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4.1 IMAGINING A NATION
Vocabulary:
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Cortes - the legislative or lawmaking body of the Spanish
government
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Creole - a Spaniard born in the Philippines
Mestizo - an individual born of mixed ancestry; may refer
to a Spanish mestizo or a Chinese mestizo
Propaganda - information used to promote or publicize a
particular cause or point of view
Restoration - refers to the Spanish restoration; a period
in Spanish history spanning the years 1874 - 1931 the
saw the restoration of the monarchy under Alfonso XII
together with the establishment of a bicameral legislature.
Introduction
Towards the end of the nineteenth century economic
conditions in the Philippines had improved in such a way
that it was possible for many creole and mestizo families
to send their sons to school not only in Manila, but also in
Europe. The young Filipino students' sojourn to the
Peninsula would awaken in their minds ideas about
progress and love for their motherland .
Presentation
At the end of the 19th century, economic conditions had
improved in the Philippines.
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Creole and Mestizo family can send their children to
Europe to study.
Filipino students learned the virtue of progress and
love for their motherland through their sojourn in the
Peninsula.
In Europe, Filipino students learned how to think,
question, and imagine what a nation is.
Circulo Hispano-Filipino was the earliest attempt
to unite Filipinos studying in Spain.
It is an organization under the leadership of a creole,
Juan Atayde.
It had the support of Spaniards who were
sympathetic towards the Filipinos.
It published a bi-weekly newspaper titled Revista del
Circulo Hispano-Filipino in 1882.
The newspaper and organization lasted until 1883.
In 1883, Los Dos Mundos came out with the
intention of demanding for the overseas Hispano
Colonies equality of rights and equal opportunities for
progress.
Graciano Lopez Jaena and Pedro Govantes y
Azcarraga were staff members.
Rizal and Eduardo de Lete were article contributors
concerned with socio-political and economic reforms
in the Philippines.
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Another
newspaper
titled Espana
en
Filipinas started its publication through the support
of Filipinos, creoles, and meztizos in Madrid.
The newspaper was short-lived due to glaring
diffences and internal feuding among its staff.
La Solidaridad
It released its first issue on February 15, 1889.
The staff defined its program as:
to combat all reactions;
to impede all retrogression;
to applaud and accept every liberal idea;
to defend all progress.
Reforms sought:
Philippine representation in the cortes
Freedom of the press
End of the practice of exiling residents without due
process.
It ran articles dealing with Spanish politics, attacks
on friars, and reforms for the Philippines.
Article contributors:
Jose Rizal
Dominador Gomez
Jose Maria Panganiban
Antonio Luna
Ferdinand Blumentritt
Del Pilar gradually took on the active role of running
the paper.
Lopez Jaena was the editor in name and known to
be incapable of sustained work.
Del Pilar decided to move to Madrid and the paper
went with him.
The first issue printed in Madrid came out on
November 15, 1889.
A month later, Del Pilar took the helm of editorship.
In 1890, Rizal and Del Pilar had differences with
regard to Philippines affairs.
Rizal believes that to serve the country better, one
had to bring the issues closer to home.
Del Pilar was a skillful politician who felt that efforts
at persuading the Spanish leaders and officials
needed to be continued and that this was the best
way to achieve the reforms Filipinos were seeking.
At New Year’s Eve banquet in 1891, Filipinos in
Madrid proposed that they elect a leader to unite their
community.
Rizal agreed with the proposal while Del Pilar
expressed initial misgivings; nevertheless, the voting
took place.
Rizal won the election, but upon learning that he won
due to the manipulation of his friend, Mariano Ponce,
he felt a shallow triumph so he left Madrid.
The newspaper released its final issue on November
15, 1895.
Marcelo H. del Pilar wrote his final editorial saying,
‘’We are persuaded that no sacrifices are too little
to win the rights and the liberty of a nation that is
oppressed by slavery.’’
