19 JUNE

Gat Jose Rizal

1861 - Jose Rizal (José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda), one of the two future implied  national heroes of the Philippine Republic, is born as the  seventh child of Francisco Mercado and Teodora Alonzo in  Calamba in Laguna province  during the Spanish colonial rule  in the Southeast Asian archipelago; along with Marcelo H. del Pilar and Graciano Lopez Jaena,  he will form the great triumvirate of the reformist Propaganda movement that  will aim to awaken Spain as to the needs of its colony, the Philippines, and to make for a closer and more equal association of the archipelago and  supposed motherland, Spain; Rizal's patriotic writings, particularly the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, will  significantly inspire the other national hero, Andres Bonifacio y de  Castro, into organizing  the nationalistic secret society aiming for complete separation from colonial Spain, the  Kataastaasang, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan nang manga Anak nang Bayan  (KKK)  in 1892; following the discovery of the Katipunan, Bonifacio will seek  Rizal's advice with regards the launching of Himagsikan, which the latter will later disown and reject in his belief that the Filipino revolutionaries should first be fully prepared before taking on the Spaniards.