MODULE LIFE AND WORKS OF RIZAL
CHAPTER 9: RIZAL’S NOVEL: EL FILIBUSTERISMO
Objectives:
a.) Compare contrast the characters, plot, and themes of the Noli
and El Filibusterismo.
b.) Value the role the youth in the development and future of society.
c.) Appreciate important characters in the novel and what they
represent.
BACKGROUND OF THE PUBLICATION OF FILI
Elias and Solome, the Missing Chapters. This is the missing in the original
chapter Noli Me Tangere. This chapter follows chapter XXIV – “In the Woods”, The
particular chapter on Elias and Soleme was deleted by Rizal. His reason for doing so was
definitely economic.
EL FILIBUSTERISMO
After Rizal arrived in Ghent, Belgium, he searched for printing press with the
lowest cost for the publication of his El Fili. The F. Meyer van Loo Press charged the
lowest fee and was willing to print book on installment basis. To pay the down payment,
Rizal pawned his jewels. While the printing was ongoing, Rizal was desperate because
his funds were running low. The money he received from Basa and Php 200.00 from
Rodriguez Arias were also used up and much more was needed to pay the printing
press
The printing had to be suspended because he could no longer give the needed
amount, in a moment of despair, he almost hurled the manuscript into flames, just as he
almost did to Noli in Berlin.
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When everything seemed lost, an unexpected help came from Valentin Ventura in
Paris who learned of Rizal's predicament. When Ventura sent him the necessary funds,
the printing of the book was resumed.
Printing of the Fili was Completed. On September 18, 1891, El Filibusterismo came off
the press. Now, Rizal was a happy man. Immediately he sent two (2) printed copies to
Basa and Sixto Lopez who were in Hongkong. He also sent complimentary copies to
Blumentrit, Mariano Ponce, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Pardo de Tavera, Antonio and Juan
Luna and other friends.
Likewise, he gratefully donated the original manuscript and an autographed printed copy.
El Nueva Regimen, a liberal Madrid newspaper, serialized the novel in the issues of
October 1891.
Rizal dedicated the novel to Gom-Bur-Za because of their martyrdom.
The Manuscript and the Book. The original manuscript in Rizal's handwriting has been
preserved in the National Library. It was acquired from Valentin Ventura by the Philippine
Government for a fee of Php 10,000.00. The manuscript consists of 279 pages of long
sheets of paper. Two features in the manuscript do not appear in the printed book
(Foreword and Warning) perhaps to save foinrr the printing cost. The title page contains
an inscription written by Ferdinand Blumentritt.
CHARACTERS OF EL FILIBUSTERISMO
• Simoun – Crisóstomo Ibarra in disguise, presumed dead at the end of Noli Me Tángere. Ibarra
has returned as the wealthy jeweler Simoun. His appearance is described as being tanned, having
a sparse beard, long white hair, and large blue-tinted glasses. He was sometimes crude and
confrontational. He was derisively described by Custodio and Ben-Zayb as an American mulatto
or a British Indian. While presenting as the arrogant elitist on the outside, he secretly plans a violent
revolution in order to avenge himself for his misfortunes as Crisóstomo Ibarra, as well as hasten
Elias' reformist goals.
• Basilio – son of Sisa and another character from Noli Me Tángere. In the events of El fili, he is an
aspiring and so far successful physician on his last year at university and was waiting for his license
to be released upon his graduation. After his mother's death in the Noli, he applied as a servant in
Kapitán Tiago's household in exchange for food, lodging, and being allowed to study. Eventually
he took up medicine, and with Tiago having retired from society, he also became the manager of
Tiago's vast estate. He is a quiet, contemplative man who is more aware of his immediate duties
as a servant, doctor, and member of the student association than he is of politics or patriotic
endeavors. His sweetheart is Juli, the daughter of Kabesang Tales whose family took him in when
he was a young boy fleeing the Guardia Civil and his deranged mother.
• Isagani – Basilio's friend. He is described as a poet, taller and more robust than Basilio although
younger. He is the nephew of Padre Florentino, but is also rumored to be Florentino's son with his
old sweetheart before he was ordained as a priest. During the events of the novel, Isagani is
finishing his studies at the Ateneo Municipal and is planning to take medicine. A member of the
student association, Isagani is proud and naive, and tends to put himself on the spot when his
ideals are affronted. His unrestrained idealism and poeticism clash with the more practical and
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mundane concerns of his girlfriend, Paulita Gomez. When Isagani allows himself to be arrested
after their association is outlawed, Paulita leaves him for Juanito Peláez. In his final mention in the
novel, he was bidding goodbye to his landlords, the Orenda family, to stay with Florentino
permanently.
