Dapitan Despujol's Decree Produced Consternation Among Rizal's Friends
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Dapitan Despujol’s decree produced consternation among Rizal’s friends and partisans, but they soon overcome it. On the same night that decree appeared in the Gazette, a secret meeting was held in an accesoria (apartment) on Azcarraga street. The apartment was modest, and its tenant was a nearsighted old man, inoffensive and sickly in appearance. His name was DeodatoArellano and his only companions were his wife and a nephew, a daring young man teeming with vitality, named Gregorio del Pilar. Deodato was a brother-in-law of Marcelo del Pilar, editor of La Solidaridad, and the copies of this fortnightly magazine came consigned in his name. At the meeting there were only seven persons in all, including the tenant of the place, but among the seven was the fiery Andres Bonifacio. They spoke in a low voice as if they were afraid to be heard or surprised. Only one sentiment animated all, and in a short time the meeting was adjourned after they had arrived at a solemn accord: to found th Katipunan, an association of the sons of the people to promote the sepreration of the country from Spain. The Filipino League did not live long although it was backed by the name of Rizal. Not being steeped in the intimate feelings of the founder, those who had obligated themselves to it, believing it to be a new instrument to ask peaceably for reforms from the government, considered it to useless and of little efficacy and gradually separated from it to join the Katipunan, whose program seemed to them more determined, more resolute, and more daring in its aims. A week later Rizal arrived at Dapitan and was delivered in person by an officer in transport to the commander of the post, Don Ricardo Carnicero, Captain of the Infantry. Despujol was in a way considerate towards Rizal. In a sealed document brought by the officer of the boat, Rizal was authorized to lodge in the mission-house of the Jesuits; or, if he preffered to live in the mission-house; but in view of that the Jesuits required him, as a condition precedent, to retract his religious and political ideas to submit himself to spiritual exercises in accordance with the instructions received from the head of the Mission, he asked that he be permitted to live in the house of him. The commander of the district, Don Ricardo Carnicero, was a man who was dicreet and generous and one not lacking in talent, Rizal lived with him and had one long conversation with him at table or during the walks which the two took almost daily. Always affable, respectful, gracious, and of exquisite conversation, Rizal soon won the good will and then the cordial friendship of his keeper, so much so that the latter permitted him all the liberties not incompatible with official surveillance. Carnicero also benefited by this mutual confidence, as he became acquainted with Rizal’s most intimate ideas and thought and was able to use them as material for his official report to the Governor General. In one of their conversations Rizal reiterated the program of reforms that he wanted for the Philippines, which he had expressed previously in his writing. He wished to: (1) give representation to the Filipinos to the Cortes; (2) secularize the friars, doing away with the tutorship which the latter exercise over the government and the country, and the distributing the curaries as they became vacant among the clergymen, who could be Filipinos or Spaniards; (3) improved and reform the Administration in all its branches; (4) foster primary instruction, taking away all intervention of the friars and giving the teachers more pay; (5) divide fifty-fifty the appointments in the country between the Spaniards and the Filipinos; (6) create schools arts and trades in the capitals of the provinces of more than 16,000 inhabitants; (70 permit freedom of religion and of the press. When Carnicero, feigning to be a partisan of his reforms, called attention to the impossibility of obtaining these reforms on account of the great influence of the friars both in Madrid and in Manila, Rizal answered: “Do not think so. The influence of the friars is warning in all parts of the world. I am bold enough to assure you that with the government a little advanced, where there are five or six men like Becerra, the friars would disappear. In Madrid they know perfectly well all that the friars do here, so much so that in the first interviews I had with Pi and Linares Rivas, when the latter belonged to the liberal Party, they informed me of things which I, a native of this country, did not know. I could cite to you many who, like and miracles of the friars in the Philippines; but, as they tell me: “The bad government that succeed one another in Spain are guilty of many abuses committed on behalf of the religious corporations; the day things change, we will not forget those gentlemen. ’In the Philippines, I regret to tell you, the friars are disliked and they make themselves more repugment and odious every day by their meddling in everything. The deportation of my family is due to the denunciation of a friar.” Because of the lack of physicians, Rizal practiced his profession in the town, rendering his professional services to all persons who solicited them, without changing the poor. He charged the others according to their means. A rich English man who came to consult him and whom Rizal operated on for paid him five hundred dollars, all of which Rizal spent in endowing the town with electric lightings In September, Rizal obtained more than six thousand pesos as participation in the second price of the lottery of Manila, and he sent the whole amount to his mother for her expenses and necessities. Garnicero not only acceded to what Rizal asked him but even offered him all kinds of stimuli, thinking that the more engrossed Rizal might be in his project he less he would think politics and of his friends. He try to induce him to establish himself in Dapitan with his friends instead of Borneo since he seemed to like the district and there were many abandoned lands there for lack of laborers. Rizal confided to him that the English government offered him guaranties which the Spanish government did not afford him. He feared that after cultivating the lands for many years the friars might come and grab them. Always the friars! But Carnicero persuaded him that the friars’ domination did not reach Dapitan and that he could rest assured that if he brought his family and his friends they would not regret the change of residence. Perhaps because of this suggestions, Rizal planned to build a house of his own, and for the present he asked for the lands that where near the plaza, where he planted fruit trees of different varieties. Later he acquired another parcel of land in Talisay which, according to Carnicero’s report, was of great area and contained sixty cacao plants, some coffee trees, and many fruit trees, and which cost him 18 pesos in all. Carnicero proposed to Despujol to pardon Rizal’s relatives who were in Jolo so that they might establish their residence in Dapitan, and to persuade his sister Lucia and the cousin of hers who were in Manila to go to Dapitan to live with Rizal. He also recommended that Rizal be flatterd with hope of obtaining the position of provincial doctor of the district so that he would not think of leaving it. Rizal was contented with his new project and enjoyed his work in agriculture. He wrote to his father, saying that if they should decide to come with the family he would build a house and leave his books and profession. From his retirement he witnesses with indifference the passing of men and events. Despujol who had done him so much harm; was relieved of his office in the beginning of 1893. he was succeeded ad interim by the second in command, Federico Ochando, and garnicero was also relieved as a result of complaints preferred against him for his excessive complacencies towards Rizal, and for being impious. His successor was another captain of the infantry named Juan Sitges, who assumed office on May 4, 1893. With Sitges things changed somewhat for Rizal, at least in the first days. The new chief of the district resented sharing his board and lodging with a drportee; and Rizal, anticipating his desire, asked him to assign him to another house to live. Sitges, then, made him move to a next house to the comandancia and required his appearance three times a day. He took other restricted measures such as prohibiting Rizal for visiting the boats and taking walk outside the limit of the town proper. As confiscated a letter from Blumentritt in which he spoke to Rizal only of things about his familt, simply because he considered Blumentrit an enemy of Spain, even though he himself acknowledged that in this letter it was the only time he treated the Spaniars with indulgence and the first time in which he did not give separatist advice. But this harsh treatment did not last more than a few weeks. General Blanco arrived in a short time to take over the reins of the government of the islands; and whether by instruction received from him, on his own initiative after seeing the docility demonstrated by Rizal and his exemplary conduct, Sitges change his conduct and gave Rizal the same liberties, if not a little more, as those given by his predecessor.