HISTORY- Was Rizal's Execution Avenged?

In Philippine history, so little is said about Montjuic Castle, an old military fortress, with roots dating back from 1640, built on top of Montjuïc hill in Barcelona, Cataluñia, Spain. Montjuic was a military prison which served as a temporary home of confinement for Filipino patriots Dr. Jose P. Rizal and Isabelo delos Reyes. Dr.Rizal was confined at Montjuic after his arrest by the Spanish authorities when he left Manila for Spain on September 2, 1896. Rizal then was on his way to Cuba in response to Governor General Ramon Blanco’s approval of his request to be sent to Cuba as a military doctor, but has to go to Spain first before proceeding to Cuba.

Governor General Eulogio Dispujol of Barcelona, the same Spanish military governor who sent Rizal to Dapitan paid him a visit at Montjuic. By then, Dispujol was the military governor general of Cataluña.

On the other hand, Isabelo delos Reyes an Ilocano patriot and another mason, suspected of revolutionary activities, after being imprisoned in Bilibid on January 1897 was deported to Spain and confined at Montjuic.

In June 1896, a bomb was thrown at the Corpus Christi procession in Barcelona. An anarchist group was blamed and hundreds of alleged revolutionaries were jailed at the Montjuic Fortress. Then Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Canovas ordered the cruel repression and torture of the suspects. Many revolutionaries died but others survived and they were believed to have shared time with Rizal in the notorious military prison.

The harsh treatment of the Montjuic prisoners might have unleashed the uprising against the Spanish monarchy. The anarchists planned the assassination of the Spanish Royal family. However, upon the advice of Dr. Ramon Betances, a Puerto Rican nationalist, instigator of the Grito de Lares revolution and considered the father of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, they chose to assassinate Prime Minister Antonio Canovas instead.

Dr. Betances shares many interests as Rizal. He was also an adherent of Freemasonry, an ophthalmologist, writer and poet. Betances coordinated support for the pro-independence movement in the Philippines while in Paris but there was no record of Betances meeting Rizal. He might have obtained a copy of Rizal’s valedictory poem “Mi Ultimo Adios” from his Mason friend in Hongkong, which he provided to the Puerto Rican insurgents’ propaganda movement against Spain.

On August 8, 1897, eight months after Rizal’s execution, Prime Mnister Antonio Canovas was shot dead by an Italian anarchist named Michele Angiolillio at the spa of Santa Agueda, Mondragon.

Assasin Angiolillio a.k.a. Golli confessed that he killed Señor Canovas to avenge the Barcelona anarchists, and the insurgent leader, Don Jose Rizal, who was executed at Manila, Philippine Islands, on Dec. 30, as an instigator of the Philippine rebellion in spite of his denial that he was not a rebel leader, although admitting that he had drawn up the statutes of the Philippine League.

On the 20th of August 1897, the Italian assassin, Michelle Angiolillos, the avenger of Rizal’s death was summarily sentenced to death. Having at no time during his trial or during the days leading up to his execution shown any sign of remorse, Angiolillo walked calmly to his execution by strangulation at the garrote.

Several days later, at a New York celebration of Michele Angiolillo’s heroic actions, the Italian anarchist Salvatore Pallavencini emphatically declared the anarchist position thus: “The man who killed Cánovas was a martyr to the cause of humanity and progress. Anarchists think it is better to kill a ruler who is a tyrant than to have a revolution in which thousands have to die because of his acts.”