THE EL FILIBUSTERISMO

In spite of the problems of the La Solidaridad, Jose Rizal decided to write a

sequel to Noli Me Tangere. Interrupted over and over again, he continued to work on
the second novel for several years. He began writing it in London, continued it in
Paris and Madrid, and finally completed it in Biarritz. The struggle for money in the
course of writing and publication, the edition was finished only in September 1891.
Rizal named the work El Filibusterismo. The French form "filibuster" is derived
from the English word "flyboat" or the Dutch word "Flieboat." These were small fast
boats that the pirates used in the 7th century in the Carribbean. According to some
other accounts, "filibuster" has its origin in the English word "freebooter," from which
the German "Freibeuter" was derived (Craig, 1913). According to Jose Rizal, a
filibustero is

• Someone who does not raise his hat to the Spaniards

• Someone who only greets a friar instead of kissing his hand or his habit
Someone who offers resistance to being addressed with the familiar "tu" by
the best Spaniards
• Someone who subscribes to a periodical from Spain or another European
country
• Someone who reads books other than miracle stories and biographies of
saints
Rizal dedicated the new book to the three priests, Gomez, Burgos, and
Zamora, who were executed because of their supposed participation in the first
revolutionary campaign of modern Philippine nationalism, the Cavite Mutiny. Rizal
derived the reason to dedicate the work to them from the fact that the Church did not
excommunicate the three priests and that there were serious mistakes in the
surreptitious trial which led to their death.
The Fili, like its predecessor, contains dramatic and romantic elements of the
social novel of the late 19th century. It is a reflection of the colonial society of that
time. Moreover, it also has a profound symbolism of Rizal. The question of "evolution
or revolution" and the problem of whether to wait for justice from the hands of the
Spaniards or to take the law into one's own hands are interspersed in the entire
book.
Compared with the Noli, the El Filibusterismo contained the book's value and
significance, not in the melodramatic plot, but rather, in the dialogues and debates
that raised the problems of colonialism. With a brilliant foresight, Rizal took up issues
and problems for discussion, which today, are still of great importance. The Fili was
essentially a call to revolution although with many limitations. Nevertheless, it was
published in an extensively more relaxed atmosphere than the Noli. It created a stir,
when for the first time, a Spanish newspaper, the liberal Nuevo Regitnen (New
Regime) reproduced the novel in daily sequels in October 1891.
PLOT OF THE NOVEL (SOURCE: RUSSEL AND RODRIGUEZ, 1923)
El Filibusterismo picks up the threads of the narrative where Noli leaves off,
with the return of Ibarra under an assumed name, Simoun. Having amassed a
fortune abroad, he returns to the Philippines with the new Spanish Governor-General
whom he has under his sinister influence as he has already planned. On board the
dingy Steamer, Tabo, en route to San Diego on the Pasig River, he is the subject of
conversations on the lower deck, as well as the center of attention on the upper
deck. The thirteen years away from his country have transformed him into an
exoticlooking, mysterious personality with a definite purpose: the subversion of the
regime. This he proposes to do by using his enormous wealth and influence to
encourage corruption in the government and foment such economic distress as
possible to drive the people to take up arms. To his chagrin the biggest obstacles to
his plans are the young native intellectuals, who are dedicated to a program of
reforms leading to the assimilation of the Filipinos into the Spanish nation. Typical of
these reforms is the establishment of an academy of the Spanish language under lay
control.
The book starts with a tease at the people with whose tardiness to respond to
the progressive ideas Rizal is becoming impatient:
...One morning in December the steamer Tabo was laboriously ascending the
tortuous course of the Pasig, carrying a large crowd ofpassengers towards the
province ofLaguna. She was a heavily built steamer, almost round, like the taboo
from which she derived her name, quite dirty in spite of her pretentious whiteness,
majestic, and grave from her leisurely motion. Altogether, she was held in great
affection in the region, perhaps from her Tagalog name or from the fact that she
bore the characteristics impress of things in the country, representing something like
a triumph over progress, a steamer that was not a steamer at all, an organism, solid
imperfect, yet unimpeachable, which, when it wished to pose as being rankly
progressive, proudly contented itself with putting on afresh coat ofpaint Indeed, the
happy steamer was genuinely Filipino! If a person were only reasonably considerate,
she might have been taken for the ship of state constructed, as she had been.

