Flame Pillar of Rizal

The Shoe Mystery

PHOTO: Shoes (gift from his eldest sister, Saturnina) Rizal wore to his execution which were recovered when his body was exhumed by his family from the Paco Cemetery Manila in 1898. Before his execution, Rizal whispered to his sister (Narcisa) that he concealed another note in his shoes, but since his body was buried without a coffin, the note was destroyed as his body decomposed.

***

Jose Rizal was convicted and sentenced to death because of rebellion, treason and conspiracy . The day before his execution, when Rizal said goodbye to Josephine and as she leaves he uttered a few words and asked her something in a low voice. Rizal said “Look in my right shoe, there is something inside” He told the same thing to his sister Trinidad 4 days before. What important message could that be? Rizal also hid his “Ultimo Adios” in that cocinilla or alcohol lamp, folded so neatly his sisters had to take it out using their hairpins. But how about his right shoe where he concealed another letter?

According to Rizal’s biographer, Jose Baron Fernandez, Rizal had a final instruction to his family before his execution: 

“Bury me in the ground, place a stone and a cross over it. My name, the date of my birth and of my death. Nothing more. If you later wish to surround my grave with a fence, you may do so. No anniversaries. I prefer Paang Bundok (where Manila’s North Cemetery now stands).”

Some source claims that by 11:00 – 12:00 midnight before the day of his execution, Rizal takes time to his hide his poem inside the alcohol burner and to his shoe. It has to be done during night rather than during daytime because he is watched very carefully.

After his execution, the family wasn’t able claim his remains because the Spanish authority secretly buried Rizal’s body in Paco Cemetery. Rizal’s sister, Narcisa Rizal, hopelessly searched every cemetery in Manila for his grave, until she saw some Guardia Civil in the gate of Paco Cemetery and that gave her a hint. At first the guards didn’t allow her to enter, but she bribed them and eventually let her through, she looked for a freshly turned soil assuming it was Rizal’s, and then the gravedigger laid a plaque with the initials of her brother in reverse, R.P.J., which means Rizal, Protacio Jose.

Years after, when the Americans took in Manila, Narcisa asked permission from the American authorities sometime in August to dig up the remains of Rizal, and it was granted. They found out that his body was buried without a coffin, his burial not on sanctified ground, they identified the shoe, however the note hid there already disintegrated or destroyed as his body decomposed and there’s no way it could be possibly interpreted because it's unreadable.

What was the mystery document that Rizal concealed in his shoes? Was it a poem of a same caliber as "Mi Ultimo Adios," a declaration that he only signed  the recantation of the friars so he could marry Josephine Bracken, or perhaps a final love note to the woman he called his "dear and unhappy wife," Josephine Bracken?

Until now, it's debatable. Nobody knows.