04-073 [Misc.]
1883.02.08 Manila
From: Jose M. Cecilio
To: Jose Rizal
Reacts to Rizal sharing his letters to others in Spain – News from the Tornasina House – Leonor is suffering – Comments on Manila lads and lasses – Filipinos in Spain excel in literature, according to Rizal – Hoping to attain a position in the Administrative Centers of Finance.
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Manila, 8 February 1883
MR. JOSE RIZAL Y MERCADO
MY DISTINGUISHED NAMESAKE AND ESTEEMED FRIEND,
I received your esteemed letter of 2 December last in which you devoted affectionate phrases to me. Gratefully I now reply that, due perhaps to the benevolent partiality with which you judge my poor writings, you had the courage to show my letter to those who, following customary prejudices, believe that the majority of us here do not know [how to] speak Spanish even halfway. In my poor judgment none of the letters I have written you, considering the haste with which they had been written, deserves to be read before those people. However, as fellow countryman, comrade, and friend it will always be for me a great pleasure if with my letter you have been able to undeceive them and they would have a favorable opinion of the sons of this land.
I write this at our house where I live with my parents who returned from Batangas weeks ago. It is on Mendoza Street, San Sebastian, one of the five apartments with galvanized iron roofing belonging to Mr. Juan Balbas which are still without numbers. I tell you that I left the Tomasina House[1] with regret, having lived there three long years without any vacation whatsoever. For that reason I hope you will always address to that house the letters that you write me. The only boarders remaining there are the Apacible brothers, one nephew of theirs whom you did not meet here because he came just this school year, and Espina who is as tall as his father. Your fellow townsmen live at the house of P. Villasefior. It is a pity now to see the Tomasina House which formerly was the center of enthusiastic young people.
The things that are lacking in our letters cannot go by mail. They need an ex profeso bearer.
Last night I was at the Tomasina House visiting the folks I left there and the woman who suffers so much for you.[2] I found her slightly improved in health but this girl is like that, one day well another day ill. According to what I was told one day by friend Vicente, who remains in the number of monopolizers, this unfortunate person, on account of her love for you, no longer wants to be told about you, because she believes that you have abandoned her completely in view of the fact that you do not write her at all, and as I always talk about the absentee, she calls me temptation. I told her that man ought to live on hopes and specially these days that pass away in a frightful manner, why should anyone despair, there being remedy and hope in excess in this world? I cannot believe that you are abandoning her; therefore, you ought to remedy the unfortunate situation of that girl. I have learned from some of Lingayen that in that place it is common knowledge that she is your true fiancé.
I thank you most sincerely for the information you give me about the people there. I believe everything you say because I have met some of them here and I mingled with them.
According to Lacson and others from Iloilo, friend V… is not altogether useless for he is coming next school year to continue his studies. However, his engagement to M… remains broken and according to what they say, she will join in wedlock Alferez C…, a Spanish-Filipino. Your Compadre Jorge and Feliciano Cabrera, on account of beriberi, made a trip to Eternity, but do not say anything about this to the landlady because she does not know it yet. Because of her nervousness and her great affection for her brother, it is better that she should not know it.
I am very much pleased with your information that our countrymen there excel in literature. May they continue on that road because later they will win laurels in it.
Tell Mr. Pi y Margall[3] from whom I suppose came the letter I received three mails ago for Miss Teofila Jugo y Roxas that, on the night of the same day that it reached [her] your Compadre Teong lost his son Peping, [a] victim of a kind of cholera two weeks ago. I cannot depict to you the grief that seizes you Compadre on account of so great a loss. I gave to this family your regards and gratefully they are returning them to you in the midst of their sorrow and they are glad that you are well.
I am glad that friend Zamora is already in that capital and that he is going to Barcelona and afterwards to Paris and you too after that friend. I do not know if that physician has received the telegram or telegrams that his parents have sent him informing him of the death of a daughter of his and later of his mother-in-law, and the present sickness of his wife. It seems to me that Madrigal is treating her.
Until now I do not know if I shall get one of the positions of aspirants for officer, created recently in the Administraciones Centrales de Hacienda [Administrative Centers of Finance]. I took the examination but until now I don’t know the grade I obtained. We were 83 candidates among employees, subalterns, students, surveyors, Spaniards of the country and not of the country. The examinations lasted three days. 1st day, practical exercises consisting of abridging a letter, write another, and solve arithmetical problem and the 2nd day, questions on the theory of grammar and knowledge of legislation on administrative matters. The positions are of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd class, ₱800, ₱600, and ₱500, respectively.
Less than two weeks ago the landlady told me that your brother had been at Tomasina House. I do not know if he wanted to take the pictures that you sent them or if he had left them for the family to take with them on the day of the fiesta of Calamba that I can already smell. Ay! What memory the year leaves us, what joy that our breasts cannot hold!
I have changed house. I live now in Quiapo, Escaldo Street, No. 15, entrance Concepcion Street, entresol. For us this already has acceptable conditions because the one we occupied in San Sebastian was very small and hot.
My family, though it has not met you, sends you its regards and offers you its scant services like those of your very affectionate friend who wishes your welfare and happiness,
JOSE M. CECILIO
[1] The boarding house owned by Mr. Antonio Rivera located on Santo Tomas Street, hence Casa Tomasina (Tomasina House.)
[2] Leonor Rivera, Rizal’s sweetheart and fiancé.
[3] Francisco Pi y Margall (1821-1901), Spanish statesman, one of the presidents of the Spanish Republic (1973-1874), and friend of the Philippines.