No one suspects that Simoun, the affluent jeweler, is the fugitive Ibarra. Only
Basilio, son of Sisa who has come to know the secret. But even Basilio finds it
difficult to reconcile the dreamer and the idealist that once was Ibarra to the shrewd,
sly schemer that is now Simoun. Basilio, stumbles on Simoun's secret on a
Christmas day visit to his mother's grave in the woods of the Ibarras. Simoun tries to
win Basilio to his side as he explains his plans. He has returned to overthrow the
government and avenge the injustices he has suffered. He would use his wealth and
his influence to encourage corruption in the high circles of government; as a result,
he would drive the people to despair and incite them to revolution. His obsession, the
revolution, would primarily become a fulfillment of his vow of vengeance. The
people's freedom in the process would come only as a secondary purpose:
 Simoun - Ibarra has another to take Maria Clara away from the nunnery and
to avenge the ruin of his life. He makes two efforts but both fail. Twice Simoun
attempts to ignite the fires of rebellion, but he fails. on the first occasion, the news of
Maria Clara's death reaches him just as he is about to give the signal for the
coordinated attacked on the city. His second attempt is thwarted by Isagani, who
snatches the lamp Simoun sends as a wedding gift to Isagani's former sweetheart,
who marries another suitor. The lamp contained a homemade bomb, which is timed
to blow up when all the invited high officials and friars are seated at the wedding
feast. The lamp will be hung over the main table of the feast, and the house itself,
Capitan Tiago's old mansion, has been mined. At the decisive moment the lamplight
will flicker; when the wick is raised, the bomb will explode. Having been warned by
his good friend Basilio of the impending explosion, Isagani risks his life to save
Paulita. Meanwhile, the parchment prophesying doom is passed around among the
wedding guests and Simoun is pinpointed as the instigator of the scheme. The
signature identifies Simoun as Ibarra (Russell & Rodriguez, 1923).
Simoun flies with his box of jewels. Hunted by the law and wounded, he seeks
sanctuary in the house of a native priest, Father Florentino. To escape his pursuers,
he takes poison and dies in despair. The priest takes the dead man's treasure chest
and hurls it into the sea "where it will not do evil, thwart justice or incite greed."
As before, Rizal uses with photographic accuracy the materials of Philippine
life that had passed under his own observation. The wanderings of Simoun the
jeweler give him the needed occasions: he hangs upon them startling pictures of
actual conditions, the power of the friars, the brutality and cowardice of the governing
class, the terrible wrongs of the people; the story of Maria Clara's parentage he had
from an incident in his own neighborhood. Poverty, chastity, and obedience were the
oath of the degenerate successors to a noble race of Christianity's pioneers. As to
poverty, their corporations had become the wealthiest institutions on the Islands.
Rizal is now about to show how they had obtained the wealth that made their power
supreme and pervasive (Russell & Rodriguez, 1923).
Simoun's purpose from the beginning has been to excite the people to an
uprising by which he hopes to win his revenge on friars and government alike and to
free Maria Clara from the nunnery where she has been virtually a prisoner since
Ibarra's arrest as told in Noli Me Tangere. The actual situation on the Islands is
illunlinated by picturing Simoun as telling some persons that insurrection is desired
by the governor. general to free himself from the friars and telling others that the
friars are planning to rid themselves of the governor-general. In the chaos through
which the social order was drifting, either story was plausible. Simoun in his
ceaseless intriguing ways has maneuvered the chaos within his power. The
character Of Quiroga, an influential Chinaman, had secret dealings with the
government. Through this connection Simoun is able to have his rifles passed
through the custom — house as some of Quiroga's illicit importations. He spreads
his nets and lays his plan, tutors his accomplices, distributes his arms, and when all
is ready for his explosion he is stunned with the news that so far as Maria Clara, is
concerned it is too late. She is dead in the convent (Russell & Rodriguez, 1923).
 Some other characters of the first book reappear in El Filibusterismo. Father
Salvi, the lascivious friar whose machinations have brought about Ibarra's downfall;
Capitan Tiago, Doha Victorina, and Basilio, the son of Sisa, who is sent to school by
Capitan Tiago and becomes a physician but is unable to save his benefactor who,
encouraged in opium smoking by a friar, dies leaving his wealth to the Church.
Espadafia runs away from Dona Victorina, who pursues him all over the archipelago
but never catches up with him. Father Salvi becomes ecclesiastical governor of the
archdiocese. Father Sybila is glimpsed again, as elegant and sibylline as ever. Rizal
tries to redress the balance which was so weighed against the friars in the Noli. A
Dominican, Father Fernandez, earnestly tries to understand the Filipino intellectuals
and defends the work of the Church and the religious orders. The noblest character
in the novel is a good priest, the native secular Father Florentino. But the indictment
is only softened. It is not a sinister and sanctimonious lecher like Salvi but a jolly
muscular serenade, Father Camorra, who rapes Basilio's sweetheart Juli and drives
her to suicide; the crime is scarcely more palatable for all that. Cabesang Tales, the
farmer hounded into banditry, has more understandable motivations than Elias; the
student intellectuals are more human and believable than Ibarra; but there is no
character to match Doha Victorina, Tasio the scholar or the "Muse of the
Constabulary." Paulita is only a more calculating Maria Clara; Isagani, a less
generous Ibarra; Pelaez, as instigating and craven as Linares. Even Don Custodio,
the "liberal" hoarder of reforms, does not come as alive as Capitan Tiago (Russell &
Rodriguez, 1923).
One must remember that the Fili, as a novel, is inferior to the Noli -- perhaps
because it was so drastically shortened. Many of the incidents and characters are
taken from the society of the times. The young intellectuals' project for an academy
of the Spanish language, which causes such a stir in official circles and eventually
leads to the arrest of its principal proponents, is obviously based on the identical
proposal of the young women of Malolos. Even the quarrel for precedence among
the guilds in Binondo finds a place in the story.

