suppressed ... No, that will not be a
crime, it will never be a crime to fight for one's country." And he turns to the
Spanish people: "We have stretched out our hands to them for three centuries,
we asked for their love; we wanted to make them our brothers. But what was
their answer? Insults, humiliation, sarcasm, even refusal to recognize us as
fellow-human beings. But God ... will not leave us; He who extended his
helpful hand to all peoples, who fought for their independence!"

Some books were sent by regular mail to Madrid, where they made the rounds.
In Barcelona, the book was also circulated and had, as reported, a tumultuous

41
turnover, after the book-sellers had ordered more copies. A large shipment of
the Noli was seized by the customs authorities in Manila and held for a long
time, because the censors withheld the import permit. By devious means, the
books finally got to the city, where they were circulated in a bazaar by a
bookseller, a prominent free-mason. Rizal himself expressed the suspicion that
a considerable number of the Noli had been purchased in bulk by the monks in
order to destroy them. The historians are still arguing about how many of the
two thousand copies reached the readers. And, according to dispassionate
analysis, they add up to not more than half of the printing, thus about a
thousand copies. Moreover, it should be considered that the book was written in
Spanish and therefore was accesible to just a small group of the educated, the
so-called "ilustrados", while the great mass of the Tagalog-speaking Filipinos
was, to begin with, excluded as readers. And yet these thousand copies exerted
an explosive effect, were of decisive influence and changed as no other event
had, the course of Philippine history at the end of the nineteenth century. (In
fact, Rizal finds himself here in not quite too bad a company because, of the
first volume of the "Capital" by Karl Marx, not more than a thousand copies
were distributed from the first printing.)

Two factors contributed decisively to this development, two antipodes, which


deal with the two motives fully opposing each other:
the clergy and Ferdinand Blumentritt.

The religious authorities lost no time in their attacks, immediately after the
publication of the book. On orders of the Archbishop, Pedro Payo, a special
commission of the University of Santo Tomas - whose student Rizal was - was
formed to investigate the Noli. Their decision was swiftly submitted, and the
book was classified as "heretical, godless and scandalous, from the standpoint
of the religious; anti-patriotic, subversive against the public order, as well as
offensive to the Spanish government and the administration of the island, from
the political aspect."

Governor Terrero was, however, apparently not impressed and attempted to


avert the ecclesiastical ex-communication of Rizal. He referred the act to the
competent censors commission under the chairmanship of the Augustinian
priest, Salvador Font, parish priest of Tondo. That did Rizal no good. The
censors commission came to the conclusion of recommending to the governor-
general, after an investigation of more than six months, "the absolute and
unconditional prohibition of the importation, printing and distribution of this
pernicious book". With unintentional irony, the reasons given are, Rizal
attempted to ruin the integrity of that country, which made the Philippines "the

42
freest and culturally highest among the countries under the protection of
European countries; (the Filipinos) the luckiest race, which lives under the
beneficent shadow of fatherly laws"; the biggest monument, which heroic and
incomparable Spain has erected "in order to protect and raise a young people
entrusted to her by God ..."

The prior of the monastery of Guadalupe, the Augustinian Jose Rodriguez


went a step further by threatening in a pamphlet every reader of the Noli with
the anathema of mortal sin, since the book was pure heresy. Up to now there
are dioceses in the Philippines in which the Noli stands in the index!

Nevertheless, Rizal also had some few defenders among priests. The most
prominent among them was Father Vicente Garcia, canon of the Cathedral of
Manila, who, in a pamphlet publishd in Singapore under a pseudonym, refuted
the charges against Rizal with the remark that the author did not insult and
attack the religion, the church, or Spain, rather, the incapable and incompetent
officials and corrupt friars. By the way, Father Rodriguez himself committed a
mortal sin, since he must have read the Noli in order to be able to refute it.

Everything that was brought into play to persecute the Noli is shown by the
following report from the newspaper, "Hongkong Telegraph" of july 21,1888:
"Last Tuesday night, the seventeen of this month, the house of a medical
student by the name of Laureado Viado was searched by the municipal officer,
Don Martin Piraces, and his secretary, Don Rafael Llanos. They were
accompanied by sveral policemen, who turned the house over. The civil
governor, the chief inspector of the police, two inspectors, and several
government officials were also present. The outcome of the search was that
some books with the title Noli me tangere (written by Mr. Rizal) as well as
some books and letters from Europe were found. The poor student and his
landlord were immediately shackled with manacles and, without a trial,
transferred as prisoners to the Bilibid Prisons, since, according to the Spanish
penal law, it is forbidden to read a book which is directed against church
officials. The young man explained that he bought the books in a shop with the
name 'Great Britain'. The next morning, the shop of Mr. Ramos and his house
were searched from 11:00 forenoon till 2:00 in the afternoon. At 6:00 in the
evening of the same day, the house of the father of Mr. Ramos in Pandacan was
searched too. The house of the governor of Binondo was likewise searched. No
books were found in any of these houses. The man who gave the information
about all of this is the brother of a friar. The search of the houses in Manila and
Cavite is being continued ..."

43
The discussion about the book reached as far as Madrid, where in a debate in
the Cortes, it was branded by a delegate as "anti-Catholic, Protestant, socialistic
and Proudhonistic (Proudhon: French socialist leader,1809-1865), all in one
breath.

All things considered, however, the campaign of the clergy against the book
was probably the best advertisement for the Noli . A big circle in Spain and in
the Philippines became aware of the book only through the public polemics and
the banishment order. The copies shifted from hand to hand among Manila's
student circles.

Even years after the publication of the Noli, the Hongkong papers reported
over and over again about house searches, confiscations and arrests, done
because of ownership or reading of the book.

In the West, however, in Europe and North America, it was Ferdinand


Blumentritt, who became an indefatigable agitator and champion of the Noli.
Rizal sent one of the first copies to his friend with the note: "Here, I am sending
my book to you. It is my first book, although I have already written much and
received some prizes for poetry." It is the first impartial and couragous book
about the life of the Tagalogs, Rizal commented. The Filipinos would find here
their history of the past ten years. Rizal was reckoning with the counter-attack
of the government and the friars, but put his trust in the God of truth. "I am
giving here an answer to everything that has been written about us and that has
happened to

Blumentritt's Prophecy and Defense


Blumentritt is certainly enthusiastic in his first response. "A thousand thanks
for your excellent book ... to begin with, accept my heartfelt congratulation for
your beautiful moral novel, which appeals to me in an extraordinary manner.
As we German's say, you put all your heart into the writing of your book and
for this reason, your book speaks to the heart ..." Blumentritt writes that he
knew that Rizal was a man of exceptional talent ... that the work has,
nevertheless, surpassed his expectations. Yet, the former thinks that not Rizal
alone should be congratulated, rather the entire nation for having such a faithful
son and patriot. Then Blumentritt writes that sentence, which is so significant
that up to now in the Philippines, it is still considered as a prophetic guiding
principle in the depiction of Rizal's character: "If you continue in this manner,

44
then for your people, you can become one of the great men, who will exert a
decisive influence upon the development of their spiritual life."

Blumentritt, who, as agent of the Berlin Printing Press, has already contributed
to the publication of the Noli, asks his friend for permission to translate the
book into German. He reckons that the work will take a year, yet he would like
to translate two to three chapters immediately. In fact, in the correspondence
and documents, time and again, mention is made of a German translation of
the Noli by Blumentritt. Unfortunately, up to now, no copy of the translation
has been found.

With the genuine Blumentritt thoroughness, he prepares his campaign for the
defence of the Noli. He has Rizal send him Multatulis book (Multatulis is the
pseudonym of the Dutch official Douwes-Dekker, whose novel Max
Havelaar of 1860 had a similar effect against the colonial rule in the Dutch
Indies as the Noli.) with the remark: "Itwill make me very happy to get to know
it, since I want to be rid of the attackers of the Noli. Maybe the book can help
me." Shortly after this, Blumentritt receives from Rizal the news that through
the intervention of the friars, the Noli has been officially banned in the
Philippines.

All the same, as far as their adversaries are concerned, neither Rizal nor
Blumentritt has lost their common sense. Blumentritt recalls the story of
Archimedes, who sacrifices a hecatomb of oxen to the gods out of gratitude to
them upon his discovery of a law, which was later on named after him. The
story goes that since that time, all the oxen tremble whenever a discovery or
invention is made. "The peninsular oxen are now trembling too because they
discovered in the Noli me tangere and the Solidaridad (the newspaper of the
Filipinos in exile in Madrid), that the Indios are not only their equals, but that
the latters' sons are noble, more intelligent, more educated, more learned than
their academicians ..."

It was the prelude for Blumentritt's all-out attack on the critics and
calumniators of the Noli. A strong polemic of almost 30 pages is published in
the Iberica printing press of Francisco Fossas in Barcelona under the title Noli
me tangere of Rizal - as judged by Professor F. Blumentritt. Rizal wrote a
foreword in which he introduces Blumentritt as the learned and respected
Philippinist who takes sides in the fight of the Filipinos for education and
against those classes which perpetuate ignorance. But immediately afterwards,
Rizal stresses that it may not be necessary to introduce the Austrian Professor

45
stating that whoever is interested in geography, theology, philology, oriental
studies and the studies of the Philippines knows the name of Blumentritt, a
name recognized and respected in the entire civilized world of Europe.

For this very reason, Rizal writes, the opinion of the professor about the Noli
me tangere will perhaps evoke protests among those who are convinced that
they are infallible, as well as those who brand anyone who thinks differently as
a filibuster (rebel, subversive element) and any different opinion as heretic or
protestant.

"They, nevertheless, have no grounds for that. Professor Blumentritt is a


fervent Catholic, a dutiful son of the Roman Church, which he considers as the
only true one, the only one which can save mankind. He cannot be accused
wrongfully as a filibuster either ... because he does not only have Spanish
blood, but is also a defender of the Spanish law. He defends Spanish law in
newspapers, books, speeches, with such zeal that he was deemed worthy of
receiving a decoration of the Madrid government as well as a prize of the
Philippine exhibition (organized in Madrid in 1887)." Rizal emphasizes that
Blumentritt has read all the books of the friars and Peninsulares about the
Philippines. "And if in his judgment, he has, nevertheless, not become the
victim of their prejudices and calumnies, then it is exclusively because of the
sound human judgement of the learned professor and his enthusiasm for
studying matters carefully."

"In this distant corner of the world, known by the name Philippines, the
conditions prevailing are such that they remind us of past centuries. The
administration of the country, military and bureaucratic through and through, is
subordinate to the interests of the all-powerful friars. With no representation in
the Corts and no freedom of the press, abuse is the order of the day. And, as in
the provinces of old Rome, prosperity and affluence do not depend upon the
laws, rather upon the personal capabilities of every single official."

Blumentritt begins his indictment with these words and thereafter depicts with
dispassionate objectivity the gradual opening of the Philippines and the entry of
so-called progress by this daring alien who has broken into a country, "in which
not only the birds do sing, or the women love, but so are the flowers fragrant."
Manila is opened to world trade and other ports follow. With the completion of
the Suez Canal, the sea-route is shortened to half the distance. The opening and
modernization of japan during the Meiji-Restoration (since 1868) has
consequences for the Philippines too. The change from sailing to steamship

46
makes the Philippines the cross-point of the sea-routes from and to Europe and
America.

The "Indios" began to awaken from their spiritual lethargy. The clergy could
have made use of this new desire for knowledge for its purposes. It preferred to
seek refuge behind the shield of ignorance of the natives. There remained no
other path to education for the best and most capable sons of the country but
the schools of foreign countries, above all, of Spain, as well as other university
cities, with the inevitable result: "From there, they return with new ideas and
suddenly look upon the conditions in their native land with different eyes. In
the Philippines: censorship and court litigation, in Spain:
freedom and liberalism. In Spain, they were free citizens, in their own country,
they were hoodlums, who had to submit to humiliation and oppression. It was
only a natural consequence that the educated Filipinos demanded their share of
privileges which their sons enjoyed in the mother country. Of course, the
censor prevented any free discussion about the numerous shortcomings and
abuses of the government. They were not only forced to keep quiet but were
also accused of high treason for their patriotic desire for radical changes.
Because of the secession of her colonies in Latin America, the Spaniards
immediately saw a separatist conspiracy in every liberal movement."

Rizal gave expression to this dissatisfaction and unrest in his book Noli. He
wrote the Noli very strongly and "with his life blood." The friars persecuted it
with the zeal with which the inquisitors would have persecuted books about
sorcery. What is more, they wrote a polemic against the book for which eighty
days of indulgence was promised anyone who reads it.

After a sketch of the person of Rizal and his motivation, Blumentritt endeavors
to explain Rizal's intentions: to denounce the abuse of the power of the state,
the miserable treatment of political prisoners, the inhuman harshness and the
severity of the ambitious friars. It was necessary to personify the dark side of
the regime, to portray them as they really were in the Philippines at that time.
These would be pictures, Blumentritt judges, photographs of persons whose
originals would be alive then and recognizable even without names.

One could imagine the storm it unleashed in the circles who felt they were the
ones affected; that was the stone thrown into the wasps' nest. It was impossible
for it to escape the attention of the censor because the director of the office of
censor was the Augustinian priest, Salvador Font, already mentioned. This
means that censorship of the novel was assigned to those who precisely had

47
been attacked most severely in the Noli. It was therefore easy to foretell the
destiny of the book: the plaintiff was at the same time the judge of the
defendant - hence, the book was damned.

Blumentritt recalls the attacks on the Noli, which were already known, the
rebuke of Protestantism, of socialism, of Pro-Germanism, of the representative
of Bismarck, of anti-Spanish propaganda, of which the book is full, in order to
go then into the racial problem at length, without which the relation between
Spaniards and Filipinos would be difficult to grasp. With unrelenting sharpness,
he proves against which prejudices and from which unfair position a Filipino
who dares to criticize the colonial rule of the Spaniards, has to fight: "The
Spaniards have, all along, looked down with scorn on their colonial subjects;
and not only on the colored, but also on the half-breeds and even on those
Spaniards who were born in the colonies."

Here Blumentritt explains the different strata of the colonial Spaniards: the
"Peninsulares" are those Spaniards who come directly from the mother country
and render service as officials in the Philippines; the "Matandas" are the
Spaniards who settle down in the colony and the "Bagos" are the Spaniards
who, most of the time, for reasons of business, stay for a short period in the
Philippines.

And so it comes to pass that the Spaniards regarded the Filipinos, at best, as
younger brothers, more often as an "irresponsible child", most of the time,
however, as a kind of animal which comes close Darwin's missing link between
human beings and monkeys. "And now one would imagine what impression is
evoked among the majority of the Peninsulares, when an
educated Indio suddenly comes along and courageously criticizes the Spanish
institutions! What? An Indio such as this one, a hoodlum, an insect, a monkey
dares to question the institution in his own country, to reproach the friars and
officials and to question their professional and moral conduct? ... And thus, the
friars and the Peninsulares roar, not only out of Spanish arrogance, but also
with the vanity of the European who still believes in the old - wives tale, which
says that the white man is suppossed be made of a better clan than the yellow,
brown or black man ... For this reason, I explained from the beginning that
Rizal as an Indio, to surmise that his book would encounter an army of mortal
enemies, even if he had not touched on a theological problem."

Thus, Rizal's book is anti-Spanish, because the rulers, the monks and officials
who committed the loathsome deeds criticized in the book, are Spaniards; a

48
matter which cannot be prevented when this subject matter is treated. Is it
possible to criticize the political conditions in the Philippines without accusing
the Spaniards? Or rather should the criticism altogether cease for the reason of
the principle which states that the silence of the dead is a virtue? Blumentritt
demonstrates that not only he but also all the prominent scholars of Europe
valued Rizal as a man, to whom racial prejudice is alien, who never regards
skin, color or language of a man as criteria, rather only his character, his human
qualities. Had Rizal been a Spaniard, then his Noli would have fared better.
Rizal's most grievous crime was having born an Indio in a Spanish colony and
disseminating his views publicly.

After his defence of his friend and his work, Blumentritt has to switch over to
his own defence, because he, too, is exposed to serious attacks: "Hardly was
my intention to translate the Noli me tangere in German known when I
received letters from Filipinos and Spanish friends imploring me to desist from
my plan. And why? The Filipinos feared that I, who have always fought for the
integrity of Spain with the passion of a patriot would get the reputation of a
filibuster (agitator). That would endanger my Philippine friends because in the
Philippines, as it is generally known, not only the filibuster but also his friend is
persecuted and punished. I had to laugh loudly! I, the most loyal deiender of the
Lady Regent, of the late king and of the young and innocent monarch (meant
here are the Lady Regent Maria Cristina of Austria and her dead husband
Alphonse XII and their son, King Alphonse XIII), a filibuster? That was
certainly stupid! Nonetheless ... I shall proceed with my course, because I have
never in my life paid heed to the advantage nor to the hatred of the blind and
stupid ones, and I shall keep it that way in the future."

What the Spaniards really feared was that the Noli would become known in
Europe through the German translation and Spain would lose sympathy in
Germany and Austria. Yet in this matter, Blumentritt was able to appease the
apprehensive ones with the remark that there is a whole library of works of
Spanish, French, English and Dutch researchers and historians whose
indictments against the colonial regime in the Philippines made the book of
Rizal appear like a defence of the friars and the crown in comparison to them.

The fear of the Spaniards, is for Blumentritt "the tacit admission that the
situation in the Philippines, in fact, corresponds to what the author of
the Noli describes. Or else what for are all these efforts to bring the novel to
silence? In all the writings of Rizal, I have not found any single refutation of
the theme which runs through the entire novel like a bloody track; of the fact
that the native, who incurs the hatred of the friars, is, without protection and

49
rights and is at the mercy of the friars, since the government is just an extension
of the friars' orders which sets the interest of the religious orders above those of
the state."

Blumentritt answers the Spaniards who complain to him that every Filipino
student owns a copy of the Noli, that the book is sought and bought by
educated people everywhere, in spite of the stiff penalty, temporal as well as
spiritual, which threatens the owner. Blumentritt does not understand these
complaints. Why was the book confiscated when by doing so, the general
interest for it was just aroused? There is no doubt that no other book in the
Philippines has ever been as persecuted. Nocturnal house searches are not a
rarity. All of this increases the importance of the book and brings new readers
to it. His enemies are stricken blind; the friars themselves become the best
advertisers of the book, for which Rizal should be grateful.

Blumentritt, the friend, the humanist, no doubt draws his political conclusions
from the hatred for Rizal and the Noli: "The financial interests of certain
Spanish circles are threatened by the novel," Blumentritt discretely states. He
says, the mother country took these long neglected islands under her care very
recently. As a first step towards reform, the odious tobacco monopoly was
terminated. (The farmers were forced to cultivate tobacco and to surrender a
definite amount at prices set by the government yearly. Smuggling and bribery
flourished; the cheating of the tobacco growers led periodically to revolts of the
tobacco growers.) The penal code was also reformed. The government in
Madrid seemed more receptive to the complaints of the Filipinos. Accordingly,
the fear of those whose privileges and profits were threatened by the reforms
grew. A circulation of the Noli, however, had to lead automatically to the
invigoration of the party of the pro-reform Spaniards, who could then refer to
conditions depicted in the book. Thereupon, Blumentritt explains the hatred and
rage of the group which moved to put an end not only to the book but to the
author as well (which they would later successfully do, in a tragic manner.)

To conclude his indictment, Blumentritt states: "If I should express my opinion


about the Noli me tangere, then I would frankly admit that I consider it the
greatest literary work ever written by a Filipino, or about the Philippines at all.
And I am happy to know that I am not the only one who is of this view.
Furthermore, I am stating that there is no book in Philippine literature in which
love of country has been expressed as fervently. It is written with the life blood
of a patriot, who harbors no hatred whatsoever for Spain, rather, just a justified
repugnance for anyone who abuses, egoistically and scandalously, the power
granted him by the state or the church. That majority of those whom Rizal

50
judged in his book are Spaniards must be ascribed to the condition that all
government offices, the best parishes and the majority of the church positions
are occupied by Spaniards. No one with a common sense can insist that Rizal
conceals this fact, thus making himself an accomplice to the crime."

Never before did Blumentritt choose his position with such passion and
persuasive power publicly. Without considering the difficulties and dangers
which would arise for him, the royal and imperial civil servant, has by his
appearance, plunged himself unhesitatingly into the fight, on the side of Rizal
and the Filipinos, working against the Spanish colonial rule.

Rizal's Little Odyssey


Rizal, himself, was able to feel the effect of the Noli in his native land soon.
He returns in the summer of 1887 via Munich, Stuttgart, Bern, Geneva and
Marseilles, where he boards a ship to the Philippines. Only a few days after his
arrival, Governor General Terrero receives him at the Malacaang Palace and
tells him of the charges saying that the Noli was full of subversive ideas. After
a discussion, the liberal Governor General appears to be appeased; but he is
unable to offer resistance against the pressure of the church to take action
against the book. The persecution can be discerned from Rizal's letter to
Leitmeritz: "My book made a lot of noise; everywhere, I am asked about it.
They wanted to anthemize me (to excommunicate me) because of it . . . I am
considered a German spy, an agent of Bismarck, they say I am a Protestant, a
free mason, a sorcerer, a damned soul. It is whispered that I want to draw plans,
that I have a foreign passport and that I wander through the streets by night ..."