• Father Florentino – Isagani's uncle and a retired priest. Florentino was the son of a wealthy and
influential Manila family. He entered the priesthood at the insistence of his mother. As a result he
had to break an affair with a woman he loved, and in despair devoted himself instead to his parish.
When the 1872 Cavite mutiny broke out, he promptly resigned from the priesthood, fearful of
drawing unwanted attention. He was an indio and a secular, or a priest that was unaffiliated with
the orders, and yet his parish drew in a huge income. He retired to his family's large estate along
the shores of the Pacific. He is described as white-haired, with a quiet, serene personality and a
strong build. He did not smoke or drink. He was well respected by his peers, even by Spanish friars
and officials.
• Father Fernández – a Dominican who was a friend of Isagani. Following the incident with the
posters, he invited Isagani to a dialogue, not so much as a teacher with his student but as a friar
with a Filipino. Although they failed to resolve their differences, they each promised to approach
their colleagues with the opposing views from the other party – although both feared that given the
animosity that existed between their sides, their own compatriots may not believe in the other
party's existence.
• Kapitán Tiago – Don Santiago de los Santos. María Clara's stepfather. Having several
landholdings in Pampanga, Binondo, and Laguna, as well as taking ownership of the Ibarras' vast
estate, Tiago still fell into depression following María's entry into the convent. He alleviated this by
smoking opium, which quickly became an uncontrolled vice, exacerbated by his association with
Padre Írene who regularly supplied him with the substance. Tiago hired Basilio as a capista, a
servant who given the opportunity to study as part of his wages; Basilio eventually pursued
medicine and became his caregiver and the manager of his estate. Tiago died of shock upon
hearing of Basilio's arrest and Padre Írene's embellished stories of violent revolt.
• Captain-General – the highest-ranking official in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial
period. The Captain-General in El fili is Simoun's friend and confidant, and is described as having
an insatiable lust for gold. Simoun met him when he was still a major during the Ten Years' War in
Cuba. He secured the major's friendship and promotion to Captain-General through bribes. When
he was posted in the Philippines, Simoun used him as a pawn in his own power plays to drive the
country into revolution. The Captain-General was shamed into not extending his tenure after being
rebuked by a high official in the aftermath of Basilio's imprisonment. This decision to retire would
later on prove to be a crucial element to Simoun's schemes.
• Father Bernardo Salví – the former parish priest of San Diego in Noli Me Tángere, and now the
director and chaplain of the Santa Clara convent. The epilogue of the Noli implies that Salví
regularly rapes María Clara when he is present at the convent. In El fili, he is described as her
confessor. In spite of reports of Ibarra's death, Salví believes that he is still alive and lives in
constant fear of his revenge.
• Father Millon – a Dominican who serves as a physics professor in the University of Santo Tomas.
• Quiroga – a Chinese businessman who aspired to be a consul for China in the Philippines. Simoun
coerced Quiroga into hiding weapons inside the latter's warehouses in preparation for the
revolution.
• Don Custodio – Custodio de Salazar y Sánchez de Monteredondo, a famous "contractor" who
was tasked by the Captain-General to develop the students association's proposal for an academy
for the teaching of Spanish, but was then also under pressure from the priests not to compromise
their prerogatives as monopolizers of instruction. Some of the novel's most scathing criticism is
reserved for Custodio, who is portrayed as an opportunist who married his way into high society,
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who regularly criticized favored ideas that did not come from him, but was ultimately, laughably
incompetent in spite of his scruples.
• Ben-Zayb – A columnist for the Manila Spanish newspaper El Grito de la Integridad. Ben-Zayb is
his pen name and is an anagram of Ybanez, an alternate spelling of his last name Ibañez. His first
name is not mentioned. Ben-Zayb is said to have the looks of a friar, who believes that in Manila
they think because he thinks. He is deeply patriotic, sometimes to the point of jingoism. As a
journalist he has no qualms embellishing a story, conflating and butchering details, turning phrases
over and over, making a mundane story sound better than it actually is. Father Camorra derisively
calls him an ink-slinger.
• Father Camorra – the parish priest of Tiani. Ben-Zayb's regular foil, he is said to look like an
artilleryman in counterpoint to Ben-Zayb's friar looks. He stops at nothing to mock and humiliate
Ben-Zayb's liberal pretensions. In his own parish, Camorra has a reputation for unrestrained
lustfulness. He drives Juli into suicide after attempting to rape her inside the convent. For his
misbehavior he was "detained" in a luxurious riverside villa just outside Manila.
