Monday, January 2, 2012

2 JANUARY

1749 - Muhammad Alimuddin I, the first future Christian sultan in the Philippines, lands in Cavite after fleeing with his family from Jolo where he faced an unsuccessful assassination attempt from his own brother, Bantillan, who led a rebellion over the sultan's granting of permission to Jesuit friars for missionary work; from Cavite, Alimuddin proceeded to Manila where he was publicly received with a royal reception befitting his stature as a high ranking prince; he would eventually be baptized a Christian, as Don Fernando de Alimuddin I,  a development that would be cheered by the Spaniards but met in Sulu with an all-out war; a year later, the Spaniards would try to restore Alimuddin by forcibly making his brother, the new sultan, accept him but would end up imprisoning Alimuddin and his family for supposed duplicity; Alimuddin, who later would send his daughter Fatimah to Mindanao, would be instrumental in restoring peace not only in Jolo but also between the colonial Spaniards and Bantullan who earlier conducted raids on church property and kidnapped Christian prisoners.

1884 - Filipino patriot and polymath Jose Rizal presents his proposal to  write a novel about the Philippines before members of Circulo-Hispano  Filipino during the Spanish colonial period; Rizal's concept is approved  but the project will not take off  because not one of his supposed group  members will end up writing anything; eventually, Rizal will write his own novel  on his country--what would be the controversial novel Noli Me Tangere  that depicts the abuses of the friars and the general suffering and  oppression suffered by the Filipinos  under the Spaniards; the book, which will be banned in certain parts of the Philippines because of its portrayal of corruption in the Catholic Church and the colonial government, would be instrumental in forging a sense of Filipino national identity and consciousness.




Photo credit: http://dbijoux26.wordpress.com/about/noli-me-tangere-touch-me-not/

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