A New Perspective: Looking at Jose Rizal as a Lover

The life of Jose Rizal, our national hero who lived from 1861 to 1872, demonstrates the power
of true passion. He had many relationships throughout his thirty-five year life. Some of these
relationships were serious, but none could rival the passion he felt for his country. His travels
across the Philippines and the world, along with his desire to write about all aspects of Filipino
culture, led him into a multifarious array of relationships with nine women. It is not to say that all
those relationships were serious; however, he did pursue when he wanted to pursue and cared
at least enough to display his attentiveness and charm.

SEGUNDA KATIGBAK
● In the year 1865,a wealthy clan in Lipa, Batangas specifically, the Katigbak clan of
Norberto Kalaw Katigbak and Justa Luz Solis gave birth to Segunda Katigbak. Segunda
Katigbak was 14 years old when she met Jose Rizal, who was 16 years old at the time,
through Segunda’s close friend Jose Rizal’s sister, Olympia Mercado.

● Segunda Katigbak is Rizal’s first love however as he defined it, Segunda was just his
puppy love. Rizal described Segunda Katigbak in these exact words "She was rather
short, with eyes that were eloquent and ardent at times and languid at others,
rosy-cheeked, with an enchanting and provocative smile that revealed very beautiful
teeth, and the air of a sylph; her entire self diffused a mysterious charm."

● Their love story ended as Segunda’s family did not want to affiliate with Rizal. During
their time, Rizal was known as a “contra espana” or against Spain which was at the time,
the Philippines’ colonizer. Segunda chose to stay at peace so she agreed to continue
marrying Manuel Luz, a businessman, as she was engaged to Manuel at the time.

● Manuel Luz and Segunda Katigbak had a 1 child. Eventually in the year 1943, January
16, Segunda Katigbak passed away.

LEONOR VALENZUELA
● Leonor "Orang" Valenzuela, who met Rizal when he was still enrolled in a medical
program at the prestigious University of Santo Tomas, is one of the many people on
Rizal's lengthy list of ex-lovers.

● Rizal's next-door neighbor when he resided in Doa Concha Leyva's Intramuros home
was Valenzuela. Rizal would consistently go to Valenzuela's house, even when there
was no particular occasion, and dazzle her family with his humor and magic skills.

● Valenzuela was very important to Rizal, and he pursued her by sending her love letters
written in an invisible ink that could only be read when heated over a candle or lamp. He
used a combination of materials from his chemistry class to create the ink.
 ● Rumour has it that Rizal used the invisible ink because he was courting Leonor Rivera at
the time.

LEONOR RIVERA
● Leonor Rivera was born on April 11, 1867 to Antonio Rivera and Silvestre Bauzon. The
Riveras were an upper-class family at the time, and, like the Rizals, were also part of the
landed elite. Rizal and Rivera met in 1880 at her father's boarding house in Sampaloc,
Manila, where Rizal stayed while a student at the University of Santo Tomas. Leonor was
studying at La Concordia and one of Rizal’s sisters was her classmate. Antonio Rivera
and Francisco Mercado (Rizal’s father) were cousins, making Rizal and Rivera second
or third cousins. She was six years younger than Rizal.

● Leonor Rivera was attractive, had soft, wavy hair, engaging dimples, and a captivating
singing voice. She was intelligent and knew how to play the piano. She was reserved
and soft-spoken, which, according to Rizal are ideal characteristics of a woman. Such
was Rizal’s idealization of Leonor that he immortalized her as Maria Clara in his two
novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

● They got engaged the same year that they met. He was 19 and she was 13. They kept
their relationship secret. Their engagement would last for ten years.

● In 1882, Rizal left for Europe in secret. He keeps correspondence with his fiance. After
Rizal published his widely criticized and “blasphemous” Noli in 1887, however, he
became a hot target for church and government authorities, such that in 1891, his whole
family was forcefully evicted from the friar lands they were leasing. It was for this very
reason that Francisco Mercado, Rizal’s father, compelled Rizal to stay away from the
Riveras. In the same year the Noli was published, the Riveras moved from Intramuros to
Dagupan as a safety precaution.

