Tangere

BUOD 1

Sa gabing iyon ay nakatakdang ganapin ang marangyang handaan sa bahay ni Don Santiago Delos Santos o mas kilala bilang si Kapitan Tiyago upang magsilbing salubong sa isang binatang kagagaling lamang sa Europa. Hindi naman iba sa Kapitan ang binata dahil ito ay anak ng kanyang matalik na kaibigan.

Naghanda ng isang magarbong salusalo si Don Santiago de los Santos o mas kilala bilang Kapitan Tiago. Dahil mabuting tao at kilala sa buong Maynila, agad na kumalat ang balita tungkol sa pagtitipong gagawin sa Kalye Anluwagi.

Nang gabi ng pagititpon, dumagsa ang mga bisita na iniistima naman ni Tiya Isabel, pinsan ni Tiago. Kabilang sa mga dumalo ay sina Padre Sibyla, Tinyente Guevarra, mag-asawang Dr. de Espadaña at Donya Victorina, Padre Damaso, at isang kararating lamang na dayuhan sa Pilipinas.

Matanong ang dayuhan tungkol sa mga Pilipino, kabilang ang mga Indio. Nang mabanggit ang monopolyo sa tabako, dito nagsalita nang di maganda si Padre Damaso tungkol sa mga Indio. Hinamak niya ang mga ito at iniba naman ni Padre Sabyla ang usapan.

Napag-usapan ang pagkakaalis ni Padre Damaso bilang kura-paroko ng San Diego. Sabi ni Damaso, hindi raw dapat nangingialam ang hari ng Espanya sa pagbibigay-parusa sa mga erehe. Sinabi naman ni Tinyente na nararapat lamang ang parusa.

Inilahad ni Tinyente ang tunay na dahilan na pagkakalipat niya sa iba pang parokya. Ito raw ay dahil ipinahukay niya ang bangkay ng isang marangal na lalaking napagbintangang isang erehe dahil ayaw lamang mangumpisal.

Nagalit naman si Padre Damaso dahil sa sinabi ng Tinyente. Lumapit si Padre Sybila upang pakalmahin ang kapuwa prayle. Naaalala rin kasi ni Damaso ang nawawalang mahahalagang dokumento.

Kumalma ang magkabilang panig at umalis na sa umpukan si Tinyente. Nagpatuloy naman ang talakayan at kuwentuhan ng mga bisita noong gabi.

Makikta sa kabanatang ito ang hindi magandang pag-uugali ng ilang Pilipino. Katulad ni Padre Damaso na mapangutya sa mga Pilipino, ngunit siya pala mismo ay mayroong mga katiwaliang ginagawa. Madalas, ang mga taong mapangdusta sa iba ay mas marumi pa sa mga inaakusahan nila.  

Sa pangalawang kabanata ng Noli Me Tangere, naka-pokus ang kwento sa pagpunta ni Kapitan Tiyago at Ibarra sa isang kasaluhan at kasiyahan sa kanyang bayan.

Nakipagkamayan si Kapitan sa lahat ng kanyang bisita at panauhin, kasali si Padre Damaso, na biglang namutla ng makita si Ibarra.

Pinakilala ni Kapitan si Ibarra bilang anak ng isang kakilala na nag-aral sa Europa. Tinangkang kamayan ni Ibarra si Padre Damaso pero agad itong tumalikod.

Si Padre Damaso ay matalik na kaibigan ng ama ni Ibarra. Dahil sa biglang pagtalikod ni Padre Damaso ay nakaharap siya sa tinyenteng kanina pa namgmamasid sa kanila ni Ibarra.

Nag-usap si Ibarra at si Tinyente sinabing ikinagagalak nila na makita siya sa kasiyahan na yun. Halos mangiyak-iyak sa tuwa ang Tinyente habang nag-uusap kay Ibarra.

Ayon din sa kanya, kilala ang ama ni Ibarra sa kanyang lubos na kabaitan. Nang nalaman ito, napawi ng binata ang masamang hinala nito sa masamang hinala ng pagkamatay ng kanyang ama.Ng malapit ng maghapunan, inimbita ni Kapitan Tinong si Ibarra ng pananghalian kinabukasan.

Aral – Kabanata 2Sa kabanata na ito, ang aral na maipupulot ay hindi lahat ng tao na pinagkatiwalaan mo ay tatayo sa tabi mo habang buhay. Minsan, sila pa ang magpapabagsak sa iyo.

