Paciano without a doubt was a great hero. He was just kinda outshined by his younger brother, jose. I’d say our national hero’s patriotism was highly influenced by him, he was an idol kuya in the eyes of Jose Rizal. Father Jose Burgos was a close friend of Paciano (whose death, together w/ Zamora and Gomez’s, according to rizal himself, had “opened his eyes” re the sad plight of our country back then), so we can clearly visualize the imprint of Paciano on Rizal’s nationalism.
He (paciano) was the one who financed Rizal’s education in europe.
We wouldnt have the great Jose Rizal if it hadnt been for the unsung heroism of Paciano. Paciano joined and actively supported Propaganda Movement for social reforms, and supported the Movement’s newspaper, Diariong Tagalog. An avid supporter of the movement, he did tasks such as collecting funds to finance the said organization, and solicited money for the nationalist paper. As a Katipunero, he influenced people in Laguna with the revolutionary ideals.
Despite the tortures he had in the hands of the Spaniards, he refused to implicate his younger brother who was kept in tight security in Fort Santiago. In January 1897, after his younger brother’s execution, Paciano joined General Emilio Aguinaldo inCavite. He was appointed brigadier general of the revolutionary forces, and was elected Secretary of Finance in the Departmental Government of Central Luzon.[1] During the Philippine-American War (1899–1913), he commanded the Filipino forces in Laguna.
U.S. troops captured him in Laguna on 1900.[1] He was released soon after, and he settled in the town of Los Banos, Laguna.
Not many Filipinos are aware that Paciano Rizal, the older and only brother of José Rizal, was an active and passionate member of the Katipunan. As a katipunero, Paciano was no less heroic than his very famous brother. So little is known of Paciano. Yet, he is one of the unsung heroes of the Katipunan. Paciano was Rizal’s model for Pilosopong Tasio, one of the important and very interesting characters in his novel Noli me tangere. In his letter to Blumentritt dated 23 June 1888, Rizal wrote ”I don’t know why I forgot to introduce you to my brother.
You who wish to know good men will find in him the most noble of the Filipinos. My friend Taviel de Andrade said that he was the only man in the Philippines – the young Philosopher Tasio. When I think of him, though an Indio, more generous and noble than all the present-day Spaniards put together.” As the the elder son, Paciano helped the family in managing their farm and was like a. Not only did he help finance Rizal’s education in Europe, he did his best to save money to have his brother’s two novels printed, collected financial contributions for the Propaganda Movement, and solicited subscription for the Diariong Tagalog, a nationalist newspaper. He also supported the Katipunan by propagating its ideals in Laguna.
When José was jailed in Fort Santiago in 1896, Paciano was also arrested and tortured to force him to give testimony that would prove his brother guilty of sedition. After Rizal’s execution at Bagumbayan, Paciano went to Imus, Cavite to offer his services to Emilio Aguinaldo. He become the military commander of the revolutionary forces in Laguna and continued. He continued fighting as a katipunero in the Filipino-American War. In an interview for an article featured in the Philippine Centennial in the Francisco Rizal Lopez, one of Paciano’s grandsons, told of his grandfather’s days a a revolucionario. Lopez said that Paciano nearly died of the torture. “His whole body was swollen and bloody because of the torture he received. The authorities brought him to my grandmother Narcissa because they thought he was going to die. After a week, he recovered. But he was actually at death’s door.” “My aunt told us a story about my Lolo Paciano when he was a revolucionario.
She told us that everyday, my Lolo and the other revolucionarios would count the money they had collected. One day, my aunt was so tired and her hands were malansa so she asked my grandfather, ‘Puede po bang makakuha ng cinco centimo diyan para makabili ng sabon dahil malagkit po at malansa ang kamay namin?’ (Could we get five cents to buy soap because our hands are sticky and putrid?) My Lolo got very angry and he said, ‘Huag ninyong galawin ang perang ‘yan!’ (Don’t ever touch that money. That’s for the revolution!)” Sometime in 1900, Paciano was captured by the Americans and ordered to swear allegiance to the American flag. According to his grandson, Paciano said, “I cannot swear to any other flag because my allegiance belongs to the Filipino flag. But I can assure you, since we have lost and I have surrendered, I am going to leave you in peace.” After the revolution, it was almost impossible for the Rizals to live in Calamba.
