Jos Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda

Early Life
Jos Rizal was born in 1861 to Francisco Mercado and Teodora
Alonso in the town of Calamba in Laguna province. He had nine sisters
and one brother. His parents were leaseholders of a hacienda and an
accompanying

rice

farm

by

the Dominicans.

Both

their

families

had

adopted the additional surnames of Rizal and Realonda in 1849, after

Governor

General Narciso

Clavera

Zalda decreed

the

adoption

of Spanish surnames among the Filipinos for census purposes.

Like many families in the Philippines, the Rizals were of mixed
origin. Jos's patrilineal lineage could be traced back to Fujian in
China through his father's ancestor Lam-Co, a Chinese merchant who
immigrated to the Philippines in the late 17th century. [13][14][note

Lam-

1][15]

Co traveled to Manila from Amoy, China, possibly to avoid the famine

or

plague

in

his

home

district,

and

more

probably

to

escape

the Manchu invasion. He finally decided to stay in the islands as a

farmer.

In

1697,

to

escape

the

bitter anti-Chinese

prejudice that

existed in the Philippines, he converted to Catholicism, changed his

name to Domingo Mercado and married the daughter of an indigenous
Philippines resident. On his mother's side, Rizal's ancestry included
Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Tagalogblood. His mother's lineage can
be

traced

to

the

affluent

Florentina

family

of

Chinese

mestizo

families originating in Baliuag, Bulacan.

From an early age, Jos showed a precocious intellect. He learned the
alphabet from his mother at 3, and could read and write at age 5.
[14]

Upon enrolling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, he dropped the

last three names that made up his full name, on the advice of his
brother, Paciano and the Mercado family, thus rendering his name as
"Jos Protasio Rizal". Of this, he later wrote: "My family never paid
much attention [to our second surname Rizal], but now I had to use it,
thus giving me the appearance of an illegitimate child!" This was to
enable him to travel freely and disassociate him from his brother.

Despite the name change, Jos, as "Rizal" soon distinguished himself

in

poetry

writing

contests,

impressing

his

professors

with

his

facility with Castilian and other foreign languages, and later, in

writing essays that were critical of the Spanish historical accounts
of the pre-colonial Philippine societies. Indeed, by 1891, the year he
finished his El Filibusterismo, this second surname had become so well
known that, as he writes to another friend, "All my family now carry
the

name

Rizal

instead

of

Mercado

because

the

name

Rizal

means

persecution! Good! I too want to join them and be worthy of this

family name..."

Education
Rizal

first

studied

under

Justiniano

Aquino

Cruz

in Bian,

Laguna, before he was sent to Manila.[18] As to his father's request, he

took the entrance examination in Colegio de San Juan de Letran but he
then enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and graduated as one
of

the

nine

students

in

his

class

declared sobresaliente or

outstanding. He continued his education at the Ateneo Municipal de

Manila to obtain a land surveyor and assessor's degree, and at the
same

time

at

the University

a preparatory course in law.

of

[19]

Santo

Tomas where

he

did

take

up

Upon learning that his mother was going

blind, he decided to switch to medicine at the medical school of Santo

Tomas specializing later in ophthalmology.
Without
supported

his

by

parents'

his

knowledge

brother Paciano,

and

he

consent,

traveled

but

alone

secretly
to Madrid,

Spain in May 1882 and studied medicine at the Universidad Central de

Madrid where he earned the degree, Licentiate in Medicine. He also
attended medical lectures at the University of Parisand the University
of Heidelberg. In Berlin, he was inducted as a member of the Berlin
Ethnological Society and the Berlin Anthropological Society under the
patronage of the famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow. Following custom,
he

delivered

an

Anthropological

address
Society

in
on

German
the

in

April

orthography

1887
and

before

the

structure

of

the Tagalog language. He left Heidelberg a poem, "A las flores del
Heidelberg", which was both an evocation and a prayer for the welfare
of his native land and the unification of common values between East
and West.
At

Heidelberg,

the

25-year-old

Rizal,

completed

in

1887

his

eye

specialization under the renowned professor, Otto Becker. There he

used

the

newly

invented ophthalmoscope (invented

by Hermann

von

Helmholtz) to later operate on his own mother's eye. From Heidelberg,

Rizal wrote his parents: "I spend half of the day in the study of
German and the other half, in the diseases of the eye. Twice a week, I
go to the bierbrauerie, or beerhall, to speak German with my student
friends."