● Leonor Rivera being Rizal's sweetheart for 11 years played the greatest influence in
keeping him from falling in love with other women during his travel. Unfortunately,
Leonor’s mother disapproved of her daughter’s relationship with Rizal, who was then a
known filibustero. She hid from Leonor all letters sent to her sweetheart. Leonor,
believing that Rizal had already forgotten her, sadly consented her to marry the
Englishman Henry Kipping, her mother’s choice.

● It was told that one of the most fascinating, yet tragic love stories ever told in Philippine
history was the romance between Rizal and Leonor Rivera.
CONSUELO ORTIGA
● Rizal went to Madrid to study and in his journey in a foreign place, by chance he met
Consuelo Ortiga y Rey, the daughter of Don Pablo Ortiga y Rey, the Spanish liberal and
former mayor of Manila who became vice-president of the Council of the Philippines in
the Ministry of Colonies. He grew admiring her despite the fact that he has a fiance left in
the Philippines and that is Leonor Rivera.

● Dated January 18, 1883, Consuelo wrote in her diary: “Rizal talked with me for a long
time, almost the whole night. He told me that I was very talented, that I was very
diplomatic, and that he was going to see if he could extract some truth from me within
two weeks; that I was mysterious and that I had a veil over my ideas…”

● She was then “Crush ng bayan” because a lot of Filipinos there admired her. And among
the men who vied for her attention were Eduardo de Lete, and brothers Maximino and
Antonio Paterno. Rizal was smitten with Consuelo but eventually gave up because he
was still then in love with Leonor and can’t risk friendship over a woman.

O Sei San
● In the list of the women who captured our hero, Jose Rizal, among them is the Japanese
and the Samurai’s daughter O Sei San or Seiko Usui whom he fondly called before as
Seiko. He met her during one of her afternoon walks and immediately asked a Japanese
gardener who she is as he got charmed right away by her. She can talk both in English
and French, hence, the start of them conversing and bonding.

● She became his generous tour guide as she took him to Japan’s shrines, parks,
universities, and other interesting places like the Imperial Art Gallery, Imperial Library,
and the Shokubutsu-en (Botanical Garden). Along with it, she taught Rizal the Japanese
art of painting known as su-mie, and also taught him to speak their language. Thus, he
fell in love with her which is not quite surprising already.

● However, after a month, on April 13, 1888, he left with the fact of not seeing her ever
again. If Rizal was a man without a patriotic mission, he would have married this lovely
and intelligent woman and lived a stable and happy life with her in Japan because
Spanish legation there offered him a lucrative job. But, in 1987, she married Alfred
Charlton, British chemistry teacher of the Peer’s School in Tokyo. They got a child and
she died on May 1, 1947, at the age of 80 placed beside her husband’s tomb at
Zoshigawa Cemetery.

● In his diary entry, this is what he wrote when he decided to leave Japan and Seiko after
a month of bliss staying in there and being with her:
“Japan has enchanted me. The beautiful scenery, the flowers, the trees, and the
inhabitants – so peaceful, so courteous, and so pleasant. O-Sei-San, Sayonara,
Sayonara! I have spent a happy golden month; I do not know if I can have another one
like that in all my life. Love, money, friendship, appreciation, honors –these have not
 been wanting.To think that I am leaving this life for the uncertain, the unknown. There I
was offered an easy way to live, beloved and esteemed…”

Gertrude Beckett
● In May 1888, Rizal visited London for a short time, boarding at the house of the Beckett
family: Mr. and Mrs. Beckett, their two sons, and their four daughters. The eldest
daughter was named Gertrude.

● Gertrude was described as a buxom young curvy lady with cheerful blue eyes, brown
hair, rosy cheeks, and thin lips. Based on some pieces of evidence, one can argue that
Gertrude is the most beautiful among "Jose Rizal's girlfriends."

● She fell in love with Rizal and gave him all of her attention during the family picnics and
gatherings, and when Rizal stayed indoors during rainy days painting and sculpting, she
helped him mix his colors and prepare his clay. Rizal enjoyed her company. Eventually,
their flirtatious friendship drifted toward a blossoming romance. He affectionately called
her "Gettie," and in return, she called him "Pettie."

