Conscripted Martyrology: José Rizal’s Secular Martyrdom in Filipino Colonial Narratives

Abstract

This article examines the ideological construction of José Rizal’s martyrdom across three colonial and postcolonial regimes – Spanish, American, and Filipino – arguing that his legacy functions not as a fixed historical truth, but as a politically malleable site of collective memory. Drawing on Elisabeth Castelli’s concept of martyrdom as a “technology of strategic remembering,” the study engages Rizal’s death through ancient martyrological frameworks to illuminate its evolving function. Rizal’s martyrdom is shown not as a stable or self-contained narrative, but as a discursive field in which cultural, historical, and political meanings are continually produced and contested. Across shifting regimes, Rizal was variously conscripted as a colonial instrument of discipline, a revolutionary emblem, and a nationalist symbol of civic virtue. The article demonstrates how martyrdom operates as a flexible cultural form in colonial and postcolonial contexts, with Rizal’s figure embodying the enduring tension between resistance and submission in Filipino socio-political imaginaries. Thus, Rizal’s legacy has accumulated so many symbolic “overcoats” that the search for the historical or ‘real” Rizal becomes increasingly elusive – if not altogether futile.