The first attempt at rebellion planned by Simoun - Ibarra depends for its
success partly on the suburbs rising in protest against a decree for the demolition of
nipa huts, a clear parallel with the destruction of the houses of the dispossessed
Kalamba tenants. The oblique references to the personages of the regime are only
thinly disguised: the Governor-General is described as a man determined to put the
highest official adviser in his place, automatically reversing his recommendations: a
reference to the relations between Wyler and Quiroga. The influence of the
wellconnected "countess" is emphasized, as well as her greed for bribes. Sometimes
Rizal does not even bother to mask the actual basis of his story, as in the case of
CabesangTales (Russell & Roériguez, 1923).
Tales and his family have made a forest clearing only to find, on the eve of
their first harvest, that the religious order, which owns lands in the neighboring town,
is claiming ownership of the fields. Tales does not want "to match his clay pot
against the iron plan of the friars" and agrees to pay an annual rental. "Make
believe," his old father advises him, "that you dropped the money in the river and a
crocodile swallowed it." After two good harvests, the friars double the rental.
"Patience," his father tells Tales, "make believe the crocodile has grown." Still Tales
prospers and is named headman and tax collector, becoming CabesangTales. Soon
he is making up from his own funds the taxes he fails to collect. "Patience," his father
repeats, "make believe the crocodile's family has joined the party." The rentals are
now raised to ten times the original amount, and when Tales protests, he is bluntly
told that if he cannot pay, his lands, for which his wife and daughter have paid with
their lives, will be given to another. At last he rebels, refuses to pay, and is taken to
court. He spends all his savings on lawyers' fees and court charges and in the
meantime patrols his fields armed with a shotgun. He loses the suit and appeals. His
son is drafted into the constabulary and Tales refuses to pay for a substitute. A
decree is issued against the carrying of arms and his gun and bolo are taken away
from him. The inevitable happens; he is kidnapped by outlaws and to pay his ransom
his favorite daughter has to go into domestic service. When Simoun - Ibarra visits the
town and offers any price or any of his jewels in exchange for a reliquary that once
belonged to Maria Clara, Tales takes the jeweler's gun instead, leaving the reliquary
in its place. The next day the friar administrator of the estate and the tenant who had
taken Tales's fields, as well as the tenant's wife are found murdered.