According to Maurice Zundel (1897–1975), in asking Mary Magdalene not to touch him, Jesus indicates that once the resurrection is accomplished, the link between human beings and his person must no longer be physical, but must be a bond of heart to heart. "He must establish this gap, she must understand that the only possible way is faith, that the hands can not reach the person and that it is from within, from within only, that the we can approach Him."[4] Likewise, later, when Thomas reached out to touch the wounds of Jesus, he declares: "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" [John 20:29] because "He knows it is useless."[4]

Christians of Western catholic tradition, namely Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Anglicans, would say this statement is to be received in relation to the Ascension of Jesus, that because he had not yet ascended to the right hand of God, it was more of a "not yet" statement rather than a "never" cling to me. Jesus became incarnate for the sake of mankind and is explicitly stated to retain his human body. When Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, he then "fills all things" (e.g. Eph. 1:23), and can properly be clung to in the means of grace he provides, such is in the Eucharist.

In medicine, the words were occasionally used to describe a disease known to medieval physicians as a "hidden cancer" or cancer absconditus, as the more the swellings associated with these cancers were handled, the worse they became.[5]

The phrase or a paraphrase in the vernacular is often drilled into surgical students regarding organs of the body that are notoriously delicate or prone to develop complications if disturbed; up through the early half of the 20th century, the most common invocation of this phrase concerned the heart.[citation needed] In current times,[when?] the organ considered most deserving of the phrase is typically the pancreas; the maxim "eat when you can, sleep when you can, don't mess with the pancreas" is commonly found in surgical anecdotes.[citation needed]

The expression found its way into culture and literature. Following Petrarch,[8] in the lyric poem "Whoso list to hunt" the 16th-century poet Sir Thomas Wyatt, mentions a hind who stands for the elusive lover hunted (metaphorically) by the speaker, with an inscribed collar: "There is written, her fair neck round about: / Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am".[9] The idea probably originates in a story of Pliny the Elder about deer of "Caesar", which lived 300 years and had collars with the inscription,[10] perhaps related to one of Solinus (fl. 3rd century AD) about Alexander the Great collaring deer, who then survive 100 years, though no inscription on the collars is mentioned.[11]

The phrase was also used as the title for José Rizal's book criticizing the Spanish colonization of the Philippines. The phrase evokes a cancer of the eyelids, for which ophthalmologists used the phrase; it symbolizes the people's blindness to the ruling government, which Rizal deemed the social cancer that people were too afraid to touch.

The thirteen-hour version of the experimental film Out 1 (1971) is sometimes subtitled Noli Me Tangere, as an ironic reference to it being the uncut version favoured by the director Jacques Rivette (as opposed to the edited version, Out 1: Spectre, which is "only" four hours long).[12]

A piece of forehead flesh covered by skin, previously attached to Mary's alleged skull, is kept in the cathedral of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in southern France. The relic is purported to be from the spot above Mary's temple touched by Jesus at the post-resurrection encounter in the garden.[15][16]

The biblical scene of Mary Magdalene's recognizing Jesus Christ after his resurrection became the subject of a long, widespread and continuous iconographic tradition in Christian art from Late Antiquity until today.[2][1] Pablo Picasso, for example, used the c. 1525 painting Noli me tangere by Antonio da Correggio, stored in the Museo del Prado, as an iconographic source for his 1903 painting La Vie (Cleveland Museum of Art) from the so-called Blue Period.[17]

Historically, the phrase was used by Revolutionary-Era Americans in reference to the Gadsden flag—with its derivation "don't tread on me"[13]—and other representations dating to the American War for Independence.[14] In the United States military, the phrase is the motto of the US Army's oldest infantry regiment, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), located at Fort Myer, Virginia; the snake symbol can be found in the coat of arms of the 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. "Don't tread on me" is also used to the First Navy Jack of United States Navy. It is used to the motto of No. 103 (Bomber) Squadron, Royal Air Force. Also the motto of the U.S Army 4th Infantry Regiment located in Hohenfels Germany.

RelicNoli Me Tángere (Latin for "Touch me not", with an acute accent added on the final word in accordance with Spanish orthography) is an 1887 novel by José Rizal during the colonization of the Philippines by the Spanish Empire, to describe perceived inequities of the Spanish Catholic friars and the ruling government.

Originally written in Spanish, the book is more commonly published and read in the Philippines in either Tagalog or English. Together with its sequel, El filibusterismo (Grade 10), the reading of Noli is obligatory for high school students (Grade 9) throughout the country. The two novels are widely considered the national epic of the Philippines and are adapted in many forms, such as operas, musicals, plays, and other forms of art.

