The Afterlife in Memory

of Jose Rizal
Train, Hazel Ann S.
Villanueva, Rainielle P.
Villarosa, Jecelme E.
 Historical Question

Anu-ano ang mga kontrobersya

sa likod ng “Mi Ultimo Adios”?
 Document A: Rizal, Fort Santiago, 29
December 1896
My Dear Parents and Brothers,
I should like to see some of you before I die, though it
may be very painful. Let the bravest come over. I have to
say some important things.
Your son and brother who loves you most sincerely,
Jose Rizal
Quirino, C. (1946). Letters Between Rizal and Family Members. Manila: National Heroes Commission.
Celda de Dr. Rizal en la Fuerza
de Santiago

De Veyra, J. C. (1946). El "Ultimo Adios" De Rizal. Manila: Bureau of Printing.

 Document B: The First Filipino by Leon Ma. Guerero
(Manila 1971), 480-481 supported by “El Ultimo Adios de
Rizal” by J.C. de Veyra (Manila 1946), 14, 17-29.
This account is based on an affidavit subscribed by Trinidad Rizal
on the 14th October 1908. Maria was the closest to him in age among
his sisters, Concha having died as a child, and we can smile at her
sisterly possessiveness. But it was not to Maria but to Trinidad that he
gave his true legacy. Perhaps it was not a deliberate choice but one
dictated by opportunity and the fact that Trinidad knew some English.
Exclaiming aloud what a pity it was that he could give her no better
keepsake than a little alcohol burner, he handed it to her, whispering in
English: “There is something in it.” Guerrero, M. L. (1961). The First Filipino. Guerrero Publishing .
 When she had returned home and bethought herself of the burner, she
and Maria thought it empty at first, for Rizal had poured out the fluid. Then
they heard a rattle, and, fishing with a hairpin through the narrow opening
for the wick, extracted a piece of common ruled paper, nine by fifteen
centimeters, on which a poem of fourteen stanzas, seventy lines in all, had
been written in the neat, now somewhat constricted hand of their brother. It
was untitled and unsigned, and has come down to us with the rather
repetitious and unimaginative title of “My Last Farewell”. It is, without a
doubt, Rizal’s major work as a poet, and we are assured by authorities in
Spanish literature that it can rank with the best of its kind in that language. A
certain amount of controversy surrounds its composition but de Veyra, who
is joined in this by Craig and others, has established beyond any reasonable
doubt that it could not have been conceived and drafted in the death cell.
The manuscript given to Trinidad is obviously a final copy and not
the original draft; as de Veyra points out, it is extremely unlikely
that even the most gifted poet, and even the culminating point of
inspiration, could possibly have written seventy polished
Alexandrines right off, without a single change of correction.
Furthermore, Rizal did not have the time to compose his poem
during the eleven or twelve hours he was in his death-cell before
Trinidad’s arrival; there were callers of all kinds, officials,
journalists, his family; there were letters to be written; above all
there were the Jesuits and their tenacious unrelenting discussions.
From an analysis of the poem itself de Veyra concludes quite
reasonably that it was put together from various fragments composed
over a period of time, committed to memory and actually written down
in its final form, perhaps in the death-cell, but more likely than not, one
or two weeks before, and then the hidden in the burner in preparation
for the right opportunity. But the poet speaks of dying; he says farewell.
Her lies the flaw in de Veyra’s argument, for Rizal did not know he had
been sentenced to death until the morning of the 29th; hence the
patriotic myth of its composition in the death-cell. But wherever and
whenever it was written, it must be read by all who would know Rizal.
 Document C: Ambeth R. Ocampo entitled
Overnight Poetry in his book Rizal: Without
Overcoat During
During my last visit to Germany, Professor Manuel Sarksiyanz of the
Sudasien Institut in the University of Heidelberg gave me a tour of Rizal’s
Heidelberg. We visited the Augenklinik (eye clinic) where Rizal studied. We
even went out of town to visit the Rizal statue, Rizalstrasse (Rizal Street)
and the house where our national hero stayed in Wilhelmsfeld. The
professor said Rizal’s Ultimo Adios was one of the most beautiful poems
written in Spanish language, adding that it was read over State-run radio
during Peru’s Independence Day. Well it hit a raw nerve, since I doubt very
much that Rizal wrote the poem on the eve of his execution on 29
December 1896. Ocampo, A. R. (1990). Rizal: Without the Overcoat. Pasig: Anvil Publishing Inc.
“Why do you revisionists have to put Rizal down?” the professor asked. “Im
not putting Rizal down,” I countered. “It’s just impossible to write a poem
like that hours before death.” “Why can’t you accept the man for the genius
that he was?” he shot back I dropped the subject then, only to revive it now
because of a recent encounter with the literary figures of Gregorio C.
Brillantes and N.V.M. Gonzales at the Ateneo de Manila Uniersity. Both
writers agreed that Rizal composed the poem much earlier than 29
December and that he merely wrote it down cleanly on the tiny sheet of
paper in his cell. The professors were off to lunch, so I didn’t get a chance
about a legend that Rizal wrote Ultimo Adios on the eve of his execution.
Some accounts say that when Rizal met with his family for the last time in
the afternoon of 29 December, he gave each of them a souvenir.
When he gave his alcohol burner to his sister Trinidad, he
whispered in English, “There is something inside.” So the
guards would not understand. Years later, Trinidad contradicted
all written accounts, saying that Rizal’s remark was not in
English, but in Visayan. The poem was hidden in the lamp
which she received from her brother on 29 December. So how
could Rizal write it on the eve of his execution? Was the poem
written on 29 December citing lines 1, 11, 40, 62 and 70, all of
which could only be written after the death sentence was
handed down which was on 26 December.
 Lamparilla de Alcohol donde
fue hallado el manuscrito del
“Adios”

De Veyra, J. C. (1946). El "Ultimo Adios" De Rizal. Manila: Bureau of Printing.

De Veyra, J. C. (1946). El "Ultimo Adios" De Rizal. Manila: Bureau of Printing.