Dr. Jose Rizal, the Philippines’ national hero, was born a century and a half ago (June 19, 1861) but his memory continues to live on.  As his best friend, Ferdinand Blumentritt, so eloquently said: “His coming to the world is like the appearance of a rare comet, whose brilliance appears only every other century.”

Jose Rizal was a virtual “Renaissance Man” in several aspects.  He attended the Ateneo Municipal de Manila where he earned his Bachelor of Arts and later pursued his medical studies, first at the University of SantoTomas and later on at the Universidad Central de Madrid for the degree of Licentiate in Medicine. Rizal also attended the University of Paris in France and had his second doctorate at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. 

Rizal was a polyglot (being conversant in >20 languages) and was a man of many skills, including being an ophthalmologist, sculptor, painter, educator, farmer, historian, playwright, journalist, poet, aside from having varying degrees of expertise in architecture, cartography, economics, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, dramatics, martial arts, fencing, and pistol shooting.

The well-travelled Philippine hero had the opportunity to visit Europe, Japan, and the US and found time to pen his patriotic novels  Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo and become a founder of the La Liga Filipina organization prior to his martyrdom at the age of 35 on December 30, 1896 (now celebrated annually as Rizal Day in the Philippines) at Bagumbayan (ie, present-day Luneta Park).  That Rizal was able to accomplish so much in his lifetime - in an era where there were no computers, word processors, internet, cell phones, modern planes, or mass electricity - makes it all the more exceptional.  In commemoration of Dr. Jose Rizal’s 150^th birth anniversary, various forms of celebration are held not just in the Philippines but all over the world, including that by the Order of the Knights of Rizal-New Jersey Chapter-USA. 

(Video from youtube.com; posted by roel7635 05.24.10)