The title, which originates from the Biblical passage John 20:13-17, was in Rizal's time a name used by Filipinos for cancer of the eyelids; that as an ophthalmologist himself Rizal was influenced by this fact is suggested in the novel's dedication, "To My fatherland".[citation needed] Rizal's novel aims to probe the cancers of Filipino society.[1] Early English translations of the novel used different titles like An Eagle Flight (1900) and The Social Cancer (1912), but more recent English translations use the original title.

José Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and polymath, conceived the idea of writing a novel that would expose the backwardness and lack of progress of Philippine society. According to historian Carlos Quirino, the novel bears similarities in terms of characterization and plot to the Spanish novelist Benito Pérez Galdós' "Doña Perfecta".[2] Rizal preferred that the prospective novel express the way Filipino culture was perceived to be backward, anti-progress, anti-intellectual, and not conducive to the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. He was then a student of medicine at the Universidad Central de Madrid.

In a reunion of Filipinos at the house of his friend Pedro A. Paterno in Madrid on 2 January 1884, Rizal proposed the writing of a novel about the Philippines written by a group of Filipinos. His proposal was unanimously approved by the Filipinos present at the time, among whom were Pedro, Maximino Viola and Antonio Paterno, Graciano López Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de Lete, Julio Llorente and Valentin Ventura. However, this project did not materialize. The people who agreed to help Rizal with the novel did not write anything. Initially, the novel was planned to cover and describe all phases of Filipino life, but almost everybody wanted to write about women. Rizal even saw his companions spend more time gambling and flirting with Spanish women. Because of this, he pulled out of the plan of co-writing with others and decided to draft the novel alone.

Crisóstomo Ibarra, the mestizo son of the recently deceased Don Rafael Ibarra, is returning to San Diego in Laguna after seven years of study in Europe. Kapitán Tiago, a family friend, bids him to spend his first night in Manila where Tiago hosts a reunion party at his riverside home on Anloague Street. Crisóstomo obliges. At dinner he encounters old friends, Manila high society, and Padre Dámaso, San Diego's old curate at the time Ibarra left for Europe. Dámaso treats Crisóstomo with hostility, surprising the young man who always viewed the friar to be a family friend.

Crisóstomo excuses himself early and is making his way back to his hotel when Lieutenant Guevarra, another friend of his father, catches up with him. As the two of them walk to Crisóstomo's stop, and away from the socialites at the party who may possibly compromise them if they heard, Guevarra reveals to the young man the events leading up to Rafael's death and Dámaso's role in it. Crisóstomo, who has been grieving from the time he learned of his father's death, decides to forgive and not seek revenge. Guevarra nevertheless warns the young man to be careful.

The following day, Crisóstomo returns to Kapitán Tiago's home in order to meet with his childhood sweetheart, Tiago's daughter María Clara. The two flirt and reminisce in the azotea, a porch overlooking the river. María reads back to Crisóstomo his farewell letter wherein he explained to her Rafael's wish for Crisóstomo to set out, to study in order to become a more useful citizen of the country. Seeing Crisóstomo agitated at the mention of his father, however, María playfully excuses herself, promising to see him again at her family's San Diego home during the town fiesta.

Crisóstomo goes to the town cemetery upon reaching San Diego to visit his father's grave. However, he learns from the groundskeeper that the town curate had ordered that Rafael's remains be exhumed and transferred to a Chinese cemetery. Although Crisóstomo is angered by the revelation, the groundskeeper adds that on the night he dug up the corpse, it rained hard and he feared for his own soul, causing him to take pity on Rafael and instead defy the curate's orders by throwing the body into the lake. At that moment, Padre Bernardo Salví, the new curate of San Diego, walks into the cemetery. Crisóstomo's anger explodes as he shoves him into the ground and demands an accounting; Salví fearfully tells Crisóstomo that the transfer was ordered by the previous curate, Padre Dámaso, causing the latter to leave in consternation.

Crisóstomo, committed to his patriotic endeavors, is determined not to seek revenge and to put the matter behind him. As the days progress he carries out his plan to serve his country as his father wanted. He intends to use his family wealth to build a school, believing that his paisanos would benefit from a more modern education than what is offered in the schools run by the government, whose curriculum was heavily tempered by the teachings of the friars.

Enjoying massive support, even from the Spanish authorities, Crisóstomo's preparations for his school advance quickly in only a few days. He receives counsel from Don Anastacio, a revered local philosopher, who refers him to a progressive schoolmaster who lamented the friars' influence on public education and wished to introduce reforms. The building was planned to begin construction with the cornerstone to be laid in a ceremony during San Diego's town fiesta.