They have been stripped of everything they owned and they felt persecuted, so they chose to live in Los Baños, the town next to Calamba. Paciano Rizal’s home stands near the Los Baños municipal hall, beside the fire station. There he lived the rest of his life until he died of tuberculosis on April 30, 1930. Francisco Lopez described Paciano’s physical appearance and character, “My Lolo was a very humble, a very simple man. He never talked to us about his sacrifices in the Revolution. We did not even know up to the time of his death that he was a general in Aguinaldo’s army.” Paciano was a very thrifty man but not with his nephews to whom he always gave money to buy “tsampoy”. Of the two known pictures of Paciano, one was taken by one of Mr. Lopez’s uncle and the other was a picture of him as lay in his coffin. Paciano had a daughter, Emiliana who is Francisco Lopez’ mother, but he was never married because he could not marry under the Dominican priest.
Emiliana, married her first cousin, Antonio Lopez. He was Narcissa Rizal’s son. Paciano lived a peaceful life during the American occupation. and kept his promise that he would leave the Americans in peace. He must have intensely disliked the Americans from an anecdote that Lopez told: ” There was a certain Governor-General Leonard Wood and my grandfather did not like him. He had a dog and he named the dog Wood. So every time he felt like cursing the Americans, he would curse the dog” Paciano Rizal was buried in Cementerio del Norte in Manila but his bones were transferred to his home in Los Baños in 1985. were he was given complete military honors. Paciano Rizal, José’s kuya, or older brother by a decade and protégé of Fr. Burgos, had witnessed the garroting of the three curates and been, along with his generation, radicalized by it. His retelling to the sensitive eleven-year-old in Calamba in turn left an indelible impression on the young man, about to leave for Intramuros to study at the Ateneo. Later on Rizal said of the martyrdom, “Without 1872 there would be now neither Plaridel nor Jaena nor Sancianco, nor the valiant and generous Filipino expatriates in Europe.
Without 1872, Rizal would have been a Jesuit and instead of writing the Noli Me Tangere would have instead written something entirely different.” Rizal dedicated his second novel El Filibusterismo (really a continuation of the Noli) to the memory of the three martyrs. Last year saw the commemoration cum celebration of the younger Rizal’s 150th birth anniversary, but not much has been said (at least, not much that I am aware of) about Paciano’s invaluable role in shaping the path his younger brother took, always there to lend a hand, a quiet, rock-solid presence Pepe could rely on. Paciano arranged, along with an uncle, for Pepe to embark for Europe in 1882, whose heady Enlightenment zeitgeist further sharpened Rizal’s critique of Spanish colonial rule.
For at least five years Paciano sent him a monthly stipend, and once the Propaganda Movement had gotten off the ground helped raise funds for it. In 1896 he was imprisoned and tortured, to force him to implicate José in the revolution that had begun that August but the stouthearted Paciano would not break. He was released and once José was executed, Paciano volunteered for Aguinaldo’s army, and was made a general, his field of operations being Central Luzon. The revolution against the Spanish metamorphosing into the 1899 war against the U.S., General Rizal continued to fight, but was captured in 1900.
Thereafter, despite offers of a government position as well as entreaties from prominent Laguna politicians to run for public office, Paciano, already married, chose the quiet life of a gentleman farmer, and died in 1930 at his home in Los Baños, not far from Calamba, at the age of 79. Paciano’s love for and devotion to his younger brother meant a life behind the scenes, dramatic certainly in many instances but rarely in the limelight, never in the scene-stealing manner of José. Kuya Paciano’s life made the latter’s transformation into the icon every Filipino knows possible. He would have distanced himself from the label but in my book Paciano Mercado Rizal y Alonso is every bit the hero.