By that time, Blumentritt has long since perceived the situation from his own
experience: "Your book must really be persecuted in the Philippine islands
because Desengaos (pseudonym of Retana, a biographer of Rizal, writes, that
it should be packed really well so that no one in the post office can recognize it
..."

Soon the friars' hunt is in full swing. They have ample ammunition against
Rizal because he is not only persecuted on account of the Noli, but he is also
accused by the Dominicans of being a heretic and an agitator for his
intercession in favor of the tenant farmers in his hometown, Calamba. Rizal
succeeds in putting up a fight for half a year, then the Governor General gives
him the friendly advice of leaving the country because he can no longer keep
his protective hand over Rizal or his family.

51
Tus, with a heavy heart, he has to leave his native land and once again begins
his restless wandering. From Hongkong, Rizal describes to his friend, how the
provincial order, with the archbishop at the top, dropped in almost everyday at
the Governor-General in order to demand his arrest and condemnation. In the
end, even strangers offered him money to depart, so that he would no longer
pose a danger to friends, acquaintances and relatives by his presence.

And so begins Rizal's journey half way round the world, his "little odyssey". It
is his second trip to Europe, but his first forced immigration, after being able to
spend his years so far as student or physician abroad out of his own volition
and full freedom. He communicates from Tokyo, where he is looked upon as a
Japanese, who does not want to use his own language. Rizal praises the
Japanese for their cleanliness, their honesty and their courteousness. He visits
the most important cities of japan, Yokohama, Nara, Kyoto and gets involved
in a love affair which makes it difficult for him to depart. After a 15-day ride
on the steam ship "Belgic", he reaches San Francisco where he is kept in
quarantine and is not allowed to go on land because there are several hundred
Chinese on the ship. And for the reason that it is election time then and the
people are against the mass immigration of the Chinese, the ruling party delays
the disembarking of the Chinese. Rizal is allowed to go off board with the first
class passengers only after a week.

Rizal boards a train in San Francisco and after a seven-day train ride, whose
atmosphere reminds him of the wild west period, he arrives in New York. It
takes him another eight days to cross the Atlantic before reaching London
where he is able to begin corresponding with Ferdinand Blumentritt again.

Here a joyful surprise awaits him - Blumentritt propose that they finally
address each other with the familiar form "du" (you), instead of the formal 'Sie"
(Thou). Rizal is touched almost to tears; nevertheless, he rejects the proposal
with embarassment. His Spanish feudalistic-patriarchial upbringing, which
forbids the use of "du" even to parents prevents him from being on first name
terms with the older and wiser Ferdinand Blumentritt. But he proposes to
Blumentritt that he assume the position of the father-friend and to address him,
the younger one, without hesitation, with "du" . But for his part, he cannot do it.

Yet as early as the next letter, the flexible Filipino has adapted himself to the
custom. His letter speak of the bitterness of his actual expulsion from his
country. He has given up the hope of obtaining reforms and freedom from

52
Spain. "We will await our happiness from God and from ourselves, no longer
from any government."

Despite the burden of his own problems and those of his country, he worries
about the safety of his friend whose involvement with the Philippines could be
harmful to him: "I am expressing to you my sincerest gratitude . . . but I would
like to ask you to carry on the fight not on my account nor for my countrymen's
account, but rather for the sake of truth. Furthermore, we can be detrimental to
you, because we have bad qualities too . . . You would only gain the fame of
having dared defend the weak and defenseless . . . Be as impartial as you are
now . . . forget that we are friends, because I would be very sorry if you
suffered anything on my account!"

As always, when Rizal writes while he is emotionally upset, he commits


mistakes which do not do justice to his otherwise excellent German. At the end
of the letter, he gives an ovation to Austria which deserves to be kept: "I
believe I shall live my days in Austria. I want to retire there, if not in the
Philippines, because it is an Austrian who loved and served my fatherland so
much."

At the beginning of the year 1889, the indefatigable Rizal proposes a new plan
to his friend: an international association of Phillippinologists must be
established with its seat in Paris, where the world exposition is taking place this
year, the ideal ground for an action to direct international attention to the
problem of the Philippines. The vice-presidency should be assumed by the
Frenchman Edmond Plauchut; the secretariat should be composed of Dr.
Antonio Regidor (one of the few Spaniards who stood on the side of the
Filipinos), Dr. Reinhardt Rost (the director of the library of the British
Museum) and Rizal. That for the presidency, only Blumentritt was obviously
eligible to all the parties involved.

The aims of the association were the study of the Philippines from the
scientific and historical standpoint, the organization of international
conferences, and the establishment of a Philippine library and museum.

Blumentritt apparently accepted immediately, because Rizal writes to him on


January 31: " ... am expressing my warmest thanks to you in behalf of my
fatherland for accepting the presidency ..." The agenda for the first convention
was already set, the first registrations for membership were already done. Great
interest prevailed among the Filipinos in exile and among the European and

53
American scholars. No other qualification than an interest and the study of a
special subject on the Philippine was required to become a member.

The beautiful dream was nevertheless never realized. The French authorities
limited the number of conferences with international participation to some few
with broad public interest. And the Philippinologists were at that time certainly
not among these. Subsequent preparations miscarried because of the difficulties
of coordinating appointments of the top-ranking members, Blumentritt
included.

La Solidaridad!
Only a few weeks after the still-birth of the association, a new literary-political
child was set on its feet which did not only prove its viability but also caused
the Spaniards some trouble even at its tender age; this was the "La
Solidaridad".

The first copy of the fortnightly periodical "Soli", as the newspaper was soon
affectionately called, was published on February 15,1889 in Barcelona under
the direction of the triumvirate of Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar
and Mariano Ponce. It was a modest publication of the political refugees,
whose editorial staff did all the publication functions.

Shortly after the launching of the newspaper, del Pilar reported the following:
"We, finally, have a newspaper, democratic in its policy, but even more
democratic in its organization. You should see how Graciano, as editor, writes,
proof-reads, distributes copies and even carries the packages to the post office;
how Ponce collects the contributions as manager, himself writes, proof-reads,
collects and writes addresses, dispatches the mail and delivers copies as well
..."

Many of the people working with the periodical were well-known artists and
scholars, whose names would later become known as politicians and generals
of the revolution, among them a Spaniard too, the historian and former
minister, Dr. Miguel Morayta.

The main article of the first copy of the "Soli" contains the objective of the
periodical: "Our aims are modest, very modest. Our program is clear and

54
simple: to fight against the reaction, to stop all reactionary measures, to adopt
and promote all liberal ideas, to uphold progress."

It should be the task of the "Solidaridad" to stimulate the awakening of liberal


ideas in all fields, be it politics, science, arts, literature, trade, agriculture or
industry. Thus, it was essential to devote the greatest attention to the defense of
the democratic rights of the Philippines, in whatever aspects of her, that needs
the greatest assistance, since she is not represented in the Parliament; this is a
patriotic duty. "The nation of the Philippines, made up of eight million souls,
should not and must not remain the exclusive reservation of theocracy and
traditionalism," the main article concludes.

Subsequently, through the deafness of the Spaniards regarding all attempts for
reforms, this "modesty" cleared the way for a certain radicalization expressed
in the following article of Rizal which contains an admonition to the Spaniards,
of what the Filipinos would reproach them with, if there were no progress:
"Spain, you remained deaf and arrogant, you proceeded with your false ways
and accuse us of being traitors just because we love our country, just because
we tell the truth and abhor injustice ... O, Spain! Must we tell the Philippines
one day, that you have no ear for her misfortune and that if she wants to save
herself, then she must do it herself?"

In the final analysis, the view of Rizal has shown the inflexibility of the
Spaniards which was responsible for the radicalization (and the eventual loss of
their colony) and which was exactly identical with that of Blumentritt's. In the
"sterreichische Monatsschrift fr den Orient" (Austrian Monthly journal for
the Orient), Blumentritt gets even with those Spanish groups which dread the
secession of the colony from the country, so that they, "blinded by racial
arrogance and national vanity not only by uncivilly denying the Filipinos of
their legitimate demands, but also by abusively ridiculing them," unfortunately
worked with zeal at alienating the Filipinos from the mother country.

And, as far as the refusal of a representation of the Philippines in the Corts is


concerned, for the first time, Blumentritt sanctions the idea of the revolution
and full independence, as when he asserts: "If this legitimate and sincere wish
is not fulfilled, then the Filipinos themselves will probably take the
parliamentary representation for themselves, that is, the way the Cubans
exacted the same thing for themselves, namely by means of an uprising or the
way the American mainland struggled for their independence."

55
In this publication, by giving information about the "Soli", which was created
because the censor in the Philippines made every public treatment of national
affairs impossible, Blumentritt proves to be, above all, an important informant
of the European public. "For this reason, the leaders of the liberal movement of
that island country founded a fortnightly publication, 'La Solidaridad', which
espouses vigorously the rights of the oppressed." And, immediately after that,
he proudly adds that the campaign of this review has not been unsuccessful.

That such was the case can be considered primarily as Blumentritt's own
success: his espousal of the Philippine cause, but above all, his active
contribution to the periodical effected a significant change in the position
which the "Soli" assumed in the political and literary world of Madrid and
Spain in those days. Through Blumentritt's contribution to the journal, the
publication, which previously was regarded as subversive as well as anti-
royalty and anti-church, at least, by the monarchical and conservative groups,
won some unexpected respect and distinction.

Blumentritt's contribution caused embarrassment if not apprehension in the


royal court, in the Madrid government and the high ranking clergy. It went
beyond these groups' horizon and comprehension that an internationally
esteemed and respected scholar - a man to whom the education of children has
been entrusted in his native country, whose monarchy is closely connected with
Spain by tradition; a man who was a devout Catholic - made a common cause
with a little band of "irresponsible rebels and conspirators" publicly and
unhesitatingly.

This circumstance only made the "Soli" a provocation to the colonial power. It
would be unimaginable that at that time - the 80's of the past century - a
somewhat similar publication of the Indians in Great Britain or the Indochinese
in France would become the object of the attention of the London or the Paris
government, let alone cause for polemics or a counter attack.

Even in Spain, the reaction to the "Soli" came unexpectedly because the
interest of the Spanish public, if it concerned itself at all with colonial matters,
was aimed at the problem of Cuba or Puerto Rico, at the danger of losing the
remaining dominions in the American continent, and not at the Philippines,
which was far away and about which hardly anything was known.

All the same, the "Soli" was considered important enough to create, sometime
in 1891, two years after its foundation, an official counter-organ, which under

56
the title "La Politica de Espaa en Filipinas" (The Politics of Spain in the
Philippines) engaged in the defence of the Spanish policy in the Philippines
against the criticism and attacks of the "Soli". Yet, the most difficult venture of
the colonial defenders was to find the right arguments against Blumentritt who
was not a Filipino, who could not be reproached with personal or national
interests. Thus, there was no other alternative but to make Blumentritt appear
ridiculous either through satire or, as it had already been done before, to cast
suspicion upon Blumentritt as an agent of Bismarck, who wanted to prepare the
way for the German occupation of the Philippines.

Furthermore, it is worth mentioning, that Rizal in the polemics against the


conditions in his native country cited the tragedy of Mayerling to illustrate a
personal misfortune. When Rizal's brother-in-law died of cholera in Calamba,
the parish priest would not rest until he had informed the Archbishop of Manila
by telegram about the death, referring to the circumstance that the deceased had
never gone to confession since his wedding. The senior shepherd of the capital
city, however, did not flinch from the joint liability of the family of the
ostracized Rizal and forbade a Christian burial for the brother-in-law. He was
not allowed burial at the town cemetery; his body was buried hastily on a hill
outside the town.

Rizal answers in the "Soli" with an article calling the priest ignorant and a
defrauder, since he could not possibly know when and where, the deceased
went to confession when he was alive, whether or not it was outside of his
place of residence. And at the end he cites the suicide of the crown prince
Rudolph and the Barones Vetsera: "An adulterer who murders his mistress and
then commits suicide is buried not only in consecrated ground and earth, but
over the scene of the adultery, murder and suicide, a chapel is erected just
because the wrong-doer was of royal blood . . . but a good, respected man,
benefactor of the Church, himself a nephew of priests, educated by priests, a
patron of the poor and the unfortunate is buried hurriedly in a field, only
because he is, by chance, a brother-in-law of Rizal ... " (Rizal, by the way, had
a foreboding of the tragedy in advance when two years before this incident, he
depicted this similar fate for the father of the hero of his novel.)

The launching of the "Soli" roused Rizal into enthusiasm. "Onward with the
magazine!", he writes from Paris to the editor-in-chief Jaena and appealed to all
not to make mistakes, to be dilligent, to take care of the paper like a first-born
child, to present neither exaggerations nor untruths, not to copy others, to
proceed honesbly and justly. "We must show our enemies that morally and
humanely, we are worthier than them," Rizal orders in a friendly manner and

57
tells of the opinion in Parisian liberal and emigrant groups, according to which
the periodical is becoming better with every issue.

In a later letter to del Pilar, Rizal appraises the value of Blumentritt's


contribution: "The magazine is now gaining prominence ... imagine the
appearance of such names as Blumentritt ..., if our countrymen see, that Rizal is
no exception . . . there is nothing better than the example ... our foes will be
surprised ..."

The significance of Blumentritt's contribution to the "Soli" emerges very


clearly in the correspondence between the two friends. The Spaniards simply
cannot believe in Blumentritt's contribution and for this reason constantly
fabricate new arguments in order not to be compelled to accept the fact: "Your
articles in the 'Solidaridad' are suddenly becoming better ... Many Filipinos still
believe that you do not exist; they ascribe your articles to me. And the best
thing about it is some Spaniards believe that you are just lending your name to
us ... they do not understand that a foreigner, a European, other than a Spaniard,
is supporting the Filipinos with love and devotion ... for this reason, they are
forced to think that I need the surveillance of the friars and the Spaniards and
must sign my name with a borrowed name ... "

Blumentritt, on his part, is not content with his contribution: "I regret very
much that I cannot live in Madrid amidst the "Solidaridad", he writes and
apologizes, not having given a package with several copies of the magazine to a
friend, Dr. Schadenberg, who requested them. Nevertheless, the copies were
found with him, a German, in Manila - copies of a publication strictly
prohibited in the Philippines - consequently this gave the propaganda lie a new
twist, which was, that Bismarck financed the "Soli".

The months and years of polemics and agitation in the columns of the "Soli",
without any tangible result, with no progress in the anticipated reforms by the
Spaniards, certainly made Rizal despondent. In addition to this, there were the
unavoidable differences, personal wranglings and arguments about the relevant
policy in the little emigrant group. And where at the beginning, there was
enthusiasm, soon Rizal refuses to contribute: "You would like me to write an
article for the "Soli", unfortunately, I must confess that I have the intention of
no longer writing an article for the periodical. I could have told you this earlier
... I agree completely with what you write. Whatever Blumentritt and Rizal can
do, Blumentritt can do alone ..."

58
Of course, Blumentritt tried to encourage up Rizal again: "The struggles of the
"Solidaridad" are not futile. I would not draw such optimistic views merely
from my head. But some Spaniards, who, at the beginning of the campaign,
avoided me like I was a heretic, are writing to me again. And they say they
think I was right ... "

Rizal persists in his political resolutions: "For this reason, I believe that the
"Solidaridad" is no longer our battlefield. It is now a question of a new battle.
The battle (field) is no longer Madrid. Everything will be lost time ... Yes, I do
not want to hurt you anymore; I only want to tell you that I have given up hope
in Spain. Because of this I shall not write anymore a word for the
"Solidaridad". It seems to me that it is useless ..."

But Blumentritt judges the situation in an entirely different manner: "Perhaps


my words were harsh and caustic, but my heart is soft and good. I shall never
leave my poor Philippines, I am not a deserter. I cannot share your opinion
about the 'La Solidaridad' because the enemies themselves acknowledged the
importance of the 'Solidaridad' by setting up the fortnightly magazine, whose
task is to fight against the former. We cannot expect a miracle from the
publication.

He says that what other nations succeeded in achieving in four decades cannot
be achieved in four years, even though everything has been developing faster
now at the end of the century. And Blumentritt analyzes: "I reiterate: A
political party needs an organ, a newspaper, and the Filipinos have it and
should not neglect it, because it upholds the honor of the country and the native
race. The Filipino can attain nothing at all with the arms now, therefore we can
only fight with the plunra (pen). At best, we can express our personal opinions
through some pamphlets: In our time, only a newspaper can evoke the right
impression ... "

If one considers the significant role that the newspapers of the revolutionaries
in exile had played as an organizer, agitator, mouthpiece and discussion
platform, then Blumentritt's analysis - with no relevant experience - was all the
more remarkable.

El Filibusterismo

59
In spite of the problems of the "Solidaridad", Rizal had decided to write a
continuation of the Noli me tangere and started right away the writing of the
sequel on the novel. Interrupted over and over again, he continued to work on
the second novel for several years. It was begun in London, continued in Paris
and Madrid and finally completed in Biarritz. This time, however, there was no
rich friend who assisted Rizal with the printing expenses. Thus, he decided to
move to the Belgian city of Ghent where he got hold of a cheap printer.
Because money was wanting, the edition was finished only on September 1891.
Rizal himself wanted to take along 800 copies to Hong-Kong in order to sneak
them into the Philippines from there.

Rizal named the work EI Filibusterismo, a term whose meaning has changed
again and again.

The French form "filibuster" is derived from the English word "flyboat" or the
Dutch word "Flieboot". These are small fast boats which the pirates used in the
7th century in the Caribbean. According to other sources, "filibuster" has its
origin in the English word "freebooter", from which the German "Freibeuter"
was derived. In more recent time - above all in the USA - the term obtained
another meaning. Those senators who want to delay the acceptance of laws
which they oppose, through speeches and motions lasting for hours are called
"filibusters".

The word certainly acquired a profound and broad meaning in the Philippines
in the previous century. Blumentritt defined it in the Leipzig journal "Unsere
Zeit" (Our Time): "To the modern Spaniards, 'filibusterismo' means the idea of
the breaking away of the colony from the mother country, and 'filibusteros' are
accordingly those who aspire for the realization of this idea. For our purposes,
however, it will be more practical to ask: Who is considered a 'filibustero' in
the Philippines?" And let Rizal answer:

Those who do not raise their hats to Spaniards.


Those who only greet a friar instead of kissing his hand or his habit.
Those who offer resistance to being addressed with the familiar "tu" by
the best Spaniard.
Those who subscribe to a periodical from Spain or another European
country.
Those who, at elections, give their vote to a candidate other than the one
recommended by the priest.

60
Those who read books other than miracle stories and biographies of
saints.

"In brief, all those," Rizal sums up, "who in modern civilized countries and
under normal conditions would be considered good citizens, lovers of progress
and enlightenment. All of these are looked upon as filibusters and enemies of
public order and, like a lightning conductor, draw misery and wretchedness
upon themselves during turbulent times."

Rizal dedicated the new book to the three priests, Gomez, Burgos and Zamora,
who were executed because of their supposed participation in the first
revolutionary campaign of modern Philippine nationalism, the mutiny of
Cavite. The trial of the three priests was nothing more than a contrived show,
like the trial of Rizal later. In accordance with the method, tested and tried,
prominent leaders were removed by making them responsible for actions which
they not only did not commit but to which they have always objected. Rizal
derives the reason to dedicate the work to them from the fact that the Church
did not excommunicate the three priests and that there were serious mistakes in
the surreptitious trial which irresponsibly led to his death sentence, and as
victims of such circumstances, to the opposition which involved his lifetime
work.

The Fili, as the book was called in its abbreviated form, is a continuation of the
Noli in its plot. Again, the main character is Crisostomo Ibarra. This time,
however, he is called, for the most part, Simoun, and is a business magnate and
jeweler, a mystical, demoniacal figure whose only thoughts are to overthrow
the existing order, the colonial rule. He is moved partly by political motives
and partly by a personal desire for revenge. He proceeds withal as nihilist in
accordance with the principle that the worse the conditions are, the earlier the
revolution will be. Thus, he uses his wealth to promote the corruption of the
ruling class, its arrogance towards the natives and the oppression machinery -
and at the same time to draw the attention of the oppressed people to the
conditions which he himself, to some extent, has caused, and to provoke their
opposition. All of Simoun's plans, however, miscarry; the revolution does not
succeed and Simoun seeks refuge in the solitude of the mountains, where
strangely, there is a priest with whom the fugitive weighs his actions carefully
before his death.

The Fili, like its predecessor, contains dramatic and romantic elements of the
social novel of the late l9th century influenced by Dumas. It is a reflection of

61
the colonial society of that time, this time, however, not in a small provincial
town, but rather in the capital city of Manila. The nucleus of the novel is the
story of Cabesang Tales. This is an episode complete in itself and still delights
the Philippine audience as a theater piece today:

Tales, a poor farmer, clears a piece of land under difficult conditions. This will
cost his wife and his oldest daughter their lives. After the first harvest, the
religious order lays claim to the land. Tales does not want to get himself into a
scrap with the powerful friars and states that he is willing to pay a yearly rent.
The friars double the rent after two good harvests. Again Tales gives in. He is
diligent and because of this, to a certain extent, he is able to lead a tolerably
good life. He is well-liked and respected in the village. He is made head of the
village and tax collector, or what was then known as Cabesa (from the Spanish
word "cabeza", meaning director or head of the family). Soon he realizes that
many farmers are too poor to pay their taxes so that he has to add his own
money in order to make up the total tax quota. The friars, however, increase the
rent tenfold and answer the protest of the farmer, Tales, with the threat that if
he cannot pay, his land will be confiscated. Tales goes to court, spends all his
savings paying for the lawyers and the legal expenses and as expected, loses the
lawsuit. The next day, the administrator of the order takes a new tenant farmer
to Tales' land. But the following nights the friar, the new tenant farmer and his
wife are murdered. Tales leaves a message written with his blood behind. He
has gone to join the rebels up in the mountains; there was no longer any other
choice for him.

