EARLY EDUCATION IN CALAMBA

AND BINAN
 Rizal had his early education in Calamba and
Binan. It was a typical schooling that a son of an ilustrado
family received during his time, characterized by the four
R’s – reading, writing, arithmetic and religion.
The Hero’s First Teacher
Dona Teodora – his mother – his first teacher
As a tutor, Dona Teodora was patient,
conscientious, and understanding. It was she who first
encouraged him to write poems. To lighten the monotony f
memorizing the ABC’s and to stimulate her son’s
imagination, she related many storiess.
Rizal’s private tutor:
1.) Maestro Celestino
2.) Maestro Lucas Padua
3.) Maestro Leon Monroy
- a former classmate of Rizal’s father. He
lived at the Rizal home and instructed Jose in Spanish and
Latin. He died five months later.
Jose goes to Binan
One Sunday in June 1869, Rizal left Calamba for
Binan. That same night, Jose, with his cousin Leandro,
went sightseeing in the town. Instead of enjoying of sights,
Jose became depressed because of homesickness.
“In moonlight, I remembered my home, my beloved
father, my idolized mother, and my solicitous sisters. Ah,
how sweet to me was Calamba, my own town, I spite of the
fact, that it was not as wealthy as Binan.”
First Day in Binan
The next morning, (Monday) Paciano brought his
younger brother to the school of Maestro Justiniano Aquino
Cruz.
Immediately, Jose was assigned his seat in the
class. The teacher asked him:
“Do you know Spanish?”
“A little, sir,” replied the Calamba lad.
“ Do you know Latin?”
“ A little, sir”.
The boy in the class, especially Pedro, the teacher’s
son laughed at Jose’s answer.
First School Brawl
In the afternoon of his first day in school, when the
teacher was having the siesta, Jose met the bully Pedro. He
was angry at this bully for making fun of him during his
conversation with the teacher in the morning.
Jose challenged Pedro to fight. The latter readily
accepted, thinking that he could easily beat the Calamba boy
who was smaller and younger.
The two boys wrestled furiously in the classroom,
much to the glee of their classmate. Jose having learned the
art of wrestling from his athletic Tio Manuel, defeated the
bigger boy. For his feat, he became popular among his
classmate.
 After the class in the afternoon, a classmate named
Andres Salandanan challenged him to an arm – wrestling
match. They went to a sidewalk of a house and wrestled
with their arms. Jose, having the weaker arm, lost and
nearly cracked his head on the sidewalk.
In succeeding days he had other fights with the boys
of Binan. He was not quarrelsome by nature, but he never
ran away from a fight.
He won some and lost the others.
Painting Lessons in Binan
Near the school was the house of an old painter,
called Juancho, who was the father in law of the school
teacher. Jose, lured by his love for painting, spent many
leisure hours at the painter’s studio. Old Juancho freely
gave him lessons in drawing and painting. He was
impressed by the artistic talents of the Calamba lad.
Jose and his classmate, Jose Guevarra, who also
loved painting, became apprentices of the old painter. They
improved their art, so that in due time they became “the
favorite painters of the class”.
Daily Life in Binan
Here was my life. I heard the four o’clock Mass, if
there was any, or I studied my lesson at that hour and I
went to Mass afterwards. I returned home and I went to the
orchard to look for a mabolo to eat. Then I took breakfast,
which consisted generally of a dish of rice and two dried
small fish. Then I went to class, which I came out at ten
o’clock. I went home immediately.
If there was a particularly appetizing fish, Leandro
and I took were told to take it to the house of may aunt’s
sons (a thing which I never did at home, and would never
have done). I returned without saying a word, ate with
them, and the applied myself to my studies.
 I went to school at two and came out of five. I
prayed a short while with some nice cousins and I
returned home. I studied my lesson. I drew a little, and
afterwards I took my supper consisting of one or two
dishes of rice with an ayungin. We prayed and if there
was a moon, my friends invited me to play in the street
together with others. Thanks to God, I never got sick away
from my parents.
Best student in School
In academic studies, Jose beats all Binan boys. He
surpassed them all in Spanish, Latin, and other subjects.
