HISTORY

PROJECT
Alarcio, Gail Marie P.
BSA - 2A
 The Women in
Rizal’s Life

Segunda 1

KATIGBAK
BORN : 1863
DIED : JAN 16, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH :
BATANGAS, CALABARZON

First love never dies they say—unless your first love is already engaged
to be married when you meet. Then you have to let it go really fast. Such
was the case of Jose Rizal and Segunda Katigbak, a Batangueña, whom Rizal
met when he was only a 16-year-old boy.

They met when the young hero visited his grandmother with his friend,
Mariano Katigbak, Segunda’s brother. The Katigbaks were close to Rizal’s
grandmother, and coincidentally, Segunda was at the grandma’s house when
Rizal and Mariano arrived. It was attraction at first sight. Segunda was
also a close friend of Rizal’s sister, Olympia, whom he visited every
week at the La Concordia College. The two became very close.
 However, Segunda was already engaged to be married to a man who lived in
her town, and Rizal had to stop pursuing her.

Rizal wrote about the incident years later, “Ended, at an early house, my
first love! My virgin heart will always mourn the reckless step it took
on the flower-decked abyss. My illusions will return, yes, but
indifferent, uncertain, ready for the first betrayal on the path of
love.”

Leonor 1

VALENZUELA
BORN : 1865
DIED : UNKNOWN
PLACE OF BIRTH :
PAGSANJAN, LAGUNA

Leonor “Orang” Valenzuela, Rizal’s second object of affection, is

During the courtship, Rizal was said to have sent Leonor private and
secret love letters, which he wrote using invisible ink made with water
and salt—he was adept in chemistry, too. To read the letters, Orang had
to heat the letter over a candle or a lamp. (How did we get from this
intricate, labored way of courting someone to pressing that heart icon on
Instagram? Just wondering.) Rizal also frequented the Valenzuelas’ home,
which was a hang out place of the students in the area.
There are, however, documents that may serve as proof that Rizal’s
efforts were not effective. Some accounts say he was courting Leonor
Date Rivera
Valenzuela and and his second cousin Leonor : at the same time—thus
the need for invisible letters. (Still, we need to appreciate the effort
that went with it.) Rivera apparently knew of this and gave way to
Rivera’s attraction for Rizal. When Rizal left for Spain in 1882, it was
said that he did say goodbye to Orang, but kept in touch with the help of
Rizal’s close friend, Jose “Chenggoy” Cecilio.

Chenggoy was the ultimate teaser—and maybe wingman?—who was amused with
the “rivalry” of the namesakes. On one of Chenggoy’s letters to Rizal, he
wrote, “…nagpipilit ang munting kasera06.00(Leonor Rivera) na makita si
Orang, pero dahil natatakpan ng isang belong puti, hindi naming nakilala
07.00
nang dumaan ang prusisyon sa tapat ng bahay. Sinabi sa akin ni O(rang) na
08.00
sabihin ko raw sa munting kasera na hindi siya kumakaribal sa pag-iibigan
ninyo. Que gulay, tukayo, anong gulo 09.00itong idinudulot natin sa mga
dalagang ito!” (Manebog 2013) 10.00

Leonor
Leonor
1

RIVERA
Leanor Rivera and Jose Rizal lived the
tragedies of Shakespeare’s poems.
They met when Rizal was 18 and Leonor was
13, at the boarding house of Rizal’s uncle
in Intramuros, Manila. Leonor was Rizal’s
second cousin.
It was a perfect love story in the
beginning: he, the intelligent charmer, and
she, the beautiful student who had a
beautiful singing voice and was a talented
piano player. Soon, they fell in love.
But as tragic love stories go, they were besieged by obstacles. Leonor’s parents highly disapproved of their
relationship as they were wary of Rizal being a “filibuster.” In his letters, Rizal called Leonor “Taimis” to
hide her identity.

Before leaving for Europe in 1882, Rizal said that he had found the woman he wanted to marry. But even his
brother, Paciano Rizal, disagreed with the idea, saying that it would be unfair to Leonor if he were to leave her
behind after getting married.

But their love—as young loves are—wanted to go against all that stood in the way. Although they did not get
married, they tried to continue sending each other love letters, a lot of which were intercepted and kept hidden
Date :
by Leonor’s mother. In 1890, Leonor wrote a letter to Rizal saying that she was engaged to be married to a
British engineer named Henry Kipping. That same year, the wedding pushed through.

Upon the coercion of her mother, Leonor burned Rizal’s letters to her—but it was said she kept the ashes of those
letters. A story goes that she hid some of these ashes in the hem of her wedding gown.
But their dark romance didn’t end there.

In 1893, Leonor died during second childbirth. Documents show that when Rizal heard of the news through his
sister, Narcisa, he didn’t speak for a few days. It is believed that Rizal immortalized Leonor through the
Priorities
character Maria Clara in Noli Me Tangere. Like we said, it’s a Shakespearean kind of dark—and no love story is
more intense than the one that lost the battle with circumstances.

