Little known facts on Rizal as an agriculturist

By Rudy A. Fernandez (The Philippine Star) Updated June 19, 2008 12:00 AM Comments (0)

snail that harbors the parasite that causes schistosomiasis, a deadly disease plaguing some areas in Eastern Visayas (Region 8). The snail was scientifically named Oncomelania cuadrasi, after a certain Mr. Cuadrasi to whom Rizal sent his specimens of insects and animals for identification. Cuadrasi was a known naturalist in Manila and the origin of the Philippine snail was Dapitan. Dr. Rizal was not a scientist by accident, states a report titled Rizals contribution to science and technology attributed to the Los Baos-based Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD). PCARRD is the sectoral planning body of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) that coordinates, evaluates, and monitors agriculture, forestry, and natural resources research and development in the country. Rizal intended to use education and science and technology to lift the Filipinos from ignorance and poverty, the report stresses. I have a big library. I shall have a house built on a hill. Then I shall dedicate myself to the sciences, he had intimated to his Austrian friend, Prof. Ferdinand Blumentritt, in a letter in 1880. Rizal gave full vent to his scientific expertise in Dapitan. Under modern judgment, what he did in Dapitan turned out to be practical expressions of integrated development programs in agriculture, ecology, and public health, the PCARRD paper notes. Also while in exile, he re-established connection with his scientist-friends. He submitted specimens of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, fish, and other invertebrates to the Dresden Museum. For this, he was recognized as a zoologist, and a frog (Rachophorus rizali), a beetle (Apogonia rizali), and a flying lizard (Draco rizali) were named in honor of him. He also sent shells to Dr. A.B. Meyer, director of the Royal Saxony Ethnographical Institute, in exchange for muchneeded books. Rizal was a respected member of the Anthropological and Ethnological Society of Berlin and the Geographic Society

National hero Dr. Jose Rizal, whose 146th birth anniversary is celebrated today,was an agriculturist among many other accomplishments. He held a Bachelor of Agriculture degree from Ateneo Municipal before enrolling at the Central University of Madrid. He was also an extensionist, having organized Dapitans (Misamis Occidental) first association of farmers primarily to improve their farm produce and to help them find better markets. He practiced development communication, gathering vital information and sharing them with farmers so they could improve their productivity. At one time, he sold abaca fiber in Manila to study its prices. Rizal also held a degree in Land Surveying, which helped him understand agricultural land use. These are among the lesser-known facets of Rizals brief but accomplished life that makes his example relevant even today. Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was born in Calamba (now a city) in Laguna on June 19, 1861. A scion of a landed family, he understood large-scale farming, and such background came in handy when he was exiled in Dapitan. During the early part of his exile, Rizal acquired land from the Spanish government for his farm activities. Not satisfied with his small farm, he bought 16 hectares more of neglected land from various owners. In just half a year, he had planted 5,000 pineapples and 1,400 coffee and 200 cacao trees on his land. Later, he purchased more land, which he planted with corn and abaca. The Philippines of Rizals time was agricultural and he knew that if his country were to prosper economically, idle lands must be rapidly transformed into productive ones, states a report about his life as a farmer. The national hero was also known as a natural scientist and played a key role in the identification of the Philippine

of Berlin. This membership in science organizations also provided the line of exchange of information that supported Dr. Rizals medical practice and the technological need of his varied projects, the PCARRD report notes.

Dr. Jose Rizalthe first Filipino TNT in America?

By Rodel Rodis
1:10 pm | Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 15share179 150

If U.S. immigration authorities were as strict in 1888, when Dr. Jose Rizal visited the US as a tourist, as they are now, the Philippine national herowhose 150th birth anniversary we celebrate this weekcould have faced deportation for an immigration violation. When Dr. Rizal reached the port of San Francisco on April 28, 1888, after a 15 day journey from Yokohama on board the Belgic, he was placed in quarantine for six days, along with all the Asians on board, while Caucasians were allowed to freely disembark. This experience with racism had a profound impact on Rizal as he later described in a letter to Mariano Ponce in July of 1888: They placed us under quarantine, in spite of the clearance given by the American Consul, of not having had a single case of illness aboard, and of the telegram of the governor of Hong Kong declaring that port free from epidemic. We were quarantined because there were on board 800 Chinese and, as elections were being held in San Francisco, the government wanted to boast that it was taking strict measures against the Chinese to win votes and the peoples sympathy. We were informed of the quarantine verbally, without specific duration. However, on the same day of our arrival, they unloaded 700 bales of silk without fumigating them; the ships doctor went ashore; many customs employees and an American doctor from the hospital for cholera victims came on board. Rizal would not likely be a victim of racial profiling now as San Francisco and Oakland both have Chinese American mayors (Ed Lee and Jean Quan) while next door neighbor Daly City even has a Filipino American mayor (Mike Guingona). But Rizal might have been detained for a violation that could have made him the first Filipino TNT (slang for illegal alien) in Americahe entered the US under an assumed name. When Rizal was born on June 19, 1861 in Calamba, Laguna, his birth certificate showed his name as Jose Protacio Mercado y Realonda, the son of Francisco Mercado y Alejandro and Teodora Realonda y Quintos.