Paciano Rizal, whose contribution to the Philippine revolution has been overshadowed by the greatness of his younger brother, Jose Rizal. When Jose Rizal decided to leave the Philippines for advance studies, Paciano, without the knowledge of their parents, asked Antonio Rivera, an uncle, to help in facilitating the travel of Jose Rizal abroad.
Paciano himself engaged in the propaganda movement. When Marcelo H. del Pilar founded the Diariong Tagalog, a nationalist vernacular paper, in 1882, Paciano eagerly assisted those behind the paper. He helped the paper by soliciting subscription in his province (Laguna) and in the neighbouring towns of Batangas.
During this time Paciano kept Jose Rizal informed about events happening in the country. Aside from attending to the needs of the Rizal family, Paciano regualarly corresponded with Jose in Europe regarding such local problems as land troubles, crop failure, increased land rentals, the decrease in the price of sugar and even the worsening agrarian disputes in Calamba. Paciano’s land dispute with the friars resulted in his exile to Mindoro for one year in 1890.
During Jose Rizal’s away abroad, Paciano met and fell in love with Severina Decena, a beautiful lass from Los Bańos, Laguna. They had two children–a boy, who died during infancy, and a girl they named Emiliana.
When Jose Rizal was arrested in 1896 Paciano was also arrested and detained. This was to insure the incrimination of Jose Rizal. The older Rizal was tortured and asked to sign a statement linking his younger brother to the Katipunan and to the Philippine Revolution, which had broken out in August of that year. After three days of fruitless interrogation Paciano was released.
Before the end of 1896 the Philippine Revolution spread like wildfire to the province south of Manila. Laguna joined the fight for liberty. The emergence of Paciano Rizal as a revolutionary leader was something that could not but draw attention.
The Spanish forces gained momentum in the pursuit of the revolutionists, for which reason General Paciano followed General Aguinaldo to Bulacan. The general and his men transferred their camp to Biyak-na-Bato.
In December of 1897 the famous truce of Biyak-na-Bato was signed, ending the 1896 Philippine Revolution. In pursuance to the provisions of the agreement, General Aguinaldo and several ranking officers of the revolution surrendered their arms and exiled themselves to Hong Kong.
The revolutionary leader left in the country were instructed to comply with the other provisions of the treaty, like the surrender of arms and ammunitions. In this connection General Aquinaldo’s generals were sent to various provinces to arrange for the surrender of the remaining revolutionists who were now scattered. General Artemio Ricarte was sent to Cavite, Gen. Jose Natrividad to Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Pampanga, General Miguel Malvar to Batangas, and Gen. Paciano Rizal to Laguna.
Complying with orders, General Paciano Rizal, on 14-15 January 1898, surrendered the following to Spain’s General Ricardo Monet for the province of Laguna: 1 Mauser, 3 Remingtons, 46 muskets, 42 blunderbuss, 3 lantakas, 21 saber and 26 bolos. The truce failed, however, resulting in General Aguinaldo’s return to the Philippines.
The United States and Spain declared war on each other. Flipinos who had returned to their place under the Spanish government and those who had settled down in their farms activated their fight against the Spanish government and became part of the forces of General Aquinaldo.
Among the revolutionary generals who responded was General Paciano Rizal. He again led the fighting in Laguna as the military commander of the area. Battles were fought openly in Spanish-held towns. In the fastness of Laguna, General Paciano Rizal actively led the onslaught against the Spanish troops.On 31 August, two weeks after the surrender of Manila to the Americans, the Spanish civil official of Laguna Province and a group of Spanish soldiers surrendered to General Paciano Rizal in Santa Cruz, the provincial capital. On 12 June 1898, the revolutionary leaders proclainmed to the whole world the birth of the Philippine Republic, the first republic in Asia. The following year the Filipino- American War broke out. Well-trained and well-armed American soldiers prevailed over the ill-quipped Filipino revolutionists. The fight was one-sided. The loss of many battles was attributed to the revolutionists’ life of hunger and sickness. General Paciano Rizal was afflicted with malaria and he had become weak, he was captured in Laguna by the Americans. The year was 1900.
