Why Was Jose Rizal Exiled in Dapitan?

Due to his association with the members of Katipunan, Jose Rizal was implicated as one
of its founders and was tried for sedition, rebellion and conspiracy before a military
court. Rizal was already in the Mediterranean when he was arrested en route and
brought back to Manila for trial. He was convicted as guilty of all three charges. He was
sentenced to death and was exiled to Dapitan in 1893.

Rizal was arrested by the Spanish authorities on several grounds, including founding a
society, publishing books and newspapers that spread rebellious and seditious ideas to
the public, possessing a bundle of handbills that violated the Spanish orders, criticizing
the religion spread by the Spaniards and spreading filibusterism in the Philippines.

Even though Rizal was sent to Dapitan as a prisoner, his years of stay in the province
served as one of the most fruitful periods of his career as a doctor, agriculturist,
businessman, engineer, teacher, scientist and linguist. He used his remaining days in
Dapitan to improve his literary and artistic skills. It was also in Dapitan that Rizal met
and married Josephine Bracken, the daughter of a retired Hong Kong engineer. The two
had one son, who died shortly after birth.

Why Was Jose Rizal Exiled in Dapitan?

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Due to his association with the members of Katipunan, Jose Rizal was implicated as one
of its founders and was tried for sedition, rebellion and conspiracy before a military
court. Rizal was already in the Mediterranean when he was arrested en route and
brought back to Manila for trial. He was convicted as guilty of all three charges. He was
sentenced to death and was exiled to Dapitan in 1893.

Rizal was arrested by the Spanish authorities on several grounds, including founding a
society, publishing books and newspapers that spread rebellious and seditious ideas to
the public, possessing a bundle of handbills that violated the Spanish orders, criticizing
the religion spread by the Spaniards and spreading filibusterism in the Philippines.

Even though Rizal was sent to Dapitan as a prisoner, his years of stay in the province
served as one of the most fruitful periods of his career as a doctor, agriculturist,
businessman, engineer, teacher, scientist and linguist. He used his remaining days in
Dapitan to improve his literary and artistic skills. It was also in Dapitan that Rizal met
and married Josephine Bracken, the daughter of a retired Hong Kong engineer. The two
had one son, who died shortly after birth.

RIZAL’S EXILE IN DAPITAN

Rizal’s arrival in Manila on June 26, 1892 had become very sensational among the Filipinos. His
popularity feared the Spaniards, and as such, payed careful attention to his every moves – all houses
where he had been were searched and the Filipinos seen in his company were suspected. As he had
planned, on July 3, 1892 he founded the La Liga Filipina in the house of Doroteo Ongjunco in Tondo,
Manila. (For a more comprehensive discussion on the La Liga Filipina, click here).

Four days after the civic organization's foundation, Jose Rizal was arrested by the Spanish authorities on
four grounds:

1. for publishing anti-Catholic and anti-friar books and articles;

2. for having in possession a bundle of handbills, the Pobres Frailes, in which advocacies were in
violation of the Spanish orders;
3. for dedicating his novel, El Filibusterismo to the three “traitors” (Gomez, Burgos and Zamora) and for
emphasizing on the novel's title page that “the only salvation for the Philippines was separation from the
mother country (referring to Spain)”; and

4. for simply criticizing the religion and aiming for its exclusion from the Filipino culture.

Arrival in Dapitan

Aboard the steamer Cebu and under heavy guard, Rizal left Manila, sailing to Mindoro and Panay, until
he reached Dapitan at seven o'clock in the evening of June 17. From that day until July 31, 1896, Dapitan
became the bare witness to one of the most fruitful periods in Rizal's life. His stay in the province was
more than “he” living in exile – it was the period when Rizal had been more focused on serving the
people and the society through his civic works, medical practices, land development and promotion of
education.

Challenging the Religion

In Dapitan, Rizal had a scholarly debate with Father Pablo Pastells regarding religion. This exchange of
heated arguments revealed the anti-Christian Rizal – his bitterness on the abuses performed by friars,
doing such under the name of the sacred religion. Father Pastells tried his best to win Rizal back to the
faith but fortunately or unfortunately, in vain. These series of debate ended inconclusively in which
neither of them convinced the other of his judgments/arguments.