He

lived

in

Karlstrae

boarding

house

then

moved

to

Ludwigsplatz. There, he met Reverend Karl Ullmer and stayed with them
in Wilhelmsfeld,

where

he

wrote

the

last

few

chapters

of Noli

Me

Tngere.

Rizal was a polymath, skilled in both science and the arts. He

painted,

sketched,

and

made

sculptures

and

woodcarving.

He

was

prolific poet, essayist, and novelist whose most famous works were his

two novels, Noli Me Tngere and its sequel, El filibusterismo. These

social

commentaries

during

the Spanish

colonization of

the

country

formed the nucleus of literature that inspired peaceful reformists and

armed revolutionaries alike. Rizal was also a polyglot, conversant in
twenty-two languages.
Rizal's

multifacetedness

was

described

by

his

German

friend,

Dr. Adolf Bernhard Meyer, as "stupendousDocumented studies show him to

be a polymath with the ability to master various skills and subjects.
He

was

an ophthalmologist,

historian,
writing,

playwright
he

dabbled,

and

journalist.

with

architecture, cartography,

sculptor,

painter,
Besides

varying

degrees

educator,

poetry
of

and

farmer,
creative

expertise,

in

economics, ethnology, anthropology,

sociology, dramatics, martial arts, fencing and pistol shooting. He

was also a Freemason, joining Acacia Lodge No. 9 during his time in
Spain and becoming a Master Mason in 1884.

Jose Rizal name origin

Among the earliest known ancestors of Jose Rizal were Siang-co
and Zun-nio of Fujian, China. Their son Lam-co migrated to the
Philippines in the late 1600s. Lam-co adopted the name Domingo and
married Ines de la Rosa, the daughter of Agustin Chin-co and Jacinta
Rafaela, a Chinese mestiza resident of the Parian.
Lam-co and Ines heeded the invitation of Spanish friars to move
to the Dominican estate of Bian, Laguna. Their son, Francisco
Mercado, was born there in 1731. To steer clear of the anti-Chinese
hostility of the Spanish authorities, Lam-co changed the family
surname to the Spanish Mercado (market), which also signified their
merchant roots.
Francisco Mercado married Bernarda Monica of San Pedro, Tunasan
in 1771 and sired Rizals grandfather, Juan. Juan Mercado served as
the capitan municipal of Bian. With his wife, Cirila Alejandra, he
had 13 children; among whom was Rizals father, Francisco.
As a young man, Francisco ventured to Calamba, then a new
Dominican frontier. He applied for a land grant and was even rewarded
with more land, so that he shortly became one of the top landholders
of the hacienda.
When he was 30, Francisco married Teodora Alonso, a Manila-born
girl 10 years younger than him. Teodoras great-grandmother was Regina
Ursua of Cavite, who wedded Manuel Facundo de Quintos, a lawyer from
Pangasinan. They made their home in San Pedro Makati and gave birth to
Teodoras mother, Brigida, who married Lorenzo Alberto Alonso of
Bian.

Teodora and Francisco were wed in 1848 and lived in Calamba. One
year later, Governor-General Narciso Claveria issued the dictum
decreeing new family names for the Indios to facilitate census work
and the collection of taxes. Each province was given a list from which
each family could choose a new surname. The Mercados of Calamba chose
the unlisted name Rizal, although they continued to use the name
Mercado. Their original application was for the name Ricial (meaning
the green of young growth or green fields), which was connected to
their livelihood, but this was denied for no apparent reason.
In the same way, the Alonsos of Bian chose the family name Realonda
but continued to use Alonso. This seemed to be a common practice, so
that each family ended up with four surnames: each of the old and new
family names of both the mother and the father. For Rizal, the
compounds were his fathers double surname: Mercado and Rizal, plus
his mothers surname: Alonso and Realonda.
Francisco and Teodoras seventh child, Jose, adopted the name Rizal to
enable him to travel freely and to dissociate himself from his brother
Paciano, who had gained notoriety by supporting the cause of
revolutionary Filipino priests like Fr. Jose Burgos. It was Paciano
who financially and morally sustained Rizal in his studies abroad.