One day, taking a break, Crisóstomo, María, and their friends get on a boat and go on a picnic along the shores of the Laguna de Baý, away from the town center. It is then discovered that a crocodile had been lurking on the fish pens owned by the Ibarras. Elías, the boat's pilot, jumps into the water with a bolo knife drawn. Sensing Elías is in danger, Crisóstomo jumps in as well, and they s*******r the animal together. Crisóstomo mildly scolds the pilot for his rashness, while Elías proclaims himself in Crisóstomo's debt.

On the day of the fiesta, Elías warns Crisóstomo of a plot to kill him at the cornerstone-laying. The ceremony involved the massive stone being lowered into a trench by a wooden derrick. Crisóstomo, being the principal sponsor of the project, is to lay the mortar using a trowel at the bottom of the trench. As he prepares to do so, however, the derrick fails and the stone falls into the trench, bringing the derrick down with it in a mighty crash. When the dust clears, a pale, dust-covered Crisóstomo stands stiffly by the trench, having narrowly missed the stone. In his place beneath the stone is the would-be assassin. Elías has disappeared.

The festivities continue at Crisóstomo's insistence. Later that day, he hosts a luncheon to which Padre Dámaso gatecrashes. Over the meal, the old friar berates Crisóstomo, his learning, his journeys, and the school project. The other guests hiss for discretion, but Dámaso ignores them and continues in an even louder voice, insulting the memory of Rafael in front of Crisóstomo. At the mention of his father, Crisóstomo strikes the friar unconscious and holds a dinner knife to his neck. In an impassioned speech, Crisóstomo narrates to the astonished guests everything he heard from Lieutenant Guevarra, who was an officer of the local police, about Dámaso's schemes that resulted in the death of Rafael. As Crisóstomo is about to stab Dámaso, however, María Clara stays his arm and pleads for mercy.

Crisóstomo is excommunicated from the church, but has it lifted through the intercession of the sympathetic governor general. However, upon his return to San Diego, María has turned sickly and refuses to see him. The new curate whom Crisóstomo roughly accosted at the cemetery, Padre Salví, is seen hovering around the house. Crisóstomo then meets the inoffensive Linares, a peninsular Spaniard who, unlike Crisóstomo, had been born in Spain. Tiago presents Linares as María's new suitor.

Sensing Crisóstomo's influence with the government, Elías takes Crisóstomo into confidence and one moonlit night, they secretly sail out into the lake. Elías tells him about a revolutionary group poised for an open and violent clash with the government. This group has reached out to Elías in a bid for him to join them in their imminent uprising. Elías tells Crisóstomo that he managed to delay the group's plans by offering to speak to Crisóstomo first, that Crisóstomo may use his influence to effect the reforms Elías and his group wish to see.

In their conversation, Elías narrates his family's history, how his grandfather in his youth worked as a bookkeeper in a Manila office but was accused of arson by the Spanish owner when the office burned down. He was prosecuted and upon release was shunned by the community as a dangerous lawbreaker. His wife turned to p**********n to support the family but were eventually driven into the hinterlands.

Crisóstomo sympathizes with Elías, but insists that he could do nothing, and that the only change he was capable of was through his schoolbuilding project. Rebuffed, Elías advises Crisóstomo to avoid any association with him in the future for his own safety.

Heartbroken and desperately needing to speak to María, Crisóstomo turns his focus more towards his school. One evening, though, Elías returns with more information – a rogue uprising was planned for that same night, and the instigators had used Crisóstomo's name in vain to recruit malcontents. The authorities know of the uprising and are prepared to spring a trap on the rebels.

In panic and ready to abandon his project, Crisóstomo enlists Elías in sorting out and destroying documents in his study that may implicate him. Elías obliges, but comes across a name familiar to him: Don Pedro Eibarramendia. Crisóstomo tells him that Pedro was his great-grandfather, and that they had to shorten his long family name. Elías tells him Eibarramendia was the same Spaniard who accused his grandfather of arson and was thus the author of the misfortunes of Elías and his family. Frenzied, he raises his bolo to smite Crisóstomo, but regains his senses and leaves the house very upset.

The uprising follows through, and many of the rebels are either captured or killed. They point to Crisóstomo as instructed and Crisóstomo is arrested. The following morning, the instigators are found dead. It is revealed that Padre Salví ordered the senior sexton to kill them in order to prevent the chance of them confessing that he actually took part in the plot to frame Crisóstomo. Elías, meanwhile, sneaks back into the Ibarra mansion during the night and sorts through documents and valuables, then burns down the house.