After the war Paciano led a passive private life and retired to his farm in Los Bańos, Laguna. He passed away on 13 April 1930, at the age of 79. Pedro Patero’s account of his negotiations peace between Spain and the Filipinos revolutionaries, “El Pacto de Biak na Bato” , Paciano relates: “What do you want? That we make peace with Spain? That we be the bearer and acceptor of peace, when they have shot my brother, Pepe, banished my parents and relatives, falsely accused us to the last of my family, confiscating our lands and hurling a thousand horrors on our faces? Ah, Don Pedro, dig a deep well. Fill it from the top to bottom with all the bolos and lances that you wish. Then, command me to throw myself into it and I Paciano Rizal, will do just that, but do not ask me for peace because that, Don Pedro, is impossible- absurd!”
Paciano exploits reveal getting the Spaniards to surrender in Calamba, by using firecrackers to show the Filipinos were heavily armed. After 3 days the Spaniards surrendered. In his letter to the PIR seen at the National Library Paciano requested for the status of the Americans if they were allies or enemies. Their suspicious actuation in the area proved right, August 13, 1898, Filipinos was tricked by the Americans, they fought another battle. 1900, weakened by malaria, Paciano was captured by the Americans and is said to have refused to swear allegiance to the flag of the USA. While Apolinario Mabini the paralytic was exiled to Guam because he refused allegiance to America.
May unanswered questions left, but nothing is definite as of now, except that Paciano Rizal proves like other heroes of the Revolution of 1896 and 1898, should be rescued from obscurity and given the rightful place in our history
For a hero, courage is as important as a shell is to a tortoise. Without courage, a hero is just as vulnerable as any other man walking down the street. Courage here stands to signify that firmness of the spirit and ‘mettle’ of the soul to stare at danger and trouble right in the eye. Courage here stands to signify the valor it takes to overcome adversities and adversaries. It’s like a soldier rushing into battle knowing well that death awaits him. In all reality, this is what courage is all about!
A hero does not become a hero by simply beating up a thousand goons and riding into the sunset victoriously with his lady love. If this was all it took to become a hero, every other Romeo beating up rivals and stealing away his love in the still of the night can be branded a hero. It really is more than that! Sacrifice is what helps a mere mortal make that journey from a mediocre life to one filled with greatness. Sacrifice, by definition, can be described as the giving up of something highly valued for a purpose of greater importance. Thus, in order to achieve greatness and the status of a hero, it is extremely essential for an individual to sacrifice.
A hero cannot be considered one, if he possesses a will as bendable as a tube of rubber. A hero truly becomes just that when he exercises his will or determination to come out on top at any cost. Determination can be best described as a hero’s resolve or firmness of purpose to achieve what his heart desires most. It’s all about staying focused and not resting until the task on hand is executed. In life it may not be easy to achieve any given thing, but it is with determination that a man can ultimately achieve what he desires most and turn himself into a champion.
Conviction here does not refer to a person’s skill at convincing another, but it rather refers to a person’s firm belief in any particular thing. It can refer to an unshakeable way of looking at life and all its variables. In a way, the convictions that a man holds can go a long way in determining if he has what it takes to become a hero. In fact, no man can truly become a hero, if he does not possess conviction that is impenetrable as well as unbending.
Do you think that a person can make a man out of himself without being dedicated to any particular thing in life? Obviously not! This is because in life in order to enjoy a permanent taste of success it is extremely important to exercise dedication. If you desire to master an instrument, you have got to be dedicated to master it and shouldn’t really rest until you do. True dedication shouldn’t be forced; it in fact is the direct result of true desire. It is this dedication that can help distinguish a man as a hero.
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