"...Do not be alarmed, peaceful citizens of Calamba! None ofyou is called

Tales, none of you committed the crime! You are called Luis Habana, Matias
Berlamino, NicasioEigasani, Cayetano de Jesus, Mateo Elejorde, Leandro Lopez,
Silvestre Ubaldo, Manuel Hidalgo, Paciano Mercado you are the whole town of
Calamba. You have cleared your fields, you have spent on them the labors of a
lifetime, savings, sleepless nights, Privations, and you have been stripped of all,
driven out ofyour homes, deprived by order even of the hospitality of others. They
were not content with doing violence to justice; they broke the most sacred traditions
of our country. You have served Spain and the King and, when you askedforjustice
in their names, you were exiled without trial and tornfrom the arms ofyour wives and
the kisses ofyour children. Any one ofyou has suffered more than Cabesang tales
and yet none ofyou, not one has taken the law in his own hands. There was
neitherpity nor humanfeelingforyou, and like Mariano Herbosa you have been
persecuted even beyond the grave. Weep or laugh in the solitary islands where you
wander, idle and uncertain of the future. Spain, generous Spain, watches over you,
and sooner or later you shall have justice!"
Rizal's apostrophe does not more than reveal the source of his material and
the emotions under whose influence he wrote his story; it suggests the whole point of
his novel: what is a man to do when he is denied justice, take the law into his own
hands or wait for Spain to give him his rights? He had already posed the question in
the dialogues between Ibarra and Elias in the Noli; El Fili repeated it in broader
terms. In the Noli Rizal had, as we have seen, concentrated his fire on the friars; the
Governor General had good intentions but was powerless to put them into effect
against the power of the religious orders whom he detested. In the Fili, Rizal indicted
the entire regime including its native defenders and supporters. Now the
GovernorGeneral himself, that is to say, the representative of the Crown and the lay
constitutional authority, was. shown as no better than the friars with whom he
consorted. The highest official adviser, a left-handed tribute to Quiroga, was pictured
as resigning in disgust with an official policy that betrayed the true Spain. Even a
reputed liberal, like the counselor Don Custodio was likely to spend his time
searching for compromise formulas. The native intellectuals were not much better.
Either, like the eminent lawyer Senor Pasta, they preferred to live peaceful and
prosperous lives in discreet silence and subjection or, like the university students,
they were deluded by hopes of an impossible "assimilation" into the Spanish nation.
The Noli's inconclusive debate between Ibarra and Elias is carried on in the Fili
between Simoun - Ibarra and Basilio, the medical student who is dreaming of
marriage and a career (Russell & Rodriguez, 1923).
Ibarra and Elias both had something of Rizal. There is very little ofRizal in
Basilio, except perhaps that young Rizal who had also once dreamed of settling
down with Leonor Rivera as a country doctor. But that Rizal was gone, betrayed by
an Englishman. What remained was the embittered Simoun, and Rizal is close to
identifying himself with the apostle of revolution.
Compared with Noli, Fili was more profound politically because it suggested a
way out of the impasse in which the intellectuals were finding themselves, asking for
reforms that would never be granted. These reforms were vain hopes that only
fooled the people.

