03
July - August 2020
Vol. 1 | No.1
NEWS
YUGTO
SERYE NG TALINGID NA KABIHASNAN
MARAHUYO
03
GUNITA
Vol. 1 | No.1
EDITORIAL
July - August 2020
SERYE NG TALINGID NA KABIHASNAN
MARAHUYO
YUGTO
GUNITA
PLUMA
CARITELA
KINAIYA
PAHAM
SILAKBO
No Heir?
INVALID
Affection
True
DALISAY
Luciana Fiero
"It is normal for a person to look for affection during their lonely times but making it hard to know if it is love. Love is so complex that you can’t even tell everything the meaning of it."
marks a question for us : Are good looks enough reason to be loved?
T
Dr. Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines is known for having many lovers from the past. Although, it is still not certain if he really loved them all. He was one of the men who got easily smitten by the beauty of a woman. He was a friend of Olivia, Jose Rizal’s sister, and he was also a friend of his brother, Mariano Katigbak.
He was 16 years old and Segunda was 14 years old when they met, the reason why it can be considered as puppy love and he was also new to girls. He got really smitten by her beauty that he would sketch her face and write poems about her.
However, he knew from the start that she was promised to marry another woman, Manuel Luz y Metra, and being a gentleman that he was, did not really try to fight for his love. It may just be infatuation that he cannot even give a label on their relationship. It may not be considered as his first love since it is not that genuine that it looks like just a short-lived attraction.
The second romance of Dr. Jose Rizal was with Leonor Valenzuela. She was 14 years old when they met and she was the girl next door in a boarding house he was in. He got captured by her charm and impressive height. When in Madrid, Dr. Jose Rizal met Consuelo Ortiga y Rey and started courting
her even though he is still engaged. A lot of Filipinos admire her so she must be really gorgeous.
Meanwhile, his last romance was with the famous great love of our national hero, Josephine Bracken. At first, he may have pitied her because she was an orphan and they also had a 16 years age gap so he might not consider her being his lover at first. He was in exile
during that time so she was the only girl who was there for him. She was kind to him and she served him. This may be the reason a love between them started to spark.
Although it sounded that he was just lonely because of the death of Leonor Rivera, it might still be true love. There is also a controversy that Dr. Jose Rizal did plan to retract before his execution. His willingness to give up what he worked and sacrificed for to be with her is considered as love. She was really
his great love after all.
It can be seen that not all of them are loved by him. An exile, lonely and deprived of freedom, this is the state of our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, when he met Josephine Bracken, his known ‘great love.’ It is normal for a person to look for affection during their lonely times but making it hard to know if it is love. Love is so complex that you can’t even tell everything the meaning of it.
DURUNGAWAN
Ayn Maighread
o marriage certificate and recorded information
were ever presented - many years have passed
N
but it’s still unclear what exactly the role of
Josephine Bracken to Jose Rizal’s life was:
common-law wife? or church approved better half?
"despite all these rumors, the only thing that is true is that the Philippines’ National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal only had one child – a stillborn boy with Josephine Bracken."
he romanticized notion of Rizal as the epitome of a Filipino casanova during his brief life with women from
various parts of the world during his conquest overshadowed the real love and relationship he had with Josephine Bracken.
T
Rizal was obviously happy in his liaison with the woman who filled in an emotional need during his lonely and boring
days in exile in Dapitan, although his family was not happy about the relationship. His deep concern over Bracken is quite evident and revealing in the numerous letters he penned during the later part of his four years stay in Mindanao. Those were Rizal’s efforts to bring the Irish girl closer to the members of his family.
The couple married themselves before the eyes of God. Later, Rizal and Josephine lived together either in Rizal’s ‘casa cuadrada’ or octagonal bamboo house. For the town folks of Dapitan, it was a scandal and Rizal was aware of it. He admitted that it was very scandalous to live better than
many married people, but he said that they worked together and were contented about his life with Bracken.
