Jose Rizal Monument at Luneta Park by Flcikr

One hundred twenty-two years ago, on Dec. 30, 1896, Dr. Jose Rizal, the greatest Filipino patriot, was shot by firing squad at the order of the Spanish military in Manila.

Dr. Rizal was born on June 19. 1861 in Calamba, Laguna. His full name is Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda. He was the seventh child of Francisco Engracio Rizal Mercado y Alejandro, and Teodora Morales Alonzo Realonda y Quintos, a prosperous landowner and sugar planter of Chinese-Filipino descent. His mother was one of the most highly educated women in the Philippines and exerted a powerful influence on his intellectual development teaching him his alphabet at age 3.

At 9, he was sent to Biñang where he studied under the charge of G. Justiniano Aquino Cruz, but after a few months he was advised by his teacher to study in Ateneo…