Hong Kong
Hong Kong, 1 December 1891
MY DEAR PARENTS AND BROTHERS,
I’m following step by step the painful Calvary that you are going through. Don’t be afraid for I work and work. If you could let me rejoin you there, how happy I would be. Perhaps everything may change! Give me then the permission and I shall go immediately. I hope and I’m sure that we shall come out safely.
I have learned about the departure of four fellow townsmen for Joló and the return of my brother to Manila. Likewise I have learned that Nanay, Pangoy, and Trining have been called again to the Civil Government.[1] Patience, a little patience. Valor.
As time is pressing I close this letter.
I long to embrace you.
Your son,
Rizal
[100 Letters]
NOTES
On June 21, 1892, Rizal wrote a letter to the Governor General of the informing His Excellency that he was going back to his country, “to place myself at your disposal.” “For some time now,” he continued, “my aged parents, my relatives, friends and even individuals not known to me have been cruelly persecuted, because of me, they say. I now present myself to receive the brunt of such persecutions, to answer the charges that may be made against me, in order to end this situation which is painful to the innocents and sad for Your Excellency’s government which likes to be known for its justice.”
On the 26th he arrived in Manila, in company with his sister Lucia. He paid his respects to the Governor, and secured the pardon of his father and sisters. He went to Bulacan, Pampanga and Tarlac to visit friends and he suggested the formation of the Liga Filipina in each town, a society to promote peace, education, agriculture and commerce.
All of a sudden, he was called to Malacanang on July 7 and was accused of bringing in incendiary leaflets which, the authorities said, they found in their baggage. He was arrested there and then, confined in Fort Santiago and banished to Dapitan in Mindanao, where he stayed until July 31, 1896.
03-674 [Reformists]
[1] In his letter to Blumentritt on December 30, 1891, he described what his mother had to undergo at that instance, thus: “My old, blind mother is also here fleeing from tyranny. From Manila she was taken to Sta. Cruz, Laguna (a distance of 85 kms.) by way of the mountains, from town to town, because s.he did not call herself Realonda de Rizal, but simply Teodora Alonso! She was always and always called Teodora Alonso. Imagine an old woman of more than 64 years, travelling over the mountains and highways with her daughter, guarded by the Civil Guards! She asked that she be permitted to make the trip by boat, offering to pay everything, including the fare of the soldiers, but the hidalgo, the Spanish gentleman, did not permit her. Upon hearing this gallantry and nobility, I wrote to the hidalgo telling him that his behaviour towards women and girls is very undignified; the savages and the Chinese behave. more nobly and more humanly. When my mother and my sister, after 4 days of walking, arrived in Sta. Cruz, the Governor there, deeply moved, acquitted them.” ( Epistolario Rizalino , Vol. 5, pt. 2, p. 627. Manila, 1938.)