Rizal and the Propaganda Movement
To prove his point and refute the accusations of prejudiced Spanish
writers against his race, Rizal annotated the book, Sucesos de las
Islas Filipinas, written by the Spaniard Antonio Morga. The book was
an unbiased presentation of 16th century Filipino culture. Rizal
through his annotation showed that Filipinos had developed culture
even before the coming of the Spaniards.
While annotating Morga’s book, he began writing the sequel
to the Noli, the El Filibusterismo. He completed the Fili in July 1891
while he was in Brussels, Belgium. As in the printing of the Noli,
Rizal could not published the sequel for the lack of finances.
Fortunately, Valentin Ventura gave him financial assistance and the
Fili came out of the printing press on September 1891.
The El Filibusterismo indicated Spanish colonial policies
and attacked the Filipino collaborators of such system. The novel
pictured a society on the brink of a revolution.
To buttress his defense of the native’s pride and dignity
as people, Rizal wrote three significant essays while abroad: The
Philippines a Century hence, the Indolence of the Filipinos and the
Letter to the Women of Malolos. These writings were his brilliant
responses to the vicious attacks against the Indio and his culture.
While in Hongkong, Rizal planned the founding of the Liga
Filipina, a civil organization and the establishment of a Filipino
colony in Borneo. The colony was to be under the protectorate of the
North Borneo Company, he was granted permission by the British
Governor to establish a settlement on a 190,000 acre property in North
Borneo. The colony was to be under the protectorate of the North
Borneo Company, with the "same privileges and conditions at those
given in the treaty with local Bornean rulers".
Governor Eulogio Despujol disapproved the project for
obvious and self-serving reasons. He considered the plan impractical
and improper that Filipinos would settle and develop foreign
territories while the colony itself badly needed such developments.