That was the name he used until he enrolled at the Ateneo de Manila in 1872. In 1872, the Spanish authorities cracked down on the secularization movement of native priests who were insisting on the right to preferential assignment in parishes over that of newly arrived Spanish friars. The leaders of this movement led by Fr. Jose Burgos were rounded up and executed by garrote. Rizals older brother, Paciano Mercado, was an associate of Fr. Burgos, and was also being hunted down. Fearing that family surname association with him would prevent Rizal from being accepted at the prestigious Ateneo, Paciano obtained a false birth certificate that allowed Jose Mercado y Realonda to enroll at the Ateneo as Jose Protacio Rizal. Rizal was picked because it was the name (originally Ricial for greenfields), which his father adopted at one point until confusion in business transactions compelled him to return back to Mercado (Spanish for market), the surname his great grandfather, Domingo Lam Co, originally used after immigrating to the Philippines from Jinjiang, Quanzhou in the mid-17th century. Changing surnames was not easy for the young Rizal who complained in a letter to a friend that the use of this assumed name was giving me the appearance of an illegitimate child! Ironically, after Rizal acquired notoriety as the author of Noli Mi Tangere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Subversive), the entire Mercado family defiantly changed their surname to Rizal in 1891. Despite entering the U.S. under an assumed name in 1888, Rizal had no problems with the authorities in the 10 days he spent traveling from San Francisco to New York City by transcontinental railroad. Along the way, Rizal passed through Sacramento, Reno, Ogden, Denver, Farmington, Salt Lake City, Provo, before going through Nebraska to Chicago on the way to Albany, New York, and then traveling along the bank of the Hudson River to Manhattan. I visited the largest cities of America with their big buildings, electric lights, and magnificent conceptions, Rizal wrote Ponce in 1888. Undoubtedly America is a great country, but it still has many defects. There is no real civil liberty. In some states, the Negro cannot marry a white woman, nor a Negress a white man. Because of their hatred for the Chinese, other Asiatics, like the Japanese, being confused with them, are likewise disliked by the ignorant Americans. The Customs are excessively strict. However, as they say rightly, America offers a home too for the poor who like to work. Little did Rizal know that less than just two decades later, from 1906 to 1925, more than 125,000 Filipinos would be brought to the US to work in the farm fields of Hawaii and California. Rizal may have had a premonition of this future because two years after his US visit, Rizal wrote The Philippines: A Century Hence where he explained why none of the

European powers as well as a China and Japan would be interested in colonizing the Philippines once Filipinos declared their independence. The only possible foreign power who may be interested in acquiring the Philippines? Perhaps the great American Republic, whose interests lie in the Pacific, may some day dream of foreign possession. In the course of his storied life, Rizal traveled the length and breadth of the United States, Europe and Asia but the Philippines always remained in his heart. As he reflected in a letter to Fray Pastells in 1895, It is very possible that that there are causes better than those I have embraced, but my cause is good and that is enough for me. Other causes will undoubtedly bring more profit, more renown, more honors, more glories, but the bamboo, in growing on this soil, comes to sustain nipa huts and not the heavy weights of European edifices. Happy 150th birthday, Jose Protacio Mercado y Realonda, alias Dr. Jose Rizal.

Rizal's father was a farmer from Bian, Laguna, while his mother was from Sta. Cruz, Manila. Rizal was an extraordinary Filipino as he was able to learn the alphabet at an early age of three and started to show off his artistic ability at age five. When he was eight, he wrote a Tagalog poem "Sa Aking Mga Kababata," which talked about a person's love for his own language. At 16, the brilliant Rizal obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and went on to study Philosophy and Letters at the University of Santo Tomas, and took courses leading to the degree of surveyor and expert assessor at the Ateneo but wasn't allowed to get his surveyor's license

Remembering Jose Rizal

By Terry D.C. Betonio Wednesday, December 29, 2010

immediately since he was still 17 years old. He only got his license after three years. Later, Rizal got his degree on Licentiate in Medicine in

"He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and smelly fish." -- Dr. Jose Rizal Win US $500 cash in Sun.Stars music video contest WHO would have not known Jose Rizal? Even small children know that he is the Philippine's national hero. Some people have this misconception that December 30 is the day Rizal was born since this is considered as "Rizal Day." But it is not. Today, December 30, is the commemoration of Rizal's death. Rizal was shot in Bagumbayan in the morning of December 30, 1896 after proving that the Filipinos can stand on their own and can fight their oppressors. Jose Rizal was born on June 19, 1861 to Francisco Mercado Rizal and Teodora Alonzo y Quintos in Calamba, Laguna. He was the seventh child in a family of 11 children.

Spain and finished his course in Philosophy and Letters at age 24. Rizal had mastered 22 languages and traveled extensively to several places in the world such as Europe, America and Asia. Rizal deserved to be called the country's national hero with his extraordinary talents. He was a poet, an architect, artist, businessman, cartoonist, educator, economist, ethnologist, scientific farmer, historian, inventor, journalist, linguist, musician, mythologist, nationalist, naturalist, novelist, ophthalmic surgeon, propagandist, psychologist, scientist, sculptor, sociologist and a theologian. He contributed much to the country's quest for political and social reforms while trying to educate the Filipinos through his books "Noli Me Tangere," a novel exposing the arrogance and despotism of the Spanish clergy; and its sequel, "El Filibusterismo."

But because of his fearless exposures, he was jailed in Fort Santiago from July 6, 1892 to July 15, 1892 and was sent to Dapitan until he was executed on December 30, 1896. Though Rizal has been dead for centuries, his works and books continue to touch the hearts of the Filipinos as this showed his great love of his country and to his fellow Filipinos.