The Reign of Greed

About Jose Rizal

José Rizal (1861-1896) was a Filipino poet novelist sculptor painter and national hero. Born in Calamba Rizal was raised in a mestizo family of eleven children who lived and worked on a farm owned by Dominican friars. As a boy he excelled in school and won several poetry contests. At the University of Santo Tomas he studied philosophy and law before devoting himself to ophthalmology upon hearing of his mothers blindness. In 1882 he traveled to Madrid to study medicine before moving to Germany where he gave lectures on Tagalog. In Heidelberg while working with pioneering ophthalmologist Otto Becker Rizal finished writing his novel Touch Me Not (1887). Now considered a national epic alongside its sequel The Reign of Greed (1891) Touch Me Not is a semi-autobiographical novel that critiques the actions of the Catholic Church and Spanish Empire in his native Philippines. In 1892 he returned to Manila and founded La Liga Filipina a secret organization dedicated to social reform. Later that year he was deported to Zamboanga province where he built a school hospital and water supply system. During this time the Katipunan a movement for liberation from Spanish rule began to take shape in Manila eventually resulting in the Philippine Revolution in 1896. For his writing against colonialism and association with active members of Katipunan Rizal was arrested while traveling to Cuba via Spain. On December 30 1896 he was executed by firing squad on the outskirts of Manila and buried in an unmarked grave.