Yasotarō Mōri
The Death Sentence Is Handed Down
The court-martial immediately reconvened in a separate chamber, and
on the grounds that “Rizal organized an illegal society and incited and promoted revolution,” handed down a sentence condemning him to death. The Governor-General accordingly decreed that Rizal be executed by firing squad at seven o’clock on the morning of December 30, on the field of Bagumbayan (now Luneta Park). Rizal was not informed of the sentence until two days later, but to a man who had already resigned himself to death, the two-day delay can hardly have mattered. In the report recommending Rizal’s death sentence — drafted by the Judge Advocate General and signed by the Governor-General — there appears a passage to the following effect:
“That Rizal — favored by fortune to become the idol of a revolutionary faction, and now, crossed by fortune, facing a death devoid of glory or honor; that Rizal, a specialist in the natural sciences and physical chemistry, the single most diligent and learned scholar among Filipinos, one who traveled widely through Europe, spoke several modern languages, was beloved by his unlettered countrymen and revered as teacher and friend regardless of race — that same Rizal set his mind to the study of the mental and social sciences, a pursuit demanding vast preparation. Yet he began, in practice, to propagate among the inhabitants of Spanish territory ideas of disloyalty and sedition, principles contrary to national unity. ——— Rizal became synonymous with revolution itself, the most intellectual leader of the separatist cause, and, in short, the idol of the ignorant masses. The masses came to regard this energetic agitator as something superhuman, and honored him with the title of the ‘Supreme One.'”
One imagines that Rizal, had he known he was being so extravagantly praised by the very enemies who hated him most, could not have helped but smile a wry, faint smile.
On December 26, when he was first permitted visitors from outside, his sister Trinidad was the first to see him. Rizal told her then, “When I die, ask for my remains — there is something inside my right shoe.”
Early on the morning of December 29, Rizal was informed of the death sentence, and was then moved to the chapel within the fort, where he remained until the following morning, when he was taken to the execution ground. His mother, Josephine, and his sisters were permitted to visit him, but no men were allowed. Spanish records state that Rizal knelt and wept as he parted from his mother, but according to eyewitness accounts from the sisters who accompanied her, no one was actually allowed to come near him — he could not even take his mother’s hand — and, stamping the floor in fury, he is said to have shouted, “Cowards! Spain will lose the Philippines before long!” When his sister Trinidad saw him for the last time, he told her he was giving her an alcohol lamp as a keepsake, and, watching for a moment when the guards were not paying attention, he warned her in English, “There is something inside it.”
That night, wary of prying eyes, his mother and sisters left the lamp untouched, but on New Year’s Eve they gathered together and secretly searched inside it. At the bottom they found a single folded slip of paper, on which was written a poem titled “My Last Farewell.”
Among all his poems, this one is regarded as the most deeply moving expression of heartfelt emotion, and Filipinos continue to recite it to this day. It has been translated into many languages and is cherished everywhere, though the original was written in Spanish. (The present writer has three different English translations of this poem on hand; all of them seem to convey the sense of the original well, and one cannot help but be struck by the glimpse they offer of Rizal’s noble character — a man who, to his very last moment, harbored no grudge against heaven and blamed no one, burning only with love for his homeland and pouring out, until the end, the utmost sincerity of his patriotism.)
Josephine, too, was married to Rizal on this last day, and is said to have told him that she intended to support herself thereafter by teaching English. Rizal is also said to have whispered to her, “Look inside my right shoe — there is something in it,” the same thing he had told his sister Trinidad four days earlier. A book he sent to Josephine as a keepsake was found to have 53 pages torn out of it, and it is believed that something important must have been written on those pages. (A year and a half later, when his remains were cremated, his family examined the inside of his right shoe but found nothing there. It is thought that when Rizal spoke to his sister of the right shoe, the guards may have overheard and had its contents confiscated for official inspection.)
After Rizal’s execution, Josephine, in indignation, joined the revolutionary forces in Cavite and worked as a nurse to help her comrades in arms. She later went to Hong Kong and lived with her adoptive father, Taufer, but in the year of the Spanish-American War he passed away; she then remarried a Spaniard, returned to the Philippines, and taught English at schools in Manila and other cities. The first Speaker of the Philippine legislature was one of her students, and it is said that some Filipinos still living today once studied English under her. She died in 1908, though her descendants continue on. Because she was, by adoption, an American citizen, she received the protection of the American consul in Manila, and so, even after Rizal’s execution, the Spanish authorities left her at liberty.
In the final hours before his death, he wrote farewell letters to his elder friends and acquaintances, then calmly awaited the fate that awaited him. The farewell letters he wrote to Dr. Blumentritt and to his brother have a power that pierces the heart of anyone who reads them. It is especially striking that in every one of these letters, he insisted that he was entirely innocent of any charge of inciting revolution.
A certain high Spanish official, regretting the loss of Rizal’s extraordinary talent, launched a campaign for clemency and secured the Spanish Prime Minister’s agreement to commute the sentence by one degree — but the Queen Regent refused to consent, on the grounds that Rizal had defamed a senior official related to her by marriage (though this “defamation” amounted to nothing more than exposing a crime that official had actually committed). And so Rizal’s fate was sealed.
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