Campus Romance: Rizal's ladies in La Concordia (II)

© 2013 by Jensen DG. Mañebog

… IT WAS A BLESSING IN DISGUISE though that Rizal’s romance with Segunda Katigbak did not prosper. For if it did, then there would have been no “Leonor Rivera &  Jose Rizal’s” love story, and Noli and El Fili would have had a different or no Maria Clara at all.

Leonor was a “tender as a budding flower with kindly, wistful eyes” colegiala at the La Concordia College when she became secretly involved romantically with her distant relative Rizal. Though Leonor and Segunda both studied in the same school, probably they did not have the chance to meet and know each other, much less pull each other’s hair, for the lady from Camiling, Tarlac was four years younger than Segunda. Rizal was just a young high school student in today’s Blue Eagles’ nest when he was dating Segunda. When he boarded at his Uncle Antonio’s boarding house in Intramuros and became the daughter’s boyfriend, Rizal was already a second-year medical student then at the Growling Tigers’ den. (Rizal did not become the point guard of either team, nor did he battle against FEU Tamaraw Arwind Santos in fade-away slam-dunk competition. But being small but terrible [not “small but teddy bear”] he would have interest in Cheering and Pep Squad competitions [in holding pom-poms and shouting, “Go Tigers go!! Go go go USTe! Hurrah hurrah!!! Ahww…!!!”]).

Secret as the romance was to Leonor’s parents, she used pen names in her letters to Jose. She hid from the signatures “La Cuestion del Oriente” and “Taimis/Tamis”. Records weren’t clear on what Jose used in return. (I guess he used pseudonyms like Pinsan, or Kuya Pepe, or Ang inyong boarder. Or, to make it less obvious, it could have been Ang pamangkin ng iyong ama, a.k.a The Calamba boy. You’re free to add. They are just guesses anyway.)

In one of Rizal and other Filipinos’ street brawls against young Spaniards in Escolta, Rizal was wounded on the head. Bleeding and filthy, he was brought by friends to his boarding house. With tender love and care, Leonor nursed him, and washed and dressed his wound. The band-aid used was unnamed.

Everything Leonor ever wanted was to be on Jose’s side each time, to look for him, and to take care of him. But this became far from possible when Jose left for Spain without giving her a notice, fearing that she, being young and not that cautious yet, could not keep a secret. While busy studying and fighting for a cause abroad, Rizal nonetheless took time to write to his sweetheart. He was puzzled though as Leonor remained silent. The two had no idea that Leonor’s mother was hiding from her all the letters sent her by Rizal, for the mother was not in favor of the affair especially when Rizal was dubbed as political filibustero after the publication of his Noli.

To probe into why Leonor was not answering his letters was one of the reasons Rizal went home in 1887, notwithstanding the dangers he could face in such a decision. He was however forbidden by his parents to visit his sweetheart who was in Dagupan that time because Doña Silvestra Bauson de Rivera utterly did not like him for a son-in-law. Referring to Mrs. Rivera, the Rizal folks were like saying, “So ayaw pala niya sa manok namin ha, so ayaw na rin namin sa dumalaga niya! Itinola na lang ‘nya si Leonor! Lagyan ng Knorr at ipakain sa iba!”

Indeed, this is what the Doña did in effect. She convinced her daughter to marry Charles Henry Kipping, an English engineer in Dagupan, by making her believe that Jose had already fallen in love with other women in Europe.  Leonor desolately consented to marry her mother’s choice on conditions, as narrated by some historians, that she would never play the piano again, all her and Jose’s letters to each other which they have been able to gather be burned and the ashes be deposited in her jewelry box, and that her mother stand beside her at her wedding, which happened on June 1891.  Six months before the wedding, Rizal had received a letter announcing this coming marriage ceremony. It was from Leonor herself who was also asking for his forgiveness. The letter was “a great blow to him”. “He was stunned, his eyes dimmed with tears, and his heart broke.” The letter signaled the death of Rizal’s 11-year love affair with Leonor.

Was Leonor guilty of infidelity? I would say, “No... but my ex-girlfriend was.” (It hurts, you know, it hurts. Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan?) Even Rizal himself regarded Leonor’s compliance to parental authority not as a manifestation of frailty but an extraordinary indication of discipline and self-denial. His heart was injured even more as he mourned over the death of his true love from La Concordia on August 28, 1893 after two years of her married life, while Jose was serving his term as an exile in Dapitan.

Few years back, when somebody was blocking the communications between the two, Rizal could have married other woman in foreign lands. But he could not. For how could he, the other ladies who became close to him may have been beautiful and intelligent, but unlike Segunda and Leonor, they were not from La Concordia!

If Rizal were born in my time and my world, he would have realized that the ladies who deserve his heart are not those from La Concordia, nor from UST and Ateneo, but those from...OurHappySchool.

Related article/s:

Campus Romance: Rizal's ladies in La Concordia (I)

Jensen DG. Mañebog, the contributor, is a book author and professorial lecturer in the graduate school of a state university in Metro Manila. His unique e-books on Rizal (available online) comprehensively tackle, among others, the respective life of Rizal’s parents, siblings, co-heroes, and girlfriends. (e-mail: jensenismo@gmail.com)

TAGS: Jose Rizal, Leonor Rivera, Segunda Katigbak, Rizal's Girlfriend, History, Philippine Studies, Filipino Heroes

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