NATIONAL Historical Institute Chair Ambeth Ocampo was quoted by the Inquirer (12/30/09) as having remarked in a recent lecture that Rizal?s wish on how he was to be buried was never fulfilled.

That is true, but Ocampo did not explain why. Unless this is explained, the impression could be made that his family was responsible for it, a family that was totally devoted to Rizal.

According to National Artist Carlos Quirino, in his biography of Rizal titled ?The Great Malayan,? ?The corpse of Rizal remained in the Luneta for about twenty minutes before the Brothers of Charity trundled it off in a cart to the Paco cemetery where it was buried [in an unmarked grave].? No member of Rizal?s big family witnessed the execution as they were in their homes ?under the surveillance of armed guards.?

Jose Baron-Fernandez, a Spanish historian, wrote in his book, ?Jose Rizal, Filipino Doctor and Patriot?: ?The body of Rizal was placed in a van and with the greatest secrecy buried in the old and unused Paco cemetery. Teodora [Rizal?s mother] wanted to comply with the last wish of her son, i.e., that the family should take charge of his cadaver.? Hours after Rizal?s execution, his sister, Narcisa, went to all the cemeteries in Manila to search for her brother?s grave in vain.

?On the way back, she saw through the open gate of the Paco cemetery some guardia civiles [civil guards]. This gave her a clue. She entered the cemetery and after much searching found a grave with freshly turned earth. She gave the gravedigger a tip and placed a plaque with the initials of her brother in reverse, R.P.J., that is Rizal, Protacio Jose.? This was to mislead the authorities who might remove his remains to another site.

Two years later, in August 1898, a few days after the Americans took Manila, Narcisa obtained permission to exhume his body. Biographer Austin Coates in ?Rizal ? Filipino Nationalist and Patriot,? wrote that Rizal?s body was immediately identified through his tattered shoes and clothes, and that the body was buried ?uncoffined,? meaning it was not even placed in a casket.

The Catholic Church, which claimed that Rizal had retracted his writings criticizing the Church, did not say Mass for the hero who had studied at the Ateneo, the Jesuit school. This was one of the reasons cited by Coates and others who disbelieve the claim that Rizal had retracted. For if Rizal had really died in the bosom of the Church, as claimed, he would have been accorded the Catholic burial rites due a prodigal son. Coates also observed that the alleged letter of retraction was not signed by Rizal but was a forgery.

?MANUEL F. ALMARIO,
spokesperson, Movement for Truth in History
(Rizal?s MOTH), mfalmario@yahoo.com