THE LAST DAYS OF JOSÉ RIZAL: A Timeline of His Last Arrest, Incarceration,

Execution and the Journey of His Remains

6 October 1896, 3:00 AM: On his 4th day of being held in his cabin at the MV Isla de Panay
docked at Barcelona, Spain on his way to Cuba, Rizal was awakened to be brought to Montjuich
Prison in Barcelona, Spain.

6 October, 2:00 PM: Interview with General Eulogio Despujol

6 October, 8:00 PM: Aboard the Colon, Rizal left Barcelona for Manila.
3 November: Rizal was brought to Fort Santiago, where other patriots, including his brother
Paciano, were being tortured to implicate him. Paciano refused to sign anything despite being
his body broken and his left hand crushed.

20 November: Preliminary investigation began with Rizal appearing before Judge Advocate
Colonel Francisco Olive. The investigation lasted five days.

26 November: The records of the case were handed over to Governor General Ramon Blanco
who then appointed Captain Rafael Dominguez as special Judge Advocate.

8 December: From a list submitted to him by the authorities, he chose the brother of his friend,
Lt. Luis Taviel de Andrade to become his trial lawyer. He was only made to choose among army
officers and not a civilian lawyer.

11 December: In his prison cell, Rizal was read the charges against him: “principal organizer
and the living soul of the Filipino insurrection, the founder of societies, periodicals and books
dedicated to fomenting and propagating the ideas of rebellion.”

13 December: Ramon Blanco was replaced by Camilo de Polavieja, a more ruthless character,
as Governor General of the Philippines. Dominguez submitted the papers of the Rizal case to
Malacañan Palace.

15 December: Rizal issued his manifesto to certain Filipinos calling to end the “absurd”
rebellion and to fight for liberties with education as a prerequisite. The authorities supressed
the manifesto.
25 December: Rizal’s saddest Christmas, away from family and friends.

26 December, 8:00 AM: Trial of Rizal began at the Cuartel de España. On the same day, the
court-martial secretly and unanimously voted for a guilty verdict with the penalty of death
before a firing squad.

28 December: Polavieja signs the death verdict.

29 December, 6:00 AM: Rizal was read his verdict by Captain Rafael Dominguez: To be shot the
next day at 7:00 AM at the Luneta de Bagumbayan (Rizal Park).

29 December, 7:00 AM: Rizal was transferred to the chapel cell adorned by religious images to
convince him to go back to the Catholic fold. His first visitors were Jesuit priests Fathers Miguel
Saderra Mata and Luis Viza.

29 December, 7:15 AM: After Fr. Saderra left, Rizal asked Fr. Viza for the Sacred Heart statuette
which he carved when he was an Ateneo student. From his pocket the statuette appears.

29 December, 8:00 AM: Fr. Viza was relieved by Fr. Antonio Rosell who joined Rizal for
breakfast. Lt. Luis Taviel de Andrade joins them.

29 December, 9:00 AM: Fr. Federico Faura, who once said that Rizal would lose his head for
writing the Noli Me Tangere, arrived. Rizal told him, “Father you are indeed a prophet.”

29 December, 10:00 AM: Fathers José Vilaclara and Estanislao March visited Rizal, followed by
a Spanish journalist, Santiago Mataix of El Heraldo de Madrid, for an interview.

29 December, 12:00-3:30 PM: Rizal’s time alone in his cell. He had lunch, wrote letters and
probably wrote his last poem of 14 stanzas which he wrote in his flowing handwriting in a very
small piece of paper. He hid it inside his alcohol stove. The untitled poem was later known as
Mi Ultimo Adios (My Last Farewell). In its second stanza, he already praised the revolutionaries
in the battlefield for giving their lives “without doubt, without gloom.”

29 December, 3:00 PM: According to an account of the agent of the Cuerpo de Vigilancia
guarding Rizal’s cell, Rizal signed what seems to be the document retracting his anti-Catholic
writings and his membership in masonry. This event is a contentious issue among Rizal experts.
29 December, 4:00 PM: Visit of Rizal’s mother, Teodora Alonso. Then Rizal’s sister Trinidad
entered to get her mother and Rizal whispered to her in English referring to the alcohol stove,
“There is something inside.” They were also accompanied by Narcisa, Lucia, Josefa, Maria and
son Mauricio Cruz. Leoncio Lopez Rizal, Narcisa’s eleven-year-old son, was not allowed to enter
the cell. While leaving for their carriages, an official handed over the alcohol stove to Narcisa.
After their visit, Fathers Vilaclara and Estanislao March returned to the cell followed by Father
Rosell.

