José Rizal

Who is José Rizal?

José Rizal was a Filipino polymath, writer, and nationalist widely regarded as the national hero of the Philippines. Born in Calamba, Laguna, on June 19, 1861, he trained as an ophthalmologist in Spain and became fluent in numerous languages. His two novels, Noli Me Tangere (1887) and El Filibusterismo (1891), exposed the abuses of Spanish colonial rule and the friars, awakening Filipino national consciousness. Rizal advocated peaceful reform rather than violent revolution and founded La Liga Filipina, a civic organization, in 1892. Arrested and implicated in the Philippine Revolution, he was tried by a military court and executed by firing squad at Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park) in Manila on December 30, 1896. The night before his death he wrote the poem Mi último adiós. His martyrdom galvanized the independence movement, and he remains a towering symbol of Filipino identity and reform.

Sources: José Rizal, Noli Me Tangere (1887) · José Rizal, El Filibusterismo (1891) · José Rizal, Mi último adiós (1896) · Austin Coates, Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr (1968)