The story has a profound symbolism of Rizal. The question of "evolution or


revolution" and the problem of whether to wait for justice by the hands of the
Spaniards or to take the law in one's own hands are interspersed in the entire
book.

All the same, the Fili cannot be considered simply as a call to revolution; in
the end, the rebellion fails. This failure reflects Rizal's own vacillation and
confusion again; the desire for reforms and the acknowledgement of the
hopelessness of his efforts, the need for revolution and the fear of it. In this
sense, in many ways, the Noli is regarded as the last admonition to Spain as
regards the thrust of its policy in Madrid if peaceful development is not
guaranteed through reforms. For this reason, the friars, perhaps come off better
in the Fili than in the Noli. A commission even found out that the Noli contains
36 percent of anti-Catholic passages, the Fili, however, just 27 percent. In this
second book, Rizal precisely directed the attack above all, toward the entire
Spanish colonial apparatus, up to the Governor-General.

62
Compared with the Noli me tangere, the El Filibusterismo contained the book's
value and significance, not in the melodramatic plot, but rather, in the dialogues
and debates which raise the problems of colonialism. With brilliant foresight,
Rizal took up issues and threw often problems for discussion, which today,
almost a hundred years later, are still of extreme importance: Autonomy or
independence? Assimilation or national consciousness? Liberalization and
granting of freedom by the colonial power or a decisive bloody battle?
Stupefaction or education for self-administration? And the so-called civilizing
mission as justification for unending suppression? Are the colonized people
ready for democracy or does the danger that a white tyranny will be replaced by
a colored tyranny exist? The whole gamut of problems and feelings, the
arrogance of the ruling class, the subservience or the resistance of the ruled, the
prejudices of the whites against the colored as well as the colored against the
whites, on both sides, the brutal ones, the moderate ones, the unsymphathetic
ones, the symphathetic ones, the unrelenting ones and the ones willing to
compromise, the upwardly ones and the brave ones, the resigned ones and the
eternally hopeful ones - Rizal lets all of them have their say, as depicted in the
following examples:

Father Camorra, who sees his vocation very dispassionately as a business


enterprise: "The natives of our parish have taken it into their heads to force
down my fees for the sacraments and insist on the official rates which the
Archbishop prescribed in the previous century. As if the prices did not shoot
upward from that time! Why should baptism not increase in price like maybe a
chicken? But I feign deafness and demand what I can succeed in getting, and
they do not complain."

The discussion of Simoun with Basilio is basically significant. It is a matter of


the question of assimilation or national normalization; should the colonized
people aspire to assimilate themselves to the motherland as soon as possible, or
should they develop their identity: "You make every effort to unite your
country with Spain with roses and garlands and in reality only forge iron
chains. You ask for equal rights and the Spanish way of life and do not realize
that by so doing you ask for death, the annihilation of your national identity, the
disappearance of your native land, the submission to tyranny.

"What will become of you? A nation without a soul, a nation without freedom;
everything in you will be borrowed, even the mistakes and the inadequacies.
You demand hispanization and do not even blush for shame if it is denied to
you. And even if it were granted to you, what could you do with it, what would

63
you gain from it? At best, becoming a country of a military coup, a country
thrown into a confusion by civil wars, a republic of greedy people like some
republics in South America."

Simoun recommends another course, the counter way, of cashing in on the


stubborn and ruthless attitude of the colonial power to further their own
objectives: "What you should do is rather to utilize the prejudices of the rulers
for your advantage. So they refuse to integrate you into the Spanish nation? The
better! Seize the initiative to form your own individuality; lay the foundation
for a Philippine nation!

They don't give you hope. The better! just hope for yourself and your own
efforts. They do not give you a representation in the Spanish Parliament? That
is good. Do you want to sanction the abuse and treacheries resolved there by
your presence too?

They refuse you instruction in their own language? Then cherish your own
language; propagate it; keep our national culture alive. Do not long to become a
mere province; develop an independent, not a colonial mentality. The less
rights they will grant you, the more right you have to throw off the yoke ...

Rizal already began to differentiate among the clergy in the Fili itself. The
friars are no longer just an inimical mass; apparently there are distinctions
among them; the severe, unyielding, conservative veterans side by side with the
open, understanding "Padres", who are worried about the future. Thus in the
debate about the Spanish language between the Father Camorra already
mentioned and Father Fernandez: "But don't you understand why the natives
must not have a command of Spanish?" Father Camorra shouts indignantly.

"They must not know it, because they will start to discuss with us. It is not the
business of the natives to put up arguments, rather it is their business to pay and
to obey. As soon as they know Spanish, they will become enemies of God and
Spain!"

Father Fernandez, on the other hand, sees no harm in the teaching of Spanish.
Apparently, he is looking way past the churchyard on the horizon of the
monastery, when he asserts, "No, no, a moment please, Father Camorra. Why
should we always put ourselves against the people; we are after all few and
they are many. And we need them, while they don't need us. No doubt, at
present, they have neither knowledge nor power. But it will no longer be thus

64
tomorrow or day after tomorrow because they will be the stronger ones, then
they will know what is good for them and we will not be in a position to stop
them just as infrequently as one can prevent children from knowing things
which they will comprehend upon reaching a certain age..."

And then there are again those who have raised the oppression of the natives to
a science, who set to work at it with a psychological finesse, as for instance,
Don Custodio, a high government official, who even considers himself as their
father and protector, only .... "Some are born to rule, others to serve. To be
sure, one must not say this aloud, but one can carry it out without saying much
about it ... whoever wants to rule over people, must convince them, that they
are fit for nothing else but to be ruled. On the first day, they will laugh about it,
on the second day, they will protest, on the third day, they will begin to doubt
and on the fourth day, they will be convinced. In order to keep them in
subservience, one must drum into them day after day that they cannot do
anything about it ... Believe me, keeping everybody in his place is an act of
charity. Consequently, one gets order and harmony, this is the art of governing
..."

A dramatic scene in the Fili depicts a violent altercation between the governor-
general and one of his highest officials, who stood up for a student who was
arrested. The intervention of the official certainly provoked the antagonism of
the governor who wanted to sentence the student severely. lf he turned out to be
innocent, then the sentence would just disseminate fear and terror. He need not
fear a scandal as he is accountable to no one but the king, the governor general
asserts. Until finally the official lets go of all his reserve and in a burning
indictment gives vent to his anger: "I have kept silent for too long ... for the
very reason that I love Spain, I must speak ... You promised protection and
justice to this country, yet we take from the people their life and freedom, you
promised civilization, but we fear that they might utilize it; you promised
enlightenment, but we bind the eyes of the people, so that they cannot see our
excesses; you promised virtue and we spread vices and instead of peace,
prosperity and justice, there is desperation; the economy languishes and the
masses lose their faith ... If secure homes, education, freedom and justice are
withheld from a nation, then this nation has a right to treat the culprits like
highway robbers ...

Of course, the official loses his post immediately and has to return to Spain.
Nevertheless, as he boards his carriage, he still says to the coachman: "If one
day you declare your independence, then remember that there were many hearts
in Spain which beat for you and fought for your rights!"

65
Above all the students worry and do not tire painting pictures of the future as
they imagine it: "Tomorrow we shall be citizens of the Philippines ... O yes, the
future is ours! It is very rosy, I see this country, which has been oppressed for
so long and has been as if dead, awakens to life. I see cities flourishing along
the railway lines, factories and workshops everywhere; I hear steam engines
whistling; I can see their smoke traces and I can smell the oil which these
monsters sweat out while they are working uninterruptedly ... Liberated from
exploitation, mistrust and desperation, the people will set to work, because
labor will no longer be a disgrace, not enforced, which is required of a slave ...
Then it will be possible to develop trade, industry, agriculture and science
under the patronage of prudent and adequate laws ..."

"Dreams, nothing but dreams," the student Paulita answers with a sigh the
discourse of her fellow-student Isagani, a view which unfortunately is still true
today for the majority of the countries of our world, especially for those of the
third world.

Doubtless, freedom, first of all, must be deserved, the father says to Simoun in
the concluding conversation. The Filipinos are still to blame for the misfortune.
They have to be less tolerant towards tyranny, ready to fight for their rights and
to suffer. They are still ashamed of their rebellious thoughts, are filled by
selfishness, and by the aspirations to seize their share of the booty, whose
possession in the hands of the oppressors they detest. Why should they then be
given independence? "What would be the use of independence if the slaves of
today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?"

There is no one who a century ago would have perceived the problems of de-
colonization with such sharpness as Rizal had. The politicians - of the mother
country as well as of the liberated countries - could have avoided such mistakes
through the study of Rizal!

The Fili was essentially a call to revolution although with many limitations.
Nevertheless, it was published in an extensively more relaxed atmosphere than
the Noli. It created a stir, when for the first time, a Spanish newspaper, the
liberal "Nuevo Regimen" (New Regime) reproduced the novel in daily sequels
in October 1891.

But the friars too were convinced of the value of the Fili. They are said to have
offered Rizal a professorship at the University of Manila, an estate and 100,000
pesos in cash for the retraction of both novels. To this offer, Rizal is supposed

66
to have answered that he will not undo with the left hand what he has done with
the right. If his books were true, then he would have written about them, the
friars. If not, then they would have nothing to fear. "You are trying to drown
me in a glass of water, but you cannot even succeed in doing it in an ocean." He
dismisses brusquely even the request of his sister to consider the offer.

What was Blumentritt's attitude towards the Fili? Not only did he welcome the
publication of the book, he also volunteered wholeheartedly his services to
distribute, publicize and defend the book. It is even said that he suggested the
title of the book. At all events, he made the offer of writing the foreword for it
to Rizal, offering for this purpose a passage from one of his articles in
the "Solidaridad". Rizal corroborates this fact when on june 21,1891 he writes
to Blumentritt:
"My brother! I found the passage in the number 49 copy of the "Soli" of
February 15 and underlined it in blue. Will you translate it in German for me
...? Then I shall write the German phrase with the translation for it as an
epigraph ..."

Blumentritt's epigraph reads: "A man with a glowing imagination can easily
indulge in the speculation that a filibuster has surreptitiously bewitched the
league of priests' bootlickers and conservatives so that they, following his
suggestions, involuntarily pursue the policy which promotes the objective of
disseminating ideas of filibusterism in the entire land and imparting the belief
to each and every Filipino that there is no other deliverance than filibusterism,
breaking away from the motherland." Here, once again, Blumentritt spoke up
for full independence of the Philippines publicly. From that time on his
epigraph graced all copies and translations of the Fili. It can be found even in
the hitherto last English copy of the year 1977.

The "Morga"
Rizal was not content with writing books to rouse his countrymen in a literary,
political and polemic manner and to mobilize them for the fight for their rights.
He dug into classical literature, works of former travellers and earlier Spanish
government officials in order to use their writings for his objectives. Thus, he
came upon the Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (Events in the Philippine Islands).
Its author, Dr. Antonio de Morga, held the offices of lawyer and soldier in the
services of the Spanish colonial administration in the Philippines and published
his work in 1609 in Mexico. In the course of the centuries, the "Morga" earned
for itself the reputation of being one of the best dissertations on the pre-Spanish

67
history of the Philippines with the special advantage that its author - in contrast
to most authors of historical and ethnographic works of the time - was not a
man of the Church, not a priest, but rather a Spanish civil servant.

Rizal's intention of publishing the "Morga" anew and adding to it lengthy


annotations was clear. He wanted to prove, by means of a reputable work, that
the people of the Philippines did possess a high level of culture and morality
before the arrival of the Spaniards, did have a mastery of a distinct handicraft
art (as perhaps in ship construction), did develop a flourishing trade and did
maintain a good contact with the outside world. Knowledge of their own past
should strengthen the self-confidence of his countrymen and promote their
political and scientific growth.

Rizal explains in his introduction to the "Morga" that he got the inspiration
while he was working on the Noli, that is, by depicting the actual situation of
the Philippines. The very influence of the Noli convinced him that it was
necessary to know the past fully in order to understand the present. With the
knowledge and appreciation of yesterday, one can arm one's self for tomorrow.

Of course, Blumentritt was delighted by the idea and enthusiastically made


every effort to support him with it by wanting to give his contribution too.
Rizal naturally accepted this offer with much joy but with the condition that
Blumentritt should proceed with the work and not from Rizal's person. "My
greatest request is," Rizal asks, "write the foreword as if you were not fond of
me, as if you did not know me. Criticize what you do not like, commend what
you find true ..."

Blumentritt might have done this because some weeks later Rizal wrote: "I like
the foreword very much and (I am) touched; it is written with the head and the
heart, I am thanking you very much for it ..."

Was it mere politeness or sincere gratitude that made Rizal talk this way?
Because his friend was, in fact, not sparing in his criticisms. The scholar
Blumentritt was not altogether happy with the historical manner of presentation
of Rizal. Rizal was much too impulsive, too committed to portray the past, as
he himself said "cold-bloodedly and as an impartial judge." Rizal wanted to
point out, above all, three things with the publication: firstly, that the Filipinos
possessed an independent culture before the arrival of the Spaniards; secondly,
that the Filipinos were decimated, demoralized, exploited and ruined by the
Spanish civilization; and thirdly, the condition achieved, the importation of

68
Spanish civilization did not necessarily, and certainly not in all spheres of
interest, bring to the Philippines an improvement or a higher niveau. Indeed as
earlier said, Blumentritt could not approve the work of his friend completely.
"My profound appreciation of your work cannot stop me from confessing that
more than once I have discovered your mistake, which many modern historians
commit: interpreting events in the past in the light of contemporary ideas. This
is not correct. The historian must not expect the broad horizon of ideas which
move the l9th century from the men of the l6th century."

This, however, did not stop Blumentritt from writing the foreword to the
"Morga" which the present most prominent Philippine biographer of Rizal,
Leon Ma. Guerrero, describes as "excellent" and who, moreover, holds the
view that it was Blumentritt who selected the "Morga" for Rizal to re-publish.
Blumentritt describes Morga's work as the best account of the conquest of the
Philippines by the Spaniards, yet the work has become so rare thaf the few
libraries which have it guard their copy like an Inca treasure. Blumentritt would
not be Blumentritt if he had not taken the opportunity to take up in a broadly
compartmentalized analysis practical problems of the region which we call
today the "third world." Thus, he begins with the analysis of the attitude of the
Europeans towards the colored peoples in general and the attitude of the
Spaniards towards the Filipinos in particular.

At the beginning, the Europeans assessed the colored people as children with
limited intelligence; whence the Spaniards derived the right to exploit them. On
the other hand, the French idealists led by Rousseau believed that the colored
people, the romantic "red people", should be taken under fatherly protection
and treated with patience, their vices, as well. Both were mistaken.

In the next period, Blumentritt observed that, the Europeans condemned the
atrocities wrhich other Europeans commit on the natives; the English
condemned the Spaniards, the Germans accused the Portuguese, the Dutch
accused the French - but each one kept his own excesses a secret. Then in the
modern era of democracy - as Blumentritt courageously, described his time
almost a hundred years ago - the new European generation learned to see the
colored peoples in the light of equal rights.

Blumentritt thereupon goes into the special features of the Philippine situation:
Here is an Asian nation which adopted a European religion, is exposed to
European culture and uses a European language as a common means of
communication. The objective is assimilation into the mother country. Yet, the

69
reforms needed for that are stopped, above all, by the friars and the Spanish
bureaucrats.

Apparently, Blumentritt believed that the friars were ready to compromise,


namely, out of consideration that they - independent of the destiny of the
Philippines - would always remain friars of their orders, even in other
countries, wherever the head of the order would send them. At the same time
Blumentritt perceived the inconsistency of the situation of the friars. Through
the demand of the radical Filipinos for the expulsion of the friars, the friars
would be pushed into a corner from which they could choose only between
capitulation or resistance. Naturally, they chose resistance in the form of
embittered opposition against all reforms. This gave the radicalism of the
Filipinos further impetus and accelerated the subversion of the colonial empire
which the friars thought would precisely stop with their resistance.

Blumentritt analyzes three elements of the Spanish policy in the Philippines


which he claims are wrong in principle: firstly, the racial arrogance of the
Spaniards who still regard and treat the Filipinos as an inferior race because of
their flat noses and brown complexion; secondly, the belief that the Filipinos
are not yet ready for a representation in the parliament and for other reforms;
and, thirdly, under the title of strict application of the laws which nevertheless
means nothing but a codification of the abuse of power, the refusal to grant
equal rights to the Filipinos.

Blumentritt attaches in the resume the wish that the Spaniards learn from the
new "Morga" copy, giving the following admonition:
"If then they still do not listen to the Filipinos, then they will lose the
Philippines thrciugh their own fault. They assert that they are of noble birth but
they do not know how to make a prudent policy and they fear separatist ideas
but at the same time force the Filipinos to seek their salvation in the
revolution."

As a scholarly work, the "Morga" never attained the popularity of the two
novels of Rizal. Nevertheless, above all, among the groups of cultural and
scientific intelligentsia of Madrid and Manila, the book aroused attention. It is
reported that the small edition was soon out of print and copies were later sold
at twice the original selling price.

Blumentritt and the Revolution


70
In the final analysis, everything was just a prelude, a preparation, perhaps a
distraction - the arguments about religion and the denunciation of the position
of power of the friars' orders, the work on the "Solidaridad", the publication of
the books Noli me tangere and El Filibusterismo, the revision of the "Morga".
In the background stood the question of what must be done, or what must
happen to the Philippines. The question raised the alternatives, evolution or
revolution, .befor'e nationalists and patriots of any color. To continue the fight
with the pen and the word in order to force the Spaniards, finally, to reforms,
concessions and representation in the Cortes, or to summon the people to take
up arms to change the conditions by force? Each alternative certainly sparked
off once again the chain of issues and problems with which revolutionaries in
exile and in their native countries have coped ever since revolutions began.
Was it expected that at some point in time the Spaniards would educate the
Filipinos in order to prepare them for independence? Could one reckon with a
colonial power giving up occupancy without internal and international
pressures forcing it to do so? Who must decide when a colonized people is
ready for self-government; who sets the conditions for it?

And the revolution? Where was the man, the men, capable of directing it?
Under what conditions was an uprising promising? There were those who
asserted that the masses must first be educated before they could be ready for
the revolution. There were others, who spoke of, first of all, training an elite of
the nation, who could assume leadership. It was also debated whether it should
be a revolution from above, led by a small layer of enlightened intellectuals, or
a mass movement from whose midst, created by the need of the hour, the
brilliant workers and farmers would emerge at the top as leaders.

The question of the revolution presented itself to Ferdinand Blumentritt too,


the civil servant loyal to the emperor, who, probably, indignantly refused to
accept the problem in connection with his fatherland; then, however, was called
upon to stand by his friend as helper and adviser on this matter. It was no
wonder, therefore, that this subject matter should soon become a burning issue
in the correspondence of the friends.

Rizal is constantly torn between hopefulness and desperation - a split


personality. The liberal, intellectual thinker who does not hesitate to lay down
laboriously the foundations which would lead his countrymen, in some distant
future, to the goal. And he, stirred by news from his family in the Philippines,
of injustice, persecution and brutality, nevertheless, loses his calm and sees
salvation in the hasty solution by coup de main which puts an end to

71
everything. Rizal keeps this conflict in check all his life: the evasion of the
revolution, indeed the fear of it, and at the same time, the certainty of not being
able to avoid this revolution.

Blumentritt's initial reaction, naturally, was to attempt to calm down his friend,
to appeal to his reason, and above all, to warn him against imprudent actions.
Blumentritt trusted fully the willingness of the Spaniards for reforms, specially
at the early stages of his friendship and correspondence with Rizal. Even Rizal
was averse to the idea of a separation of the Philippines from Spain and thinks
of a peaceful solution, but writes: "it will not come to that; the peaceful struggle
must remain a dream because Spain never learns from her former colonies in
South America. Spain does not perceive what England learned in North
America ... All that we are asking for are more concern, better instruction,
better government officials, one or two representatives to the parliament, more
security for us and our properties. Spain can certainly win the Philippines for
herself forever, if Spain were more judicious ... "

Blumentritt is not shaken in his belief and two weeks later expresses his joy in
a letter about a victory "of the arms of Spain and Christianity" against insurgent
moslems on the island of Mindanao. And Rizal vacillates between reason and
feeling: "I can assure you that I am not disposed to anything that concerns the
conspiracy because I find it altogether too soon and risky. Yet if the
government forces us to it, that is, if no more hope remains for us in this world
other than to seek our destruction, when the Philippines would other than to
seek our destruction - when the Philippines would prefer to die than to bear the
misery, then I, too, shall share the fate of my countrymen".