• Father Írene – Kapitán Tiago's spiritual adviser. Along with Custodio, Írene is severely criticized
as a representative of priests who allied themselves with temporal authority for the sake of power
and monetary gain. Known to many as the final authority who Don Custodio consults, the student
association sought his support and gifted him with two chestnut-colored horses, yet he betrayed
the students by counseling Custodio into making them fee collectors in their own school, which
was then to be administered by the Dominicans instead of being a secular and privately managed
institution as the students envisioned. Írene secretly but regularly supplies Kapitán Tiago with
opium while exhorting Basilio to do his duty. Írene embellished stories of panic following the
outlawing of the student association Basilio was part of, hastening Kapitán Tiago's death. With
Basilio in prison, he then struck Basilio out of Tiago's last will and testament, ensuring he inherited
nothing.
• Placido Penitente – a student of the University of Santo Tomas who had a distaste for study and
would have left school if it were not for his mother's pleas for him to stay. He clashes with his
physics professor, who then accuses him of being a member of the student association, whom the
friars despise. Following the confrontation, he meets Simoun at the Quiapo Fair. Seeing potential
in Placido, Simoun takes him along to survey his preparations for the upcoming revolution. The
following morning Placido has become one of Simoun's committed followers. He is later seen with
the former schoolmaster of San Diego, who was now Simoun's bomb-maker.
• Paulita Gómez – the girlfriend of Isagani and the niece of Doña Victorina, the old Indio who passes
herself off as a Peninsular, who is the wife of the quack doctor Tiburcio de Espadaña. In the end,
she and Isagani part ways, Paulita believing she will have no future if she marries him. She
eventually marries Juanito Peláez.
Characters from Barrio Sagpang:
• Kabesang Tales – Telesforo Juan de Dios, a former kabesa of Barrio Sagpang in Tiani. He was
a sugarcane planter who cleared lands he thought belonged to no one, losing his wife and eldest
daughter in the endeavor. When the Dominicans took over his farm, he fought to his last money to
have it retained in his possession. While his suit against the Dominicans was ongoing, he was
kidnapped by bandits while he was out patrolling his fields. Having no money to pay his captors,
his daughter Juli was forced to become a maid in exchange for her mistress paying his ransom.
When his son Tano was conscripted into the Guardia Civil, again Tales had no money to pay for
Tano's exclusion from the draft. When in spite of all Tales lost the case, he not only lost his farm
but was also dealt with a heavy fine. He later joined the bandits and became one of their fiercest
commanders. Tandang Selo, his father, would later on join his band after the death of Juli.
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• Tandang Selo – father of Kabesang Tales and grandfather of Tano and Juli. A deer hunter and
later on a broom-maker, he and Tales took in the young, sick Basilio who was then fleeing from
the Guardia Civil. On Christmas Day, when Juli left to be with her mistress, Selo suffered some
form of stroke that impaired his ability to speak. After Juli's suicide, Selo left town permanently,
taking with him his hunting spear. He was later seen with the bandits and was killed in an encounter
with the Guardia Civil – ironically by the gun of the troops' sharpshooter Tano, his grandson.
• Juli – Juliana de Dios, the girlfriend of Basilio, and the youngest daughter of Kabesang Tales.
When Tales was captured by bandits, Juli petitioned Hermana Penchang to pay for his ransom. In
exchange, she had to work as Penchang's maid. Basilio ransomed her and bought a house for her
family. When Basilio was sent to prison, Juli approached Tiani's curate, Padre Camorra, for help.
When Camorra tried to rape her instead, Juli jumped to her death from the church's tower.
• Tano – Kabesang Tales's son, second to Lucia who died in childhood. He was nicknamed
"Carolino" after returning from Guardia Civil training in the Carolines. His squad was escorting
prisoners through a road that skirted a mountain when they were ambushed by bandits. In the
ensuing battle, Tano, the squad's sharpshooter, killed a surrendering bandit from a distance, not
knowing it was his own grandfather Selo.
• Hermana Penchang – the one among the "rich folks" of Tiani who lent Juli money to ransom
Kabesang Tales from the bandits. In return, Juli will serve as her maid until the money was paid
off. Penchang is described as a pious woman who speaks Spanish; however, her piety was
clouded over by the virtues taught by the friars. While Juli was in her service, she made her work
constantly, refusing to give her time off so she can take care of her grandfather Selo. Nevertheless,
when the rich folks of Tiani shunned Juli because to support her family in any way might earn some
form of retribution from the friars, Penchang was the only one who took pity upon her.