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4.2 NOLI ME TANGERE
Vocabulary:
novel- a long written story most often about fictional
events and characters
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setting ( in a novel) - the context in which the events take
place; covers geographical areas in particular periods of
time
book’s publication until a fellow ilusrado, Maximo
viola, insisted on lending him 300 pesos for the
printing of the first 2,000m copies
March 29, 1887- Rizal, in token of his appreciation
and gratitude, gave Viola the galley proofs of the Noli
carefully rolled around the pen that he used in writing
it and a complimentary copy, with the following
inscription: “To my dear friend, Maximo Viola, the first
to read and appreciate my work—Jose Rizal”
plot - the flow of the narrative in a story
Motivations behind Writing the Noli
Introduction
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Jose Rizal’s first novel, Noli Me Tangere, is considered one
of the most important written outputs by the national
hero at the height of his intellectual endeavors in Europe.
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Rizal mustered his academic acumens as he tapped his
knowledge of various fields and wove a narrative that
aimed to represent, if not expose, the realities of
nineteenth century colonial life in the Philippines
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Through the eyes of its characters, one journey of love and
deception, struggles and triumphs; and in the process,
presents pressing questions about power and social
inequalities.
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Presentation
The Publication of the Noli Me Tangere
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Rizal participated in the movement of the ilustrados
to utilized propaganda to campaign for reforms in
the Philippines . Utilizing their intellectual prowess,
the ilustrados released various written outputs from
news bits, to feature articles, and commentaries.
Rizal’s exemplary mastery of words was clearly
evident in one of his most celebrated works, his first
novel, Noli Me Tangere
The idea of publishing a book was not alien to Rizal
In a meeting with the ilustrados in 1884, he proposed
to write a book project to be done collaboratively
with his fellow writers, the project did not materialize
He decided to write a novel on his own
Rizal influenced in the writing of the Noli: 1. Juan
Luna’s painting Spolarium which depicted the
sufferings faced by humanity in the face of
inequalities 2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel by Harriet
Beecher Stowe that dealt with slavery in America.
Rizal finished the first half of the novel in Spain,
supposedly the other half in France, then completed
the draft in 1886. The novel was published the
following year in Germany. Luck of funds delayed the
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The title Noli Me Tangere is a Latin phrase which
means “Touch Me Not”. It is not originally conceived
by Rizal, for he admitted taking it from the Bible
Rizal, writing to Felix Hidalgo in French on March 5,
1887, said: “Noli Me Tangere, words taken from the
Gospel of St. Luke, signify “do not touch me” but Rizal
made a mistake, it should be the Gospel of St. John
(Chapter 20 Verses 13 to 17)
Rizal dedicated his Noli Me Tangere to the
Philippines—“To My Fatherland”
The cover of Noli Me Tangere was designed by Rizal.
It is a ketch of explicit symbols. A woman’s head atop
a Maria Clara bodice represents the nation and the
women, victims of the social cancer. One of the
causes of the cancer is symbolized in the friar’s feet,
outsized in relation to the woman’s head. The other
aggravating causes of oppression and discrimination
are shown in the guard’s helmet and the iron chains,
the teacher’s whip and the alferez’s scourge. A slight
cluster of bamboo stands at the backdrop; these are
the people, forever in the background of their own
country’s history. There are a cross, a maze, flowers
and thorny plants, a flame; these are indicative of the
religious policy, the misdirected ardor, the people
strangled as a result of these all
The novel Noli Me Tangere contains 63 chapters and
an epilogue
Antonio Ma. Regidor- Filipino patriot and lawyer
who had been exiled due to his complicity in the
Cavite Mutiny of 1872, read avidly the Noli and was
very much impressed by its author
Plot
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Having completed his studies in Europe, young Juan
Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin came back to the
Philippines after a 7-year absence. In his honor, Don
Santiago de los Santos, a family friend commonly
known as Captain Tiago, threw a get-together party,
which was attended by friars and other prominent
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figures. One of the guests, former San Diego curate
Fray Dámaso Vardolagas belittled and slandered
Ibarra. Ibarra brushed off the insults and took no
offense; he instead politely excused himself and left
the party because of an allegedly important task.