Later, Rizal himself must urge his friend to caution and equanimity and not to
commit himself too much in the fight for the Philippines and risk his position:
"There is still time to call off the campaign. Your loss would be very great for
the world and the Philippines. It is better that you live peacefully as you did
before and take care of your health ... You are fighting for our fatherland, we
too must do the same for you ... And I want to write your case for defence; I
want to fight for you myself ... You take everything too seriously ... If only you
can retain your position as professor. I do not know how it is in Austria."

Rizal requests Blumentritt to write a story about the Philippines. "I believe you
are the only one who can write this story. You will be read as an impartial
judge. You have no egoistic interests ... Austria does not have a colony. You
need not change the truth for the Spaniards nor for the Filipinos." He adds that

72
one would suspect hm, Rizal, of prejudices; certainly Blumentritt can view the
past more objectivety. Nevertheless, Rizal says that Blumentritt should not
expect gratitude, because garlands and laurels are the "handiwork" of free
nations.

Rizal perhaps never expected Blumentritt to give up his fight. To that end he
knew his friend well enough. On the contrary, attacks and provocations seem to
kindle the spirit of the professor more and more. He is horrified at the
discrimination against the colored people contained in the new Philippine penal
code, on which he gets busy:
"The provision of the codigo penal stating that whoever is Indio or Mestizo is
more severely punished, roused me intensely to indignation. It is tantamount
then to saying that anyone who is not born a white is actually a latent criminal.
This is a great injustice which seems even harsher and more unjust because it is
found in a law."

In March of 1889, Blumentritt informs his friend that he is working on a


memorandum of which he has already completed the following chapters:

1) Historical preface;
2) Filibusterism;
3) Nativism (inhabitants);
4) Quioquiapismo (Defamatory assaults on the Filipinos);
5) Civil crimes (Censorship or banishment of civil servants without
knowledge);
6) Immorality, dismissal of government officials, provincial and municipal
matters;
7) The Friars: The historical development of their power; and,
8) Are the friars really the mainstays of Spain?

Rizal is enthusiastic upon receiving the manuscript: "Your letters and


manuscripts are like a cheer of a wise and old friend for us, the Filipino youth
... You alone give us strength and courage and you admonish us as well when
we step out of line ... all of us Filipinos are very grateful to you for your love
for our fatherland; we all agree (are of the opinion) that you are the best
Filipino and do more than all of us together ..."

Blumentritt's courageous and indefatigable commitment to the Filipino cause


seems so incredible to the Spaniards as well as to the Filipinos that many doubt
his very existence or describe him as a front for the propagandists in exile, a

73
version wliich perhaps was encouraged by the Spanish authorities, if not
invented by them: "Only, many do not think that Ferdinand Blumentritt is an
Austrian; many say that he is a Filipino who has already been in Europe for a
long time but who never forgets his fatherland. Nevertheless, some believe that
your articles are mine or Plaridel's (pseudonym of Marcelo H. del Pilar) and we
are just using your name. I must write these people so that they will see and be
ashamed: A foreigner is doing more for the Philippines than a Filipino himself
... It makes me happy to think that you have become the nightmare of
the Peninsulares ..."

If necessary, then the courteous Blumentritt can become very thorough and
resolute. He calls some of his adversaries "men who cannot hold their urine."
He wants to write to the colonial minister and "ask him to clear the Spanish-
Philippine postal service of the suspicion of having stolen any letters."

And if it is a question of defending "his" Philippines, then Blumentritt is


willing to renounce everything, even titles, positions and honors. This
Blumentritt proves when it comes to a conflict between him and the Royal
Society of the Friends of the Country (Sociedad de los Amigos del Pais), an
illustrious society of persons who distinguished themselves by their interest and
knowledge of the Philippines. An all-out attack on Blumentritt is launched
under the title "Blinded by Feelings" in two Madrid periodicals. The attacks
culminate in the demand to expel Blumentritt from the Society. Blumentritt is
one of three foreign honorary members of the Society (the other two are
Ferdinand von Lesseps, who was in charge of the construction of the Suez
Canal, and Prince Oscar of Sweden). Blumentritt would lose his honorary
membership because, according to the view of some poliliticians, he turned out
to be not an "amigo del pais", a friend of the country.

Rizal tries to console his friend with the remark that as a real friend of the
country, he does not need the membership and the title of the Society whose
members anyway are in most cases "enemigos" (enemies) of the country and
not its "amigos". And, he, adds candidly: "If in your heart you are our amigo,
the amigo of six million oppressed Malays, what should the Socieded matter to
you?"

The consolation and encouragement were not necessary. Blumentritt was


determined not to sell his loyalty to the Philippines for the honor of
membership with the society, although the methods of his opponents
occasionally embittered him now and then: "I can attack well, retaliate well but

74
I dodge an attack very badly (retreat). What infuriates me is not the grossness
and the attacks, but rather, their endless lying. These people lie and invent base
acts; this is contemptible and deserves chastisement ..."

The professor announces that he will hand over a public statement on this
matter because it is his desire to let everyone know that no title has any value
for him, if he must "associate" with the enemies of the Philippines and be their
friend for it. "I will not act dishonorably in order to receive honors!" He
publishes a letter to the director of the Society, Federico Verdugo, in
the Solidaridad in which he affirms his renunciation of the honorary
membership. This incident, which stirred no little sensation in the circles of
Madrid politicians, historians, scholars and even the royal court, contributed to
the repute of Rizal's work and his group of Filipinos in exile.

Perhaps this was the signal for Blumentritt to engage seriously in the analysis
of the revolutionary situation after Rizal had already told him the prediction of
a friend who had just come from the Philippines: In case the conditions did not
change "a major revolution would take place before 10 years lapse."

Thus, Blumentritt resorts to the pen in order to grapple with the issue of the
revolution for his friend. True to his principle: "A politician must, above all, be
able to maintain an imperturbable equanimity. Impulsive politics is nothing
more than a glare of fire - a minute of light and then the dark night again,"
begins the Leitmeritzer once more and requests Rizal not to get involved in a
revolutionary agitation because whoever stages a revolution must at least have
the probability of a success for himself, if he does not want to encumber his
conscience with blood spilled in vain. Blumentritt infers his first maxim from
this: Whenever the people would rise against foreign rule, a colony against the
mother country, the revolution could never be victorious by its own strength:

"The American Union became free because France, Spain and Holland allied
themselves with it; the Spanish Republics (in South America) became free
because a civil war was raging in the mother country and England and North
America furnished them with weapons;

The Greeks became free because England, France and Russia supported them;
Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria became free through Russia; Italy became free
through France and Prussia; Belgium through England and France ... "

75
On the other hand, where the peoples relied on their own power, they lost; they
were defeated by the rabble of soldiers of the legitimate authority: the Italians
in 1830,1848 and 1849; the Poles in 1831, 1845 and 1863, the Hungarians in
1848 to 1849, and the Irish in 1868. If a revolt broke out in the Philippines
now, then it could only end in a tragedy.

Blumentritt enumerates the most essential factors to provide arguments in


support of his view: The insular situation alone which makes any revolution
without a navy is hopeless. With limited ammunition, the insurgents would not
last five weeks. There are still too many fraileros (the people loyal to the friars)
among the Filipinos. And for this reason, the professor concludes that a
revolution would only lead the intelligentsia to the slaughterhouse and even
aggravate the pressure of tyranny.

In the last and most important part of his analysis Blumentritt explains the four
pre-requisites which in his opinion are necessary for the success of an anti-
colonial revolution:

Firstly, if a part of the fleet and the army insurrects (revolts);

secondly, if the mother country is involved in a war;

thirdly, if money and munitions are sufficiently available; and

fourthly, some foreign power supports the mission officially or secretly ... "

This manual of the revolution is an unusual document even for Blumentritt


because here he dissects a problem with which he has never occupied himself
before, as a layman, as a civil servant and as an abstract scientist. As a
pedagogue and ethnologist he had no opportunity of familiarizing himself
either in theory or in practice with the substance and content of a revolution. At
best, his knowledge is limited to what could be read in history textbooks about
the European revolutions of the l9th century. From where did Blumentritt get
his knowledge about the anti-colonial revolution, which at the time of writing
his treatise had not begun anywhere yet?

Certainly, Blumentritt did more than just gain principles for this revolution:
within 10 years, Blumentritt's foresight would be proven sumptions and
developments named by Blumentritt: Large elements of the army switched over
to the side of the insurgents; Spain was involved in a serious war with the USA;

76
apparently there was enough money and war materials for the revolutionaries
from the donations of the wealthy Filipinos, perhaps of the liberal Spaniards
and European friends too; the ammunitions were taken away from the
vanguished and - fourth and last point - the foreign power, the United States of
America, which supported the revolutionaries, was present too. If the
revolution ultimately did not triumph despite the fact that all requirements for
its triumph were met, then it was because the USA broke its word and did not
fulfill its promise to give the republic freedom. Rather she set herself up as the
new colonial power.

Yet, which picture really presented the revolutionary situation of the


Philippines? Upon which facts, documents, conjectures and analyses on the
Philippines could Blumentritt rely for the preparation of his work?

As can be seen in the history of anti-colonial uprisings, the spark of unrest and
destabilization in the Philippines came from the outside. The island empire had
been cut off from the outside world up to the middle of the l9th century, much
longer than the Spanish colonies of South America, whose liberation wars
naturally had an effect on the Philippines. The constant change of regimes and
governments in the mother country leave their mark on the colonies. From
1834 up to 1862, there had been four constitutions, 28 newly elected
Parliaments, the change of 529 ministers in Spain. These events would really
shake the foundation of the Spanish monarchy and its colonial empire in the
next 20 years.

Between 1835 and 1897, the Philippines were ruled by fifty governor-generals,
each one with aI1 average term of office of fifteen months. This was so,
because depending on the political situation in the mother country, liberal-
progressive and reactionary-conservative governors relieved one another,
accompanied by the corresponding measures, or their termination by a
successor of a different mind, which increased the disorder and insecurity in

Cadiz, Cavite and the Consequences


The navy under Admiral Topete mutinies in the Spanish naval base of Cadiz
on September 18, 1868. Generals Prim and Serrano join the mutiny against the
autocratic rule of Queen Isabella II, who flees to France on September 30.
Three days later, a government of the liberal union is formed under Serrano. It
proclaims general suffrage for men. A new constitution promulgates freedom

77
of religion and of the press, juries, civil marriage and decrees the disbandment
of monasteries and the prohibition of the jesuit Order. After a complicated
political war of opinions lasting for five years, the republic is finally
proclaimed in February 1873, nevertheless followed soon by the restoration of
the monarchy.

A year after the incidents in Cadiz, in the year 1869, the Suez Canal is opened
and, with that the gate to the western world, is pushed open for the Philippines,
since as long as this country was part of the Spanish world, contact with the
east, specially, was maintained via Mexico.

The first demonstrations for reforms, in which civil servants and women
participated, took place on July 12 and September 21 of the same year in
Manila. With the slogans "Freedom! Sovereignty for the People!", the
demonstrators marched with red neckerchiefs, colored flags and Chinese
lanterns in front of the governor's palace, where a new cry resounded: "Lorg
live General de la Torre!" The reason for this was that the governor-general did
not only invite the demonstrators to a toast for freedom in his place but also
decreed a series of measures, which proved that the new Spanish wind had
begun to blow on the Philippines too; he lifted the censorship of the press,
allowed the establishment of the first secular university and abolished corporal
punishment in the army.

However two years later, the dream disappeared when General Izquierdo
assumed office. Izquierdo proclaimed that he will govern with the cross in one
hand and the sword in the other. And forthwith, he let actions follow too:
liberal education acts were revoked, educated Filipinos were discharged hom
higher posts in civil and military service, the most stringent censorship was
instituted once again, and the conditions for forced labor were made worse.

A few months after this reactionary restoration, the incidents said to be


decisive in the further development of the Philippine revolutions, took place.
On January 20, 1872, the crew of the naval base in Cavite, which was close to
Manila, mutinied. Approximately 200 Filipino marines took up arms; they were
joined by sailors and gunners. They captured the arsenal and fort. Seven
Spanish officers were murdered. The mutineers, whose only reason was
indignation about the introduction of new taxes, hoped for aid from the native
troops from the capital city, but in vain.

78
The suppression of the mutiny gave Governor Izquierdo an opportune occasion
to strike at the democratic reform movement and the Philippine priests. As
mentioned earlier, the mock trial of the three priests, who today have become
the symbol of the resistance against the Spanish rule, followed the mass
executions of the mutineers. Charged with the crganization and the conduct of
the mutiny of Cavite were Jose Burgos, 35 years old, a Spaniard born in the
Philippines, the priest of the Cathedral of Manila. Blumenhitt writes that
Burgos was considered the spokesman of the native priests, after he succeeded
the canon Pedro Pelaez, who met his death under the ruins of the Cathedral
during the earthquake in Manila in the year 1863.

Jacinto Zamora, 37 years old, likewise a Spaniard born in the Philippines, was
the parish priest in Marikina.

Mariano Gomez, at 73, the oldest and the only "genuine" Filipino among the
three, was a respected priest and vicar of the Archbishopric of the province to
which his native Cavite belonged.

The military court hardly made the attempt to give even just the semblance of
legality to the legal proceedings against the three priests. They were sentenced
to death within 24 hours and, following the Spanish method, they were
executed by the garrote, the strangulating apparatus, on February 17,1872 in the
park of Luneta, on the same site where 24 years later, Rizal would be executed
too. The memorial stone of "Gom-Bur-Za:' - even in this instance, the Spanish
mania for abbreviation was used - is found in the Park not far from the Rizal
monument.

The effect of the execution of the three priests was protracted, to be sure, in a
manner other than expected by the regime. Even the Spanish Archbishop of
Manila refused to obey the order of the Governor to excommunicate the three.
On the contrary, he had church bells ring at the time of their execution. And
Rizal, for whose family the fate of the three priests meant a stirring experience,
said later that without the event in the year 1872, perhaps he would have
become a Jesuit and would have written sacred books instead of the Noli me
tangere. Although he was only a child then, Rizal was just 11 years old - the
event ripened his decision to avenge the martyrs one day.

Nevertheless, two more decades had to pass before the seed of Cavite
sprouted. It consisted of d parts: Firstly, the surge of repression, which
succeeded Cavite and the natural counter-reactions by the people. "From this

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day on begins an era of persecutions and conspiracies fawning servilities, in a
way no longer found in Christian countries, with the exception of Russia
perhaps." Thus Blumentritt describes the period after Cavite. ( Unzere Zeit (Our
Time), Leipzig, 1889).

Secondly, the persistent and everhardening refusal of Spain to carry out


reforms even gradually. This refusal confirmed the belief of increasing groups
of people that a change of the conditions cannot be attained through peaceful
means. Here Blumentritt cites Austria for a historical comparison with the
Spanish policy of agreement with the friars: "Austria abetted the despotism of
the Italian princes and thereby incurred the mortal hatred of the entire Italian
nation and thus it was no wonder that when the thrones of Naples, Florence,
Modena, and Parma collapsed, Austria lost not only her ally but also her own
Italian provinces."

The indefatigable work of Rizal and his allies in the home country and abroad,
the publication of the books, the Solidaridad , all the propaganda and the
enlightenment activities can be named as the third element which, when one
evaluates the events of Cavite, had accelerated the Filipinos' overcoming the
regional and tribal differences and the growth of Philippine nationalism. All of
this is unthinkable without the valuable contribution of Ferdinand Blumentritt.
He must be acknowledged as one of the forerunners of this revolution, even if
he could not participate directly in the events in the country itself.

On the night of July 7, 1892, three men met in Tondo, the slum sector of
Manila, and created the KATAASTAASANG, KAGALANG-GALANG NA
KATIPUNAN NG MGA ANAK NG BAYAN, which for western ears and eyes
would be difficult to comprehend. Roughly translated into English, it is the
"Supreme and Most Venerated Brotherhood of the Sons of the Country". This
time abbreviating is most welcome; only the word 'Katipunan' has remained in
linguistic usage.

KKatipunan was the first workers' and people's movement in a colonized


country. So far, reform movements have always been the creation of the middle
class, of the officialdom, the intelligentsia, enlightened through their studies in
the mother country. The Katipunan was, no doubt, a secret society, but it was a
genuine association of the proletariat. This is certainly symbolized by its leader
and subsequent chairman, Andres Bonifacio, who came from a family of daily
wage earners, was orphaned of mother and father at fourteen and grew up with
five brothers and sisters in the poorest circumstances and had obtained only an

80
elementary education. The youthful Andres acquired the knowledge of Spanish
through self-study and he read, above all, the French writers of his time, while
he earned his living by selling bamboo, walking sticks and paper fans, which he
himself made. Eventually, he rose to the position of an office messenger,
furniture salesman, and lastly a storeman of a foreign trading firm in Manila.

Since any reorganization was prohibited by law, the Katipunan was forced to
assume the character of a secret society and to take precautions against possible
discovery. lnitially, members were accepted only according to the triangle-
system. Three members formed a unit, which in turn gathered three men each
again. Nevertheless, only the originator knew the other two, who did not know
each other. Admission into the Katipunan was done in a ceremony of
underground rituals, in which the prospective member was tested and had to
take a vow of loyalty. Only then was he allowed to sign with his blood the
name he assumed for disguise in the membership roll.

The Katipunan had no political program. Real demands like freedom and
independence were completely missing. On the contrary, the credo of the
organization was a collection of romantically embellished worldly expressions
of wisdom which preached charity, love of one's fellow-men, patriotism and
equality of all people.

For all that, the organization apparently satisfied the need of the moment,
because the society existed for four years without being discovered by the
remarkably effective network of friars and police. This alone is evidence of the
unity and common determination of at least a portion of the population to take
action. With no appreciable financial means and help of the ilustrados, the
number of members rose from 300 in the years 1893 to over 30,000 by the
summer of 1896. The preparations for that one objective, the revolution, which
never appeared in the precepts of the Katipunan, moved laboriously in detail.

The Cry of Balintawak


Weapons which were hoarded piece by piece were stolen from the arsenals of
the army, purchased from Chinese merchants and bought from corrupt soldiers.
By August,1896, the time has come for Bonifacio to immediately prepare the
beginning of the armed insurrection. However, during those very days the
authorities received more and more information about suspicious subversive
activities. According to another version, it was a female member of

81
the Katipunan, who out of orthodox loyalty, imparted during confession the
information about the preparations for the uprising, whereupon the priest did
not waste time warning the authorities without even worrying about the
protection of secrets divulged in the confessional.

Bonifacio and the "Katipunan" were then forced by the circumstances to take
action. They had to attack or risk the annihilation of their organization. On
August 26, Bonifacio assembled the leaders and hundred of comrades-in-arms
in the hills of Balintawak north of Manila. In an emotion-laden ceremony, the
fighters tore their residence certificates to symbolize the termination of their
loyalty to Spain while shouting the battle cry: "Long live Philippine
independence!" The event went down in Philippine history as the "Cry of
Balintawak" and is regarded as the starting signal for the Philippine revolution.
Today, a monument marks this site which shows a Philippine peasant swinging
the "bolo", the national variation of the machete.

The next day, Bonifacio issued the call for a general revolt in the whole
country. The first encounter between the revolutionaries and the Spanish troops
was staged in San Juan del Monte, today a suburb of Manila. Faced with force
much superior than theirs, Bonifacio had to retreat but the fire of the revolution
could no longer be controlled.

One city after the other rose in revolt under the flag of the "Katipunan", which
was actually a red flag with "KKK," the initials of the organization. After a few
days, the center of the revolution shifted to Cavite, where 24 years earlier, the
mutiny, which ended with the execution of the three innocent priests, broke out.
In Cavite, however, the uprising was led by Emilio Aguinaldo, a man who
would become the symbol of the successful revolution and the establishment of
the Philippine republic. Eight years younger than Rizal and a son of a middle
class peasant, Aguinaldo was not able to finish his education. He had to support
the family by farming and retail trade after the death of his father. Aguinaldo
joined the "Katipunan" in 1894 and a year later, became the mayor of his
hometown like his father before him.

Within a short period of time, Aguinaldo turned out to be a military genius. He


was able to defeat the Spanish troops decisively in several battles. Apparently,
the governor-general underestimated the fighting power and enthusiasm of the
revolutionaries. He placed eight provinces under Martial Law and tried to
avenge the defeats with terrorism, mass arrests and killings without respite, the
confiscation of the properties of the rebels, and immediate execution by the

82
firing squad, without the benefit of court proceedings, on mere suspicions that
one has supported the rebels with information and food.

Subsequently, differences of opinion which, in the first place, were unheeded


by the Spaniards, arose in the camp of the revolutionaries. These finally led to a
power struggle between Bonifacio and Aguinaldo. The fight ended in
May,1897. Bonifacio was condemned and executed for betraying the
revolution. The motives for this tragedy have since then been interpreted in
different ways. It seems, Bonifacio had fulfilled his role as initiator and
organizer of the revolution. He wanted to adhere to the traditional methods of
the secret brotherhood; the faction of Aguinaldo championed the disbandment
of the'Katipunan' and its replacement by a revolutionary government. Others
perceive in this duel the difference of opinions between classes: the proletarian
element, represented by Bonifacio, and Aguinaldo, who is considered the
representative of the middle class and the intelligentsia, which was increasingly
supporting the revolution and leaving its bourgeois stamp. Last but not the
least, personal reasons cannot be precluded. The military victories of Aguinaldo
made him a national hero, a key figure of the revolution, while Bonifacio
receded into the background more and more, robbed of the fruits of the uprising
which he has laboriously prepared. Nevertheless, up to this day, Bonifacio is
looked upon as the father of the revolution, the first democrat who had faith in
the masses and who conveyed the idea of the xevolution to the people, which
till that time was limited to a small group of emancipated individuals.

