The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER IV 40
was not permitted to engage in manual labor, which would injure our prestige, he somehow or other obtained
a position as collector of the tax on vehicles. The poor devil had no education at all, a fact of which the natives
soon became aware, as it was a marvel for them to see a Spaniard who didn't know how to read and write.
Every one ridiculed him and the payment of the tax was the occasion of broad smiles. He knew that he was an
object of ridicule and this tended to sour his disposition even more, rough and bad as it had formerly been.
They would purposely hand him the papers upside down to see his efforts to read them, and wherever he
found a blank space he would scribble a lot of pothooks which rather fitly passed for his signature. The
natives mocked while they paid him. He swallowed his pride and made the collections, but was in such a state
of mind that he had no respect for any one. He even came to have some hard words with your father.
"One day it happened that he was in a shop turning a document over and over in the effort to get it straight
when a schoolboy began to make signs to his companions and to point laughingly at the collector with his
finger. The fellow heard the laughter and saw the joke reflected in the solemn faces of the bystanders. He lost
his patience and, turning quickly, started to chase the boys, who ran away shouting ba, be, bi, bo, bu. [30]
Blind with rage and unable to catch them, he threw his cane and struck one of the boys on the head, knocking
him down. He ran up and began to kick the fallen boy, and none of those who had been laughing had the
courage to interfere. Unfortunately, your father happened to come along just at that time. He ran forward
indignantly, caught the collector by the arm, and reprimanded him severely. The artilleryman, who was no
doubt beside himself with rage, raised his hand, but your father was too quick for him, and with the strength
of a descendant of the Basques--some say that he struck him, others that he merely pushed him, but at any rate
the man staggered and fell a little way off, striking his head against a stone. Don Rafael quietly picked the
wounded boy up and carried him to the town hall. The artilleryman bled freely from the mouth and died a few
moments later without recovering consciousness.
"As was to be expected, the authorities intervened and arrested your father. All his hidden enemies at once
rose up and false accusations came from all sides. He was accused of being a heretic and a filibuster. To be a
heretic is a great danger anywhere, but especially so at that time when the province was governed by an
alcalde who made a great show of his piety, who with his servants used to recite his rosary in the church in a
loud voice, perhaps that all might hear and pray with him. But to be a filibuster is worse than to be a heretic
and to kill three or four tax-collectors who know how to read, write, and attend to business. Every one
abandoned him, and his books and papers were seized. He was accused of subscribing to El Correo de
Ultramar, and to newspapers from Madrid, of having sent you to Germany, of having in his possession letters
and a photograph of a priest who had been legally executed, and I don't know what not. Everything served as
an accusation, even the fact that he, a descendant of Peninsulars, wore a camisa. Had it been any one but your
father, it is likely that he would soon have been set free, as there was a physician who ascribed the death of the
unfortunate collector to a hemorrhage. But his wealth, his confidence in the law, and his hatred of everything
that was not legal and just, wrought his undoing. In spite of my repugnance to asking for mercy from any one,
I applied personally to the Captain-General--the predecessor of our present one--and urged upon him that
there could not be anything of the filibuster about a man who took up with all the Spaniards, even the poor
emigrants, and gave them food and shelter, and in whose veins yet flowed the generous blood of Spain. It was
in vain that I pledged my life and swore by my poverty and my military honor. I succeeded only in being
coldly listened to and roughly sent away with the epithet of chiflado." [31]
The old man paused to take a deep breath, and after noticing the silence of his companion, who was listening
with averted face, continued: "At your father's request I prepared the defense in the case. I went first to the
celebrated Filipino lawyer, young A----, but he refused to take the case. 'I should lose it,' he told me, 'and my
defending him would furnish the motive for another charge against him and perhaps one against me. Go to
Señor M----, who is a forceful and fluent speaker and a Peninsular of great influence.' I did so, and the noted
lawyer took charge of the case, and conducted it with mastery and brilliance. But your father's enemies were
numerous, some of them hidden and unknown. False witnesses abounded, and their calumnies, which under
other circumstances would have melted away before a sarcastic phrase from the defense, here assumed shape
and substance. If the lawyer succeeded in destroying the force of their testimony by making them contradict