29 December, 6:00 PM: Rizal was visited by the Dean of the Manila Cathedral, Don Silvino Lopez
Tuñon. Father March left Father Vilaclara to be with the two.

29 December, 8:00 PM: Rizal’s last supper where he informed Captain Dominguez that he
already forgave those who condemned him.

29 December, 9:30 PM: Rizal was visited by the fiscal of the Royal Audiencia of Manila, Don
Gaspar Cestaño with whom Rizal offered the best chair of the cell. According to accounts, the
fiscal left with “a good impression of Rizal’s intelligence and noble character.”

30 December, 5:30 AM: Rizal took his last meal. According to stories told to Narcisa by Lt. Luis
Taviel de Andrade, Rizal threw some eggs in the corner of a cell for the “poor rats,” “Let them
have their fiesta too.” Rizal also wrote to his family and to his brother.

30 December, 5:00 AM: Teary-eyed Josephine Bracken and Josefa Rizal came. According to the
testimony of the agent of the Cuerpo de Vigilancia, Josephine and Rizal were married.
Josephine was gifted by Rizal with the classic Thomas á Kempis book Imitations of Christ in
which he inscribed, “To my dear and unhappy wife, Josephine, December 30th, 1896, Jose
Rizal.” They embraced for the last time.
30 December, 6:00 AM: Rizal wrote his father, Francisco Mercado “My beloved Father, Pardon
me for the pain with which I repay you for sorrows and sacrifices for my education. I did not
want nor did I prefer it. Goodbye, Father, goodbye… Jose Rizal.” To his mother, he had only
these words, “To my very dear Mother, Sra. Dña Teodora Alonso 6 o’clock in the morning,
December 30, 1896. Jose Rizal.”

30 December, 6:30 AM: Death march from Fort Santiago to Bagumbayan begins. 4 soldiers
with bayoneted rifles lead the procession followed by Rizal, Taviel de Andrade, Fathers Vilaclara
and March and other soldiers. They passed by the Intramuros plaza, then turned right to the
Postigo gate then left at Malecon, the bayside road now known as Bonifacio Drive.
30 December, 7:00 AM: Rizal, after arriving on the execution site at the Luneta de
Bagumbayan, was checked with his pulse by Dr. Felipe Ruiz Castillo. It was perfectly normal.
Rizal once wrote, “I wish to show those who deny us patriotism that we know how to die for
our duty and our convictions.”.

“Preparen.” “Apunten.” Rizal shouted, “Consummatum est.” It is done.

30 December, 7:03 AM: With the captain shouting “Fuego!” Shouts rang out from the guns of
eight indio soldiers. Rizal, being a convicted criminal was not facing the firing squad. As he was
hit, he resists and turns himself to face his executors. He falls down, and dies facing the sky.

“Viva España! Muerte a los traidores!”

But in two years, the victorious Philippine revolutionaries will seal the fate of the Spanish
Empire in the east. Three hundred thirty three years of Spanish Colonialism ended in 1898.

30 December 1896, afternoon: Narcisa, after a long search, discovered where her brother’s
body was secretly buried, at the old unused Paco Cemetery. She asked the guards to place a
marble plaque designed by Doroteo Ongjungco containing Rizal’s initials in reverse—“RPJ.”

17 August 1898: Four days after the Mock Battle of Manila when the Americans took over the
city, the remains of Rizal where exhumed. They were brought to Narcisa’s house, washed and
cleansed and were placed in an ivory urn designed by Romualdo Teodoro de Jesus. The urn
stayed there until 1912.

30 December 2012: The transfer of the remains of Rizal from Binondo to the site of the Rizal
Monument was recreated one hundred years later by the Order of the Knights of Rizal and the
National Historical Commission of the Philippines in commemoration of Rizal’s 116th
Martyrdom Anniversary.