According to changing military success, the revolutionaries transferred their


headquarters to the mountain fort of Biak na Bato, in the province of Bulacan,
north of Manila, where in November 1897, the first republic was proclaimed
under the presidency of Aguinaldo. It may not have had a long life span, but it
certainly had a great political significance. Because six weeks later, an
unprecedented document, the pact of Biak na Bato, in which the colonial power
and the revolutionaries agreed on peace, was concluded. Signed by Governor-
General Primo de Rivera and General Aguinaldo, the pact was the documentary
admission of both sides that they were not in a position to change the stalemate
situation created and to win over the enemies. The revolutionaries discontinued
the battle and surrendered their weapons. In return for it, the leaders were
granted safe conduct to an exile in Hongkong; general amnesty was proclaimed
and an indemnity of a total of 1.7 million pesos, as well as a series of reforms,
was promised the revolutionaries.

The grotesque situation became clear when Aguinaldo and his loyal followers
marched across the country to their ship and were honored by the people as

83
national heroes. Both sides were then to prove guilty of a breach of the peace
pact. The Spaniards persecuted numerous revolutionaries despite the amnesty,
paid only a fraction of the indemnification and did not think of carrying out the
reforms promised. Likewise, by no means did the revolutionaries surrender all
their arms and they deposited a portion of the Spanish indemnification in a
Hongkong bank in order to use it for the preparation of the next uprising. Time
and again there would be hostile encounters between the armed forces of both
sides. Spaniards, as well as Filipinos, probably knew that the peace afforded
just a breather in the undecided battle. What certainly neither side might have
surmised was that the hour of death of the Spanish rule in the Philippines would
strike just a year later and Aguinaldo would return triumphantly to his native
land as an ally of the USA.

Rizal would live through the beginning of this revolution at the end of the year
of 1896. Before he sets out for his second - and, as it would turn out to be, his
last - homecoming, in the years 1891 to 1892, the debate between the two
friends about the problem of Rizal's home begins. Blumentritt turns out to be
vehemently against it. He sees the danger of what Rizal considers a duty. "Do
not go to the Philippines now," the professor writes, "rather go to Madrid where
in these wretched times you can render better services, than in Calamba, to
your fatherland as well as to your family."

This discussion regarding Rizal's plans continues for almost a year and ends
with Blumentritt warning his friend urgently and angrily in what seems to
&thron;e a premonition again: "I do not at all agree with your going to the
Philippines now. You expose yourself to the greatest dangers and your
fatherland needs your great mind and your freedom." He says, he is looking
forward to a better time for Rizal, the fights in the home country and abroad are
not futile. He says, Rizal should wait till a favorable opportunity arises when
Rizal could assume his place in the Philippines. In the meantime, he could
render valuable work by publishing a Tagalog dictionary and this work alone -
together with the Noli - would immortalize his name "not only to your people
and to your fatherland" but also to the whole world.

Rizal would hear nothing of this. "I must return to the Philippines, life will be a
burden to me. I must give the example of not fearing death even if it is frightful
... " Rizal intimates that one of his followers (in the Philippines) allegedly
complained about those who agitate in safety in a foreign country while the
fighters at home are in constant danger. At thirty, Rizal is an old battle-weary
man who - with a suspicious foreboding at least in those days and weeks before
his final home-coming - has reconciled himself with his destiny: "I shall meet

84
my fate; if I die, then you shall remain. But life in Europe is impossible for me.
Dying is better than living miserably..."

Once more Rizal communicates, describes how his native land draws him; he
would like to embrace his parents and brothers and sisters. Nevertheless, his
friends advise him against it, in the same manner as Blumentritt, whom he
would like to see once again: "If only I had the means for it, then I would have
gone to you, in order to be able to embrace you for the last time, because it
seems to me that I shall never see you again. My future stands before me,
dreadfully desolate ... "

Did Rizal go to his doom deliberately and voluntarily? Did he want to be a


martyr? In any case, his next letter will already come from the steamer
"Melbourne" from the Mediterranean and on November 20, 1891, Rizal arrives
in Hongkong. There he is to learn that his father, two sisters and a brother have
been banished from their hometown of Calamba. His blind mother succeeds in
escaping to Hongkong. With his usual cleverness, Rizal is able to make both
ends meet swiftly. He puts up his practice as ophthalmic surgeon and is soon
the recognized specialist for the British and Portuguese colonists as well as for
hundreds of Chinese, whom he treats free of charge when they cannot afford to
pay.

Soon he is able to tell Blumentritt that his father and brother are able to go to
Hongkong as well. Everything seems to turn out for the better. Blumentritt is
happy for his friend: "The letter I received from you today is pleasant. At last
you have gathered all your loved ones around you." And Rizal, likewise, in
good humor answers: "All of us, my parents, sisters and brothers, are living
peacefully together here, far from the persecutions which they suffered in the
Philippines." He writes that his parents are very contented with the English
government (in Hongkong), that they want to die there and no longer want to
return to the Philippines where life is unbearable.

For all that, Rizal can find no peace. He thinks of the settlers in his hometown
of Calamba who are oppressed and driven away. Again and again, he talks of
those who are persecuted because they read his books, are acquainted with him,
or correspond with him. He feels responsible for their sufferings, he feels guilty
for living safely in a foreign country. And despite all warnings, Rizal decides to
return home. His family is horrified.

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Rizal disembarks in Manila on june 26, 1892 after leaving behind two letters,
again with some foreboding - one to his family and friends, the other one to the
Philippine nation - both of which should be opened after his death. In this letter
to his family and friends, he asks his family for forgiveness for the sorrows he
has caused them. It seems to emerge plainly from the second letter that Rizal,
not without pride and satisfaction, seems to have resolved, if necessary, to set a
signal for patriotism and liberation through his martyr s death.

Was it naivet or self-confidence that Rizal conducts himself in Manila in no


way like a conspirator, rather like an altogether normally repatriated citizen, if
not perhaps a guest of honor? He puts up at the "Orient", the best hotel in the
city. He receives and visits friends and well-known personalities; he pays his
respects to the governor-general himself. The next day, Rizal finishes a
lightning tour through the provinces in order to, as he will later say, find out
how his books were received, how he stands, what the people think about the
political solution. Having returned from the trip, Rizal's activism reaches its
peak with the creation of a union which he callsLiga Filipina. The following
were stated as objectives of the Liga: the realization of the unity of the entire
archipelago, the mutual protection against violence and injustice, the
development of training for industry and trade, and the study and realization of
reforms. It can be gathered from the somewhat vague formulations that the
Liga was dedicated to the furtherance of national unity, self-defense against
governmental encroachments, professional preparation for independence and
for the fight for reforms.

In spite of all the practical import, the Liga is surrounded by something


mystical, which is reminiscent of the freemasons. It was organized in the form
of a pyramid: the local councils formed the base, the heads in turn formed the
supreme council. Although it was said in the statutes that anyone who had the
interest and the welfare of the fatherland at heart can be a member, in the
internal directives, however, absolute obedience, strictest secrecy and
obligation to inform the leaders were required of every member.

The establishment of the Liga meant a turning point for Rizal, a break with the
past, a new beginning. The shy, somewhat naive physician, poet, philosopher,
scientist, suddenly became an agitator. He who had always rejected any form of
organization, now travelled through provinces, held meetings, spoke to the
masses in their national language, received leading personalities for
conferences in his house. Rizal is hailed in 1892 differently from the way he
was hailed five years ago: as a renowned man with an illustrious name, as

86
author of his books, as a contributor to the Solidaridad. Everywhere, he
reiterates the formula comprehensible to the masses: Unity, organization,
nationalism! A parallelism with Sun Yat Sen, a contemporary of his who was
five years his junior, is foisted into our minds; Sun Yat Sen who formulated the
essential elements of the Chinese revolution with his slogan of the three basic
precepts of the people. "San-Min-Tsu-I" - nationalism, democracy, people's
welfare. The Manchu dynasty was overthrown through the revolution which he
led in 1911 and the first republic set up. Since the Liga had just a short life
span, its significance lies perhaps more in the fact that it was established at all
and that Rizal, its Nestor, treaded on new paths with it. Rizal's spectral and
almost operetta-like appearance lasted for 21 days only. On July 6, 1892, he is
put under arrest by Governor-General Despujol himself and brought to Fort
Santiago. Eight days later, Rizal is on the way to his place of exile, Dapitan,
which is located in the northern coast of Mindanao, the southernmost of the
islands of the archipelago.

And so it was hardly just a coincidence that the Katipunan was set up on July
7, exactly a day after Rizal was arrested. Bonifacio had, after all, been himself a
member of the Ligaand knew Rizal from several meetings. The arrest and
banishment of Rizal apparently convinced the founder of the Katipunan that the
peaceful efforts towards the realization of reforms were finally exhausted and
only a violent solution, the revolution, could lead to changes.

Consoler of the Banished Rizal


The news of the arrest and banishment of his friend must have affected the
Blumentritt family very much. "My whole household is despondent. We
received the news of your banishment or deportation to the south of the
archipelago. The news shocked us very much; my wife, Loleng, Fritz and
Conradino turned pale because they imagined how the police tormented you."
Thus writes Blumentritt on July 12,1892. After the first shock subsided,
however, the professor immediately thinks of how to help and of words of
consolation: "And do not forget, if you have embittered enemies, then you have
true friends as well, who will do everything, which law and honor will make
possible, in order to give your freedom back to you ... may the Holy Virgin take
you under her protection ... "

In this tragic situation for his friend, Blumentritt comes to the fore again: He
sets to work with the talent of an organizer. At this time, Rizal needs not only
friendship, contact and goodwill. He also needs activity for his multifarious

87
talents; he must get the feeling that his existence has not been senseless and
useless, above all, that he has not been forgotten by the world.

Blumentritt mobilizes the Orientalists, the Asian researchers, the philologists


and linguists of entire Europe and even of the United States; later, ethnologists,
botanists, zoologists join the group because soon Rizal busies himself with the
world of Mindanao, which was unfamiliar to him, and its natural resources and
tribes. Thus soon and in continuous succession, letters and books go from
Talisay, the farm on which Rizal is living, not only to Leitmeritz but also to
Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Stuttgart, to Madrid and Vienna, to Paris and Leiden,
to London and Washington and from there back to Dapitan. Rizal is not
forgotten, not lost, the international sympathy which Blumentritt furnishes him
makes Rizal bear the banishment easier.

Again and again, Blumentritt complains that many of his letters remain
unanswered. He remarks, not without humor, that the "anays" (white ants)
probably eat the letters. And already, Blumentritt doubts that his friend receives
his letters at all. "I am hoping, because even the Turks allow their exiles to
receive mail, and since the Spaniards are not Turks and are always talking
about their generosity and noblesse and other qualities, I cannot imagine that
they have confiscated my letters ..." In the same letter, Blumentritt requests his
friend to write a Tagalog Grammar, since up to then, all relevant works had
been written by friars who were not natives and moreover were not as versed
linguistically as Rizal.

On account of the censor, Blumentritt did not risk hinting on subjects, which
could be construed as political. After some time, the friends correspond in
Spanish and give up German so that the correspondence will not be delayed by
lengthy censorship. In the end, they avoid the usual salutation of "brother" in
order to avoid the suspicion of free masonry. For all that, the friends, who for
years have been accustomed to exchanging a letter almost weekly, succeeded in
having merely 28 letters and greeting cards go in both directions in the more
than 4 years of exile of Rizal and up to his death.

Rizal gives a vivid account of his life in exile: "I want to tell you how I live
here. I have a square house, a hexagonal house and an octagonal house - all
made of bamboo, wood and palm leaves. My mother, my sister Trinidad, my
nephew and I live in the quadratic house. In the octagonal house live my
"boys", the lads whom I teach Mathematics, Spanish and English - and
sometimes a patient, on whom I have just operated. The chickens are lodged in

88
the hexagonal house; I hear the murmuring of the crystal-clear waterfall which
plunges down from the boulder. I can see the seashore, the sea, in which I have
two small boats, barotos, as these canoes are called here. I have many fruit
trees, I have rabbits, dogs, cats. I wake up early - at 5 o'clock, I take a look at
my fields, feed the chickens, then I wake up my people and we start working.
At 7:30, there is breakfast - tea, cookies, cheese, sweets, etc. Then I treat my
poor patients. I get dressed and go to the city in my little cart. I treat the people
there and return at 2:00 for lunch. In the afternoon, I give the boys lessons up to
4:00 and spend the rest of the day in the fields. The evenings I spend reading
and studying ... " [See Rizals letter to Blumentritt]

The versatile Rizal familiarizes himself quickly with life in exile. He says, he
was one fourth farmer, one fourth merchant, one fourth physician and one
fourth teacher. He collects shellfish, insects, butterflies, reptiles and plants and
thereby discovers a lot of new species. Soon several specimens carry the
designation "Rizali" after their discoverer in the technical catalogue. Rizal
begins a shell collection which soon reaches 200 pieces provided with names
and detailed descriptions. He expands his economic activity through coffee
plantations, cacao trees, a coconut plantation of 4,000 trees. He helps the hemp
farmers of his village establish a union so that they can avoid exploitation by
the Chinese middle man. Rizal starts work, as promised Blumentritt, on his
Tagalog grammar and learns alongside the dialects of the Mindanao tribes in
his near environs. He organizes the construction of a dam, constructs a simple
machine for the manufacture of sun-dried bricks and, on his initiative, builds
roads.

From his accounts, one can gather that Rizal had a peaceful and contented life
in exile. Yet unrest does not leave him. He misses his friends, the political
activity, the books of which he had only a few with him. Later, he shall find his
happiness, though late, in the Irish Josephine Bracken, who shall stay faithful to
him up to his death. But Blumentritt remains his best mainstay, the strongest
hinge that binds him to the outside world and with the past. "Tu solus fidelis
reminisceris mei!" ("You alone, true friend remember me.") Rizal writes
thanking him for the New Year s greetings from the Blumentritt family - "They
came to me like the fragrant breeze from the pine forest. I saw the circular
plaza (in Leitmeritz) again, where we a ate supper, the senior grammar school
... I see the sun, the old cabinet, the old porcelain and the beautiful crockery and
I ask myself: Was everything not just a dream?"

There was often no mail for months. The friends do not know if the other one
was still alive. Should something arrive, however, then Rizal goes into raptures:

89
"Yesterday was a holiday for us poor residents of Talisay. Your letter and
postcard were read, read aloud, shown and admired. My pupils cannot
understand at all how a German who has never been in Spain can write Spanish
so well ... Your letter, like a distant voice of friendship inspired us with
courage, for a time we forgot our troubles, just thinking of all of you, my good
unforgettable friends."

Soon, however, the brief happiness is once again replaced by despondency:


"My exile has already lasted so long that I am beginning to give up hope of
seeing myself free again. Everyone agrees with me that my lot is undeserved,
yet I am held here!"

The death of Dr. Rost, the librarian of the British Museum and the London
Foreign Office who belonged to the close circle of friends of the Philippines
and Blumentritt, is a new blow to Rizal: "Now I have only you who will never
leave me, perhaps the only one who has the courage to call himself my friend,"
Rizal writes to Leitmeritz. And how great his joy is v.hen a reply comes from
there: "You cannot imagine our joy when we received the lines which our
esteemed Rizal wrote. The whole family stood around me, we discussed every
word that you wrote and emptied a glass to your health ... "

But soon Blumentritt must complain again that he has heard nothing from his
friend for months: "I do not know if you are still alive and how they are treating
you. I prefer to ascribe your silence again to the termites which eat up our own
letters ..."

A Race with Revolution


Blumentritt does not know that by that time, history has taken its course and
Rizal is in a fatal race with the revolution, to which he himself has indirectly
contributed. Since the professor and his friends were continuously making
every effort to get Rizal free, so Blumentritt, together with his Filipino friend,
Antonio Regidor, devised the plan of Rizal to offer his services as military
physician in Cuba, where the Spanish army stood in battle against the
revolutionaries. In this martner Rizal could be doubly helped. He could prove
his loyalty to Spain through this employment and, therefore, could silence the
information and rumors against him about subversive activities, and that he
could leave the hot ground of the Philippines, where the revolution was
drawing nearer and nearer.

90
Apparently, Rizal caught on to the idea at once. For the time being, any means,
was, to all appearances, right, in order to get away from the banishment. "As
regards your advice of my going to Cuba as a physician, this seems to me to be
an excellent idea and I will immediately write to the Governor-General," Rizal
answers his friend. That was November 20, 1895.

The Spaniards were, however, obviously not in a hurry. Months passed without
the authorities responding to the request. In the meanwhile, the events in the
capital city began to follow in rapid succession. At the end of June 1896, Rizal
received a visit from Dr. Valenzuela, likewise a physician. He did not come,
however, to conduct professional conversations with Rizal. He is the secret
emissary of the Katipunan with no less an assignment than to oblige Rizal to
assume the leadership of the approaching revolution. In a debate lasting till the
crack of dawn and assuming time and again a tumultuous character, Rizal
declines the task. He approves of the objectives of the revolution, but considers
the time as premature and the arms as absolutely inadequate. The Katipuneros,
however, have no other choice but to start the revolution with Rizal leading it
personally, or as a spiritual leader, since Rizal has become a symbol of the
liberation of the Philippines. And thus, it comes to pass that Rizal cuts a figure
in the fiery call of the revolution, that his picture is found in the secret meeting
places, that the soldiers of the new revolutionary army toast cheers to Rizal and
that he is found in their songs.

All this without the knowledge of Rizal, who in the meantime, has fallen into a
rut, out of which an escape seems to be more and more difficult. For hardly a
month after the destiny-laden secret meeting, Rizal receives the approval of his
application for Cuba. He has long since not reckoned with it anymore. Rizal is
released from exile on July 31, after exactly four years and thirteen days and
goes to Manila. Rizal knows that the outbreak of the revolution is a matter of
days. If he refuses to go to Cuba now, then he will certainly be suspected of
wanting to stay in the country in order to lead the revolution. But if the
revolution does break out before he leaves the Philippines; then he will be
suspected of being the one who pulled the trigger that will start the revolution,
and of fleeing after he has set the revolution in motion.

And thus begins Rizal's race with the events. He misses the mailboat by a day.
Rizal is quarantined on the cruiser Castilla for almost a month up to the
departure of the next steamship, while around him history is being made, the
history which he helped write. The conspiracy is discovered; Bonifacio calls for
a general revolution; the first battle takes place in San Juan; Martial Law is

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proclaimed; Aguinaldo makes his appearance. Is Rizal aware of all this? Once,
Emilio Jacinto, Bonifacio's most loyal adjutant even ventures upon the attempt
to rescue Rizal. He refuses the offer to be rescued and departs for Singapore on
September 3, furnished with a letter of the Governor-General to each of the
Ministers of War and the Colonies, in which Rizal is most highly commended
and, above all, absolved of every guilt for the conspiracy and the revolution.
Everything seems to be in order.

Yet, three weeks later, on September 29, it is as if Rizal was struck by


lightning, when he suddenly receives the order not to leave his cabin, after the
ship dropped anchor at Port Said. He is watched closely up to the time the ship
disembarks in Barcelona, and after that he is brought to a ship which is to
transport him back to Manila.

Blumentritt is unaware of all this. He has not received any news from his
friend since May. Then all of a sudden, the silence was shattered through the
arrival of Rizal's lefter from the Mediterranean.

In this letter he gives an account of his fate in details. Rizal admits that he was
taken by surprise by the belated summons to go to Cuba because he no longer
thought about it. Nevertheless, he seems to have known that he would have to
go, so as not to be linked with the outbreak of the revolution. He himself asked
to be quarantined on the cruiser during the time he was waiting for the next
steamship out of Manila, Rizal discloses to his friend. He makes Blumentritt
privy to the full text of the letters to the Ministers and concludes: "I still cannot
believe it because this would be the greatest injustice and the most detestable
infamy, unworthy not only of an officer, but also of the lowliest bandit . . . I am
not guilty, and my reward is being arrested! I cannot believe it . . . yet if it turns
out to be the truth, then I shall have thereby informed you so that you can judge
the situation . . . "

Evidently, Blumentritt comprehended the last sentence as containing the


request for help. Within a few days, the professor gets in touch with his Filipino
friends in London. And they in fact succeed in sending a petition to the
supreme court in Singapore, even before Rizal arrives there. Supported by
prominent British lawyers, they cite the writ of habeas corpus (the English Law
of 1679 protecting personal freedom). And since the Spanish constitution
forbids arrest without judicial order and the ship in the port of Singapore is
subject to English law they demand the extradition of Rizal. But in vain, the
"Colon" in which Rizal travels has troops on board which are to quell the

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revolution and is therefore acknowledged as a warship of a foreign state with
sovereign rights.

