Don Manuel
Timoteo Hidalgo
was perhaps the most outspoken supporter of Dr. Jose Rizal in Calamba. He was a
brother-in-law of Rizal being the husband Saturnina,[1]
Rizal’s elder sister. Although aware of the arbitrariness of those who were in
power, Hidalgo was not afraid to speak his
mind, after all, he held a degree in law from the University of Santo Tomas
As expected,
Hidalgo
gained many enemies. Without due process, the Superior Government decreed his
banishment to the town of Tagbilaran , Province of Bohol Hidalgo found out that
he was charged of spreading
anti-religious and subversive ideas and of being a representative of Jose
Rizal.
Don Cipriano
Rubio, former lieutenant and acting gobernadorcillo, also charged Hidalgo of being a filibustero.
The charge was seconded by Juan Lopez, a lieutenant of guardia civil and a
harsh critic of Rizal. The other adverse witnesses were Capitan Lucas and
Capitan Quico, who, Hidalgo
believed, had axes to grind against him.[3]
Thus, amidst
the howling of his family, Hidalgo
and a servant left Calamba as exiles.[4] On 6 October 1888 , they
arrived in Cebu , where they took a boat to
Tagbilaran. Hidalgo
was the first to be deported on account of the agrarian problem in the
hacienda.[5] Upon
informed, Jose Rizal worked relentlessly in Spain
for Hidalgo ’s
exculpation. All his pleas, however, fell on deaf ears.
Year 1889,
the situation in Calamba worsened. The past locust infestations, low price of
sugar and other natural calamities had taken their toll. The practice of the
hacienda of not issuing receipts to rents paid[6]
aggravated the situation. If ever receipts were released, these were useless as
these contained neither signature nor indication of any amount paid. The
receipts only stated the taxpayers’ names and the fact that the tax for that
year had been paid.[7] Thus, year after year, the
unpaid rents increased enormously for payments may end up unreported.
By August,
after the tenants boycotted the May canon collection, the hacienda formally asked the court for the eviction
of defaulting tenants.[8]
The list of receivables shown to the governor general during his
November visit at the hacienda appeared that the tenants paid nothing. This
alarmed the governor general for it displayed civil disobedience. [9]
In November,
Don Manuel Hidalgo was allowed to return to Luzon
to take care of his family’s businesses. He and his wife Neneng owned sugar
plantations in Tanawan, Batangas and Los Baños, Laguna. After gathering the
sugar crops and settling his businesses, Hidalgo
was again decreed by governor general to be banished back to Tagbilaran. He was
again denounced by the syndic and the lay brothers as the instigator of the
recent Calamba disturbances.[10] He
was arrested on the Christmas day of 1889 while dining with his family.[11]
Year 1890,
the tenants still have no money to pay their obligations. When the Visitador
arrived for the collection of annual canon, only Don Eusebio Elepaño, Don
Pantaleon Quintero and few other families were able to pay.[12] The
defaulting tenants’ only hope lied on Jose Rizal’s suggestion that their
refusal to pay may allow the case to reach the Supreme Court in Madrid via appeal.[13] So
hopeful were the penniless tenants that detractors had to fabricate stories
about Rizal to demoralize them. Negative rumors about Rizal spread. Some of
these rumors were: that Rizal was purchased by the friars and had changed side;
that he was imprisoned in Madrid ;
and worst, he was poisoned to death.[14]
By May,
Judge Celestino Dimayuga of the Court of First Instance of Laguna ordered the
eviction Don Francisco Rizal Mercado from his tenanted lands in the hacienda.
Don Nicasio Eisagani met the same fate. With the principal tenants evicted, a
number of families working for them were also evicted. Both judgments were
promptly appealed before the Audiencia in Manila , which dismissed the case for lack of
merit. With waning hope, the Calambeños, appealed their cases before the Tribunal
Supremo in Madrid .
Knowing what
the friars can do pending appeal, Governor Mompeon persuaded Gobernadorcillo
Elepaño to try to work for a compromise between the parties. Finding
Elepaño unable to contain the crisis plus the rumors of French or German
reinforcement to the “Calamba rebellion,” Governor Mompeon, tried to solve the
problem himself. But the Calambeños, penniless, can’t offer any compromise
except to wait for the outcome of the appeals of Francisco Mercado and Nicasio
Eigasani in Madrid .
Frustrated, Governor Mompeon took the Calambeño’s refusal to pay rents as
filibusterism and ordered the appearance before the government of its apparent
leaders: Silvestre Ubaldo, Antonino Lopez, Leandro Lopez, Paciano Rizal and
Mateo Elejorde.[15] A week later, 14 August 1890 , evictions
commenced.[16]
Some
lettered Calambeños were vocal and thus, were charged to have incited others to
fight the authorities. As a preventive measure, on 6 September 1890 , at 4:30 o’clock in afternoon, Silvestre Ubaldo,
Antonino Lopez, Leandro Lopez, Paciano Rizal and Mateo Elejorde, all apparent
leaders, were shipped to Mindoro as exiles on
board the steamer Brutus.[17]
Subsequent query by their relatives revealed that although there were
deportation papers, there were no formal accusations against them. Thus, there
was no due process.
