Spanish Rule CaseSUMMARY:At the beginning of the film, the condition of the Philippines under the Spanish Rule was briefly revealed; the Spaniards were very abusive to the Filipinos. The film contains some scenes which depict portions of “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo”, which are the novels written by Dr. Jose Rizal based on the true situations of the Philippines during his time. The Noli Me Tangere has the main character named “Crisostomo Ibarra”, which Rizal considers as himself in his novel. Crisostomo Ibarra has the vision of change in the kind of situation the Philippines have during that time. In the El Filibusterismo, Ibarra turned into a rebellious man and Rizal named him as “Simon”. The film also showed the famous “tearing of the cedula” by the members of the “Katipunan” lead by Andres Bonifacio. The “Katipuneros” idolize Jose Rizal and consider him as their inspiration to fight for the Philippines. Paciano, the only brother of Jose Rizal which is also a half older than him, was being nailed in his finger, forcing to reveal the secret operations of his brother.
One day, Jose Rizal was interrogated by the Colonel forcing him to admit that he is a part of the Katipunan, because they were using Rizal’s name. Rizal was put in prison in Dapitan and he remembered the significant things that happened in the past years of his life, including his childhood. He remembered the day when Paciano told him that he witnessed the brutality of the Spaniards through the execution of the GOMBURZA. Another interesting memory is when his mother, Teodora Alonso, told him the story of the moth; the young moth died because he did not listen to his mother when she told him not to go near the fire. Teodora Alonso also wanted to instill this lesson to his son, Jose Rizal. At Rizal’s early age, Teodora Alonso was arrested because of the false accusation given to her. He remembered how he grieved when his mother was caught by the Spaniards. He also remembered the day when his brother, Paciano, accompanied him in Ateneo Municipal, his older brother required him to use Rizal as his surname because their surname, Mercado, was under the suspicion of the Spanish authorities during that time.
Jose Rizal was given the chance to defend himself against theaccusations thrown to him. He chose Luis Taviel de Andrade from the list of lawyers given to him, because Andrade sounds familiar to him. Rizal and Andrade had a rough conversation the first time they met. His lawyer was informing him of the accusations given to him by the Spaniards. They say that he did not have the debt of gratitude to them, and that he is heretic and filibuster. While they were having their conversation, he remembered his days in University of Santo Tomas, where he studied Medicine, and a huge discrimination between Spaniards and Filipinos occurred. While he was in UST, he joined a secret group of Filipino students
Taviel Rizal (left) with Andrade, in the UST, and is now living in Mexico. In 1987, he became the first Filipino to graduate of a doctorate in US science and then become a professor and lecturer in social psychology in Mexico.
But the problem is that they made a mistake. Some members of the group had no contact with Rizal. According to one Filipino, Asriel, the members of the group that they met at the UST were at least somewhat aware, and even knew that some of them were making comments about Inez Rizal. They claimed that the group was a secret group, but it is not.
So a group of students, who had just a chance to meet with Rizal, told him that they were not interested in the discussion. Rizal told them that they were going to sit down and talk about the things that had happened in the fight, and that it was the only way to tell them. (His lawyer has now been sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment for the incident, but Rizal managed to escape to Italy.)
He got into contact with the people from the group who were members of the UST: the Spanish Defence Academy, the local security forces stationed in the UST’s dormitory, and many other local political figures. In September of 1987, Asriel and many of them had visited a house for students to pay visits for a month but some members were going by themselves, leaving the house alone, as had been reported by locals. So Rizal went out with him and stayed up all night waiting for people.
By about 4pm he left the house. He was there for about two hours, for one hour only; he came back again an hour later and said that he had just visited a house and that he wanted to go there, but he was told by his lawyer, that the problem wasn’t really a problem.
This is when Rizal spoke. At about 3:30 AM he went to the house where the boys lived. The house was surrounded by police security and he went to one of the police stations to talk. The house had a large room with many people; the rest of the apartments were all private residences.
“I have heard (that) there were some women and children upstairs who had been drinking. The police [police station] was over by then,” said Rizal. “I think they did not know me all that much, but then they [Police officers] showed signs of fear in front of these women. My friends and I were trying to get out of their way.”
I told them to come up inside the building, so I would bring