Careers and Contributions

Rizal had maximized his stay in Dapitan by devoting much of his time in improving his artistic and literary
skills; doing agricultural and civic projects; engaging in business activities, and writing letters to his
friends in Europe, particularly to Ferdinand Blumentritt and Reinhold Rost. His careers and achievements
in different fields were as follows:

§ As a physician, Rizal provided free medicine to his patients, most of them were underprivileged.
However, he also had wealthy patients who paid him well enough for his excellent surgical skill. Among
them were Don Ignacio Tumarong who gave Rizal 3000 pesos for restoring his sight, an Englishman who
gave him 500 pesos, and Aklanon haciendero, DonFrancisco Azcarraga, who paid him a cargo of sugar.
His skill was put into test in August 1893 when his mother, Doña Teodora Alonzo, was placed under
opthalmic surgery for the third time. The operation was a success, however, Alonzo, ignored her son's
instructions and removed the bandages in her eyes which lead to irritation and infection.

§ As an engineer, Rizal applied his knowledge through the waterworks system he constructed in Dapitan.
Going back to his academic life, Rizal obtained the title of expert surveyor (perito agrimensor) from the
Ateneo Municipal. From his practical knowledge as agrimensor, he widened his knowledge by reading
engineering-related books. As a result, despite the inadequacy of tools at hand, he successfully provided
a good water system in the province.

§ As an educator, Rizal established a school in Dapitan which was attended by 16 young boys from
prominent families. Instead of charging them for the matriculation, he made the students do community
projects for him like maintaining his garden and field. He taught them reading, writing in English and
Spanish, geography, history, mathematics, industrial work, nature study, morals and gymnastics. He
encouraged his students to engage in sports activities to strengthen their bodies as well. There was no
formal room, like the typical classroom nowadays. Classes were conducted from 2 p.m to 4 p.m. with the
teacher sitting on a hammock while the students sat on a long bamboo bench.

§ As an agriculturist, Rizal devoted time in planting important crops and fruit-bearing trees in his 16-
hectare land (later, reaching as large as 70 hectares). He planted cacao, coffee,sugarcane, and coconuts,
among many others. He even invested part of his earnings from being a medical practitioner and his
6000-peso winnings from a lottery on lands. From the United States, he imported agricultural machinery
and introduced to the native farmers of Dapitan the modern agricultural methods. Rizal also visualized of
having an agricultural colony in Sitio Ponot, within the Sindañgan Bay. He believed that the area was
suitable for cattle-raising and for cash-crops as the area had abundant water. Unfortunately, this plan did
not materialized.

§ As a businessman, the adventurous Rizal, with his partner, Ramon Carreon, tried his luck in the fishing,
hemp and copra industries. In a letter to his brother-in-law, Manuel T. Hidalgo, he pointed out the
potential of the fishing industry in the province (as the area was abundant with fish and good beach). He
also requested that two good Calamba fishermen be sent to Dapitan to teach the fisher folks of the new
fishing methods, using a big net called pukutan. But the industry in which Rizal became more successful
was in hemp, shipping the said product to a foreign firm in Manila.

§ As an inventor, little was known of Rizal. In 1887, during his medical practice in Calamba, he invented a
special type of lighter called sulpukan which he sent to Blumentritt as a gift. According to Rizal, the
wooden lighter's mechanism was based on the principle of compressed air. Another of his inventions
was the wooden brick-maker can manufacture about 6,000 bricks a day.

§ As an artist, he had contributed his talent in the Sisters of Charity who were preparing for the arrival of
the image of the Holy Virgin. Rizal was actually the person who modeled the image's right foot and other
details. He also conceptualize its curtain, which was oil-painted by a Sister under his instruction. He also
made sketches of anything which attracted him in Dapitan. Among his collections were the three rare
fauna species that he discovered (dragon/lizard, frog and beetle) and the fishes he caught. He also
sculptured the statuette called “The Mother's Revenge” which represented his dog, Syria, avenging her
puppy to a crocodile which killed it.

§ As a linguist, Rizal was interested in the languages used in Dapitan, thus, studied and made
comparisons of the Bisayan and Malayan languages existing in the region. In fact, Rizal had knowledge in
22 languages: Tagalog, Ilocano, Bisayan, Subanun, Spanish, Latin, Greek, English, French, German, Arabic,
Malayan, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Dutch, Catalan, Italian, Chinese, Japanes, Portuguese, Swedish and Russian.

§ As a scientist, Rizal shared his interest with nature to his students. With his boys, they explored the
jungles and searched for specimens which he sent to museums in Europe, particularly in Dressed
Museum. In return, scientific books and surgical instruments were delivered to him from the European
scientists. He also made a bulk of other researches and studies in the fields of ethnography, archaeology,
geology, anthropology and geography. However, Rizal's most significant contribution in the scientific
world was his discovery of three species:

§ Draco rizali – flying dragon

§ Apogonia rizali – small beetle

§ Rhacophorus rizali – rare frog

§ Rizal also partakes in civic works in Dapitan. Upon arriving in the province, he noticed its poor
condition. He drained the marshes of Dapitan to get rid of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. He also provided
lighting system – coconut oil lamps posted in dark streets – in the province out of what he earned from
being a physician. He beautified Dapitan by remodelling the town plaza, with the aid of his Jesuit
teacher, Fr. Francisco Sanchez, and created a relief map of Mindanao (footnote: using stones, soil and
grass) right in front the church.

