After “El Filibusterismo” came off the press in September 1891, Rizal had mentioned to his friend Ferdinand Blumentritt, that he was contemplating on writing a third novel. The Austrian intellectual who had written extensively about the Philippines wrote the preface to what would eventually become Rizal’s second and last completed novel. As a confidant, he was apprised of the Filipino patriot’s literary endeavour amidst all their letter correspondence. There were at least four attempts by Rizal in writing what could have been the ‘third’ but no literary genre that would fall under the category of a novel was ever completed after “El Filibusterismo.”
Rizal scholars earlier considered an untitled and unsigned manuscript to be Rizal’s ‘third novel’ in 1957. The issue as to whether this should be credited as the third novel became controversial when another manuscript known as ‘Makamisa’ also found at the National Library in 1987 was more likely the draft of the third novel. The contention over which of the shelved manuscripts should be considered Rizal’s ‘third’ overlooked the fact that all these were unsubstantiated drafts which contained little if any of a plot, audaciously announced as chronologically the ‘third novel’. These incomplete works are worth examining for what they are – explorations in satire using a humorous language and sharp wit approach in a tone reasonably identifiable with Rizal that would make Tagalog readers ‘laugh amidst tears.’ Nevertheless, all the attempts to pursue and search for what could have been the follow up to “El Filibusterismo” should never be stamped as the ‘third novel’ but a shelved project aborted by the author himself during his exile. It was intended as a sequel to be written in Tagalog and later rewritten in Spanish. An unfinished chapter of around ten pages does not even make a story which would have required an ending. Exposition of characters and setting were never completed and it would be fruitless to presuppose that this would have been a worthy sequel to his masterpiece.
Towards the end of 1889, Rizal finished the printing in Paris of his annotations on Morga’s ‘Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas.’ In Rizal’s view, Morga’s history is perhaps the most impartial narration of the first years of the conquest. In line with Rizal’s intention behind translating Morga ‘to awaken the consciousness of our past, which has been obliterated from memory’ a similar objective could be said about how the manuscript with the given title of ‘Tagalog Nobility’ was conceived. Though it also did not come to its fruition like ‘Makamisa,’ Rizal had the same intent of ridicule targeted at degenerate colonial masters who were sanctimoniously claiming responsibility for ‘civilizing’ by Christianizing the Filipinos.
The following are some excerpts taken from the manuscript that bears more of the Rizalesque flair in its wit and humour.
‘Kamandagan,’ the protagonist of the story, had a son called Maambum who was baptized in order to marry Isabel, a Christian woman with whom he was desperately in love and who required that he be baptized first. The father severely reproached the son for his conversion and the son renounced the baptism before an assembly of his wife’s family and swore that thenceforward he would not be called by any other name than Maambum. “And your baptism?” objected some. “The water has already evaporated and hardly touched the skin of my head,” he answered deliberately. “And what does that matter to you? Do I not take a bath everyday in salt water and anoint my hair with oil?”
“And how about the words which the Spanish priest proffered on your head?” his terrified wife objected.
“I did not understand a word of what he said,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders, “and although he spoke for a long time, the sacristans did not understand him either, although they answered him. What can words do and what are they good for if they are not understood?”
“And so, why did you have yourself baptized,” an uncle of Isabel asked him.
“In order to get married! I said to myself a little water does not change the blood of Maambum. It occurred to those foreigners to pour water on the head of all of us, and as this strange insanity has contaminated the relatives of my future wife, we compromised.”
It is interesting to note that when Rizal was working on the finishing touches to ‘Fili’ in April 1891, Nellie Bousted from Biarritz, France wrote to him in response to a marriage proposal. She would only agree to marry Rizal if he embraces Protestantism. Nellie wrote, “I have even suggested to them (parents) to tell you that I am disposed to wait for some time so that you may examine the question with calm and concentration and without haste.” Rizal probably empathized with Maambum, an alter-ego, having a similar predicament in terms of interfaith marriages with their betrothed. Though Rizal took a different course of action by not getting coaxed into accepting a religious faith of another before getting married, his thoughts on sacramental prerequisites of any religion echo his ambivalence towards his own. Previous to the forestalled affair with Nellie was Rizal’s anguish over the shocking news of Leonor Rivera who was compelled by her parents to marry another man.
1891 had been a tumultuous year for Rizal. There was the falling out with his paisanos in Madrid, a heartbreaking news from Leonor and a ‘prenuptial conversion to Protestantism!’ demand from Nellie’s family. The only consolation for Rizal was the publication of “El Filibusterismo” followed by an interlude in Hong Kong to nurse the wounds afflicted in Europe. His exile in Dapitan, months later in 1892, could neither sustain the creative impulse needed to crafting what could have been an ‘accessory’ nail to a coffin reserved for executed writers. ####