Some time later, Kapitán Tiago hosts a dinner at his riverside house in Manila to celebrate María Clara's engagement with Linares. Present at the party were Padre Dámaso, Padre Salví, Lieutenant Guevarra, and other family friends. They were discussing the events that happened in San Diego and Crisóstomo's fate.

Salví, who lusted after María Clara all along, says that he has requested to be transferred to the Convent of the Poor Clares in Manila under the pretense of recent events in San Diego being too great for him to bear. A despondent Guevarra outlines how the court came to condemn Crisóstomo. In a signed letter, he wrote to a certain woman before leaving for Europe, Crisóstomo spoke about his father, an alleged rebel who died in prison. Somehow this letter fell into the hands of an enemy, and Crisóstomo's handwriting was imitated to create the bogus orders used to recruit the malcontents to the San Diego uprising. Guevarra remarks that the penmanship on the orders was similar to Crisóstomo's penmanship seven years before, but not at the present day. And Crisóstomo only had to deny that the signature on the original letter was his, and the charge of sedition founded on those bogus letters would fail. But upon seeing the letter, which was the farewell letter he wrote to María Clara, Crisóstomo apparently lost the will to fight the charges and owned the letter as his.

Guevarra then approaches María, who had been listening to his explanation. Privately but sorrowfully, he congratulates her for her common sense in yielding Crisóstomo's farewell letter. Now, the old officer tells her, she can live a life of peace. María is devastated.

Later that evening Crisóstomo, having escaped from prison with the help of Elías, climbs up the azotea and confronts María in secret. María, distraught, does not deny giving up his farewell letter, but explains she did so only because Salví found Dámaso's old letters in the San Diego parsonage, letters from María's mother who was then pregnant with María. It turns out that Dámaso was María's biological father. Salví promised not to divulge Dámaso's letters to the public in exchange for Crisóstomo's farewell letter. Crisóstomo forgives her, María swears her undying love, and they part with a kiss.

Crisóstomo and Elías escape on Elías's boat. They slip unnoticed through the Estero de Binondo and into the Pasig River. Elías tells Crisóstomo that his treasures and documents are buried in the middle of a forested land owned by the Ibarras in San Diego. Wishing to make restitution, Crisóstomo offers Elías the chance to escape with him to a foreign country, where they will live as brothers. Elías declines, stating that his fate is with the country he wishes to see reformed and liberated.

Crisóstomo then tells him of his own desire for revenge and revolution, to lengths that even Elías was unwilling to go. Elías tries to reason with him, but sentries catch up with them at the mouth of the Pasig River and pursue them across Laguna de Bay. Elías orders Crisóstomo to lie down and to meet with him in a few days at the mausoleum of Crisóstomo's grandfather in San Diego, as he jumps into the water in an effort to distract the pursuers. Elías is shot several times.

The following day, news of the chase were in the newspapers. It is reported that Crisóstomo, the fugitive, had been killed by sentries in pursuit. At the news, María remorsefully demands of Dámaso that her wedding with Linares be called off and that she be entered into the cloister, or the grave.

Seeing her resolution, Dámaso admits that the true reason that he ruined the Ibarra family and her relationship with Crisóstomo was because he was a mere mestizo and Dámaso wanted María to be as happy as she could be, and that was possible only if she were to marry a full-blooded peninsular Spaniard. María would not hear of it and repeated her ultimatum, the cloister or the grave. Knowing fully why Salví had earlier requested to be assigned as chaplain in the Convent of the Poor Clares, Dámaso pleads with María to reconsider, but to no avail. Weeping, Dámaso consents, knowing the horrible fate that awaits his daughter within the convent but finding it more tolerable than her suicide.

A few nights later in the forest of the Ibarras, a boy pursues his mother through the darkness. The woman went insane with the constant beating of her husband and the loss of her other son, an altar boy, in the hands of Padre Salví. Basilio, the boy, catches up with Sisa, his mother, inside the Ibarra mausoleum in the middle of the forest, but the strain had already been too great for Sisa. She dies in Basilio's embrace.

Basilio weeps for his mother, but then looks up to see Elías staring at them. Elías was dying himself, having lost a lot of blood and having had no food or nourishment for several days as he made his way to the mausoleum. He instructs Basilio to burn their bodies and if no one comes, to dig inside the mausoleum. He will find treasure, which he is to use for his own education.