Some of his older classmates were jealous of his
intellectual superiority. They wickedly squealed to the
teacher whenever Jose had a fight outside the school,
and even told lies to discredit him before the teacher’s
eyes. Consequently the teacher had to punish Jose.
Thus Rizal said that “in spite of the reputation I had
of being a good boy, the day was unusual when I was not
laid out on a bench and given five or six blows.”
End of Binan Schooling
Before the Christmas season in 1870, Jose received a
letter from sister Saturnina, informing him of the arrival of the
steamer Talim which would take him from Binan to Calamba. Upon
reading the letter, he had a premonition that he would not return to
Binan, so that he became sad. He prayed in the town church,
collected pebbles in the river for souvenirs, and regretfully bade
farewell to his teacher and classmates.
He left Binan on Saturday afternoon, December 17, 1870,
after one year and a half of schooling in that town. He was thrilled
to take passage on the steamer Talim, for it was the first time he
ever rode on a steamer. On board was a Frenchman named Arturo
Camps, a friend of his father, who took care of him.
Martyrdom of GOM – BUR – ZA
On the night of January 20, 1872, about 200
Filipino soldiers and workmen of the Cavite Arsenal under
the leadership of Lamadrid, Filipino sergeant, rose in
violent mutiny because of the abolition of their casual
privileges, including exemption from tribute and polo
(forced labor) by the reactionary Governor Rafael de
Izquierdo.
Accordingly, GOMBURZA, (Gomez, Burgos and
Zamora), despite the archbishop’s plea for clemency
because of their innocence, were executed at sunrise,
February 17, 1872, by order of Governor General
Izquierdo.
 Their martyrdom was deeply mourned by the Rizal
family and many other patriotic families in the Philippines.
Paciano, enraged by the execution of Burgos, his
beloved friend, teacher and housemate, quit his studies at
the College of San Jose and returned to Calamba, where
he told the heroic story of Burgos to his younger brother
Jose, who was then nearly eleven years old.
The martyrdom of GOMBURZA in 1872 truly
inspired Rizal to fight the evils of Spanish tyranny and
redeem his oppressed people.
And later, in 1891, he dedicated his second novel,
El Filibusterismo, to GOMBURZA.
Injustice to Hero’s Mother
Before June of 1872, tragedy struck the Rizal
family. Dona Teodora was suddenly arrested on a
malicious charge that she and her brother, Jose Alberto,
tried to poison the latter’s perfidious wife.
Jose Alberto, a rich Binan Ilustrado, had just
returned from a business trip in Europe. During his
absence his wife abandoned their home and children.
When he arrived in Binan, he found her living with another
man. Infuriated by her infidelity, he planned to divorced
her.
 Dona Teodora to avert family scandal, persuaded him
to forgive his wife. The family trouble was amicably settled,
and Jose Alberto lived again with his wife. However, the evil
wife, with the connivance of the Spanish lieutenant of the
Guardia Civil, filed a case in court accusing her husband and
Dona Teodora of attempting to poison her.
This lieutenant happened to have an ax to grind
against the Rizal family, because at one time Don Francisco
(Rizal’s father) refused to give him fodder for his horse. Taking
the opportunity to avenge himself, he arrested Dona Teodora,
with the help of Calamba’s gobernadorcillo, Antonio Vivencio
del Rosario, a menial of the friars. These two ungrateful men
had been frequent guests at the Rizal Home.
 After arresting Dona Teodora, the sadistic Spanish
lieutenant forced her to walk from Calamba to Santa Cruz
(capital of Laguna Province), a distance of 50 kilometers.
“Our mother’s was unjustly snatched away from us
and by whom? By some men who had been our friends
and whom we treated as honored guests. We learned
later that our mother got sick, far from us and at an
advanced age. My mother was defended by Messrs.
Francisco de Marcaida and Manuel Marzan, the most
famous lawyers of Manila. She finally succeeded to be
acquitted and vindicated in the eyes of her judges,
accusers, and even her enemies, but after how long?
After two and a half years.”