• Hermana Báli – Juli's mother-figure and counselor. She accompanied Juli in her efforts to secure
Kabesang Tales' ransom and later on Basilio's release. Báli was a panguinguera – a gambler –
who once performed religious services in a Manila convent. When Tales was captured by bandits,
it was Báli who suggested to Juli the idea to borrow money from Tiani's wealthy citizens, payable
when Tales' legal dispute over his farm was won.
Student association for the teaching of Spanish:
• Macaraig – the leader. He is described as wealthy, with his own coach, driver, and set of horses.
He is said to own several houses, and that he is lending one to serve as the schoolhouse for their
planned Spanish language academy. After the outlawing of the group, he was the first to post bail.
He then left the country after his release.
• Sandoval – a Peninsular who had come to Manila as a government employee and was finishing
his studies, and who had completely identified himself with the cause of the Filipino students. After
the outlawing of the group, he still managed to pass his courses through sheer oratorical skill.
• Pecson – described as chubby, pessimistic, and having an annoying grin. He is Sandoval's regular
foil when Sandoval launches into any kind of patriotic, optimistic speech. After they receive
disappointing news about their Spanish language academy project, it was Pecson who suggested
a torch-lit dinner at the Panciteria Macanista de Buen Gusto, just a block away from the Binondo
Church and Convent, served by naked Chinese waiters. From there Sandoval and Pecson became
more gracious to each other.
• Tadeo – a truant and charlatan who regularly dreamed of an eternal "holiday" from school, but
was all the same beloved by professors and passed courses. A longtime Manila resident, he is
seen having fun by telling outrageous stories about himself to a newcomer student from his home
province. After the outlawing of the group, he alone seemed to welcome imprisonment as it meant
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not going to school. His holiday realized at last, he "celebrated" by setting up a bonfire using his
books upon his release.
• Juanito Peláez – Isagani's rival for Paulita Gomez's affection. He was the son of a Timoteo
Peláez, a metalworks trader. He was a favorite of his professors. A regular prankster, he was said
to have developed a hump by playing some trick and then hunching behind his classmates. He
paid his dues to the student association, but broke away just as easily when the association was
outlawed. Following Isagani's arrest, Paulita breaks off from Isagani to marry Juanito.
Comparison of Noli and Fili
1. The Noli is a romantic novel. It has freshnesS, color, humor, lightness, and wit.
2. The Fili is a political novel. It contains bitterness, hatred, pain, violence, and sorrow.
In short, Noli is a "book of the heart while Fili is a "book of the head"
3. Originally, Rizal intended to make the Fili longer than the Noli but it became shorter
than the Noli because there were parts that were drastically cut due to lack of printing
funds. Fili consists only of 38 chapters as against the Noli's 64 chapters.
4. Marcelo H. del Pilar and Rizal himself considered the Noli as superior to the Fili as a
novel.
5. Retana, Rizal's first biographer believed that that the Noli is superior to Fili whereas
Blumentritt, Graciano Lopez Jaena and Dr. Rafael Palma claimed that the Fili is superior
to Noli.
In fact, Jaena wrote Rizal in October 2, 1891 to write another novel which would give a
definite solution to the country's problem. Noli and Fili are purely academic. From the
point of view of history, both novels are good as they are purely academic in nature. Both
novels depict the actual and real conditions of the Philippines and the sufferings of the
Filipinos during the Spanish rule.
Both novels are instrumental in awakening the spirit of Filipino nationalism, Both novels
also paved the way for the Philippine revolution that brought about the downfall of the
Spanish rule in the Philippines.
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Rizal's Dedication of the Fili to GOMBURZA
Here is the full text of Rizal's dedication:
“To the memory of the priests, Don Mariano Gomez (85 years old), Don Jose Burgos (0
years old), and Don Jacinto Zamora (35 years old). Executed in the Bagumbayan Field
on the 28th of February, 1872."
"The church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been
imputed to you; the Government, by surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows
causes the belief that there was some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the
Philippines, by worshipping your memory and calling you martyrs, in no sense recognizes
your culpability. In so far, therefore, as your complicity in the Cavite Mutiny is not clearly
proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and as you may or may not cherished
sentiments for justice and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims
of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we await expectantly upon Spain
someday to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these
pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over one who without clear proofs attacks
your memory stains his hands in your blood."
To know more about this Chapter, please click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE39aANHDhE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFohD-Ta8zU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9N5PgashW8
Dr. Mariano M. Ariola The Life and Works of Rizal. Unlimited Books Library Service & Publishing
Inc.: 2018
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_filibusterismo
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