Yasotarō Mōri
▲ The Founding of La Liga Filipina
On the night he arrived in Manila, two influential comrades called on him. Through these two, he invited other associates and held meetings on two occasions. Among those who attended these gatherings were Andrés Bonifacio and Apolinario Mabini, who would later become leading figures of the armed revolution. At these meetings, Rizal argued that the Filipino people should secure their natural and political rights, and that the time had come for Filipinos to unite and rise up for the Philippines’ revival. He then put forward his own proposal for organizing La Liga Filipina (the Philippine League). The League’s objectives were the following five articles:
1. To unite the whole of the Philippines into one solid and vigorous body.
2. To provide mutual protection against every disaster and want.
3. Defense against violence and injustice.
4. Encouragement of education, industry, and agriculture.
5. Study of reforms and their implementation.
Motto: Equality for all.
The League’s proposal itself was, if anything, unremarkable, but it was organized after the fashion of a Masonic-style secret society, founded solely by fellow Masons, and its bylaws included clauses such as “the resolutions of the League’s assembly shall be kept in absolute secrecy” and “the chairman’s orders shall be obeyed absolutely” — and for this it quickly drew the suspicious eye of the government authorities (who planted informants and learned the contents of the League’s plan almost immediately). The League was founded on July 3.
▲ Imprisoned in the Fort
On July 7, Rizal was summoned by the Governor-General to his residence. The Governor-General interrogated him about Lucía’s pillowcase and the so-called seditious documents discovered inside it, and on the spot declared that Rizal would be confined immediately to Fort Santiago. He spent that night in the fort and was detained there until July 14, on which day he received orders of exile to the town of Dapitan on the island of Mindanao. At midnight he was transferred to the steamship Cebu, which departed at nine the next morning and reached its destination at seven in the evening on the 17th (a Sunday). Aboard ship he was placed under strict military guard, but was treated courteously in matters of daily life.
The moment Rizal was confined to Fort Santiago, the Governor-General issued a statement of the reasons for his detention. This was mocked as “the strangest document even in a Philippines where strange things often happen,” and was described as a document that mixed together nothing but “excuses, arguments, and attacks.”
The “charges” against Rizal numbered three: two of them accused him of denouncing the old faith (Catholicism), while the remaining one was political in nature. These were published in the official gazette, but orders were given to Rizal’s guards that he must never be shown it, and that if he asked to see it, they were to answer him with such-and-such an excuse. One critic bitterly denounced this, saying: “Not to let the accused know the charges against him — no, to fear that the accused might come to know them — what a disgrace!”
Meanwhile, the Governor-General sent this official gazette to the Spanish Consul-General in Hong Kong, instructing him to publicize it as widely as possible “to uphold Spain’s prestige.” Among those to whom the Consul-General distributed the gazette was the Lusitania Club. This club had been organized by a Masonic lodge, and since the great majority of its members were friends and supporters of Rizal, the document was passed by their hands to the editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s Daily Telegraph — who, having once been sympathetic to Rizal, used this official gazette as material to launch a large-scale attack on the Philippine Governor-General.
The focus of the attack was this: was it not a shame before the whole world that a man like Rizal, who through his scientific efforts had raised Spain’s own honor, should be lured back to the Philippines under false pretenses, denied a proper trial, and banished to a place of harsh climate? The Telegraph did not hesitate afterward to condemn the misgovernment of the Philippines outright whenever the occasion arose; and even earlier, while Rizal was still living in Hong Kong, the paper had consistently aided his cause and attacked the Philippine authorities and the friar faction, for which it had at one point been banned from circulation in the Philippines.
Then, once the new Governor-General took office and, in order to lure Rizal back, proclaimed the implementation of “good governance,” he simultaneously permitted the paper’s distribution within the country as well, so as to win the goodwill of Rizal’s supporters.
Incidentally, La Liga Filipina was the last public act Rizal undertook as a free man; in front of the house where the League held its founding ceremony on the night of July 3, a monument recording the fact stands today. This monument is inscribed with the names of the founder Rizal, four officers, and ten members, along with the fate that eventually befell each of them: besides Rizal himself, five were later executed by firing squad, nine were arrested, and one was exiled. Bonifacio and Mabini are both among the members, though some accounts hold that Mabini did not know Rizal personally at the time and did not actually take part in this undertaking.
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