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    Insight To Rizal

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    Aplus International School
    The document discusses the ongoing debate around Jose Rizal's alleged retraction of his writings shortly before his execution. There are competing claims from different historians, with some believing the retraction occurred and others arguing it was fabricated by the Spanish. Multiple pieces of evidence are analyzed but found to be inconsistent or lacking concrete proof. The summary concludes that the debate will likely continue indefinitely due to the lack of clear evidence proving or disproving the retraction, but that Rizal's heroism and faith should be viewed separately from the historical controversy.

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    Insight To Rizal

    Uploaded by

    Aplus International School
    13 views3 pages
    The document discusses the ongoing debate around Jose Rizal's alleged retraction of his writings shortly before his execution. There are competing claims from different historians, with some believing the retraction occurred and others arguing it was fabricated by the Spanish. Multiple pieces of evidence are analyzed but found to be inconsistent or lacking concrete proof. The summary concludes that the debate will likely continue indefinitely due to the lack of clear evidence proving or disproving the retraction, but that Rizal's heroism and faith should be viewed separately from the historical controversy.

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    INSIGHT TO RIZAL

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    The document discusses the ongoing debate around Jose Rizal's alleged retraction of his writings shortly before his execution. There are competing claims from different historians, with some believing the retraction occurred and others arguing it was fabricated by the Spanish. Multiple pieces of evidence are analyzed but found to be inconsistent or lacking concrete proof. The summary concludes that the debate will likely continue indefinitely due to the lack of clear evidence proving or disproving the retraction, but that Rizal's heroism and faith should be viewed separately from the historical controversy.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    13 views3 pages

    Insight To Rizal

    Uploaded by

    Aplus International School
    The document discusses the ongoing debate around Jose Rizal's alleged retraction of his writings shortly before his execution. There are competing claims from different historians, with some believing the retraction occurred and others arguing it was fabricated by the Spanish. Multiple pieces of evidence are analyzed but found to be inconsistent or lacking concrete proof. The summary concludes that the debate will likely continue indefinitely due to the lack of clear evidence proving or disproving the retraction, but that Rizal's heroism and faith should be viewed separately from the historical controversy.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    Erispe, Isabela G.

    Eng 4-2

    On trial: The Haunting Case of Retraction of Jose Rizal

    Rizal’s retraction controversy capture the historians’ interest keep going for almost
    centuries. This controversy made the stand of Jose Rizal as a hero in doubt. Moreover,
    even the historians are divided when it comes to believing this retraction. These
    different perspectives toward this, which are the believers of this retraction who are the
    Masonic Rizalists and the believers of the withdrawal who are called the Catholic
    Rizalists. Nevertheless, the heroism of Jose Rizal must not be viewed in doubt and be
    cage and limited to certain claims without concrete proof. His faith as a man should not
    measure his ability to change his country but must position separately with his heroic
    deeds.

    Just before the execution of Rizal, he was believed that he wrote a letter about his
    withdrawal towards his writings and more. This letter was known as the controversial
    retraction of Rizal that still haunts the Philippine history. They are a lot of versions of
    this story with the pieces of evidence provided by Father Vincent Balaguer, the Cuerpo
    de Vigilancia de Manila, De La Imitacion de Cristo, and the last poem written by Jose
    Rizal himself. According to a testimony by Father Vicente Balaguer, a Jesuit missionary
    who befriended the hero during his exile in Dapitan, Rizal accepted a shorter retraction
    document prepared by the superior of the Jesuit Society in the Philippines, Father Pio
    Pi. The testimony of Father Vincent Balaguer was used to strengthen the claim about
    the retraction of Rizal. He was considered to be the primary source regarding the story.
    However, his claim as the witness was put in questioned as another witness arose.
    Federico Moreno, the writer of the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila’s article about the
    retraction of Rizal. In his news article, he only mentioned Father Jose Vilaclara, Father
    Estanislao March, Juan del Fresno and Eloy Moure. In the entire news article, he didn’t
    mention the arrival of Father Vincent Balaguer in Rizal’s prison. Moreover, this news
    article of the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila was contradicting with the first claim of
    Father Vincent Balaguer. Popularly known as the Katipunan and Rizal documents, the
    Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila is a body of documents on the Philippine revolutions
    that contains confidential reports, transcripts, clippings, and photographs from Spanish
    and Philippine newspapers. This credibility of the Cuerpo de Vigilancia de Manila made
    the claim about the account of Retraction of Rizal reliable. However, this credibility of
    this news article brought by the Spaniards was also questioned because of its multiple
    reproductions but with an inconsistent story. Despite this multiple mass production,
    there is nothing left of the remaining copies of the first published news article about the
    retraction of Rizal today. Moreover, the De La Imitacion de Cristo and the last poem
    written by Jose Rizal was circulated about his marriage with Josephine Bracken. In these
    proofs, Jose Rizal married Josephine Bracken and to make it possible he needed to be
    Catholic again. His last poem merely about his last wish when he died which he wanted
    to be buried with Christian rites. Thus, this remaining claims about the retraction of
    Rizal did not strengthen it.

    As those claims arose, there were questions rises that scrutinize the credibility and
    truthfulness of this retraction of Rizal. The first question is, why would Rizal do it? There
    are a lot of possible answers to this question. First, he did that because he wanted to
    finally marry Josephine Bracken and in order to that, he must withdraw everything from
    his writings down to his own faith. However, this is not a substantial answer for even
    the proof of their marriage was none. Second, he used that so he can free himself. But,
    this answer could also lead to another question which is why would he do that in a very
    uncertain time which within a day he can die and doing it will not surely free him
    immediately. Another question will be is this retraction of Rizal was just made by the
    Spaniards so that they can limit the influence of Rizal?. The Spaniards may be made the
    retraction of Rizal as a propaganda to make the Filipinos see that even their admired
    hero, Jose Rizal surrender to them. This may be a strategy of the Spaniards to make the
    credibility of Rizal as a hero in question in the eyes of the Filipinos. Moreover, if this
    retraction of Rizal was true despite the anomalies, would it still affect his hero? His
    religious belief as a man must be separately viewed to his deeds as a Filipino. In
    addition, his writings only restrain the political view, misdeed, and abuses of Spanish
    Friars but not the Catholicism itself. He was born as a child bond to his Christian beliefs
    and died carrying the same principles of Catholicism. This questions still remain
    unanswered.

    The retraction of Rizal is in a never-ending debate even until now the questions
    remains. This will not end because of lack of pieces of evidence proving it is true or it is
    a forgery. Nevertheless, this paper ponders that the retraction of Rizal will depend on
    the perspective of the readers which of these claims they will believe. Moreover, this
    paper focused on the perspective of the retraction of Rizal as a forgery and it is
    supported by the following. The inconsistent story about the retraction, the lack of
    concrete pieces of evidence to prove its truthfulness, and the unsubstantial possible
    reasons of Rizal to the retraction. As stated above, Jose Rizal’s faith must be viewed
    separately as his heroic deed. His heroism is different in the way he believes in God.

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