Trinidad Rizal

Rizal was born in Calamba, Laguna on June 6, 1868. She was the tenth child of Francisco Rizal Mercado and Teodora Alonso Realonda.

Trinidad helped found the first Masonic lodge for women in the Philippines.[1] She was also a member of Walana, a Filipino masonry society, formed in Manila on July 18, 1893, closely allied with the masonic temples of the ilustrados.[2]

In 1905, Trinidad co-founded the first Filipina feminist organization, the Asociacion Feminista Filipina (AFF), along with Concepción Felix, Librada Avelino, Maria Paz Guanzon, and Luisa de Silyar, among others.[3] In addition to encouraging women to participate in politics and public service, the organization promoted women's health. Trinidad participated in a subproject of AFF, Gota de Leche (also called La Proteccion de la Infancia), which focused on improving reproductive and maternal, infant, and child health.[4]

Like her sister, Josefa Rizal, Trinidad never married.[5] She died in Manila on May 9, 1951. She was buried in Manila's North Cemetery (Cemeterio del Norte) on May 11, 1951. Her remains were later exhumed, along with those of sister Narcisa, and relocated to the General Paciano Rizal shrine in Los Baños, Laguna.

In a letter from Donnerstag, Germany, dated March, 11 1886, her brother, Jose, complained of not having heard from her. He went on to praise the intelligent simplicity of German women and urged Trinidad to take her studies seriously while still in her youth, lamenting that Trinidad was "dominated by indolence." The letter, written a couple months before her eighteenth birthday, revealed that José had not seen his sister since she was very young.[6]

Trinidad and her sisters sought information about birth control, breast feeding, and pain reduction during childbirth from brother, José Rizal, while he studied, in Europe, to become a doctor.[1][5]

Trinidad visited José Rizal the day before his execution, accompanying their mother, Teodora Alonso, and sisters Lucia, Josefa, Maria, and Narcisa, to say goodbye and collect his belongings. Several historical accounts tell that José gave his stove (others call it a lamp) to Trinidad, telling her something important lay inside.[7] Legend has it that this important something was José Rizal's last poem, "Mi último adiós" / "My last farewell."[8] Rizal had hidden the paper so well that his sisters had to use their hairpins to unfold it.[7]

Before his death, José Rizal wrote to Trinidad to express his wish that the Rizal family treat his common-law wife, Josephine Bracken, kindly for her devotion to him.[9] Following his execution, Trinidad accompanied Josephine and brother, Paciano, to Cavite where they met revolutionary leader Andrés Bonifacio and passed to him a copy of José Rizal's final poem.[10]

The U.S. government informed the Philippine government, in 1908, that an American collector owned the original manuscript of the poem, which had left the Philippines with Josephine Bracken, in 1897. They now wanted to sell it to the Philippine government for $500. Trinidad Rizal was the one to verify the manuscript as the original before it was purchased and placed in the Philippine National Library.[7]