The next day, Ibarra visits María Clara, his betrothed,
the beautiful daughter of Captain Tiago and affluent
resident of Binondo. Their long-standing love was
clearly manifested in this meeting, and María Clara
cannot help but reread the letters her sweetheart had
written her before he went to Europe. Before Ibarra
left for San Diego, Lieutenant Guevara, a Civil Guard,
reveals to him the incidents preceding the death of
his father, Don Rafael Ibarra, a rich hacendero of the
town.
According to Guevara, Don Rafael was unjustly
accused of being a heretic, in addition to being a
subservient — an allegation brought forth by
Dámaso because of Don Rafael’s non-participation in
the Sacraments, such as Confession and Mass.
Dámaso’s animosity against Ibarra’s father is
aggravated by another incident when Don Rafael
helped out on a fight between a tax collector and a
child fighting, and the former’s death was blamed on
him, although it was not deliberate. Suddenly, all of
those who thought ill of him surfaced with additional
complaints. He was imprisoned, and just when the
matter was almost settled, he died of sickness in jail.
Still not content with what he had done, Dámaso
arranged for Don Rafael’s corpse to be dug up from
the Catholic church and brought to a Chinese
cemetery, because he thought it inappropriate to
allow a heretic a Catholic burial ground.
Unfortunately, it was raining and because of the
bothersome weight of the body, the undertakers
decide to throw the corpse into a nearby lake.
Revenge was not in Ibarra’s plans, instead he carried
through his father’s plan of putting up a school, since
he believed that education would pave the way to his
country’s progress (all over the novel the author
refers to both Spain and the Philippines as two
different countries, which form part of a same nation
or family, being Spain the mother and the Philippines
the daughter). During the inauguration of the school,
Ibarra would have been killed in a sabotage had Elías
— a mysterious man who had warned Ibarra earlier
of a plot to assassinate him — not saved him. Instead
the hired killer met an unfortunate incident and died.
The sequence of events proved to be too traumatic
for María Clara who got seriously ill but was luckily
cured by the medicine Ibarra sent.
After the inauguration, Ibarra hosted a luncheon
during which Dámaso, gate-crashing the luncheon,
again insulted him. Ibarra ignored the priest’s
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insolence, but when the latter slandered the memory
of his dead father, he was no longer able to restrain
himself and lunged at Dámaso, prepared to stab him
for his impudence. As a consequence, Dámaso
excommunicated Ibarra, taking this opportunity to
persuade the already-hesitant Tiago to forbid his
daughter from marrying Ibarra. The friar wished
María Clara to marry Linares, a Peninsular who had
just arrived from Spain.
With the help of the Governor-General, Ibarra’s
excommunication was nullified and the Archbishop
decided to accept him as a member of the Church
once again. But, as fate would have it, some incident
of which Ibarra had known nothing about was
blamed on him, and he is wrongly arrested and
imprisoned. The accusation against him was then
overruled because during the litigation that followed,
nobody could testify that he was indeed involved.
Unfortunately, his letter to María Clara somehow got
into the hands of the jury and is manipulated such
that it then became evidence against him by the
parish priest, Fray Salví. With Machiavellian precision,
Salví framed Ibarra and ruined his life just so he could
stop him from marrying María Clara and making the
latter his concubine.
Meanwhile, in Capitan Tiago’s residence, a party was
being held to announce the upcoming wedding of
María Clara and Linares. Ibarra, with the help of Elías,
took this opportunity to escape from prison. Before
leaving, Ibarra spoke to María Clara and accused her
of betraying him, thinking that she gave the letter he
wrote her to the jury. María Clara explained that she
would never conspire against him, but that she was
forced to surrender Ibarra’s letter to Father Salvi, in
exchange for the letters written by her mother even
before she, María Clara, was born. The letters were
from her mother, Pía Alba, to Dámaso alluding to
their unborn child; and that María Clara was therefore
not Captain Tiago’s biological daughter, but
Dámaso’s.