Father Florentino then closes the novel with what we must take to be of
Rizal's own thoughts on the issue. "Assimilation" has been rejected as the vain hope.
"Separatism" or in a plainer word independence, has been advocated openly. Rizal
in the Fili is no longer the loyal reformer; he is the subversive separatist, making so
little efforts at concealment that he arrogantly announces his purpose, which means
subversion, in its dedication to Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora, victims of the evil that
Rizal was trying to fight but also officially condemned as instigators of rebellion.
The thought of revolution in real life may have called up too many as "bloody
apparitions"; where it also suggested the many unexpected events, the twists and
turns of circumstance, the sudden whims of individuals on which the success of a
revolution may hinge. There is a certain uneasiness inherent in the failure of
Simoun's two attempts: the first, because of his own personal demoralization upon
the unforeseen death of Maria Clara; the second, because of the totally incalculable
intervention of Isagani in removing the bomb to save the unfaithful Paulita. Rizal
surely remembered the two greatest uprisings with his generation's memory:
Novales's coup, which failed because his own brother in command of Manila's
citadel had refused to surrender it and beat off the rebels' attack; and the 1872
mutiny, which failed because the conspirators in Cavite had risen prematurely.
What are we to conclude from this? In Rizal's mind, the Filipinos of his
generation were not yet ready for revolution because they were not yet ready for
independence as they were still unworthy of it. When the individuals learned to value
the social good above personal advantage, and when these individuals became a
nation, "God would provide the weapon," whatever it might be, whether revolution or
otherwise, and independence would be won. Until a new uncorrupted generation
arose, independence would be a delusion, a change of masters, and it was better to
bury the revolution in the depth of the sea. However, Bonifacio would disagree.
History and revolution would not wait for the pure and immaculate victim.
What Rizal wanted, "but in the present circumstances we do not desire a
separation from Spain;" all that he was asking was more attention, better education,
a higher quality of government officials, one or two representatives in the parliament,
and more security of ourselves and our fortunes. Spain could win the affection of the
Filipinos at any time if Spain were reasonable.
A glimpse of one of the Fili's main themes was written by Rizal to hisfriend:
The Filipinos have desired Hispanizationfor a long time, and they were wrong in
doing so. It is Spain, not the Philippines, that should desire the assimilation of the
country; now we have been taught this lesson by the Spaniards and we should thank
them for it.
This was even before his return to the Philippines and the Calamba evictions.
By October, when the news came of the decrees of deportation against his family,
his feelings were sharpened by personal bitterness: "Those who deport or imprison
any individual without a right to do so can only expect our hatred and, if we cannot
avenge ourselves, our sons and, if not, our grandson will do so!"
However, Rizal was still very far from thinking like Simoun as stated in his
letter to Blumentritt in January 1889, and was nearer to the mind of Fr. Florentino.
We desire the happiness of the Philippines but we want to obtain it by noble
andjust meansfor reason is on our side and we should not therefore do anything evil.
If, to make my country happy, I had to act vilely, I would refuse to do so because I
am sure that what is built on sand will collapse sooner or later...if it were impossible
to overcome our enemies now, another day will dawn, another day will come, for
there must be a God ofjustice; otherwise, we would turn into atheists.
On the other hand, this insight of Rizal did not last long since after his
confinement, he wrote a letter to Del Pilar in April 1890, which states that:
I am assiduously studying the events in our country. I believe that only
intelligence can redeem us, in the material and in the spiritual. I still persist in this
belief. Parliamentary representation will be a burden on the Philippines for a long
time. Ifour countrymen felt otherwise than they do, we should reject any offer ofsuch
representation but the way we are, with our countrymen indifferent, representation is
good. It is better to be tied elbow to elbow.
In this context, one can see the theme of the Fili is taking shape: the Filipinos
may eventually "prefer to die rather than to endure their miseries any longer," and
then violent means will become inevitable; but in the long run "only intelligence can
redeem us, in the material and in the spiritual."
 NATIONALISM IN EL FILIBUSTERISMO
Rizal was a cultured man of ideas: a scholar with versatile talents, an
intellectual humanist obsessed with the fact that his people must be liberated from
the oppressive ignorance and delivered into a conscious awareness of unity and
freedom means of education.
None of Rizal's writings has had more tremendous effect on the Filipino
people than his two novels that courageously criticized Philippine life during the 19th
century; both express the theme of Philippine nationalism in a most profound and
dramatic manner to arouse the latent spirit of a frustrated Filipino people.
To the Fi,lipino reader who understands the historical background of the
novels, Rizal traced the delicate portrait of a people faced with social problems and
political enigmas. Many of the predicaments presented have contemporary
relevance.
To understand Rizal's purpose in writing the novels, one has to look at his
dedication of the El Filibusterismo, which reads thus:
To the memory ofthe priests, Don Mariano Gomez, eighty five, Don Jose
Burgos, thirty, and Don Jacinto Zamora, thirty five, who were executed on the
scaffold at Bagumbayan on 28 February 1872.
The Church, by refusing to unfrock you, has put in doubt the crime charged
against you; the Government by enshrouding your trial in mystery and
pardoningyour co-accused has implied that some mistake was committed when
yourfate was decided; and the whole ofthe Philippines in paying homage to your
memory and callingyou martyrs totally rejects your guilt.
As long therefore as it is not clearly shown that you took part in the uprising in
Cavite, I have the right, whether or not you were patriots and whether or not you
were seeking justice and liberty, to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil I
am trying to fight. And while we wait for Spain to clear your names some day,
refusing to be a party to your death, left these pages serves as a belated wreath of
withered leaves on your forgotten graves. Whoever attacks your memory without
sufficient proofhas your blood upon his hands.

