Thanks to Mr. Garry Lao of the Lapu-Lapu City Tourism Commission for inviting me to its 129th anniversary celebration of the martyrdom of Dr. Jose Rizal last Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025. I was honored to represent the Cebu City Cultural and Historical Affairs Commission in the event where I had the pleasure of meeting city officials including Lone District Rep. Junard Chan, who happens to be my brother knight in the Order of the Knights of Rizal.
In Philippine history, Dr. Jose Rizal is probably the No. 1 victim of fake news.
There may be more bad things being said of Calamba Joe than all the good things that he has done in his lifetime. Spanish friars called him a scoundrel, philanderer, heretic, subversive, troublemaker, traitor, and a downright dangerous saboteur.
Since his death by firing squad 129 years ago, Rizal has been the subject of many debates, one of which is that his heroism was a creation of the American colonial regime in the early 1900s. Accordingly, the Yankees wanted Filipinos to emulate Rizal’s peaceful means of dissent rather than the armed rebellion waged by Andres Bonifacio.
To emphasize that Rizal’s writings were a more effective means of fighting for change, the Americans reportedly upheld that “the pen is mightier than the sword.” This, after more than 250,000 Filipinos perished from Philippine-American war.
Through the years, Rizal’s ascension as a foremost Philippine national hero has sent many tongues wagging with conspiracy theories and urban legends about him.
For instance, there’s this yarn alleging that Rizal was the real Jack the Ripper. Accordingly, his stay in London coincided with the murders of prostitutes in the area in 1888. In addition, his surgical skills as an ophthalmologist make him an ideal suspect since the victims were killed by gruesome mutilations. Finally, Rizal and Jack the Ripper share the same J.R. initials.
There’s really no concrete evidence to support the theory, as it loosely relies on circumstantial conjectures. Besides, witnesses said that Jack the Ripper was around 5’5” to 5’8” tall whereas Rizal’s height was just 4’11”. Killing prostitutes by surgically mutilating their bodies just did not jibe with Rizal’s composure and calmness, traits that in fact made him reject the idea of an armed revolution.
Another urban legend asserts that Rizal was the father of Adolf Hitler. This stems from Rizal’s journey to Vienna in 1887. Accordingly, Rizal’s friend Maximo Viola had written in his diary that the Filipino hero spent a night with a beautiful Viennese woman later alleged to have been Klara Polzl who was Hitler’s mother.
A misaligned timeline is the main issue against this theory. Hitler was born in April 1889, hence Rizal’s 1887 visit to Vienna wouldn’t coincide with it. Surely, Rizal the wanderlust would have been somewhere else in Europe at the time Hitler was conceived. Most importantly, there’s no conclusive DNA confirmation or of any biological relations between Rizal and Hitler whose ancestry has been traced as Jewish.
There are many more of these rumors about Rizal that simply qualify as fake news. The funny thing is that they only add to Rizal’s renown as a hero unlike any other, making his life an affirmation to the old adage, “good or bad publicity is still publicity.”