Romantic affair with Josephine Bracken

Rizal had always been missing his family and their happy moments together in Calamba and his despair
doubled upon the announcement of Leonor Rivera's death. Not soon, to his surprise, an Irish girl
enlightened his rather gloomy heart. This girl was the 18-year old Josephine Bracken who, to Wenceslao
Retana's words, was “slender, a chestnut blond, with blue eyes, dressed with elegant simplicity, with an
atmosphere of light (gaiety).”

From Hongkong, she arrived in Dapitan in February, 1895 with his blind foster father, George Taufer, and
a Filipina named Manuela Orlac. Rizal's fame as an opthalmic surgeon reached overseas, and one of
Rizal's friends, Julio Llorente referred the group to Rizal. Rizal and Bracken instantly fell in love with each
and in just one month, they agreed to marry which appalled and disturbed Taufer. However, the parish
priest of Dapitan, Father Pedro Obach, refused to do so unless they be permitted by the Bishop of Cebu.

On the other hand, Taufer returned to Hongkong uncured. Because no priest was willing to marry the
two, the couple exchanged their vows before God in their own way, which scandalized Fr. Obach. In
1896, their love bear its fruit – Josephine was pregnant. Unfortunately, Bracken gave birth to a one-
month premature baby boy who lived only for three hours. The child was buried in Dapitan, bearing the
name Francisco, after Rizal's father.

Katipunan seek Rizal’s Advice

Prior to the outbreak of the revolution, the Katipunan leader, Andres Bonifacio, seek the advise of Jose
Rizal. In a secret meeting on May 2, 1896 at Bitukang Manok river in Pasig, the group agreed to send Dr.
Pio Valenzuela as a representative to Dapitan who will inform Rizal of their plan to launch a revolution
against the Spaniards. On board the steamer Venus, Valenzuala left Manila on June 15, 1892 and in 6
days, arrived at Dapitan with a blind companion, Raymundo Mata. At night, Rizal and Valenzuela had a
talk in the former's garden. There, Valenzuela told him of the Katipunan's plan. Regarding this, Rizal
outspokenly objected Bonifacio's “premature” idea for two reasons:
1. the Filipinos were still unready for such bloody revolution; and

2. the Katipunan lacked machinery – before plotting a revolution, there must be sufficient arms and
funds collected.

Valenzuela also told Rizal of their plan to rescue him in Dapitan. Again, the exiled hero disagreed because
he had no plan of breaking his word of honor to the Spanish authorities.

As a Volunteer in Cuba

During the peak of the Cuban revolution, Rizal offered his services as a military doctor to compromise
with the shortage of physicians in the said country. It was his friend Ferdinand Blumentritt who informed
him of the situation in Cuba and suggested that he volunteer himself as army doctor. On December 17,
1895, Rizal sent a letter to Governor General Ramon Blanco rendering his service for Cuba. But for
months Rizal awaited in vain for the governor's reply, and loss hope that his request will be granted. It
was only on July 30, 1896 when Rizal received a letter from Governor Blanco, dated July 2, 1896,
accepting his offer. The letter also stated that Rizal will be given a pass so that he can go to Manila, then
to Spain where its Minister of War will assign shim to the Army of Operations in Cuba.

Farewell in Dapitan

At midnight of July 31, 1896, Jose Rizal left Dapitan on board the steamer España, together with Narcisa,
Josephine, Angelica (Narcisa's daughter), three nephews and six of his students. Many were saddened as
the adopted son of Dapitan left.

In Cebu, on their way to Manila, Rizal successfully performed an opthalmic operation to a merchant who
paid him fifty silver pesos. After almost a week, on August 6, 1896, España arrived in Manila. Rizal was
supposedly to board the Isla de Luzon for Spain, but unfortunately, left ahead of time. Instead, he was
transferred to the Spanish cruiser Castilla to stay and wait for the next mail boat that woul sail for Spain
next month. He was prohibited from leaving the vicinity but was allowed to accept visitors so long as
they were his immediate family. Of course, all these delays were part of the drama – Rizal has now fallen
to the critical/deadly Spanish trap.

Rizal lived in exile in far-away Dapitan, a remote town in Mindanao which was under the missionary
jurisdiction of the Jesuits, from 1892 to 1896. This four-year interregnum in his life was tediously
unexciting, but was abundantly fruitful with varied achievements (Zaide, 2008).