José Rizal: Calamba to Bagumbayan

José Rizal was born on 19 June 1861 in Calamba, Laguna, the seventh child of the family. His mother, Teodora, taught him the alphabet at age three. The Spanish authorities confiscated the family house in 1891, and the building you see today is a reconstruction on the same site, inaugurated on 19 June 1950 and now devoted to his childhood. The house keeps his memorabilia.

Visitor guidance: Open as a museum in Calamba, Laguna; the parish church where he was baptised is nearby.

In July 1892 the Spanish deported Rizal to Dapitan. He bought a 16-hectare estate at Talisay with P4,000 and built a school, a hospital and a water supply system, and taught and farmed. Today the Rizal Shrine holds five reconstructed bamboo and nipa houses, including the octagonal Casa Redonda that housed his students and a clinic. A large boulder, Mi Retiro Rock, marks where he wrote poems about his exile.

Visitor guidance: The shrine is a public park at Talisay, Dapitan, with a small museum near the entrance.

Arrested on the way to Cuba and held in Barcelona on 6 October 1896, Rizal was sent back to Manila and imprisoned in Fort Santiago. There he issued a manifesto disavowing the revolution, and a court-martial convicted him of rebellion, sedition and conspiracy and sentenced him to death. Today the fort is a historical park in Intramuros with a Rizal Shrine museum, and bronze footsteps set in the ground trace his final walk from cell to execution.

Visitor guidance: Part of the Fort Santiago park in Intramuros; the Rizal Shrine museum is inside.

On 30 December 1896 Rizal was shot at Bagumbayan, the area now covered by Rizal Park (Luneta), next to the walled city of Intramuros. A squad of Filipino soldiers fired, while Spanish regulars stood ready behind them to shoot the executioners if they refused. His last words were "consummatum est", "it is finished." His poem Mi último adiós had been hidden in an alcohol stove handed to his family.

Location precision: Sources place the execution at Bagumbayan, the area of today's park; the pin marks the park, not the exact spot.

Visitor guidance: Rizal Park is a free public park beside Manila Bay.

Right after the execution Rizal was secretly buried in Paco Cemetery, now Paco Park, with no name on the grave, deliberately mismarked to discourage martyrdom. His sister Narcisa found the spot and bribed the caretaker to mark it with the letters RPJ, his initials in reverse. The remains were exhumed on 17 August 1898 and laid under the Luneta monument on 30 December 1912.

Visitor guidance: Paco Park is a small public park in Manila with a marker for his first grave.

The bronze-and-granite Rizal Monument was unveiled on 30 December 1913, the 17th anniversary of his death. Swiss sculptor Richard Kissling won the contract with his design "Motto Stella" (Guiding Star), and the plaque carries Mi último adiós, "My Last Farewell". The monument holds Rizal's remains, and it is almost protocol for visiting dignitaries to lay a wreath here, under guard.

Visitor guidance: Stands in Rizal Park, Manila; ceremonial guards stand watch.