Many apocryphal and conflicting stories and histories exist about this episode regarding Rizal's son, Francisco, who "lived for only three hours"
Some have it that Rizal buried it "somewhere in the gaze" area on his Talisay property. Then, on the day he and Josephine left Dapitan, in July 1896, he burned everything down. Other stories even said that he went and buried the child "somewhere in the forest', above his Talisay home, and never told anyone where.
These stories remained rumors because there were no existing letters from Rizal mentioning his son, and what he and Josephine felt with the premature birth, though there’s evidence where he told her mother that
Josephine had a miscarriage.
But aside from this, do you believe Jose Rizal had a real
child? Did Jose Rizal have a son? Did the genius hero have an heir? Stories spread that Jose Rizal is the father of Adolf Hitler despite the lack of resemblance. according to rumors, Jose Rizal has another child and had a one-night stand with
an Austrian prostitute by 1888, as described by his friend.
Also, as Rizal said in his poem - A las flores de Heidelberg (To the flowers of Heidelberg),
Rizal loved German people so much, how much more for its women. However, despite all these rumors, the only thing that is true is that the Philippines’ National Hero Dr. Jose Rizal only had one child – a stillborn boy with Josephine Bracken.
Jose Rizal beguiled women by his intelligence, wit, and charm. Throughout his lifetime, he was linked to nine different women. The stories behind his dalliances revealed that he is a high-level “bolero” and master of “mabubulak na mga pangungusap”.
He was a marvelous writer that’s why it is not hard to fancy why every woman flirts back after he inks his first sentence. Millennials even branded him as the “Great Hokage”. But whose finger did he chose to put a ring on? Or did he even got married before he was exiled?
Among his lovers, he chose to ask the hand of Josephine Bracken, whom he called “Dulce Extranjera (sweet stranger)”, for marriage. The first time he asked her, Bracken refused because she is not yet ready.
For the second time that he tried to arrange their marriage, Father Antonio Obach wanted a retraction as a precondition before marrying them. But in accordance with his beliefs, it was very unlikely for him to do it.
However, Bracken claimed that they got married on the evening before his execution on December 30, 1896, with permission from Spanish authorities.
Father Vicente Balaguer stated that Rizal returned to the Catholic faith and the ceremony was officiated by him.
The ceremony happened between five and six in the morning before the scheduled execution at Bagumbayam.
Rizal also gave her a copy of Fr. Thomas Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ with the dedication:
“To my dear and unhappy wife, Josephine, December 30 th , 1896, Jose Rizal.”
Another physical clue to the Rizal-Bracken marriage is the handwritten autobiography of Josephine where she concluded with a declaration that “Before his execution, he married me at 5 o’clock in the morning.”
She even signed herself as: “Josephine Bracken de Rizal, a widow.” Yet, to say that Rizal had a church-approved marriage with Josephine Bracken is outrageous. Because there are pieces of evidence existing that belying the said ceremony and some sectors including Rizal’s family disputed that the wedding occurred because of the lack of records attesting to the union.
There was even no marriage certificate presented and no recorded information. First of all, it was implausible for Rizal to
retract last minute before his execution. In fact, the last poem that he wrote implicated the church. For him to retract and write something countering the church critically, is a skeptical paradox.
Moreover, Josefa, Rizal’s sister accompanied Bracken to visit the cell and according to her, she didn’t notice any ceremony that happened. This only adds up to the idea that the wedding never occurred. Furthermore, if we will take a closer look at the things that Rizal wrote, we will notice that he never called Bracken as “My wife”.
Since it is not proven that they had a church wedding, then it is safe to say that Josephine Bracken is the common-law wife of Jose Rizal. After all, she did serve him as such. They lived together in Casa Cuadrada and according to his letter to his family, Bracken turned their house into a love nest and she always stocks the pantry with preserved foods and pickles.
here are a total of nine women that were linked to our national hero, Dr. Jose
Rizal - they all have a pretty faces and big personalities that
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