● But Rizal withdrew before his relationship with Gettie became more serious, realizing
that he had a greater mission to fulfill and that, to accomplish it, he could not yield to the
option of marrying her. He suppressed the yearnings of his heart and decided to leave
so that the lady might forget him. Before he did, however, he finished several sculptural
works, one of which was a carving of the heads of the Beckett sisters, though some
sources nonetheless suggest that their relationship was just a one-sided love affair
because Marcelo del Pilar, Rizal's friend, said that Rizal left London to move away from
Gertrude, whose idea of their relationship was more than what it really was: the most
tormenting kind: an unrequited love.

Nelly Bousted
● Rizal used to fence with the sisters at the studio of Juan Luna. Antonio Luna, Juan’s
brother and also a frequent visitor of the Bousteads, courted Nellie but she was deeply
infatuated with Rizal.

● In a party held by Filipinos in Madrid, a drunken Antonio Luna uttered unsavory remarks
against Nellie Boustead. This prompted Rizal to challenge Luna into a duel. Fortunately,
Luna apologized to Rizal, thus averting tragedy for the compatriots.

● Their love affair unfortunately did not end in marriage. It failed because Rizal refused to
be converted to the Protestant faith, as Nellie demanded and Nellie’s mother did not like
a physician without enough paying clientele to be a son-in-law. The lovers, however,
parted as good friends when Rizal left Europe.
Suzanne Jacoby
● Rizal moved to Brussels, Belgium at the start of 1890, mainly to escape the enormous
cost of living in Paris, he briefly stayed in a boarding house on 38 Rue Philippe de
Champagne, continuing to write his second novel El Filibusterismo, and for the paper La
Solidaridad. During this period, he befriended and became close with the Jacoby sisters
Catherina and Suzanne., the managers of the boarding house.

● He especially became close with the latter, Suzanne Jacoby, who fell deeply in love with
Rizal, though this feeling was disproportionately reciprocated. It was reported that they
attended the city’s annual summer festival with each other, Rizal calling her “La Petite”.

● Suzanne, who was 19-years-old during her time with Rizal, was often confused for her
45-year-old aunt, Suzanne Thill, who merely shared the same boarding house with Rizal.
This led historians to confuse the two with each other, leading to the rumor that Rizal
developed an attraction towards older women.

● In any case, Rizal moved back to Madrid in August 1890, leaving Suzanne with a box of
chocolates, of which was reported to not have been touched for years after the fact, as a
parting gift. She continued to write Rizal letters, but their love was never revived
post-Brussels. In the aftermath, it took a long period of moving on for Suzanne to find
love once more, marrying a Luxembourger stockbroker named Viktor Wolf in 1920.

Josephine Bracken
● In the last days of February 1895, while still in Dapitan, Rizal met an 18-year old petite
Irish girl, with bold blue eyes, brown hair and a happy disposition. She was Josephine
Bracken, the adopted daughter of George Taufer from Hong Kong, who came to Dapitan
to seek Rizal for eye treatment.

● Rizal was physically attracted to her. His loneliness and boredom must have taken the
measure of him and what could be a better diversion that to fall in love again. But the
Rizal sisters suspected Josephine as an agent of the friars and they considered her as a
threat to Rizal’s security.

● Rizal asked Josephine to marry him, but she was not yet ready to make a decision due
to her responsibility to the blind Taufer. Since Taufer’s blindness was untreatable, he left
for Hong Kong in March 1895.

● Josephine stayed with Rizal’s family in Manila. Upon her return to Dapitan, Rizal tried to
arrange with Father Antonio Obach for their marriage. However, the priest wanted a
retraction as a precondition before marrying them.

● Rizal upon the advice of his family and friends and with Josephine’s consent took her as
his wife even without the Church blessings.
 ● Josephine later gave birth prematurely to a stillborn baby, a result of some incidence,
which might have shocked or frightened her.

References:

(2019, February 5). The women in Rizal's life. JoseRizal.com. from

Fernando, I. N. (2020, May 20). The women in the life of Jose Rizal in relation to his significant
literary works. Academia.edu. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from
https://www.academia.edu/43116808/The_Women_in_the_Life_of_Jose_Rizal_in_Relation_to_
his_Significant_Literary_Works

Rizal in Focus. José Rizal. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2023, from
http://bayaningrizal.pairserver.com/jru/lovelife.html