Question

Compare the experiences of Rizal as a student in Ateneo Municipal, UST, and in Madrid.

Answer 1

Answer:

During a stopover in Madrid from their studies at Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo (UIMP) in Santander, 24 Filipino scholars, including this writer, were toured by UIMP administration and Agencia Española de Cooperacion Internacional (AECI), in cooperation with the Philippine Embassy in Madrid, to retrace Jose Rizal’s footsteps as a young student and later as an expatriate in the Spanish capital in the late 19th century.

 

After his medical studies at University of Santo Tomas, Rizal left the Philippines on May 3, 1882, and arrived in Madrid in September 1882. He took courses in medicine at Universidad Central de Madrid as well as painting at Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Calle Alcala.

 

Rizal mentioned that he enrolled at Facultad de Derecho, but shifted to Filosofia y Letras, which he finished with highest honors on June 19, 1885.

 

Universidad Central de Madrid, now Universidad de Complutense de Madrid, has since moved to its new location at the outskirts of Madrid known as Ciudad Universitaria. It is a city within a city.

 

However, the old brick-and-plaster building where our national hero finished his medicine course still stands in its old location, and few classes are still being held there.

 

I visited the old university site during my first sojourn in Spain in 1962-63 while on a nine-month scholarship grant from Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores in Madrid for my postgraduate studies in Spanish.

 

Returning to Madrid this time was sheer pleasure and an exhilarating experience as it gave me the opportunity to research and retrace more historical and cultural landmarks associated with Rizal.

 

Boarding houses

According to Gregorio Brilliantes, “from 1882 to 1885 and during his second shortest stay in Madrid, in 1890-91, he lived in at least nine boarding houses, hostels or residences.”

He continues: “One of the reasons for Rizal’s frequent transfer from one boarding house to another and the search for the best possible rooming house was due to the fact that he wanted to look for a cheaper place in order to save, also the proximity of the place to his school, the tranquility of its neighborhood, for nights of study and writing; the state of the house itself and the composition of its tenants.”

Explanation: