ONE PAST, MANY HISTORIES

controversies and conflicting views in Philippine history

controversial / conflicting issues in Philippine history:

 Cavite mutiny (Spanish, Filipino, official versions)
 first Cry (Pugadlawin, Balintawak, Bahay Toro, etc.)
 first President (Bonifacio or Aguinaldo)
 Balangiga massacre (American, Filipino versions)
 collaboration issue during the Japanese Period (collaborators or heroes)
 Ramon Magsaysay ( Man of the Masses or CIA prodigy)
 Martial Law (golden age or dark era)
 Duterte administration (good or bad change)

EXAMPLE: RETRACTION CONTROVERSY

BACKGROUND
 Jose Rizal was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by a Spanish court martial after being
implicated as a leader of the Philippine Revolution
 on the eve of his death by firing squad at Bagumbayan on December 30, 1896, accounts exist that
Rizal allegedly retracted his Masonic ideals and his writings and reconverted to Catholicism
 doubts as to the retraction persisted, even after the supposed retraction document was found in
1935
 at least four texts of Rizal’s retraction have surfaced
 published in La Voz Española and Diaro de Manila on the very day of Rizal’s execution, Dec. 30,
1896.
 appeared in Barcelona, Spain, on February 14, 1897, in the fortnightly magazine in La Juventud;
it came from an anonymous writer who revealed himself fourteen years later as Fr. Balaguer
 appeared in El Imparcial on the day after Rizal’s execution; it is the short formula of the
retraction
 "original" text was discovered in the archdiocesan archives on May 18, 1935, after it disappeared
for thirty-nine years from the afternoon of the day when Rizal was shot

Fr. Vicente Balaguer, SJ

one of the Jesuit priests who visited Rizal during his last hours in Fort Santiago
claimed that he managed to persuade Rizal to denounce Masonry and return to Catholicism
in affidavit executed in 1917, also claimed that he was the one who solemnized marriage of Rizal
and Josephine Bracken a few hours before the execution

Fr. Pio Pi, SJ

Jesuit Superior in the Philippines during time Rizal was executed
in 1917, issued affidavit recounting involvement in retraction:
secured retraction document from then Archbishop of Manila Bernardino Nozaleda
wrote shorter retraction document which was the one Rizal allegedly copied

Rizal’s family
initially did not accept claim of Rizal’s retraction
could not accept that Rizal would turn his back from his beliefs and writings just in order to
marry Josephine Bracken
 some of the sisters said that they would only believe retraction if they see retraction document
itself
“Ilibing niyo ako sa lupa. Lagyan ninyo ng panandang bato at KRUS. Ang aking pangalan, araw
ng kapanganakan at ng kamatayan. Wala nang iba. Kung pagkatapos ay nais niyong bakuran
ang aking puntod, maaari niyong gawin. Wala nang anibersaryo. Mas mabuti kung sa Paang
Bundok. Kaawaan ninyo si Josephine.”

Fr. Jesus Maria Cavanna (author of Rizal’s Unfading Glory)

Rizal’s glory as a scholar, as a poet, as a scientist, as a patriot, as a hero, may some day fade
away…  But his glory of having found at the hour of his death what unfortunately he lost for a
time, the Truth, the Way, and the Life, that will ever be his UNFADING GLORY.
1.  discovery in 1935, the Retraction “Document” is considered the chief witness to the reality of
the Retraction, itself. 
2.  testimony of the press at the time of the event, of “eye-witnesses,” and other “qualified
witnesses,” i.e. those closely associated with the events such as the head of the Jesuit order, the
archbishop, etc.
3.  “Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity” reportedly recited and signed by Dr. Rizal as attested by
“witnesses” and a signed Prayer Book. 
4.  Acts of Piety performed by Rizal during his last hours as testified to by “witnesses.”
5.  his “Roman Catholic Marriage” to Josephine Bracken as attested to by “witnesses.”  There
could be no marriage without a retraction.

