Rizal through Czech eyes

Jaroslav Olša, former Czech ambassador to the Philippines, sent a Christmas email that shelved the Rizal Day column I had drafted about my research on the Blumentritt papers in Budweis. Olša translated from the original Czech—“O hlavním strůjci povstvání na Filipínách” (About Main Architect of the Uprising in the Philippines)—an article published in the leading daily Národní listy on Jan. 6, 1897. A week after Rizal’s execution, Napoleon Kheil, one of Rizal’s correspondents, shared these impressions:

“José Rizal was a Malayan, and, from a European perspective, could not be considered handsome, but was indeed rather ugly. His eyes were slanted like a Mongol; his cheekbones protruded inelegantly; his mouth was large and framed by an indiscernible beard; his hair was black, smooth and evidently (from photographs) unkempt. He basically looked—at least in photographs—like a savage whom we had clothed in modern European attire. However, his spiritual characteristics were the polar opposite of his external appearance. Rizal had an acute intellect, was highly educated, and possessed a keen knowledge of the world and its people accumulated during his distant and long travels. He came from a wealthy family of native Filipinos; as with other well-off youngsters from Spanish settlements, Rizal studied in Spain—choosing medicine, and ultimately gaining himself a Doctor of Medicine title. With a view to furthering his studies, Rizal spent considerable time in Paris, before visiting England, central Europe—and even made his way to the Czech lands, taking an active interest in relations between its various ethnographic groups, as well as in the field of linguistics—Rizal himself being fluent in a number of European and Asian languages.

“… I first came into contact with Rizal in 1894, when as a political offender from Manila he was [exiled to] Dapitan, [northern] Mindanao. Rizal’s expulsion was in response to a number of literary works critical of the frailocracy. This word—in Spanish frailocracía—means a government by friars. Fraile essentially means friar. It is also important to note that Augustinian, Dominican, and Franciscan orders own essentially all the cultivated land in the Philippines… and that these orders (as told to me by the Spanish) have annual revenues of more than 20 million pesetas; and that the members of such orders are European Spaniards, who find themselves in continued opposition to ordinary local priests, namely Malay Catholics; and that these wealthy orders hold a kind of sovereign power over the entire Philippine archipelago. Following repeated attacks against the frailocracy—attacks that seemingly took on the character of a kind of ‘filibusterism’ (filibusterismo—an effort to break away from Spain), Rizal was expelled to Dapitan, from where I first wrote to him in 1894.

“At issue was a favor that he was to do for me, which is why I wrote to Rizal in Spanish; not to mention that I was visiting Spain often, and was an all-round ‘aficionado de España.’ A response came within several Sundays, along with the requested package; to return the favor, I sent some books and photographs on the Spanish landscape. Thus, a friendly correspondence was born, without us ever having met in person.

“Evident from his writings: Rizal was undoubtedly a quick-witted person, albeit a certain reserve was always detectable—one might even say frostiness. I believe it likely that as a politically suspect person, his correspondence was being read by the authorities. In one letter, he wrote to me: that he continues to be very busy in Dapitan, providing free-of-charge healthcare services to the locals. It’s easy to imagine that through his medical work Rizal made many loyal friends, not to mention secret adherents of filibusterism. On another occasion, he wrote to me: that he was studying linguistics, specifically the Tagalog and Visayan languages (natively spoken by Filipinos) and that he intended to publish a book containing his research. That was Rizal’s last letter. No further responses to my correspondence were forthcoming! Presumably, either my letters to him or his to me were confiscated—it is impossible to know. Thereafter, our communications were blocked and I was able to learn no more on the fate of Rizal.”

The above was edited to fit this space. The complete article will be in a book I’m editing on Philippine-Czech relations, coming out this 2021.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu