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| (photo courtesy of google) |
Rizal Final Moment.
To make sure that the crowd wouldn't hear Rizal's final words, one Spanish colonel ordered the brass band to play loud music. He threatened that anyone caught saying even one word of support for Rizal would be shot on the spot.
Instead of spending his final moments with serenity, Rizal was provoked into a shouting match with the captain of the firing squad who demanded that Rizal turn his back on his executioners and kneel down—two things this proud and innocent man would never do.
An argument ensued, forcing an agitated Rizal to raise his voice. “Ang mga taksil lamang ang binabaril nang patalikod!” Rizal said. “Ako’y hindi taksil sa aking bayan at hindi rin nagtaksil sa Espanya, kaya ibig kong mamatay sa harap ng mga punglo!”
The colonel managed to convince the captain to give in, but a Spanish friar butted in, “Ang magigiting lamang ang binabaril nang paharap. Siya’y kaaway ng mga prayle at masugid na Mason at kalaban ng pamahalaan!”
So Rizal was forced to turn his back on the firing squad, but when they made another attempt to make him kneel, an already stressed-out Rizal protested, “Hah, wala na akong kinikilalang kapangyarihan! Hindi ako makaluluhod, hinding-hindi!”
At that point, the crowd grew restless. The captain repeated the colonel’s warning that anyone objecting to Rizal’s execution would be shot. He was so irked by Rizal’s stubborn refusal to kneel that he ordered the execution to proceed right away. Eight Filipino soldiers fired eight shots at Rizal, and the suspicious captain afterward checked each gun to make sure they all unloaded. Any soldier found with an unfired gun would have been shot on the spot.
A member of the Guardia Civil present during the execution testified that Rizal did turn around at the moment of firing and fell on his left side: “Biglang pumihit si Rizal at ang mga punglo’y naglagusan sa kanyang katawan. Patagilid na bumagsak ang kanyang katawan.”
When the captain saw that Rizal was still breathing, he pulled out his revolver and shot him to finish him off. Then he shouted, “Viva España, viva!” To which the Spaniards in the crowd shouted back, “Viva! Death to all traitors!”
The captain could hardly contain his glee. He ordered the brass band to play Marcha de Cadiz, while Rizal’s sisters wept over his corpse. The band played on until the carriage arrived and took away the lifeless body for disposal in an unmarked grave.
(Excerpted from Blas Hizon's account, told to writer-lexicographer Antonio K. Abad of San isidro, Nueva Ecija, in 1908, or 12 years after Rizal's execution. Hizon, a native of Binanongan, Rizal, was the Guardia Civil assigned to play the bugle during the execution; he was rocked with so much guilt that he defected to the Katipunan the very next day. The account is contained in a commemorative pamphlet published by the Knights of Rizal-Pasig Chapter in 1968, during the national hero’s 72nd death anniversary, a copy of which was acquired by the Center for Kapampangan Studies.) //**//