The
deportees stayed in the town of Calapan , the
capital of Mindoro , where they rented a
furnished house for seven (7) pesos a month.[18] Later,
the government attempted to transfer them to Jolo due to rumors that they were
still communicating with their relatives in Calamba, inducing the latter to
bring their deportation case to court.[19]
Year 1891
was a fateful year. Its first two months
were marked with violent evictions and dispossessions. Calamba was in total
disarray.[20] In October, Governor
General Valeriano Weyler sent armed troops, under the command of Colonel
Francisco Olive y Garcia, to effect the orders of eviction. Col. Olive also
recommended the exile of twenty-five (25) Calambeños who “formed a strong body
to oppose not only the Dominicans but also the Spanish domination in the Philippines .”
The colony, if left unchecked, will soon plunge into a revolution.[21]
Acting on
the recommendation, on 13 November 1891, the Secretariat of the General
Government of the Philippines
informed the Civil Governor of Manila that the Governor General banished to the
Island of Jolo
twenty-five (25) residents of the town of Calamba ,
province of Laguna Island of Jolo
in Mindanao .
The
deportees were: Don Francisco Rizal Mercado, Doña Saturnina Rizal Realonda,
Doña Narcisa Rizal Realonda, Doña Lucia Rizal Realonda, Doña Petrona Quintero
Paña, Don Nicolas Llamas Rizal, Don Aquilino Gicolea Hervolario, Don Matias
Belarmino Quintera, Don Velentin Elejorde Alcala, Don Patricio Rizal, Don
Nicasio Eygasani[22] Alcala and Don Raymundo
Alviar Faolmino.
Also included were: Don Rafael Elejorde, Don
Santos Gicolea, Don Cayetano de Jesus, Don Luis Elasegui Ustaris, Don Custodio
Faulmague, Don Angel Alcuyaga, Don Pascual Alcaraz, Don Ysaac Alviar Alcala,
Don Victor Alviar Lopez, Don Mamerto Alviar Faolmino, Don Pio Alcala Arambulo,
Don Felipe Habacon Cañope[23] and
Don Narciso Habacon.[24]
The next
day, 14 November 1891, Don Nicolas Llamas Rizal, Don Cayetano de Jesus, Don
Patricio Rizal and Don Felipe Habacon Cañope were arrested by the Guardia Civil
under the command Col. Miguel Concepcion.[25] They
were imprisoned in Bilibid awaiting their deportation to Jolo.[26]
Atty. Jose Maria Gutierrez, a peninsular Spaniard, negotiated the lifting up of
the deportation orders of the twenty-five (25) from the new Governor General
but failed. The arrested deportees were placed on board en route to Jolo on 28 November 1891 .[27] The
wives of the deportees also presented a petition to the Governor General.[28]
Don
Francisco Rizal Mercado evaded Jolo deportation by escaping to Hong Kong
together with Don Paciano Rizal and Silvestre Ubaldo who also evaded completing
their Mindoro deportation.[29] They
were assisted by Partido Rizalino, a political party organized by patriotic
Filipinos in Manila .
The party hid them in the house of Martin Zamosa and then facilitated their
escape to Hong Kong . Zamosa, a Chinese
subject, was later on imprisoned because of the said acts.[30]
Manuel
Hidalgo, not having returned to Tagbilaran, and wife Saturnina, another Jolo
deportee, were in Manila , hiding. Although
unafraid, they avoided being seen by the authorities. Tenetur , Hidalgo Manila and later deported
to Jolo.[32] All in all, only
seventeen (17) of the twenty-five (25) Calambeños decreed to be deported were
arrested and sent to Jolo.[33]
On 23
November 1891, Doña Teodora Alonzo and Doña Josefa Rizal Mercado were also
arrested and were turned over to the Civil Governor of the Province of Manila
As the name
Teodora Alonzo, which appeared in the cedula personal (personal
document) did not tally with name Teodora Realonda appearing in the baptismal
records of her children, the old woman was subsequently accused of
falsification of cedula. Thus, on 28 November 1891 , Teodora Alonzo and Josefa were
rearrested and delivered to the Civil Governor of Laguna. Austin Craig, a Rizal
biographer who had the opportunity of interviewing the surviving Rizal
relatives before 1913, stated that despite the presence of boats regularly
plying the upstream of Pasig River towards Laguna, “the two women were ordered
to be taken there (Santa Cruz, Laguna) for trial on foot.” The guards who escorted
them, however, carried the elderly lady in a hammock.[39]
Soon, before
the yuletide of 1891, Doña Teodora Alonzo, Lucia Rizal Herbosa and Josefa Rizal
joined the rest of the family in Hong Kong .
The reunion turned out to be one of the happiest times in Jose Rizal’s short
life. “Here we are,” Rizal wrote his good friend Ferdinand Blumentritt, “all
living together, my parents, sisters, and brother, in peace and far from the
prosecutions they suffered in the Philippines . They are very much
pleased with the English government.”[40]
[23] In
subsequent communications, his name was spelled as Felipe Abacon, see Primer
Teniente Comandante del Primer Tercio de la Guardia Civil a Gobernador Civil de
Manila, 14 November 1891 in Ang Nawaglit na Tahanan: Mga Bagong-Tuklas na
Tala Ukol kay Rizal at Mga Taga-Calamba, (Manila: Pambansang Sinupan ng mga
Tala, 1997), 38.
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