Rafael Palma (author of Biografia de Rizal)

believed Rizal did not retract for the following reasons:
original document of retraction was kept secret, even from the family of Rizal (including
certificate of canonical marriage)
burial of Rizal kept secret, corpse was not given to the family – not the way to treat
someone who died as a Catholic
buried in the ground without a cross, recorded in a special page together with those
who died impenitent
Rizal was a man of character, not likely to yield ideas because his former teachers talked
to him
Rizal’s conversion was pious fraud to make people believe that he broke don and succumbed
before the Chruch which he had fought

Austin Coates (author of Rizal: Philippine Nationalist and Martyr)

considered retraction as an ecclesiastical fraud, which the Archbishop may have unknowingly
supported, pointing to Fr. Balaguer as the culprit
arguments:
Fathers Vilaclara and March did not endorse the giving of Christian burial to Rizal, who
was entrusted to them for spiritual care
Rizal family found it difficult to accept retraction and marriage, if Rizal retracted he
would have told his mother, knowing the consolation it would give her
Fr. Balaguer’s desire to be praised (in published anonymous account, which he later on
admitted to be his authorship)
if Fr. Balaguer’s account is to be believed, Rizal would have no time to write his last
poem
Ricardo Pascual (author of Rizal Beyond the Grave)
claimed that the document that surfaced in 1935 was a forgery
handwriting
differences in text between the version from Fr. Balaguer’s affidavit and 1935 document
strangely worded part, (in the Catholic Religion “I wish to live and die”)yet there was little time
to live
the “confession” of “the forger.”
interview with a certain Antonio K. Abad saying that a certain Roman Roque was
employed by the Friars earlier that same year to make several copies of a retraction
document

Ramon G. Lopez, M.D.

a great-grandnephew of Rizal raised the following arguments in a lecture on June 18, 2011 at the
Newberry Library in Chicago:
absence of corroboration of retraction from Fr. Vilaclara and Fr. March
in Josephine Bracken’s matrimony to Vicente Abad in Hong Kong, there was no reference
that she was a “Rizal” by marriage, or that she was the widow of Dr. Jose Rizal, but
instead used surname “Bracken”
Rizal family was informed by the church that 9-11 days after the execution, a mass for
the deceased would be said, after which the letter of retraction would be shown the
family. However, the mass was never celebrated and no letter of retraction was shown. 
Jesuits themselves (who had a special liking for their former student) did not celebrate
any mass for his soul, nor did they hold any funerary rites over his body

Cuerpo de Vigilancia documents (bought by Philippine government from Spain in mid1990’s)

written by Federico Moreno, on the day of Rizal’s execution, detailing the report of the Cuerpo
de Vigilancia stationed in Fort Santiago
“Rizal spoke for a long while with the Jesuit fathers, March and Vilaclara, regarding religious
matters, it seems. It appears that these two presented him with a prepared retraction on his life
and deeds that he refused to sign… At 3 in the afternoon, Father March entered the chapel and
Rizal handed him what he had written. Immediately the chief of the firing squad, Señor del
Fresno and the Assistant of the Plaza, Señor Maure, were informed. They entered death row and
together with Rizal signed the document that the accused had written.  It seems this was the
retraction.”
“At 5 this morning of the 30th, the lover of Rizal arrived at the prison …dressed in mourning. Only
the former entered the chapel, followed by a military chaplain whose name I cannot ascertain.
Donning his formal clothes and aided by a soldier of the artillery, the nuptials of Rizal and the
woman who had been his lover were performed at the point of death (in articulo mortis). After
embracing him she left, flooded with tears.”

EVALUATION
given the voluminous arguments supporting, on the one hand; and denying on the other, the
retraction of Rizal, historians and some ordinary people alike continue to debate the issue
some refuse to accept the retraction, because for them it meant Rizal turned his back to
everything he fought for
others believe that even if the retraction was true, it can never change what Rizal had done for
the nation