A Tambourine Necklace, a Pair of Carabao Earrings,
and a Photograph of Doña María Rizal
90 grams, 18k gold
total necklace length: 21" (53 cm)
earrings:
7.3 grams, 10k gold
Photograph
5 1/2" x 3 3/4'' (14 cm x 10 cm)

PROVENANCE
Heirs of Maria Rizal

Maria Rizal: The Hero’s
Closest Confidante

Little information has been written about the life of
Maria Rizal. Nicknamed ‘Biang,’ she was born on April
9, 1859 as the sixth child of Don Francisco Mercado
and Doña Teodora Alonso in the storied bahay na bato
of the Rizal Family in Calamba, Laguna. Among the Rizal
children, Maria enjoyed the special distinction of being her
brother Jose Rizal’s closest confidante, likely due to their
very close age range (Maria is only two years older than
Jose). Their unique sibling bond is evidenced by their steady
correspondence, notably during the hero’s first European
sojourn (1882 – 1887), self-imposed exile in Hong Kong (1891
– 1892), and four-year exile in Dapitan (1892 – 1896).
Maria as Jose’s closest sister and most trusted confidante
among his siblings is evidenced by a 12 December 1891
letter from the hero, who was then working as an ophthalmic
surgeon in Hong Kong, where he had settled on 20
November 1891, two months after the publication of his El
Filibusterismo in Ghent, Belgium. Jose mentions in his letter
their beloved father, Don Francisco, after he arrived in Hong
Kong in December 1891. He remarks: “Thank God father,
Paciano, and Bestre [Silvestre Ubaldo, his sister Olympia’s
husband] are already here. Father has put on weight, and
his cheeks have become pinkish; he is always in high spirits,
walks around habitually, and is genuinely pleased with Hong
Kong. They are very grateful for their safe arrival.”
Jose also reveals in this letter his plans of establishing a
Filipino settlement in Borneo, an aim that arose from the
Calamba agrarian dispute. “We are in a well-off situation
here. We have high hopes of moving to Borneo to settle and
engage in farming.” (Don Francisco, Paciano, and Silvestre’s
exodus to Hong Kong and Jose’s plans to build a settlement
in Borneo stemmed from the Rizal family’s harsh experiences
during the Calamba agrarian dispute.) At the end of his
letter, Jose entrusts the care of their other family members
to Maria and gives consoling words of hope and resilience.
“Take care of our nieces and nephews and our other brothers
and sisters. Let them persevere, for our day will come,” he
touchingly writes. Jose also mentions his genuine desire to
cure her ailing mother, who had been suffering from cataract.
“In case this letter reaches our mother, tell her I eagerly want
to see her and perform surgery on her eye.”
Having the privilege to give their children the best education
of their time, Don Francisco and Doña Teodora honed and fostered the Rizal children, including Maria, into a cultured
lifestyle. In his Memoirs of a Student in Manila, Jose, under
the nom de plume “P. Jacinto,” writes in a letter dated
September 11, 1878: “My father, a model of fathers, had given
us an education commensurate with our small fortune…”
On the other hand, the well-educated Doña Teodora was
described by Jose in his letter to his good friend, Ferdinand
Blumentritt, dated November 8, 1888, as “a woman of more
than ordinary culture.”
Maria was described by her brother as a bright woman.
Writing from Heidelberg, Germany on March 11, 1886,
Jose remarks to another sister, Trinidad: “If our sister María
had been educated in Germany, she would have been
notable, because German women are active and somewhat
masculine. They are not afraid of men. They are more
concerned with the substance than with appearances.” In
Rizal’s statement, one can deduce that Maria was a learned
woman well-versed in erudite discussions—an empowered
female of her time.
Maria was married on June 5, 1886, to Daniel Faustino
Cruz, a scion of a wealthy clan from Biñan, Laguna. The two
eventually settled in the said town. Their marriage bore five
children. The first child, Petrona, died at only three months
old. The second daughter, Encarnacion (1888 – deceased),
was a noted jeweler of her time in San Pablo, Laguna.
Their third child and first son, Mauricio (September 22, 1889
– February 6, 1945), was Jose’s favorite nephew whom he
nicknamed ‘Moris.’ He lived with Rizal in Dapitan and was
among his 28 students during his exile to the southern
Philippines. Mauricio married Concepcion Arguelles, with
whom he had a son named Ismael Arguelles Cruz. Ismael
would become the first husband of celebrated journalist,
historian, and author Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, and together
they would bear two children: Gemma Cruz Araneta (the first
Southeast Asian and Filipina to win an international beauty
pageant title, the Miss International 1964) and Ismael Cruz.
Maria and Daniel’s last two children were Paz (1890 – died
young in Calamba) and Prudencio (1892 – 1894). It was said
by Maria’s descendants that she returned to their family
home in Calamba after Jose’s martyrdom in Bagumbayan
on December 30, 1896. She had left her husband, who was
a gambler and womanizer. (Adrian Maranan)