Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda, known as Jose Rizal, the greatest hero of the Philippines was indeed the pride of Malayan race. He is also known as a many-splendored genius. He was richly dowered by God with superb intellectual, moral, and physical qualities.
He was an anthropologist, botanist, businessman, cartographer, dramatist, economist, educator, engineer, essayist, entomologist, ethnologist, farmer, folklorist, geographer, grammarian, historian, horticulturist, humorist, lexicographer, linguist, musician, novelist, painter, physician, poet, philologist, philosopher, polemist, psychologist, satirist, sculptor, sportsman, sociologist, surveyor, traveler, and zoologist.
Rizal was also a lover, loved Leonor Rivera, who was his cousin, but despite that fact, he was forced to go to Europe to stud medicine, ordered by his brother Paciano, in order to fight against the Spaniards. He became a traveler, and each country he visited, there were always important events that occurred. Rizal wrote two novels, the “Noli Me Tangere” and the second part of it, the “El Filibusterismo”. These writings state how the Spaniards rule the Philippines, how the rights of the Filipinos were abolished. The genius, Dr.
Rizal, portrayed himself in his two novels. Rizal, a brave and a man of his word, was never afraid whatever the consequences he may suffer because of his writings that are against the friars and also to Spaniards. His goal was to free the Philippines from the unjust government of Spanish colony. Dr. Rizal was a patriot, hero, and a martyr. He consecrated his God-given talent, and even sacrificed his own life, for the redemption and welfare of his people. Verily, a man of his heroism and versatility appears but once in the history of any nation.
