One week ago, a heart-rending tragedy took place near Rizal Park in Manila, the Philippines, and claimed the lives of eight Hong Kong citizens. The Park is now stained with the blood that was shed. Manila's most famed park is burned into the consciousness of the people of Hong Kong. The person whose name is commemorated by the park, Jose Rizal, is also intimately connected to a part of the history of Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Dr Jose Rizal (1861-1896) was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reforms in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is considered a national hero of the Philippines and the anniversary of his death is commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day.

Rizal was a 5th-generation patrilineal descendant of Domingo Lam-co (Ke Yinan), a Chinese immigrant entrepreneur who sailed to the Philippines from Jinjiang, Quanzhou, in the mid-17th century. He later took on a surname of Mercado, and Jose's father changed it again to Rizal. Jose chose to be a Rizal. "All in 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."

Jose attended University of Santo Tomas where he studied Philosophy and Letters. Upon learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to study medicine, specializing in ophthalmology at the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery but did not complete the program claiming discrimination by the Spanish Dominican friars against native students.

Without his parents' knowledge and consent, he traveled alone to Madrid in May 1882 and studied medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid. His education continued at the University of Paris and the University of Heidelberg where he earned a second doctorate, completing his eye specialization in 1887 at the age of 25. Later he operated on his mother's eye.

When in Europe, Jose distinguished himself as an anthropologist, a linguist, a painter and sculptor, a poet, a journalist and a writer of political ideals. He was a freemason in Spain and became a Master Mason in 1884.

From December, 1891, to June, 1892, Dr Jose Rizal lived with his family in Hong Kong at No 2 Rednaxela Terrace, 5 D'Aguilar Street, Central district, Hong Kong Island. This house was also used as his ophthalmologist clinic from 2 pm to 6 pm. Some biographers even surmised that since Sun Yat-sen was also in Hong Kong reading medicine 1887-1892, and both of them lived and worked in the same neighborhood of Central, the two revolutionaries might have rubbed shoulders or even exchanged views!

Upon his return to Manila in 1892, Rizal formed a civic movement called La Liga Filipina. The league advocated moderate social reforms through legal means, but was ordered disbanded by the governor. At that time, Rizal had already been declared an enemy of the state by the Spanish authorities because of the publication of a novel he wrote.

Rizal was implicated in the activities of the nascent rebellion and in July 1892, was deported to Dapitan, Mindanao, where he built a school, a hospital and a water supply system, and taught and engaged in farming and horticulture.

Because of his fearless exposure of the injustices committed by the civil and clerical officials, Rizal provoked the animosity of those in power: the Spanish authorities and the Catholic Church. When the Philippine Revolution started on August 26, 1896, his enemies lost no time in pressing him down. Thus, from November 3, 1896, to the date of his execution, he was again committed to Fort Santiago. In his prison cell, he wrote an untitled poem, now known as "Ultimo Adios" which is considered a masterpiece and a living document expressing not only the hero's great love of country but also that of all Filipinos. After a mock trial, he was convicted of rebellion, sedition and of forming illegal association. In the cold morning of December 30, 1896, Rizal, a man of 35, was shot at Bagumbayan Field.

The poem, more aptly titled, "Adios, Patria Adorada" (literally "Farewell, Beloved Fatherland"), first appeared in print not in Manila but in Hong Kong in 1897, when a copy of the poem and an accompanying photograph came to J P Braga who decided to publish it in a monthly journal he edited in Hong Kong.

Six years after his death, when the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 was being debated in the United States Congress, Representative Henry Cooper of Wisconsin rendered an English translation of Rizal's poem, "Under what clime or what skies has tyranny claimed a nobler victim?" The Americans, however, would not sign the bill into law until 1916 and did not grant full autonomy until 1946-fifty years after Rizal's death.

Bagumbayan or New Town in the Spanish colonial era, was also known as Luneta, which was later officially renamed Rizal Park. It was also the site that marked the Declaration of Philippine Independence from American rule on July 4, 1946; the political rallies of Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino in 1986; and the 11-hour hostage crisis on August 23, 2010.

The author is former secretary for home affairs of the Hong Kong SAR government.

(HK Edition 08/31/2010 page2)