Flame Pillar of Rizal

The Story of the Lost 'Adios' of Rizal

(PHOTO: Here's the original manuscript of "Mi Ultimo Adios measuring only 9.5 cm x 15 cm, locked in the vault of the National Library.)

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The verdict of execution on his alleged guilt was read to Rizal on December 29, 1896. At this one last moment, Teodora Alonso and his sisters (Narcisa, Trinidad, and Maria), with his niece Angelica, and his favorite nephew, Mauricio, were allowed to visit him in prison. His mother Teodora first saw, who was then crying, and approached Rizal to embrace him but the prison guard separated them. Rizal knelt and kissed his mother's hand. After a brief silence between them, Rizal asked his mother to secure permission of the authorities to bury his dead body. Afterwards, he gave away gifts as souvenirs each one of them. Then, giving the alcohol lamp to his younger sister Trinidad. Knowing the prison guards cannot understand English, Rizal calmly pointed to the lamp and spoke in English, "There is something inside."

According to Rizal's sisters, when the lamp was finally delivered to them together with his other personal things after his execution, they opened the lamp and found nothing. They shook it a couple of times and a tiny piece of folded paper fell out. Rizal made sure that this legacy was not going to be lost. The folded paper cannot open easily, so they opened it by the use of their hairpins.

A poem. It was the longest, unsigned, undated, and untitled poem clearly written by Rizal before his execution. Probably, unfinished but according to Austin Coates (1968), the poem is remarkable for it achieves four separate purposes: a poem of farewell; an appeal to the Filipinos, not forget him; it's Rizal's last will and testament; and it's Rizal's autobiography. That makes Rizal's most popular and last poem in his last moments on earth.

Following the discovery of the poem, the Rizal family made handwritten copies and distributed to their relatives, friends, and even admirers of Rizal. When Mariano Ponce in Hongkong read the poem of his dearest friend, he used the title as "Mi Ultimo Pensamiento (My Last Thought) and printed in 1897. Nonetheless, when it was published in the La Independencia, the title was changed to "Mi Ultimo Adios" (My Last Farewell).

Other copies was translated and even in foreign languages under various titles like "Pahimakas" in Tagalog, and "The Valedictory Poem" in English.

If you close read the poem, it reveals Rizal's full of spirit, fairness, and justice as no stanza showing hate, revenge, no phrase to recrimination, no bad word despite the oppression and injustice he suffered. It constitutes the state of authentic legacy, most passionate, and a declaration of faith, faith in the destiny of the Philippines, accepting the joys of loving of his country:

"On the field of battle 'mid the frenzy of fight,
Others have given their lives, without doubt or heed"

The poem was Rizal's last farewell to his native land, which he described there as "Dear Fatherland," "Clime of the Sun Caressed," "Pearl of the Orient Seas," "Beloved Filipinas," and "My Fatherland." To this venerated and adored land, Rizal gladly sacrificed his life for the good of his country.

From the analysis made by Camilo Osias (1972), the whole poem depicts Rizal, the supereme patriot. An epic and expressive of idealism, morality, and spirituality. Here, he bid his parents goodbye, showing that he was dying young. He even expressed his grief leaving his parents, brother, and sisters, whom he considered his childhood friends in the lost paradise. He, likewise, bid farewell to Josephine - his "dulce extranjara, a friend, a wife and a source of delight."

The last stanza shows inspiring faith, "For I go where no slave before the oppressor bends, Where faith can never kill, and God reigns e'er on high." According to Osias, Rizal asserted Masonic and religious fervor indicated here that death has no sting. Thus, he faced death calmly for he was aware that the spirit is immortal. While the last line of the poem shows Rizal's philosophy of life: "In death, there is rest."

And did you know that the original poem was stolen twice in 1897 and 1961...?

According to Ambeth Ocampo, the story of disappeared sometime in 1897 that poem was stolen and possibly did by Josephine Bracken when she left Manila for Hongkong, but it's not true. Until the Bureau of Insular Affairs in Washington sent cable to Manila in 1908 stating that an American collector was offering the the manuscript (poem) for sale to the colonial government for $500 (equivalent to P1,000).

Trinidad Rizal was requested by Executive Secretary F.W. Carpenter to examine the manuscript before it was purchased. She declared it to be authentic.

Since 1908, the "Mi Ultimo Adios" has been in the National Library and has not been moved out, except for a brief period when it was stolen again in 1961 (100 years of age of Rizal that time!) together with the original manuscripts of Rizal's novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

The three important manuscripts were held for a P1 million ransom, but were eventually recovered by then Education Secretary Alejandro Roces.

Since then the Rizal's manuscripts have been carefully guarded not only as masterpieces but also as priceless treasures of the Philippines that our Rizal once lived for a patriotic mission until his final legacy of "adios."