Afterwards, Ibarra and Elías fled by boat. Elías
instructed Ibarra to lie down, covering him with grass
to conceal his presence. As luck would have it, they
were spotted by their enemies. Elías, thinking he
could outsmart them, jumped into the water. The
guards rained shots on him, all the while not knowing
that they were aiming at the wrong man.
María Clara, thinking that Ibarra had been killed in
the shooting incident, was greatly overcome with
grief. Robbed of hope and severely disillusioned, she
asked Dámaso to confine her into a nunnery. Dámaso
reluctantly agreed when she threatened to take her
own life, demanding, “the nunnery or death!”[2]
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Unbeknownst to her, Ibarra was still alive and able to
escape. It was Elías who had taken the shots.
It was Christmas Eve when Elías woke up in the forest
fatally wounded, as it is here where he instructed
Ibarra to meet him. Instead, Elías found the altar boy
Basilio cradling his already-dead mother, Sisa. The
latter lost her mind when she learned that her two
sons, Crispín and Basilio, were chased out of the
convent by the sacristan mayor on suspicions of
stealing sacred objects. (The truth is that, it was the
sacristan mayor who stole the objects and only
pinned the blame on the two boys. The said sacristan
mayor actually killed Crispín while interrogating him
on the supposed location of the sacred objects. It was
implied that the body was never found and the
incident was covered-up by Salví).
Elías, convinced that he would die soon, instructs
Basilio to build a funeral pyre and burn his and Sisa’s
bodies to ashes. He tells Basilio that, if nobody
reaches the place, he come back later on and dig for
he will find gold. He also tells him (Basilio) to take the
gold he finds and go to school. In his dying breath,
he instructed Basilio to continue dreaming about
freedom for his motherland with the words:
“ I shall die without seeing the dawn break upon my
homeland. You, who shall see it, salute it! Do not
forget those who have fallen during the night.” ”
Elías died thereafter. In the epilogue, it was explained
that Tiago became addicted to opium and was seen
to frequent the opium house in Binondo to satiate his
addiction. María Clara became a nun where Salví,
who has lusted over her from the beginning of the
novel, regularly used her to fulfill his lust. One stormy
evening, a beautiful crazy woman was seen at the top
of the convent crying and cursing the heavens for the
fate it has handed her. While the woman was never
identified, it is suggested that the said woman was
María Clara.
construct a public school to promote education in
the town.
In the sequel of Noli, El filibusterismo, Ibarra returned
with different character and name: he called himself
as Simoun, the English mestizo.
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María Clara de los Santos y Alba, commonly referred
to as María Clara, is Ibarra’s fiancée. She was raised
by Capitán Tiago, Binundok’s cabeza de barangay
and is the most beautiful and widely celebrated girl
in San Diego. In the later parts of the novel, María
Clara’s identity was revealed as an illegitimate
daughter of Father Dámaso, former parish curate of
the town, and Doña Pía Alba, wife of Capitán Tiago.
In the end she entered local covenant for nuns
Beaterio de Santa Clara. In the epilogue dealing with
the fate of the characters, Rizal stated that it is
unknown if María Clara is still living within the walls
of the covenant or she is already dead.
The character of María Clara was patterned after
Leonor Rivera, Rizal’s first cousin and childhood
sweetheart.
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In the novel, it is said that Capitán Tiago is the richest
man in the region of Binondo and he possessed real
properties in Pampanga and Laguna de Bay. He is
also said to be a good Catholic, friend of the Spanish
government and was considered as a Spanish by
colonialists. Capitán Tiago never attended school, so
he became a domestic helper of a Dominican friar
who taught him informal education. He married Pía
Alba from Santa Cruz.
