Who's Who in Philately: Jose Rizal

Rizal was born in the Island of Luzon, Philippines, in 1861. He was of native parents, being of Tagalog extraction. Tagalogs were help in contempt by the Spaniards of the Philippines.

Young Rizal was sent to Manila to college where he showed great brilliance and should have graduated at the head of his class but for prejudice against his race. He wrote, while at college, many beautiful and meritorious patriotic poems which, however, were held in contempt by the Spanish. He graduated in medicine after which he removed Hong Kong. There he met Miss Josephine Bracken, an Englishwoman, to whom he became attached, which love is one of the most beautiful episodes in this martyr's life.

He toured Europe and wrote several novels dealing with Filipino life and manners. He organized later in Hong Kong a patriotic society having for its purpose the freedom of his beloved Philippines. Returning to Manila he was banished to a lonely island in the southern islands where he remained in isolation for five years. Attaining his freedom he returned to Manila, was re-arrested and sentenced to be shot.

His dying request was that he be allowed to marry Miss Bracken, his faithful English sweetheart, and that he be shot in the breast. Both requests were granted.

By the gray light of a December morning in 1898 he was placed against the walls of Manila and shot by a detail of native soldiers detailed for the duty by their Spanish masters.

- Mrs. Nagalakshmi Tadakaluri, Philatelist.

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