Rizal arrives in Manila on November 3, 1896 and is immediately brought to


the infamous Fort Santiago under heavy guard. A week later, the
revolutionaries under Aguinaldo attain their greatest victory over the Spanish
troops in the battle at Binakayan. That is bound to bear on the case of Rizal:
Blumentritt shall no longer receive any sign of life from his best friend - till
that letter of farewell, written on the evening before the execution. . .

The Black December or Death Knell for an


Empire
Rizal languishes for three weeks in Fort Santiago before the inquiry
proceedings begin. An action is brought against him on December 11, but the
verdict has actually been submitted several days before this with the arrival of
the new governor-general, Polavieja, for whose severity the friars asked after
they had denounced his predecessor, Blanco, who had issued the carte-blanche
permits to Rizal, as too liberal. The trial begins right on Christmas eve.

It is later reported that even Spanish lawyers thought that it was rather justice
and not Rizal which was on trial. First of all, for hours, Rizal's brother, Paciano,
is tortured. Thumbscrews are driven into his left hand so that he will sign the
statement with his right hand, saying that his brother, as head of the
"Katipunan", organized and led the revolution. Paciano, nevertheless, remains
unflinching even when, in addition to this, he is hanged by his elbows until he
loses consciousness.

Worthy of note is the fact that the Noli is accorded a significant place in the
indictment. Apparently, the Spanish colonial regime had fully acknowledged
the value and influence of the book: "In 1886 he published in Berlin a Tagalog
novel in the Spanish language with the title Noli me tangere, a book that
overflows with hatred against the mother country. In it, he lashes at the
Spaniards with the most infamous insults, defiles the Catholic religion and
attempts to prove that the Philippine nation can never be civilized as long as it
is ruled by those whom he calls decadent and contemptible Castillians . . . It
goes without saying that after the authorities received knowledge of it, the
distribution of this work in the islands was forthwith prohibited. However,

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Rizal succeeded in eluding the government order and in distributing the book
throughout the archipelago - with the foreseeable deleterious effects."

Once again the Noli is cited as argument in a dossier to the Governor-General


who is supposed to decide on the reprieve of Rizal:
"A careful perusal of the book will show clearly the intention of the author,
through ridicule, to discredit two institutions, which belonged to the sustaining
pillars of the Spanish sovereignty over these islands, namely, the religious
orders and the guardia civil . . . the authorities were given strict instructions to
keep this propaganda, offensive to the Spanish sovereignty, away from our
borders."

And finally in the state prosecutor's summing up: "It can therefore be assumed
as proven that . . . Dr. Rizal, through the publication of his works Noli me
tangere and . . . (here more works of Rizal follow) in which religion, the friars
and the Spanish government are attacked, wanted to gradually propagate in the
people of the Philippines the belief that the expulsion of the religious orders
was worth striving for - as a means to the - at least desired indirectly -
independence of the country."

But a role as significant as the one attributed to the Noli and the other works
was assigned to the Fili too. From the indictment:
"Somewhat later he publishes a second book with the title El Filibusterismo,
which he specially dedicates to the memory of the three native priests, who,
because of their participation in the revolt of Cavite, were sentenced to death in
1872. He gives them the halo of the martyrs. At the same time, he hurls threats
with impunity against the nation which, in the exercise of its rights, could
hardly submit to this attack on the legitimate authority."

In the indictment, the "Liga Filipina" and the "Katipunan" are arbitrarily mixed
up or are referred to as one and the same organization. Every oral or written
remark of Rizal about reforms, human rights, independence, is construed as a
call to revolution. Rizal does not know some of the witnesses at all; he does not
get the opportunity of a confrontation with them nor of a cross-examination of
the witnesses. He is denied examination of the incriminating documents and the
services of a professional lawyer. A mere lieutenant is allowed to act as his
obligatory counsel for defence.

But even this counsel says in his summing up for the defence that the
indictment preferred is not sufficient for Rizal to be convicted. He enumerates

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the following permissible pieces of evidence: visual inspection of the scene of
the crime, admission of the accused, reliable witnesses, the opinion of experts,
official documents, or at least, circumstantial evidences. He maintains that
Rizal's guilt has not been proven through any of these means. According to the
counsel for defence, what remains is his writings which have been known for a
long time and, at most, presented transgressions of the censor and the law on
the ban of the book. Hence, the verdict would have to be "not guilty".

It was to no avail; it is not a question of justice or injustice here. In its war in


two fronts - in Cuba and in the Philippines - the Spanish colonial power is
determined to set an example. The head must fall, then the body, the revolution
will follow.

It is worthy of note that the name of Ferdinand Blumentritt does not turn up at
all in the bill of indictment. Yet, it can hardly be presumed that the close
collaboration of the two friends, the decisive influence of Blumentritt on Rizal,
the assistance and advice of the Leitmeritzer on decisions concerning the
political activity in exile and in the home country - that all of these things were
not known to the Spanish court authorities. In their tribulations, they probably
did not want to bring on a diplomatic conflict with the Austrian-Hungarian
monarchy too. Yet, secretly, all attempts have apparently been made to drag
Blumentritt into the mock trial too. Allegedly, there was intervention up to the
highest offices: ". . . the Spanish government demanded, even if in vain, the
delivery of the Leitmeritz professor from the Austrian government". (Professor
Fritz Blumentritt, the oldest son, on September 12, 1930 in the "Leitmeritzer
Zeitung" (Leitmeritz Newspaper)) In any case, the story that Emperor Franz
Josef himself prevented the extradition of the professor is current within the
Blumentritt family up to now.

On December 29, 1896, Rizal is found guilty of establishing illegal


organizations and of supporting and inciting to the crime of rebellion, and is
condemned to death. He spends his last 24 hours in his death cell where he
receives members of his family and writes his letter of farewell [See Rizal-
Blumentritt Correspondence], the first one to his "second brother ' Ferdinand
Blumentritt.

Rizal gives his sister, Trinidad, an old petroleum lamp and whispers to her in
English that there is something inside the lamp. Thus is Rizal's famous farewell
poem "Ultimo Adios", (Last Farewell) is found. This poem has so far been
translated into more than 100 languages. A new German version by the

95
Austrian, Dr. Wilhelm Muster, was made in December 1982 through the
initiative of the Austrian Ambassador, Dr. Friedrich Posch and was presented
to the National Historical Institute in a ceremony in Fort Santiago:

Last Farewell
Rizal marries his Irish girlfriend according to Catholic rites in the very last
hours of his life, after living with her for sometime in Dapitan. They were
previously married civilly. On the morning of December 30, 1896, Rizal sets
on his walk from Fort Santiago to the Bagumbayan square, now Luneta Park, in
the center of Manila at 6:30 6:30 o'clock. Many details are told about this walk;
how Rizal, on this walk, tells the priest accompanying him of his earlier strolls
in that place; how the military doctor admires the normal pulse rate of Rizal
shortly before his execution; how Rizal requests that he be shot in the chest,
which is denied him; how he forgives all those involved in his execution.

The Spanish authority set up the ceremony like a fair. Hundreds of men and
women of the Spanish colony appeared in their best clothes in order to
celebrate the death of their enemy. Troop units were paraded; a musical band
celebrated the death of Rizal by playing the national anthem continuously. The
firing squad was composed of Filipino soldiers of the colonial army, but behind
them stood a detachment of Spanish soldiers with muskets leveled at their
"brown comrades" in case they should refuse to shoot their countryman.

Rizal, ready and calm, takes his position opposite his executioners. Roll of
drums and a volley of artillery accompany the firing of the soldiers. And even
at the moment of his fall, Rizal turns his body so that he ends up lying on his
back, with his face to the sun. The elegant Spanish ladies wave their
handkerchiefs, the Gentlemen applaud. And while the Filipinos see the
execution in enraged silence, calls of "Viva Espaa!" resound thunderously.
Long live Spain? Did not those who cried out surmise that the shots which they
had just heard were the prelude of the collapse of the Spanish colonial empire
in the 7,000 islands?

The execution of Rizal stirred emotions all over the world. The newspapers,
which otherwise hardly took notice of this distant country reported about the
execution. The international prestige of the Spanish colonialism, already
discredited, suffered a heavy blow. Indeed in the Philippines itself, the death of
the man, who for millions ot people had been the embodiment of uprightness,
of tolerance, of kindness and helpfulness, but above all of liberalism, of

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freedom and independence, had the effect of a beacon. Thousands of those who
hesitated, who were undecided, who were afraid perceived the death of Rizal as
a mute call to join up with the revolutionaries whose ranks swelled in the weeks
and months that followed.

The historical significance of Rizal in the world cannot be assessed


sufficiently. The three titans of the anti-colonial emancipation struggle in Asia
were born within a period of eight years: Rizal in 1861, Sun Yat Sen in 1866
and Mahatma Gandhi in 1869. All of them, educated in the West and
influenced by it introduced a period of new thinking in Asia. However, at a
time when Sun Yat Sen was still a student and Gandhi a schoolchild, Rizal as
the first one among the three was preparing in a concrete form not just the first
nationalistic revolution but was aiso consciously developing the thesis of equal
rights for the colored people, of the partnership of the countries not governed
by the whites in the manner by which it has become the basis of international
relations today. Certainly in his time, when the colonial powers were still in a
race for Africa, such an idea elicited in the West every negative sentiment
ranging from ridicule to disgust.

And it was Blumentritt who helped Rizal formulate and propagandize these
ideas, who without being Asian himself, without personal or national motives
as an imperial civil servant, or even himself subject of an empire, which
although has never been a colonial power in the classical sense, perceived the
explosive force of these ideas. How many and which ideas of this structure
originated from the head of Blumentritt, how great his share is in the
development, which up to today is still continuously active, cannot of course be
reckoned mathematically. But the handed down documents speak for
themselves.

Thus, Rizal was the architect of the awakening of Asia, the apostle of
nationalism in the biggest continent of the world, its first one who called for
freedom and independence. And the revolution which he evoked was the first
historical proof that the colonized peoples could produce capable politicians
and commander-in-chiefs just like the whites, that the derided "coolies" and
"buffalo herdsmen" were capable of defeating the European soldiers who were
better armed and trained. The dream of the infallibility and invincibility of the
white man, which for centuries had been the basis of the colonial rule,
vanished. This is the historical service of Rizal, and with his - that of
Blumentritt's too.

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The immediate effects were not long in coming. Eighteen months and thirteen
days after Rizal's death, the Spanish flag was brought down from Fort Santiago
where he spent the eve of his death, as a sign of capitulation.

When Blumentritt received the farewell letter and his friend's book, he broke
down crying. The book was an anthology of German poems, which Blumentritt
himself in the past had sent to his friend in Dapitan and which Rizal had
provided with comments and marginal notes.

Blumentritt pulls himself together only after several days so that he is able to
write his friends all over the world of the serious loss, with words which are
once more proving his prophetic power: "The mark which the execution of our
friend Rizal leaves behind is so strong that one can say confidently: From this
day on, a new era in the history of the Philippines has dawned."

Blumentritt never got over the shock of the loss of his friend, of his "twin
brother", his "second I". But after the first grief, he comes to the decision that
he can honor the memory of his friend most effectively if he continues his
work, if he continues fighting for "his" Philippines, fosters his contacts and
expands them and informs and enlightens the world by the spoken word and in
writing about the events in the empire of 7,000 islands. The study room in
Leitmeritz becomes, more than ever, a meeting place of the Filipino elite, who
as successors of Rizal, set out to organize spiritual and material aid for the
revolution and to represent the young republic as unofficial ambassadors there.
Numbering among the most prominent are Juan Luna and Felipe Agoncillo.
Luna, whose brother Antonio will be considered as one of the most noted
generals of the revolution, for his part, ranks among the greatest of the modern
Philippine painters, a disciple of modern impressionism, who obtains first
prizes in international exhibits in Madrid and Paris and represents the Republic
in France. He leaves behind a painting for Blumentritt which shows the flag of
the republic waving over the hills of Leitmeritz. Agoncillo was the legal
adviser of Aguinaldo, head of the European Commission of the Republic and
information minister. As envoy of Aguinaldo to the USA, he attempts to make
the Senate reverse its decision to ratify the Treaty of Paris, under which the
Philippines had actually just been purchased by the USA from the Spaniards.

Altogether, the Professor from Leitmeritz hardly had time to grieve idly over
his friend. The more than precarious truce of Biak-na-Bato, which had been
broken again and again by both parties, would probably have led to a trench
warfare between the Spaniards and the revolutionaries lasting for years, ending

98
sooner or later, with the collapse of the Spanish colonial power in all parts of
the world. And would have brought a solution for the Philippines similar to that
in Latin America. But an unforeseeable turn of events transformed an internal
conflict in a forgotten corner of Asia into a dramatic international-political
conflict of historically-significant proportions.

Amigos, Americanos?
A violent explosion, whose reverberation was to shake the Philippines
although it happened 10,000 kilometers from Manila, took place on February
15, 1898, exactly two months after the peace of Biak-na-Bato. The American
battleship "Maine" blew up at the harbor of the Cuban capital city, Havana.
Although the cause of the explosion was never determined, and could have
been just an accident, the United States made Spain responsible for the disaster.
And not without an ulterior motive. The war of liberation in Cuba led by some
kind of a Cuban Rizal, the writer, Jose Marti, was raging at that time. The
United States. supported the freedom fighters for humanitarian, democratic,
liberal, republican and other motives. But they had no objection either against
accelerating through it the collapse of the Spanish empire. And finally, it
should not be overlooked that the USA invested 50 million dollars in Cuba
which must be safeguarded.

The explosion in Havana was taken as an opportunity to call on Spain, through


the Congress in Washington, to give Cuba her independence and leave the
island. The Spaniards rejected the intervention and answered it on April 24
with a declaration of war. This was precisely what the Americans were waiting
for. For now it is possible for the United States to go to the front, so to speak,
"legitimately" against their Spanish rivals in the American-Pacific area. The
Spanish-American war began. It would end in December 1896 with the Treaty
of Paris under which Spain loses her last dependencies in Latin America and in
the Pacific hemisphere; Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam.

The declaration of war took the American Asian fleet in Hongkong by surprise,
where its commander, Commodore George Dewey received the order to put to
sea with his six ships in the direction of the Philippines. This was recorded on
April 27. Three days later the Americans stationed themselves before Manila
Bay, and the following day, May 1, 1898, the decisive naval battle took place at
Cavite. Seven Spanish ships (among them one christened "Don juan de
Austria") faced the six American ships. But the unwieldly and antiquated

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vessels under Rear Admiral Montojo were no match to the up-to-date equipped
and maneuverable Yankee ships. The battle ended in the total annihilation of
the Spaniards after seven hours. The US fleet lost neither men nor ships.

This lightning victory of the American fleet has world-wide political


consequences. It throws the United States not only into a patriotic frenzy but
also into an imperialistic euphoria, which very soon would lead to the final
withdrawal of the United States from isolation and to her entry into the world
arena. With the naval battle of Manila, the foundation for the ascent of the
United States is laid.

The appearance of the Americans had, however, immediate consequences for


the Philippines, that is, for the revolution as well as for the future status of the
country. Dewey, who rose overnight as an American national hero was
promoted to Admiral but he had no land forces for occupying the Philippines.
The Spanish Governor-General Agustin ventured upon the desperate as well as
hopeless attempt to get help for the Spanish defense by creating a parliamentary
representation for the Filipinos and promising to push through the
implementation of reforms long due. But to no avail, the Spanish insight came
too late.

On the contrary, the hour of the resumption of the Philippine revolution struck.
And its first scene of action was Singapore, where Aguinaldo, who was living
there in exile was caught unaware by the newest development. It was the
Americans who, in the person of their Consul General, Spencer Pratt, and
through the intervention of the British businessman, William Bray, got in touch
with Aguinaldo, in order to persuade him to return to his native land as ally and
to assume the leadership of the revolution again.

Aguinaldo was suspicious and not without cause, as it would tragically become
apparent later. He, of course, realized right away that the Americans would rely
upon the help of the revolutionaries in the rural areas. All the same, what would
America's offer for help? Pratt stated it clearly: independence. And as
Aguinaldo still remains sceptical, the consul referred to the example of Cuba,
which got the solemn promise of independence. And was Cuba not just located
at the foot of the United States while the Philippines were thousands of miles
away? A likely logic which cannot elude Aguinaldo, although his misgivings
are not removed, when the consul evades the request of Aguinaldo to put down
the discussion and promise of indepen dence on paper, which would later be
very convenient for the "forgetfulness" of the consul as well as of Admiral

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Dewey. For all that, it cannot be denied that Aguinaldo was fetched back to the
Philippines by a speed boat of the US-Marine dispatched by Dewey, a step
which amounted to the recognition of the revolutionaries as ally of the United
States.

At all events, Aguinaldo took the real alliance so seriously that irnmediately
after his arrival, he enthusiastically summoned support for the Americans, "for
the great North American nation, the cradle of true freedom, which has come to
grant us protection unselfishly and to help us with liberation from tyranny and
the attainment of our independence ..."

Dewey did not contest declarations of this kind. He met with Aguinaldo and
made him form and organize his army again, handed weapons himself to the
revolutionaries and assisted in their replacement by shipments from Hongkong
through the American consul there. The Americans could not really complain
about their (official or unofficial) ally.

From the moment of the disembarkation of Aguinaldo in the country, the


revolution has spread like bush fire. Detachments of the revolutionary army
emerged everywhere, city after city fell into the hands of the revolutionaries,
the militia made up of Filipinos, which was under the Spaniards, deserted with
all their arms to Aguinaldo's troops. The General landed on May 19,1898 in
Cavite. Six weeks later the whole of the main island of Luzon as well as several
bordering provinces were in the hands of the revolutionaries. Only the capital
city of Manila remained. It was besieged at sea by the Americans and
surrounded by the troops of Aguinaldo on land.

Aguinaldo was now strong enough to form a government and to create a state
no matter what the relationship with the Americans would be. On June 12,
1898, the proclamation of Philippine independence was solemnly read out from
the balcony of the residence of Aguinaldo in Cavite. This date is still celebrated
as independence day of the Philippines up to now. The national anthem rang
out for the first time, and for the first time too, the national flag was unfurled;
blue and red with a white triangle on the left (the three colors, in honor of the
USA), a sun with eight rays (for the 8 provinces which first revolted against
Spain) and the three stars (for the three land bodies, Luzon, the central islands
of the Visayas and the southern island of Mindanao) are golden in color. One of
the first decrees of the new republic was, by the way, to declare the thirtieth of
December, the death day of Rizal, a national day of mourning and
selfcommunion.

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Even in the declaration of independence, gratitude and appreciation for the
help in the attainment of freedom were expressed "to the powerful and humane
North American nation." By that time, however, Dewey was already preparing
the treachery, which would be apparent before the whole world on the occasion
of the conquest of Manila. For weeks the Americans had prevented the
Philippine troops from marching into the capital city with the instruction that
they should wait for the arrival of the American expedition corps so that they
would be able to seize the city together. Nevertheless, when the US troops
arrived (under the command of Brigadier General Arthur MacArthur, the father
of General Douglas MacArthur who in World War II was in command of the
US troops in the Philippines against the Japanese), the revolutionaries were
ordered under penalty of armed force, not to set foot in the city. Even the
revolutionary soldiers who were in the suburbs were told to withdraw.

The surrender of Manila was negotiated by the Americans with the Spanish
Governor behind the back of Aguinaldo. After a ceremonious exchange of fire
between Americans and Spaniards, the white flag was hoisted at 11:00,
forenoon, on August 13, 1898 and six hours later the Stars and Stripes was
hoisted at the Fort Santiago. The revolutionary army which through its action
and the sacrifice of its thousands of soldiers which made this victory of the,
Americans possible, had stayed outside. Aguinaldo discerned that he had been
duped, that the naval and world power, USA, had used the Philippine
revolution only as a pawn in a game with far broader engagement.

The rumor of an intended annexation of the Philippines by the USA was,


however, not yet official. The revolutionaries were not diverted from carrying
out their programs even by the treachery of Manila. One month after the fall of
the capital city, the First Congress, the parliament of the young republic
convened in the Church of Barasoain, in the mountainous town of Malolos in
order to ratify the declaration of independence, hence to complete the first
constitution as well as to float a loan. Worthy of note is that the fourth decree
of the congress concerns the establishment of a university for literature.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the chauvinistic and imperialistic ripple


reaches its peak. There is no longer doubt that the annexation of the Philippines
is a decided matter. To be sure there is an anti-imperialistic camp to which
belong, among the most prominent champions, the writer Mark Twain and the
German-American civil-war general and national hero, Carl Schurz. But they
remain in the minority.

102
In a document that perhaps ranks one among the most grotesque in world
history, the former American president at that time, William MacKinley, gave
an acount of how he was prompted by a divine Almighty God for light and
guidance more than one night. And one late night it came to me this way - I
don't know how but it came:
(1) That we could not give them back to Spain that would be cowardly and
dishonorable;
(2) that we could not return them over to France or Germany - our commercial
rivals in the Orient that would be bad business and discreditable;
(3) that we could not leave them to themselves - they were unfit for self-
government - and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse
than Spain's was; and
(4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate
the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace
to do the best we could for them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ also died.
And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next
morning I sent for the Chief Engineer of the War Department and I told him to
put the Philippines on the map of the United States, and there she was and there
she will stay as long as I am president!" (President MacKinley in a talk with the
General Missions Committee of the American Methodist Episcopalian Church.
Quoted in Robert Leckie, The Wars of America; Albert Kolb, Die USA und die
Philippinen; Leon Wolff, Little Brown Brother and others).