J. RIZAL
In Philippine Nationalism: External Challenge and Response 1565 — 1946
points to the way in which Fili lays out a nationalist response to Spanish colonialism
in three stages:
It was, however, too much to expect Spain to see far ahead into the 20th
century. For the time being it was appalled and alarmed at the rise of vocal
Philippine discontent and restlessness. Thereafter, the term "Filibusterism," or
advocacy of secession from Spain was used by the Spanish government to nip any
demand for reform in the bud. It was a term of opprobrium applied by the Spanish
authorities to Philippine nationalists who, being accused of advocating separation
from Spain, were liable to torture and even execution. The word, which gained wide
currency in the latter ofthe 19th century was immortalized in El Filibusterismo, a
novel by Jose Rizal, the patriot-saint of the Philippines. The term Filibusterismo, as
indeed the novel, was not merely a poignant articulation of a subject nation's
anguished defiance. It was also expressive of the threephased Philippine
nationalism, which under Spanish repression evolved ftvnt multi-faceted passive
nationalism through organizational nationalism' into a militant revolutionary
nationalism.

EL FILIBUSTERISMO AND THE REVOLUTION

Rizal's 2nd novel, El Filibusterismo, was considered to have influenced the

impending revolution together with the first novel, Noli Me Tangere, despite his
advocating for nonviolence in the first masterpiece. It is justly considered the gospel
of Philippine Nationalism, which was both praised and condemned. It was through
his writings that Rizal promoted nationalistic ideas that influenced the Filipino people
to stand against the colonial abuses and discrimination and awakening the nation
from a long, deep slumber, highlighting the need for significant reforms and an end
to Spanish rule. He remains to be a symbol of heroic inspiration, allowing for the
necessary revolution to free the Filipino people from the bondage of the colonizers.
However, although the inspiration of Philippine Revolution of 1896 seemingly
connects with Rizal's literary work, there was no hard evidence that connects the
novel to the revolution. The portrayal of Filipino struggles relies on the symbolism of
elements within Filipino society as depicted on the novel's character. Instead, the
novel/s, serve as a tool of propaganda marking an uprising that was bound to
happen under the unstable conditions of the political government in peninsular Spain
and her colonies.