Jose Rizal’s Girlfriends

Jovie Marie P. GabisonMWF 3:30-4:30 pm

History 17

Before he was put to death at age 35 by the Spanish colonial authorities in 1896, the national hero, Jose Rizal, had romanced and conquered the hearts of a succession of 10 women, according to several Filipino historians.

Quite a feat for a young man who stood no more than 4’11” tall .

-Guerrero;Author

In his love affairs, Rizal’s popular image as a demigod is stripped and he is revealed to be human after all.

-Dr. Pablo Trillana ;“The Loves of Rizal” (2000)

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Table of Contents• Julia• Segunda Katigbak • Leonor Valenzuela • Leonor Rivera • Consuelo Ortiga• Gertrude Beckette• Nelly Boustead • O Sei San • Suzanne Jacoby• Josephine Bracken

• Rizal was only 15 when he first saw Julia by accident in a river in Los Baños a few days after Easter in 1877. She was wearing a red wraparound skirt.

• “Julia could not catch the butterfly she was chasing. Rizal, ever gallant, caught two,” Trillana wrote.

• Heart beating with strange fondness, Rizal offered her the butterflies and she laughed with innocent pleasure.

• He was instantly attracted to her. But for lack of subsequent contact, Rizal eventually forgot Julia whose surname was never known.

Rizal next met Segunda Katigbak, a

charming girl from Lipa, Batangas. She

was his puppy love, according to Trillana.

Unfortunately, his first love was engaged

to be married to a town mate- Manuel Luz.

After his admiration for a short girl in the

person of Segunda, then came Leonor

Valenzuela, a tall girl from Pagsanjan.

Rizal send her love notes written in

invisible ink, that could only be deciphered

over the warmth of the lamp or candle. He

visited her on the eve of his departure to

Spain and bade her a last goodbye.

• Almost simultaneously, Rizal was meeting another Leonor. The girl, Leonor Rivera, would be his girlfriend for the next 11 years. The two were distant cousins.

• Rivera was to him his ideal woman, his model for Maria Clara, one of the main characters in his first novel, “Noli Me Tangere.” He was ready to marry her. Unfortunately, Rivera’s mother disliked Rizal who was then earning the reputation of being a dissident. The two last saw each other before Rizal left for Spain in May 1882.

• The mother hid from Rivera all the letters that Rizal was sending from Spain. After a passage of many years, thinking that Rizal had abandoned her, Rivera sadly consented to marry Henry Kipping, an Englishman who was her mother’s choice. Rizal was said to have cried shamelessly when news of the wedding reached him.

• Rivera never got to know that Rizal loved her just as much and that the thought of her prevented him from having a serious relationship with any of the women he encountered in Europe—Ortiga, Beckette, Boustead and Jacoby.

• Rizal met Consuelo Ortiga y Rey, the prettier of Don Pablo Ortiga’s two daughters, in Madrid. She fell in love with him after only a few dates. He dedicated to her “A la Senorita C.O. y R,” which became one of his best poems.

• The Ortiga's residence in Madrid was frequented by Rizal and his compatriots. He probably fell in love with her and Consuelo apparently asked him for romantic verses. He suddenly backed out before the relationship turned into a serious romance, because he wanted to remain loyal to Leonor Rivera and he did not want to destroy hid friendship with Eduardo de Lete who was madly in love with Consuelo.

While Rizal was in London annotating the Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, he boarded in the house of the Beckett family, within walking distance of the British Museum. Gertrude, a blue-eyed and buxom girl was the oldest of the three Beckett daughters. She fell in love with Rizal. Tottie helped him in his painting and sculpture. But Rizal suddenly left London for Paris to avoid Gertrude, who was seriously in love with him. Before leaving London, he was able to finish the group carving of the Beckett sisters. He gave the group carving to Gertrude as a sign of their brief relationship.

Rizal having lost Leonor Rivera, entertained the thought of courting other ladies. While a guest of the Boustead family at their residence in the resort city of Biarritz, he had befriended the two pretty daughters of his host, Eduardo Boustead. Rizal used to fence with the sisters at the studio of Juan Luna. Antonio Luna, Juan's brother and also a frequent visitor of the Bousteads, courted Nellie but she was deeply infatuated with Rizal. In a party held by Filipinos in Madrid, a drunken Antonio Luna uttered unsavory remarks against Nellie Boustead. This prompted Rizal to challenge Luna into a duel. Fortunately, Luna apologized to Rizal, thus averting tragedy for the compatriots.

Their love affair unfortunately did not end in marriage. It failed because Rizal refused to be converted to the Protestant faith, as Nellie demanded and Nellie's mother did not like a physician without enough paying clientele to be a son-in-law. The lovers, however, parted as good friends when Rizal left Europe.

On his second trip to Europe in 1888, Rizal stopped by Japan where he met O Sei San, a lovely and intelligent daughter of a samurai. If all he wanted was a good life, he would have married O Sei San and stayed on in Japan because a Spanish legation there was offering him a well-paying job. But he left Japan because he thought he was destined for a greater task in the Philippines and had to go home. In a letter, he said of her: “O Sei San, O Sei San, sayonara. No woman, like you, has ever loved me …”

In 1890, Rizal moved to Brussels because

of the high cost of living in Paris. In

Brussels, he lived in the boarding house

of the two Jacoby sisters. In time, they fell

deeply in love with each other. Suzanne

cried when Rizal left Brussels and wrote

him when he was in Madrid.

• While on exile in Dapitan, Zamboanga, in early February 1895, Rizal met an 18-year-old petite Irish girl, with bold blue eyes, brown hair and a happy disposition. She was Josephine Bracken, the adopted daughter of George Taufer who had traveled to Dapitan from Hong Kong to have his eye treated by Rizal.

• Rizal was immediately attracted to Josephine. He called her “dulce estranjera,” or sweet foreigner. The loneliness and boredom of exile may have taken its toll as he found himself falling in love quite easily. However, Rizal’s sisters suspected Josephine of being a spy for the Spanish authorities and a threat to his security.

• Rizal asked Josephine to marry him, but she was not yet ready to make a decision due to her responsibility to the blind Taufer. Since Taufer's blindness was untreatable, he left for Hon Kong on March 1895. Josephine stayed with Rizal’s family in Manila. Upon her return to Dapitan, Rizal tried to arrange with Father Antonio Obach for their marriage. However, the priest wanted a retraction as a precondition before marrying them. Rizal upon the advice of his family and friends and with Josephine's consent took her as his wife even without the Church blessings. Josephine later gives birth prematurely to a stillborn baby, a result of some incidence, which might have shocked or frightened her.

The women came at varying crossroads in Rizal’s life. And with varying passion and devotion, he would remember each in his heart and works .

END