In defense of Rizal

There were 12 points that Lt Taviel De Andrade raised in defense of Rizal at that fateful trial (Gregorio F Zaide, Jose Rizal: Life, Works And Writings, pages 216-217):

1. He could not be guilty of rebellion, for he advised Dr Pio Valenzuela in Dapitan not to rise in revolution.

2. He did not correspond with the radical, revolutionary elements.

3. The revolutionists used his name without his knowledge. If he were guilty he could have escaped in Singapore.

4. If he had a hand in the revolution, he could have escaped in a Moro vinta and would not have built a home, a hospital, and bought lands in Dapitan.

5. If he were the chief of the revolution, why was he not consulted by the revolutionaries?

6. It was true he wrote the by-laws of the Liga Filipina, but this is only a civic organization – not a revolutionary society.

7. The Liga Filipina did not live long, for after the first meeting he was banished to Dapitan and it died out.

8. If the Liga was reorganized nine months later, he did not know about it.

9. The Liga did not serve the purpose of the revolutionists, otherwise they would not have supplanted it with the Katipunan.

10. If it were true that there were some bitter comments in Rizal’s letters, it was because they were written in 1890 when his family was being persecuted, being dispossessed of houses, warehouses, lands, etc., and his brother and all brothers-in-law were deported.

11. His life in Dapitan had been exemplary as the politico-military commanders and missionary priests could attest.

12. It was not true that the revolution was inspired by his one speech at the house of Doroteo Ongjunco, as alleged by witnesses whom he would like to confront. His friends knew his opposition to armed rebellion. Why did the Katipunan send an emissary to Dapitan who was unknown to him? Because those who knew him were aware that he would never sanction any violent movement.

We all know the defense didn’t work in Rizal’s favor. If you were the lawyer of Rizal, what would you have pleaded?

I would not have argued like that, because the logic is not very tight; it is quite assailable. His advice to Valenzuela could have been a ruse, a disguise of his true purpose. That he did not correspond with the radicals did not mean he was not one of them. It is not enough merely to deny that the Katipuneros used his name without his knowledge. What if he merely failed to escape in Singapore? What if he could not escape in a Moro vinta but wanted to? The structures he built and the lands he bought could all have been to dissimulate his true intentions. What if the revolutionaries were consulting him in secret, not in the open? What if the Liga Filipina was secretly a subversive organization? What if the Liga appeared to die and then was reborn in the form of the Katipunan? What if his exemplary life in Dapitan was all to camouflage his secret activities? What if he really knew Valenzuela and was merely denying the fact?

Even assuming that Andrade’s logic was acceptable, that the whole defense was believable, arguing logically is assuming that the accusers were thinking right, thinking logically. They were not. I would have pleaded for mercy. And that would have caused a riot.