About Dr.Jose Rizal

José Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines.


Born June 19, 1861


Calamba, Laguna, Philippines


Died December 30, 1896(1896-12-30) (aged 35)


Bagumbayan (now Rizal Park), Manila, Philippines


Monuments Rizal Park, Manila



Calamba,Laguna


Alma mater Ateneo Municipal de Manila, University of Santo Tomas, Universidad Central de Madrid, University of Paris, Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg


Organization La Solidaridad, La Liga Filipina

                José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda
                                  (Jose Rizal)
        (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896, Bagumbayan)

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 Rizal's death is commemorated as a Philippine holiday called Rizal Day. Rizal's 1896 military trial and execution made him a martyr of the Philippine Revolution.

The seventh of eleven children born to a wealthy family in the town of Calamba, Laguna, Rizal attended the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, earning a Bachelor of Arts. He enrolled in Medicine and Philosophy and Letters at the University of Santo Tomas and then traveled alone to Madrid, Spain, where he continued his studies at the Universidad Central de Madrid, earning the degree of Licentiate in Medicine. He attended the University of Paris and earned a second doctorate at the University of Heidelberg. Rizal was a polyglot conversant in at least ten languages.He was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El filibusterismo. These are social commentaries on the Philippines that formed the nucleus of literature that inspired dissent among peaceful reformists and spurred the militancy of armed revolutionaries against the Spanish colonial authorities.

As a political figure, Jose Rizal was the founder of La Liga Filipina, a civic organization that subsequently gave birth to the Katipunan led by Andrés Bonifacio and Emilio Aguinaldo. He was a proponent of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution. The general consensus among Rizal scholars, however, attributed his martyred death as the catalyst that precipitated the Philippine Revolution…