IBARRA
Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin, commonly
referred to the novel as Ibarra or Crisóstomo, is the
protagonist in the story. Son of a Filipino
businessman, Don Rafael Ibarra, he studied in Europe
for seven years. Ibarra is also María Clara’s fiancé.
Several sources claim that Ibarra is also Rizal’s
reflection: both studied in Europe and both persons
believe in the same ideas. Upon his return, Ibarra
requested the local government of San Diego to
CAPITÁN TIAGO
Don Santiago de los Santos, known by his nickname
Tiago and political title Capitán Tiago is a Filipino
businessman and the cabeza de barangay or head of
barangay of the town of Binundok. He is also the
known father of María Clara.
MAJOR CHARACTERS
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MARÍA CLARA
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PADRE DÁMASO
Dámaso Verdolagas, or Padre Dámaso is a Franciscan
friar and the former parish curate of San Diego. He is
best known as a notorious character who speaks with
harsh words and has been a cruel priest during his
stay in the town. He is the real father of María Clara
and an enemy of Crisóstomo’s father, Rafael
Ibarra. Later, he and María Clara had bitter
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arguments whether she would marry Alfonso Linares
or go to a convent.[13] At the end of the novel, he is
again re-assigned to a distant town and is found
dead one day.
In popular culture, when a priest was said to be like
Padre Dámaso, it means that he is a cruel but
respectable individual. When one says a child is “anak
ni Padre Damaso” (child of Padre Dámaso), it means
that the child’s father’s identity is unknown.
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ELÍAS
Elías is Ibarra’s mysterious friend and ally. Elías made
his first appearance as a pilot during a picnic of Ibarra
and María Clara and her friends.[14] He wants to
revolutionize the country and to be freed from
Spanish oppression.
The 50th chapter of the novel explores the past of
Elías and history of his family. In the past, Ibarra’s
great-grandfather condemned Elías’ grandfather of
burning a warehouse which led into misfortune for
Elías’ family. His father was refused to be married by
his mother because his father’s past and family
lineage was discovered by his mother’s family. In the
long run, Elías and his twin sister was raised by their
maternal grandfather. When they were teenagers,
their distant relatives called them hijos de bastardo
or illegitimate children. One day, his sister
disappeared which led him to search for her. His
search led him into different places, and finally, he
became a fugitive and subversive.
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Doña Victorina de Espadaña, commonly known as
Doña Victorina, is an ambitious Filipina who classifies
herself as a Spanish and mimics Spanish ladies by
putting on heavy make-up.[12] The novel narrates
Doña Victorina’s younger days: she had lots of
admirers, but she didn’t choose any of them because
nobody was a Spaniard. Later on, she met and
married Don Tiburcio de Espadaña, an official of the
customs bureau who is about ten years her
junior. However, their marriage is childless.
Her husband assumes the title of medical doctor
even though he never attended medical school;
using fake documents and certificates, Tiburcio
practices illegal medicine. Tiburcio’s usage of the title
Dr. consequently makes Victorina assume the title
Dra. (doctora, female doctor). Apparently, she uses
the whole name Doña Victorina de los Reyes de de
Espadaña, with double de to emphasize her marriage
surname. She seems to feel that this awkward titling
makes her more “sophisticated.”
PILOSOPO TACIO
Pilosopo Tacio, known by his Filipinized name
Pilosopo Tasyo is another major character in the
story. Seeking for reforms from the government, he
expresses his ideals in paper written in a
cryptographic alphabet similar from hieroglyphs and
Coptic figures hoping “that the future generations
may be able to decipher it” and realized the abuse
and oppression done by the conquerors.
His full name is only known as Don Anastacio. The
educated inhabitants of San Diego labeled him as
Filosofo Tacio (Tacio the Sage) while others called
him as Tacio el Loco (Insane Tacio) due to his
exceptional talent for reasoning.
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DOÑA VICTORINA
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