One can imagine how the president, in a nightcap and a nightshirt, alone, night
after night, might have racked his brains over a country about which he himself
had said after the outbreak of the war, that he could not show it within a radius
of 2,000 miles on the map! And then, how he finally struggles through the
thought of Christianizing a people, 90% of whom have adhered to the Catholic
belief for at least 300 years. This was how the destiny of the Philippines was
decided.

The divine inspiration of the president was soon converted to a signed and
sealed policy. The peace contract between Spain and the USA was signed on
December 10, 1898 in Paris. Article III of the Treaty reads: "Spain shall cede
the Archipelago, known as the Philippine Islands to the United States. The
United States shall pay the sum of 20 million dollars (20,000,000) to Spain
within three month after the exchange of the ratification documents of this
Treaty . . . The civil rights and the political status of the native inhabitants of
the territories handed over shall be determined by the Congress of the United
States."

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For two dollars per head and nose, the Filipino people were handed over from
one master to another. Lawyers in the United States published memoranda
about the issue of whether the treaty had a legal basis at all. Because Spain, at
the time of the cession of the Philippines, was no longer in possession of the
country for a long time and, for this reason, was not at all in a position to hand
over her jurisdiction to the country. The Filipino people were completely
ignored in the proceedings. Aguinaldo's envoy and Blumentritt's friend, the
lawyer Agoncillo, was not admitted to the negotiations in Paris; he was not
even allowed to present a memorandum.

All the same the Filipinos made themselves heard. The revolutionary
government declared the Paris Treaty null and void, since one of the parties
involved was not heard although it exercised official authority over the greatest
portion of the Philippines, from Luzon to Mindanao and was even recognized
by the greatest part of the non-Christian tribes and the moslems. All the
differences were reconciled by the belief prevailing in the population that the
Americans did exactly the thing for whose termination they were drawn into a
war against Spain - the establishment of the colonial rule over the Philippines.

The Americans who tried to set up a governing body in the captured tcrritories
could hardly come to term with a Philippine counter-government. The
Philippine revolutionaries likewise were determined not to exchange the
Spanish occupation with an American one. Faced with this situation, it was just
a question of time before it would come to an outbreak of open hostilities
between the two powers.

Just as the USA did not take cognizance of the existence of the Philippine
revolution, the revolutionaries ignored the existence of the American
occupation power and established their own government. The so-called
Malolos Constitution became valid on January 21, 1899. It was acknowledged
as democratic even by the enemies and was true to models from Spain, France,
Belgium, Mexico and Nicaragua. Two days later, the Republic was proclaimed
under the presidency of General Aguinaldo. Its sovereignty was recognized in
three quarters of the national territory. Eleven days later, the war between the
USA and the young republic was started off by an insignificant exchange of
fire. The USA needed barely half a year from the annihilation of the Spanish
fleet and the Treaty of Paris, in order to subjugate the Philippines, at least,
formally. However, they would have to wage a bloody three year - war that
was, abundant with heavy losses before they could subdue the Filipinos.

104
What developed then would have a striking reminiscence of the scenes in
Vietnam half a century later. Aside from governing bodies of the Americans in
the cities and villages, the formally loyal underground government of the
Filipinos led by one and the same person was also formed. The republican
government collected taxes, recruited soldiers, collected food and weapons for
the army, above all, however, the civilian population, including women and
children acted as spies and emissaries for the revolutionary army.

General MacArthur himself described the situation in a report as follows:


"Wherever throughout the Archipelago there is a group of the insurgent army, it
is a fact, beyond dispute, that all contiguous towns contribute to the
maintenance thereof. In other words, the towns, regardless of the fact of
American occupation and town organization, are the actual bases for all
insurgent military activities, and not only so in the sense of furnishing supplies
for the so-called flying columns of guerillas, but as affording secure places of
refuge. Indeed, it is now the most important maxim of Filipino tactics to
disband when closely pressed, and seek safety in the nearest barrio, - a
maneuver quickly accomplished by reason of the assistance of the people, and
the ease with which the Filipino soldier is transformed into the appearance of a
peaceful native ..." (Quoted in M. M. Kalaw, The Development of Philippine
Politics)

Such reports called the American public abruptly back to a sober reality, after
being fed by the mass media for months with the story that the Filipinos would
welcome enthusiastically the Yankee occupants, and that only a minority of
radical hot heads would continue to fight.

So far the war had been played down. "A splendid little war," it was called in
the commentaries which reported about the blessings brought to the "little
brown brothers" (also a title of a well-known book on the subject matter), in
order to lead them out of barbarism into the arms of civilization.

Suddenly, it was over with the "amigos". The realization of the harsh fact that
one was face to face with a hostile people cleared the way for unprecedented
atrocities on both sides, which perhaps were still acceptable on the part of the
Filipinos, who were in a defensive fight and who were classified as half-wild
savages. On the American side, however, the waging of the war by the Yankees
gradually led to a reversal of public opinion.

105
The burning of the villages along with the massacre of the people, including
women and children, became commonplace operation of the US troops. The
Americans became famous or rather, infamous, as inventors of the "water
torture" which is mentioned in all contemporary reports, even in the most loyal
ones. If a captured Filipino did not want to reveal secrets which were demanded
from him, then water up to 20 liters was poured down his throat until his body
swelled up beyond recognition. Then someone knelt down on his stomach or
stood on it until the water flowed out again. This treatment was repeated until
the prisoner confessed or died beforehand. The reports about tortures,
plunderings, destructions and mass executions by the American troops followed
one after another. Even President McKinley was so shocked that he appointed a
civil governor in the person of Taft, who later on became president, in order to
remove the power of the generals.

The superior US-troops marched forward and finally captured the seat of the
Republican government in Malolos. It was, likewise, destroyed and burned
down. But the revolutionaries transferred their headquarters further up the
mountains and did not surrender. The American press began to publish letters
of soldiers from the war front. Soldier A. A. Barnes of the third artillery
regiment wrote of the order of General Wheaton to burn down every city within
range and kill every native within reach. Soldier Jones of the eleventh cavalry
reported how his division came across a wedding procession which was open-
fired upon. The women, children, and the couple were killed.

In addition to the water cure, the rope treatment was applied. The torso of the
prisoner was bound and the rope was thereafter twisted with the help of a stick
until the thorax broke or he was choked. The peak was finally reached when the
commander of the island of Samar, General Smith, said in a talk to his troops: I
want no prisoners; I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill and burn, the
better it will please me. (Quoted in Wolff, Little Brown Brother) And on July
26, 1900, the New York newspaper "World" writes in a report from the front:
"It is usual to avenge the death of an American soldier by burning all houses
down to the foundation wall and to kill, left and right, the suspected natives."

The fight continued and it would not be ended as long as the symbol of the
resistance, General Aguinaldo, was the head and incited his people time and
again. Thus the American supreme ticks made of gold turned up in the shops
when the soldiers returned home. The newspaper "Boston Pilot" reported that
the first company of the Colorado infantry brought along enough church
treasures to fill a department store when it landed in New York.

106
The tight continued and it would not end as long as the symbol of the
resistance, General Aguinaldo, was the head and would go on inciting the
people. Thus the American supreme command concentrated all efforts towards
the capture of Aguinaldo. But for years the Americans were not capable of
finding even just one Filipino who would have offered himself as informer. It
was only in February, 1901 that the Americans succeeded in capturing a
messenger of the General, through whom his hiding place was finally found.
On March23, 1901, Aguinaldo was taken prisoner.

But even then, for more than a year, the dispersed units of the revolutionaries
which were cut off from the main body, did not abandon the fight yet. Only on
July 4, 1902, the American independence day, was the resistance officially, but
not in fact, declared ended from the side of the USA. President McKinley,
however, did not live to see that day. He was shot by an anarchist on September
6, 1901 in Buffalo, Texas. Anyway, American rule in the Philippines began. It
would end only exactly 44 years later with the proclamation of the republic on
July 4, 1946.

The Lonesome Struggle


These exciting events, this entire development, Blumentritt lived to see as
witness of his time. Nevertheless, not just an observing scholar. Not for a
moment did he hesitate to review, analyze and interpret the events. Quite alone,
at best supported by friends in other countries, he takes it upon himself to make
the objectives of the Philippine revolution known in Europe and the US, and
above all, to win over the sympathy for it, in a world full of misinformation and
prejudices against the "rebellious savages". All the same, Blumentritt was able
to sketch a full picture of the whole spectrum of events. Moreover, it must not
be forgotten how miserable the sources of information were, how little and how
late Blumentritt was often informed of the events. There were bad postal
connections, false reports, gaps. Today, thanks to extensive researches, which
have been undertaken since then, it is easy to obtain a general view of the
tumultuous history of these years.

First of all, he succeeds in gaining an important facet of the problem which up


to then eluded all observers. The events surrounding the "Katipunan" and the
first Philippine revolution coincide with the Chinese-Japanese war of 1894-95,
which ended with the total victory of Japan. The Chinese were driven back up
to Yalu in Manchuria; had to cede among others, the island of Formosa in the

107
Treaty of Shimonoseki and also lost their protectorate over Korea. Japan had
developed into a modern and proud state and her success did not fail to carry
weight on Filipinos fighting for their freedom.

"The revolt in the Philippines is, for this reason, so interesting; it proves, so to
speak, to be tlle indirect consequence of the Chinese-Japanese war", as
Blumentritt writes in the political "Globus", Braunschweig, September, 1896.
Because after the victory of Japan, "a certain self-confidence motivated the
colored Filipinos . . . the splendid victories of the Japanese army and fleet must
have awakened the belief in the Filipinos that the Asian race was called to
terminate the European supremacy in East Asia and to give at least the latter
back to the Asians."

The analysis, which by itself is correct, certainly misleads Blumentritt at first


to a wrong analysis, leading him to support the Spanish side. He is afraid that
the Philippines would become a colony of Japan, or at least could come under
her influence in case of a victory of, the revolution. For this reason, he wants
the victory of the Spanish army because "accordingly, the Spanish soldiers are
fighting not merely for the Spanish property foothold, but also in defense there
of the most vital interests of the Western Christians as against the orientalism
of the Japanese."

For all that, Blumentritt proved his sincerity when a year later, he did not
hesitate to admit that he made a mistake and that after the arrival of extensive
information, he realized, that he had drawn wrong conclusions. Blumentritt
recalls his point of view of the summer of 1896, "then I was still of the opinion,
shared and expressed in the noble groups in Spain, that Japan, in relation to the
insurgents of Luzon (the main island of the Philippines) played the role with
which Uncle Sam played vis-a-vis the Cuban rebels. Subsequently, it became
apparent, that Japan behaved quite correctly . . ." (sterreichische
Monatsschrift fr den Orient, (Austrian Monthly Journal for the Orient)
Vienna, October, 1897.)

Blumentritt cites numerous reports, which state, that the revolutionaries were
extremely miserably armed and could not have received accoutrements of any
sort from the Japanese side and he comes to the conclusion that: "It was just
Japan's history, her magnificent victory over the Chinese, from which the
colored and halfbreed people learned a lesson . . ."

108
Yet, Blumentritt does not stop with that. He attempts to enlighten, in the most
multifarious form, the people of his native land and Europe about the true
character of the Philippine revolution. "Since then, another image of the
insurrection has been, generally speaking, won," he says, as introduction, and
reports that the revolutionaries were by no means pursuing an anti-Catholic
policy in the liberated areas, rather, on the contrary, they did not hinder the
activity and practice of the church. "The rebels are anything but irreligiously-
minded, indeed, throughout the half year that Aguinaldo governed the province
of Cavite as absolute commander; this rebel district seemed to have become a
kind of model Catholic state . . . and although Aguinaldo proclaimed the
republic with the familiar slogan which has already lost its value in Europe:
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", still its character became quite evident: it was
not red, not a violet-blue, rather a black republic, a good clerical government
form."

In his report, Blumentritt openlv supports the revolutionaries without


reservations. He holds the cruel repression in the Philippines and the refusal of
the Spaniards to enforce reforms long overdue which were responsible for the
revolution. He reports that in a prison cell, 59 prisoners were suffocated in one
night and that the dungeon was so crammed.

A Royal and Imperial Agitator for a


Republic
Blumentritt cannot conceal his admiration for the revolutionaries and
mockingly quotes the friars who spread the idea that the revolutionaries would
soon surrender if they did not have white men as leaders, since the natives were
not capable of leading a revolution on a large scale. On the contrary, Aguinaldo
proved that the Tagalogs possessed all the abilities to establish an orderly
government: "And it can be gathered even from the accounts which the Spanish
newspapers carry, which were certainly not kind to Aguinaldo, that the
insurgent province of Cavite was, at least, governed not worse than as it had
been under the Spanish rule. Truly, if foreign reports are credible, then the
greater peace and justice than ever before prevailed during the time when
Aguinaldo was sovereign in Cavite."

Blumentritt publishes his resums about the political condition in the


Philippines year after year, above all, in the "sterreichische Monatsschrift fr

109
den Orient" (Austrian Monthly Journal for the Orient). And from the beginning,
he makes clear his position - on the side of the revolution and against the
Americans. Unlike in Cuba where the US-troops had to conquer everything, in
the Philippines, "it was the insurgents who won all the rich coastal territories
with their own hands, and cleared the way for the Americans," the protessor
writes in October, 1898. And he perceives too that the relationship between the
Yankees and the Filipinos was friendly as long as the Americans relied upon
the help of the revolutionaries. Only when the American army arrived did the
relations became strained. Blumentritt says that he knows nothing authentic
about these relations yet. All the same, he speaks with certainty about the
"arrogant Anglo-Saxons incalcated with disdain of the colored people."

Aguinaldo's motives are clear to Blumentritt: "He . . . wanted to act as ally of


the Americans, the latter, however, just wanted to lay claim to the services of
the rebels." Blumentritt still does not believe that the USA wants to get
involved in a prtracted guerilla war. He is, however, convinced that the
revolutionaries would fight against an American annexation with the same
courage with which they fought against the Spanish domination. And with the
same conviction with which he had constantly appealed to the Spaniards to
save the situation through reforms, he warns the US against abusing their
victory and power.

A year later, in l899, Blumentritt already gives his report with the highly
suggestive title of "The Filipinos as Masters in their own House". Here, he
writes out the best testimonial for the young republic. First of all he dismisses
all news about the persecution of the Spaniards or half-breeds under the
revolutionary government: " . . . I affirm that neither the Philippine Republic
nor its leaders and partisans or the colored inhabitants manifest on the whole,
any caste sentiments . . . for the Filipinos, all castes and colors have equal
rights and are of no importance; for them, they are just Filipinos . . .

Nothing comparable to Aguinaldo's policy of national reconciliation, as


Blumentritt describes it, is found in any of the contemporary sources or in the
subsequent historical works. The "ricachones" (something like money bags)
kept away from the republic, because "the revolutionaries had a scent much too
democratic for their fine noses," as Blumentritt states sarcastically. But then,
the belief that the days of the Spaniards were finally over grew and suddenly
everyone who was somebody in the Philippines, the wealthy, the merchants, the
aristocrats and even the retired Spanish officers swore allegiance to Aguinaldo.
In addition, Aguinaldo proved to be an excellent diplomat and tactician,
preventing dissensions and party fights in his camp. The deserving

110
revolutionaries were bestowed military positions, those who joined up with the
revolution later got civil offices as long as they could be awarded. Blumentritt
renders the Republic the highest compliment when he says "that with the
exception of the postal system, everything is working smoothly, the
government machinery is at least not going worse in this young state as under
the Spanish . . . reports according to which doubts appearing on the ability of
the Filipinos to govern . . . are not in the least justified. Surely the discipline
and the close unity, which the Filipino manifested in the Katipunan uprising
and in the current war, speaks for their competence to guide the destiny of their
fatherland themselves."

This question played a prominently significant role in the debates in the USA
over the years. Blumentritt's opinion which extended over the Atlantic, exerted
a strong influence here. The University of Boston published an opinion poll in
the year 1901 about the issue of the readiness of the Filipino for self-
government. Naturally, Blumentritt was one among those who were asked. The
Nestor of the American ethnologists, Professor G. Brinton, called him "the
greatest living scientific authority about the Philippines" and adds, on the
current issue: "Since there is nobody who is better informed about the
intellectual state of the Filipinos, then it will interest the readers to know that he
is convinced that they are adequately developed for independent self-
government." In his verdict for the USA, Blumentritt, however, rigidly defends,
which is unusual for him, the claim of the Filipinos to independence and he
does not hesitate either in drawing comparisons with his European neighbors
and thereby risking conflicts: "The Filipinos have more people with university
education than the kingdom of Serbia, the principalities of Bulgaria and
Montenegro could show. They have less illiterate people than the states of the
Balkan peninsula, many provinces of Spain and Portugal and the Latin
Republics of America . . . the Filipinos take care of their educational system
better than Spain and the Balkan States . . . They do not lack trained civil
servants to govern their own country . . . the history of the Philippine revolution
is not tainted with such grand series of atrocities as those revolutions of the
great civilized nations of Europe . . . Accordingly, no one can deny that the
Philippines has more right to form a government than many European and
American states."

Blumentritt even more strongly opposed and more bitterly criticized the
American policy of absolute annexation. No other choice remains for the
Filipinos but to fight the powerful American union, of whose soldiers' morals
he does not seem to have a good opinion. He refers to the tropical climate and
to "the alcoholism of the Americans" as good allies of the Filipinos because

111
wherever the Americans had been able to hoist their flag and stand their
ground, the brandy plague has set in, the only real success which the Americans
have achieved in the Archipelago up to now."

In his work, "The Philippines. A synoptic presentation of the ethnographic and


historico-political state of the Archipelago", Blumentritt gives a complete
picture of the country and its state of affairs, from geography and ethnology, by
way of religion and economics, to political events, along with the constitution
of the republic. Yet what was meant as a scholarly synoptic description
developed into a polemic for Philippine freedom and against the occupation
policy of the Americans, as he comes closer to what, for his time, were actual
current events. Blumentritt amazes us through his knowledge of details. He
does not only know something about the talks of the American Consul Pratt
with Aguinaldo in the famous Raffles Hotel of Singapore, but he himself is in
possession of copies of the minutes of the discussions which he correctly calls a
treaty between the US and the revolutionaries.

Blumentritt establishes with certainty that the US-military, at the head of all,
Admiral Dewey, held the revolutionaries for a long time in the belief that they
have come to help them get their independence. How else could it be explained
that the Americans take cognizance of the manifestos and decrees of the
revolutionaries, of the proclamation of the republic, of the formation of their
government, of their armament and their military operations without a word of
protest, thus amounting to assent?

From the view of Blumentritt, the outbreak of the hostilities between the USA
and the Republic in 1899 looks like an American provocation with a purpose.
He relates that at the time of the exchange of fire, the top-ranking staff officers
were at a conference with Aguinaldo in Malolos, while other top-ranking
military men lingered in a theater presentation. In addition to this, the fact that
two days later, on February 6, the Senate in Washington had to ratify the Paris
Peace Treaty and probably the Filipinos would have carefully avoided anything
which could have tainted the atmosphere to their disadvantage.

No doubt, Blumentritt sometimes deals quite severely with the Americans. He


seems to win far less sympathy for them than he had procured for the Spaniards
during his lifetime, which considering the upbringing of the professor, would
be comprehensible too. At all events, Blumentritt does not even believe in the
gradual growth of independence under the guidance of the Americans, which

112
later - to be sure, under the pressure of the events after the second world war -
in fact took place.

For the time being, Blumentritt still considers the American rule worse than the
Spanish rule, "because the character of the Anglo-Saxons brought a social
prescription of tl>e colored people . . . it is unthinkable in the character of the
Americans to ever grant the natives, the colored gentlemen, the social and real
poilitical equality with the divinely inspired English-speaking white race . . .

BBlumentritt opens an extensively unknown chapter with his depiction of the


relations between the USA and the religious orders by describing how the US-
occupation authorities supported the claims of the friars, even replacing
parishes and estates taken away from them by the Republican government.
This, in spite of the fact that the majority of the people in the United States
were protestants, and freedom of religion was embodied in the constitution. But
even the Pope would not be on the side of the Catholic people of the
Philippines in this conflict, rather on the side of the Lutheran occupants from
the USA. Thus, as Blumentritt judges, the American church policy would
contribute further to the strengthening of ranks of the revolutionaries because
the Filipinos would not bear it if "the ruthless Anglo-Saxons of America,
overtlowing with racial conceit, were to swing the whip over them and if this
were not enough, the friars were supposed to return with all their privileges
too!"

And Blumentritt concludes his treatise powerfully: "The dice might fall this
way or that way, in any case, the Philippine people have gained the sympathies
of all who reject the principle, 'Might comes before right' and considers
the Dulce est pro patria mori (It is sweet to die for your fatherland) not merely
for translation purposes for beginners in Latin!"

Blumentritt reproduces the text of the republican constitution in an appendix


form which, even from today s modern view, shows that it can be considered as
a highly democratic constitution. It provides for freedom of religion and
separation of church and state, the inviolability of the person without court
order, the civil liberties of opinion, press, assembly, demonstrations, the right to
establish private education, etc.