As Basilio leaves to fetch the wood, Elías sinks to the ground and says that he will die without seeing the dawn of freedom for his people and that those who see it must welcome it and not forget them that died in the darkness.

In the epilogue, Padre Dámaso is transferred to occupy a curacy in a remote town. Distraught, he is found dead a day later. Kapitán Tiago fell into depression and became addicted to opium and is forgotten by the town. Padre Salví, meanwhile, awaits his consecration as a bishop. He is also the head priest of the convent where María Clara resides. Nothing is heard of María Clara; however, on a September night, during a typhoon, two patrolmen reported seeing a specter (implied to be María Clara) on the roof of the Convent of the Poor Clares moaning and weeping in despair.

The next day, a representative of the authorities visited the convent to investigate the previous night's events and asked to inspect all the nuns. One of the nuns had a wet and torn gown and with tears told the representative of "tales of horror" and begged for "protection against the outrages of hypocrisy" (which gives the implication that Padre Salví regularly r***s her when he is present). The abbess, however, said that she was nothing more than a madwoman. The General also attempted to investigate the nun's case, but by then the abbess prohibited visits to the convent. Nothing more was said again about María Clara.

Rizal finished the novel in February 1887. At first, according to one of Rizal's biographers, Rizal feared the novel might not be printed, and that it would remain unread. He was struggling with financial constraints at the time and thought it would be hard to pursue printing the novel.

Financial aid came from a friend named Máximo Viola; this helped him print the book at Berliner Buchdruckerei-Aktiengesellschaft in Berlin. Rizal was initially hesitant, but Viola insisted and ended up lending Rizal ₱300 for 2,000 copies. The printing was finished earlier than the estimated five months. Viola arrived in Berlin in December 1886, and by March 21, 1887, Rizal had sent a copy of the novel to his friend, Blumentritt.[3]

The book was banned by Spanish authorities in the Philippines, although copies were smuggled into the country. The first Philippine edition (and the second published edition) was finally printed in 1899 in Manila by Chofre y Compania in Escolta.

Cover page of the first Philippine edition published in 1899.Recent English editions[edit]On August 21, 2007, a 480-page English-language version of Noli me tangere was released to major Australian book stores. An Australian edition of the novel was published by Penguin Classics (an imprint by Penguin Books) to represent the company's "commitment to publish the major literary classics of the world."[4] American writer Harold Augenbraum, who first read Noli in 1992, translated the novel. A writer well-acquainted with translating other Hispanophone literary works, Augenbraum proposed to translate the novel after being asked for his next assignment in the publishing company. Intrigued by the novel and knowing more about it, Penguin nixed their plan of adapting existing English versions and instead translated it on their own.[4]

This novel and its sequel, El filibusterismo (nicknamed El fili), were banned by Spanish authorities in the Philippines because of their allegations of corruption and abuse by the colonial government and the Catholic Church. Copies of the book were nevertheless smuggled in and hidden, and when Rizal returned to the Philippines after completing medical studies, he quickly ran afoul of the local government. A few days after his arrival, Rizal was summoned to Malacañan Palace by Governor-General Emilio Terrero, who told him of the charge that Noli me tangere contained subversive elements. After a discussion, Terrero was appeased but still unable to offer resistance to pressure from the Church against the book. The persecution can be discerned from Rizal's letter to Leitmeritz:

My book made a lot of noise; everywhere, I am asked about it. They wanted to anathematize me ['to excommunicate me'] because of it... I am considered a German spy, an agent of Bismarck, they say I am a Protestant, a freemason, a sorcerer, a damned soul and evil. It is whispered that I want to draw plans, that I have a foreign passport and that I wander through the streets by night...

Rizal was exiled to Dapitan in Mindanao, then later arrested for "inciting rebellion" based largely on his writings. Rizal was executed by firing squad at the Luneta outside Manila's walls on December 30, 1896, at the age of thirty-five, at the park that now bears his name.

Rizal depicted nationality by emphasizing the positive qualities of Filipinos: the devotion of a Filipina and her influence on a man's life, the deep sense of gratitude, and the solid common sense of the Filipinos under the Spanish regime.

The work was instrumental in creating a unified Filipino national identity and consciousness, as many natives previously identified with their respective regions. It lampooned, caricatured and exposed various elements in colonial society. Rizal depicted nationality by emphasizing the positive qualities of Filipinos: the devotion of a Filipina and her influence on a man's life, the deep sense of gratitude, ha ha