Consuelo
ORTIGA Y REY
BORN : UNKNOWN
DIED : UNKNOWN
PLACE OF BIRTH :
MADRID, SPAIN

During his stay in Madrid, Rizal and some fellow Filipino’s would visit the home of Don
Pablo Ortiga. They went there to visit the Don’s daughters, but more specifically, Rizal
went there to visit Consuela, who was considered to be the prettiest among Don Pablo’s
daughters. Consuela fell in love with Rizal and he even wrote a poem for her called
A LA SENORITA C.O. y R. which became one of his best poems. Yet, keeping in mind that
he was loyal to Leonor Rivera, he backed out before the relationship could get any more
serious. Also, he knew that his friend – Eduardo de Lete – was in love with Consuela
and he did not wish to destroy their friendship over a girl.
 Seiko
USUI
BORN : 1865
DIED : UNKNOWN
PLACE OF BIRTH :
JAPAN

DDuring his stay in Japan, Rizal fell in love with his guide, interpreter, and teacher in
the Japanese language. It is said that if Rizal did not have a personal mission to
accomplish, he would have married O-Sei San and lived in Japan for good. Their friendship
blossomed after Rizal asked a gardener to introduce him to O-Sei-San who was surprisingly
fluent in English and French, two languages that Rizal knew how to speak. In many
accounts, it was written that Rizal almost moved to Japan permanently to spend his
remaining days with O-Sei-San; however, Rizal's patriotic responsibilities kept him from
doing this. Rizal moved to San Francisco and never met the Japanese woman again.

Gertrude
Seiko
BECKETT
BORN : UNKNOWN
DIED : UNKNOWN
PLACE OF BIRTH :
LONDON, ENGLAND
 In London, while Rizal was working on his annotation of Morga’s work, he stayed
in the Beckette family house which was walking distance from the British Museum
where Morga’s work was displayed. The eldest of the Beckette sisters, Gertrude
or “Gettie” as Rizal used to call her, fell in love with Rizal. He suddenly
left for Paris though, in order to avoid the growing feelings between himself
and Gettie. Before he left, he left Gettie a sculpture of the Beckette sisters.
Despite having "pet names" for each other (Rizal calls Beckett "Gettie", while
Beckett calls Rizal "Pettie") the feelings Beckett had for Rizal were not
reciprocated.

Nellie
BOUSTEAD
INFORMATION
BORN : UNKNOWN
DIED : UNKNOWN
PLACE OF BIRTH :
FRANCE OR
PHILIPPINES
(UNCERTAIN)

After learning of Leonor Rivera’s marriage to Henry Kipping, Rizal was able to go back to
courting the other ladies. During his stay in Biarritz, Rizal stayed with the Boustead family,
where he became friends with Eduardo Boustead’s two pretty daughters. He would practice fencing
with them at Juan Luna’s studio. Antonio Luna, another frequent visitor to the Boustead
residence, was trying to court Nelly but she was already infatuated with Rizal. This resulted
in an ugly scene where Antonio said some bad words about Nelly while he was drunk at a Filipino
hosted party in Madrid. Rizal then challenged him to a duel, but Antonio – after sobering up –
realized his mistakes and apologized to Rizal and thus preventing rift among the unified
Filipinos in Madrid. Unfortunately, Rizal and Nelly did not end up getting married because
Rizal did not want to be converted to Protestant and Nelly’s mother didn’t want a poor man for
ther daughter. The good thing is, they remained friends and parted as friends when Rizal left
Europe.

Suzanne
JACOBY
BORN : UNKNOWN
DIED : UNKNOWN
PLACE OF BIRTH :
BELGIUM

Due to the high cost of living in Paris during the 1890’s, Rizal moved to Brussels
where he stayed in a boarding house owned by the Jacoby sisters. As time passed by,
they fell in love but it was for nothing since Rizal ended up leaving Brussels,
though she did write him while he was in Madrid. Many historians believed that the
affair was one-sided, evident in the letters sent by Jacoby to Rizal.

Josephine
BRACKEN
BORN : AUG 9, 1876
DIED : MAR 14, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH :
HONGKONG
While in Dapitan, late Feb 1895, Rizal met an 18 year old Irish girl.
Josephine Bracken had blue eyes, brown hair and was a happy character. She
was the adopted daughter of George Taufer, a man from Hong Kong seeking
medical help from Rizal. It is said that Rizal was attracted to her
physically, and that his loneliness had taken over and that it was better
than to be in love again. Surprisingly, the Rizal sisters thought that
Josephine was a spy for the friars and considered her a “threat to Rizal’s
security.”

In time, Rizal proposed to Josephine but she wasn’t prepared to make such a
big choice, since she still had to look after her blind father.
Unfortunately, George Taufer’s illness could not be treated so he went back
to Hong Kong while Josephine stayed with Rizal’s family in Manila. When she
returned to Dapitan, Rizal tried to arrange for their marriage with Father
Antonio Obach. the priest, however, wanted a retraction as a precondition to
marrying them. Thus, Rizal took Josephine as his wife even without the
Church’s blessing, at the urging of his family and with her consent. She
later gave birth to a stillborn, believed to be the result of some incidence,
and this could have traumatized her.