In the commemorative volume of the Philippine Assembly mentioned at the


beginning, Blumentritt is given a testimonial of absolute loyalty and integrity
during the days of the revolution and the American occupation: "Great was his

113
joy and his enthusiasm, when he saw the republican government of Malolos
which laid down a republican constitution organized . . . And when a new
conflict broke out . . . he put himself with full devotion on the side of the
Philippines. He did not let his pen rest so he could prove our capability for a
free and independent life before Europe and America. He fought against the
injustices to which we were exposed on account of Washington, whose
imperialistic policy, pushed by the republican party, provoked his vigorous
protest."

Nonetheless there is no better proof, no higher distinction for his paramount


position in the Philippine problem, for his knowledge and his reputation, than
the fact that, in spite of his unmistakable political outlook, he was asked by
both sides to be a mediator.

"At that time, Ferdinand Blumentritt was offered the position of arbiter by the
USA and Spain in the disputes between the two countries. He had to decline the
offer, however, because as an Austrian government official, the Austrian
government in Vienna did not allow him to accept the position." (Leitmeritzer
Heimatbote, (Leitmeritz Home Herald) January 1971). It even says in a report
that consent to conduct the negotiations in Leitmeritz prevailed. Thus the
Spanish-American war and the freedom of the Philippines might perhaps have
been sealed by the "Peace of Leitmeritz".

Manila: National Mourning for an Austrian


On October 1, 1913 the periodical "The Philippine Republic" which comes out
in Hongkong publishes a letter of Ferdinand Blumentritt dated September 1,
1913, under the title Sus Ultimas Palabras (His Last Words). At the time of the
publication Ferdinand Blumentritt was dead. It was the last publication of the
professor. Ferdinand Blumentritt died on September 20 in Leitmeritz.

On October 15, Blumentritt's son Fritz, Director of the Royal Imperial Lyceum
and of the Girls' Commercial College in Budweis reports to his German friend,
Professor Otto Scheerer, in Manila:
"My good father devoted the last hours exclusively to the Philippines. After a
repeated attack of apoplexy, he spoke only in Spanish of our islands. He died
peacefully, a few hours after he lost consdousness . . . in an undefeated mental
vitality, he wrote to me in the last days that he wanted to start working again . .
."

114
The Leitmeritzer Zeitung (Leitmeritz Newspaper), prints on a whole page on
September 24, 1913, the news of his death and an obituary notice which tells
how Blumentritt's name was known and loved beyond the local and national
borders, that is, even on the other side of our part of the earth, of a man "who
has never set foot in far places, (but) knew his way about the Philippines in the
Far East so well, yes, even better than in his very cramped native country, that
he drew maps of the far away islands in his study in Leitmeritz which are used
as teaching aids in the schools there."

For the very first time, it is reported that during the American-Philippine war,
Blumentritt issued a type of pass to merchants making it possible for them to
bring merchandise from the interior of the islands to the coast. Blumentritt,
therefore, must have acted as de facto consul of the revolutionary government.
The following is said in the obituary about the personality of Blumentritt: "He
distinguished himself as a good orator, as a quick-witted debater, quick at
repartee, and through his satire was specially effective in polemics. As a
narrative writer he could captivate the readers by his witty and charming
descriptions . . . Not only the appeal of his charming personality but also his
vivid art of description won him the hearts of his pupils . . his vigor for work
aroused amazement and admiration . . . a man with outstanding character traits .
. . known everywhere for his amiable willingness to oblige everyone and the
sincerity of his conviction ..."

The funeral service on September 23 is described as a grand social event


participated in by generals, soldiers, the church, government officials and
numerous native and foreign scholars and friends.

Yet, while his native city Leitmeritz was affected by the mourning and funeral
services for Blumentritt, the news of the death of Blumentritt comes to the
knowledge of the Filipinos through adventurous means. On September 23 at
l0:10, at forenoon, Blumentritt's family posted a telegram in Leitmeritz worded
in the French language to a Mr. Rivera in Manila with the note "Via Suez-
Triest". The cable was received on the same day at 11:12 at night in the
telegraph station of the Central Station of Manila, but nobody knew who the
addressee was, because no other more specific address was indicated and there
was more than one Rivera in Manila.

The hunt for the addressee of the telegram began the next morning, that was
Wednesday, the 24th of September 1913. This lasted the whole day but to no
avail. The addressee was nowhere to be found. Then, the bookseller Garcia,

115
who was also an employee of a telegraph company got, by chance, knowledge
of the telegram. He was a friend of Blumentritt and on his part sent an inquiry
to Leitmeritz in order to get more precise information. Then late in the night the
answer of the Blumentritt family arrived. It brought the certainty. The
following day, Remigio Garcia published a death notice with the picture of
Blumentritt. That was the signal for the beginning of a national mourning in a
manner otherwise bestowed only upon statesmen and eminent artists and
scholars in their own country.

Numerous personalities and organizations sent their telegrams of sympathies to


Leitmeritz. There was hardly any newspaper which did not devote its editorial
to the demise of the friend of the Philippines. Here is an assortment from such
articles from the newspapers of that time printed ordinarily in Spanish or
Tagalog:

EL IDEAL: The hearts of the Filipinos are mourning a man of unusual abilities
and of generous heart, a man who knew how to share all our sufferings as well
as our joys, a man who always found words of consolation and comfort for us .
. . perhaps there has never been any other Occidental whose love for our
fatherland . . . has been so great, sincere and spontaneous.

EL MERCANTIL: He devoted a great portion of his intellectual power to the


Philippines, to whose people he has always been a just, noble and reliable
friend . . .

CONSOLIDACION NACIONAL: There is no Fillpino, who, even if he knows


so little of the history of his fatherland, has not heard of this admirable man . . .
he was very popular with the intellectual youth of the country; the learned
professor always found words of admonition and encouragement ...

LA DEMOCRACIA: . . . the eminent champion of the Philippines, this is the


highest title which we can bestow upon him . . . he who earns the title of
adopted son of the Philippines . . . the only man, who, without being born in
our land and seeing the political state of our country only in the corner of a
prism, nevertheless, understood us.

ANG DEMOCRACIA (Tagalog): The loss is immense for us, he was more
than a brother, he who fought for us for a long time till the light of right and
freedom shines for us . ..

116
In the days after the publication of the news of the death of Blumentritt, the
newspapers printed, day to day, decrees of provincial and municipal
governments appointing Blumentritt as honorary citizen and naming streets and
places after him. On November 16, 1913, the Philippine Academy organized an
obsequies for its deceased honorary member. It became a social event in the
capital city. According to contemporary reports, on the stage of the Zorilla
Theater, a mound was symbolically constructed between two chandeliers,
draped with the Austrian flag in front of which the picture of Blumentritt, done
after the manner of the sketch of Rizal, stood, surrounded with flowers and
wreaths. The hall was crowded, there was not enough room for all the
politicians, scholars, artists as well as students, workers, merchants, who had all
come to bid farewell to their friend. With typical Spanish effusiveness, the
newspaper El Ideal reports about the celebration: " ... tribute for the illustrious
Filipino from Leitmeritz, who has assumed a prominent place among the
immortals . . they came, prompted by the desire to attest to the undying
gratitude, the brotherly love and greatest admiration of a nation for a man of
another race and nationality, who in life was our real brother, our wise and
faithful adviser, who wept with us in our grief and celebrated our occasional
triumphs with us ..."

The program of addresses and speeches of about a dozen prominent


personalities, who spoke on the following subject matters:
Blumentritt as ethnographer, as Philippinist, as poet, pedagogue, bibliographer,
Hispanist, as Tagalog researcher, as inspirator of the youth, as journalist, as
politician, gives an idea of the esteem for Blumentritt and his versatility.

It was certainly not by chance that the two most significant speakers of the
obsequies were politicians, who three decades later, in the most difficult times
of the Philippine nation - during the defensive war against the Japanese
occupation - were at the head of their country: Manuel Luis Quezon (1935-
1944) and Sergio Osmea (1944-1946), both of whom became presidents later.
Osmena whose speech was read out because he could not attend, described the
life of Blumentritt, his fight for freedom and his love for his fellow-men as the
essence of the actual story of the en~ancipation of the Philippines. It was of no
consequence that Blumentritt was a foreigner and did not live in the
Philippines. "His ideas of justice were those of ours, his aspiration for freedom
was dedicated to us, he was an honorable friend and brother of the Philippines."
Osmena was at that time speaker of the Philippine Assembly.

117
Quezon, who was a congressman, described him as a great politician; who, like
no other foreigner and like few Filipinos, understood the objectives and
aspirations of the nation. He said that if one studied his works from more than
30 years, then one could marvel at the inconceivable; that a man, who has never
set foot in the Philippines and knew the country only from the study of books
and from contacts with people from that country, could understand so deeply
and vividly what moved the Philippines: "He spoke and wrote about our
country, as if, after a long sojourn in it, he had travelled across the country from
one end to the other; as though, he, the psychologist, pressed forward into the
remotest nook of the Philippine soul ..." It was a great misfortune for Spain that
she did not follow Blumentritt's sincere advice for the initiation of reforms,
Quezon said. He also said that Blumentritt was neither anti-Spanish nor anti-
American, but of course he always gave priority to the search for the best
solution for the most difficult problems of the Philippines. For this reason, he
had a right to the honorary title of first politician of the Philippines.

Blumentritt was bestowed the highest compliment even by Spain. Dr. Miguel
Morayta, former Minister, Professor at the Central University of Madrid, author
of several standard works about the history and constitutions of Spain,
president of the Spanish-Philippine Society was one among the few Spaniards
who helped the Philippines. He, too, expresses his admiration for Blumentritt's
knowledge of the Philippines, defends the professor against the defamations to
which he was exposed during his lifetime and, in conclusion, proposes the
erection of a national monument for Blumentritt in order to honor his memory
visibly.

The engagement of the Philippines with Blumentritt does not end with the
obsequies. The Blumentritt Society is established on February 20, 1914 headed
by prominent personalities in Manila. And a few days later, on February 23, the
members of the House of Representatives approved unanimously resolution
number 75 which decreed the publication of a memorial volume devoted to the
life and work "of Professor Blumentritt, the supporter of the freedom and
progress of the Philippines."

Just in the year 1956, to be exact, on June 12 (the anniversary of the


declaration of independence) the parliament in Manila passes a law (Republic
Act Number 1425) which decreed the entire works of Rizal as teaching material
in all private and public schools and universities. Since the correspondence
with Blumentritt represents the biggest portion of Rizal's exchange of letters it

118
can be said with full justification that Blumentritt is known to practically every
schoolchild in the Philippines.

Kurt, a grandson of Blumentritt, was presented an honorary plaque


posthumously on December 30, 1978, on the death anniversary of Rizal, for his
grandfather's exceptional interest in the history and culture of the Philippine
people . . for his voluntary alliance, his cooperation and his identification with
the Philippine reformist politicians . . . for the publication of many valuable
works about the Philippines . . and for the inspiration and active support, which
he lent the propaganda actions . above all, to his best friend, Dr. Jose Rizal . . ."

A year later, Blumentritt was admitted posthumously to the order of the


Knights of Rizal in the rank of "Knight Commander". Here too, in the
substantiation for his admission, Blumentritt was cited as inspirer-advisor and
friend of Rizal for life and appreciation was paid him for introducing Rizal to
the prominent men of letters and science in Europe and for being a constant
source of courage to his friend and the inspiration for Rizal's vision of an
independent Philippine nation.

In one of the numerous future visions which were exchanged between Rizal
and Blumentritt, Rizal writes in the possibly most touching letter of this long
correspondence: "Yes, I believe the time is already near when I may return to
the Philippines. When I am already there, then you must come with your whole
family and live with me; I am provided with a big library, I shall have a little
house built on a hill for myself; then I shall devote myself to the sciences, read
history and write, establish a school and if you can bear the climate, then you
shall be the director. I am sure all the young ones, the best in the country shall
come to us: Blumentritt-Rizal will stay in the memory of the Filipino people
like Goethe and Schiller, like Horatius and Virgil, like the Humboldts ..."

The inexorability of history destroyed the dream of Rizal but his vision for the
Filipino people came true - the memory of the two friends is alive. May these
lines contribute to making a breach in the wall of ignorance and forgetfulness
so that on his side of the globe, Ferdinand Blumentritt will finally be honored.

Acknowledgements

119
Above all, the author is greatly indebted to the family of Kurt
Blumentritt of Kufstein for the opportunity of utilizing the family
archive,
to the Austrian Embassy in Manila for its service in the procurement of
documents and contacts,
to the cultural-political section of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in Vienna and its head, Ambassador Wolfgang Schallenberg,
to the Late Foreign Minister of the Philippine Republic, General Carlos
P. Romulo,
to the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Leticia R. Shahani,
to the National Historical fnstitute in Manila and its director, Dr. Serafin
D. Quiason, and the publication staff, Mrs. Alicia M. Sison, Mr.
Alexander S. Lim, Mr. Regino P. Paular and Mrs. Magdalena C. Padilla,
to the grandnephew of Jos Rizal, Mr. Antonio Bantug of Manila
to the archive of the district of Leitmeritz in Fulda, Federal Republic of
Germany, for providing valuable historical materials, furthermore,
to the British biographer of Rizal, Austin Coates,
to the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for China and Southeast Asian
Research in Vienna and its Secretary-General, University Professor, Dr.
Gerd Kaminski,
and last but not least, to my wife Lotte, for correcting the manuscript and
for some valuable advice, as well as for procuring contemporary
documents.

Chronological Table of Events


1804
Franz II becomes Franz I, Emperor of Austria.
1809
Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Aspern, Tyrolean Revolt
1810-13
Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon;
First Representation of the Philippines in the Cortes
1814-15
Vienna Congress. Abolition of the Galleon Trade (State monopoly of the
cargo vessel route Acapulco-Manila)
1821
Independence of Mexico (The Philippines are directly gov- erned by
Spain)
1832

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First railway line opens in Austria (Linz-Budweis)
1834
Abolition of the privileges of the Royal Philippine Company;
Manila is opened to world trade
1835
Accession to the throne by Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria
1836
Establishment of the Austrian Lloyd in Triest with ocean traffic to the
Far East and South America
1848
Revolution in Vienna, Prague, Crakau. Accession to the throne by
Emperor Franz Joseph I
1849
All Filipinos are obliged to adopt Spanish family names
1850
Lifting of the domestic customs restrictions in Austria
1853
Ferdinand Blumentritt is born in Prague
1861
Jose Rizal is born in Calamba
1863
Introduction of general primary education in the Philippines;
Andres Bonifacio is born.
1866
War between Prussia and Austria
1867
Enactment of the national statute on the rights of citizens in Austria.
1868
First universal Labor Day in Wiener-Neustadt;
Republican revolution in Spain;
Liberal reforms for the Philippines.
1869
Opening of the Suez Canal, reducing the shipping connection between
Spain and the Philippines from three months to four weeks;
Emilio Aguinaldo is born.
1872
Austerlitz Alliance (Austria, Prussia, Russia);
Mutiny of Cavite, execution of the three priests
1874
Formation of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria
1877

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Graduation of Blumentritt. Commencement of work as professor in
Leitmeritz;
Austria occupies Bosnia-Herzegovina.
1879
First publication of Blumentritt about the Philippines (The Chinese in the
Philippines)
1882
First European trip of Rizal (up to 1887)
1884-85
Graduation of Rizal: Doctor of Medicine, Philosophy and Letters
1886
Beginning of the correspondence between Rizal and Blumentritt
1887
Rizal's visit to Leitmeritz, Rizal writes Noli me tangere;
Rizal's first return to the Philippines
1888
Rizal is in Europe again.
1889
Creation of the "Solidaridad" in Madrid, Blumentritt contributes to the
periodical;
Blumentritt's written defence for the Noli me tangere
1890
Rizal publishes the new edition of the "Morga" with an introduction by
Blumentritt.
Blumentritt is elected to the municipal council of Leitmeritz (He was
council member up to 1908)
1891
Rizal publishes EI Filibusterismo with a foreword by Blumentritt.
First railway line in the Philippines starts operation.
1892
Rizal's second return to his native country, banishment to Dapitan
1896
Beginning of the first Philippine revolution under Bonifacio.
Arrest of Rizal during trip to Cuba, trial and execution.
1898
Beginning of the Spanish-American war, destruction of the Spanish fleet
before Manila. Re-commencement of the Philippine revolution.
Declaration of independence. Formation of the first revolutionary
government. Peace Treaty of Paris, American occupation.
1900

122
Blumentritt becomes Director of the Leitmeritz Classical Secondary
School (up to his retirement in 1911) and privy counsellor
1901
Blumentritt testifies in favor of the granting of independence to the
Philippines in connection with a general inquiry of the University of
Boston.
Capture of Aguinaldo by the Americans.
1902
Philippine-American war ends officially, the American colonial civil
government is established in the Philippines
1906
Approval of the creation of nationalist parties in the Philippines
1907
Introduction of general, equal, secret and direct suffrage in Austria.
Election and convening of the Philippine Assembly, the first Parliament
in Manila
1913
Death of Blumentritt, obsequies in Manila
1914
Assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Beginning of the First
World War
Publication of a memorial volume for Blumentritt by the Philippine
Assembly and the establishment of the Blumentritt Society in Manila.

References
The entire list of the writings and maps of Blumentritt comprises 284 titles.
A selection:

Der Tratado anonimo ber den Aufstand der Cumuneros gegen Kaiser
Karl V.,Leitmeritz, 1878
Die Chinesen aufden Philippinen.Leitmeritz, 1879
Hollndische Angriffe auf die Philippinen. Leitmeritz,1880
Vocabular einzelner Ausdrcke und Redensarten, welche dem
Spanischen der philippinischen Inseln eigentmlich
sind, Leitmeritz,1880
Versuch einer Ethnographie der Philippinen. Gotha, 1882
Die Sprachgebiete Europas am Ausgang des Mittelalters, Prag. 1883
El Noli me tangere de Rizal, Barcelona, 1889
Einiges ber Juan Valera, Leitmeritz, 1894
"Das Kaiserbild," Leitmeritz, 1899

123
"Die Philippinen," Hamburg,1900
Einige Manuskripte aus dem 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Leitmeritz,1904
Alphabetisches Register der Reifeprfungsvorschriften, Leitmeritz, 1909
Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der gebruchlichsten Aquarellfarben,
Leitmeritz, 1910
Die politische Lage der Philippinen, Leipzig, 1889
Der Aufstand auf den Philippinen, Braunschweig 1896

Utilized works of Blumentritt in the "sterreichischen Monatsschrift fr


den Orient", Vienna, 1888-1899:

"Die Philippinen im Jahre 1888"


"Die Philippinen im Jahre 1889"
"Die Philippinen und die Interessen der europischen Grossmchte
"Streiflichter auf die philippinische Revolution"
"Politische Verhltnisse der Philippinen"
"Die Filipinos als Herren im eigenen Haus"

The Rizal-Blumentritt Correspondence, Manila, 1961

Rizal's works, biographies, history of the Philippines, general references;

Agoncillo, Teodoro A.
A Short History of the Philippines. New York, 1975
Agoncillo, T. A., Guerrero, M. C.
History ofthe Filipino People. Manila, 1977
Brinton, Daniel G.
Professor Blumentritt's Studies on the Philippines. Washington, 1899
Castelo, Lea T.
This is the Philippines. Manila, 1977
Coates, Austin.
Rizal. Hongkong, 1968
Constantino, Renato.
The Philippines: A Past Revisited.Manila, 1975.
Costa de la, Horacio
The Trial of Rizal. Manila, 1961.
Craig, Austin.
Rizal's Life and Minor Writings. Manila 1927.
Day, Beth.
The Philippines, Shattered Shozucase of Democracy in Asia. New York,
1974.
Gagelonia, Pedro A.

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Rizal's Life, Works and Writings. Manila, 1974.
Guerrero, Amado.
Philippinische Gesellschaft und Revolution. Mnster, 1973.
Guerrero, Leon M.
The First Filipino, A Biography of Jose Rizal. Manila, 1977.
Information Society, Philippine Service.
The Insurgent Government of 1898. Boston 1901
Information Society.
Aguinaldo and the American Generals. Boston, 1901.
Kalaw, M. M.
Development of Philippine Politics 1872-1920. Manila 1926.
Kolb, Albert.
Die USA und die Philippinen 1898-1942.Essen, 1942.
Leckie, Robert.
The Wars of America. New York, 1968.
"Leitmeritzer Zeitung", "Leitmeritzer Bote", "Leitmeritzer Heimat- bote",
1913-1971
Makosch, Ulrich.
Das Gebet in der Zitadelle, Reisen auf den Philippinen. Leipzig, 1978.
Parker, Donald.
Church and State in the Philippines. 1896-1909. Chicago, 1936.
Philippine Assembly,
Vida y Obras de Ferdinand Blumentritt.Manila, 1914
Rizal, Jose.
Noli me tangere. Hongkong, 1961.
Rizal, Jose.
El Filibusterismo. Hongkong, 1965.
US Government Printing Office.
Area Handhook for the Philippines.Washington, 1976.
Wolff, Leon.
Little Brown Brother. London, 1961.
Zaide, Gregorio F.
Philippine History for High Schools.Manila, 1979.

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