2 Rebels Who Made ‘Filibuster’ Famous

Filibuster simply means ‘to obstruct or delay’. The Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal wrote El Filibusterismo as a protest against the Spanish Occupation of his country. He told his friend Ferdinand Blumentritt that the word “filibustero” is very little known in the Philippine masses. That was way back in 1891.

This week, Texas Sen. Wendy Davis made the word famous again when she went on a filibuster marathon in the Texas Senate to protest against an abortion bill. It went viral in the whole US.

Back to ‘El Filibusterismo’
‘Jose Alejandro, one of the new Filipinos who had been quite intimate with Rizal, said, “in writing the Noli Rizal signed his own death warrant.” Subsequent events, after the fate of the Noli was sealed by the Spanish authorities, prompted Rizal to write the continuation of his first novel. He confessed, however, that regretted very much having killed Elias instead of Ibarra, reasoning that when he published the Noli his health was very much broken, and was very unsure of being able to write the continuation and speak of a revolution.

‘Explaining to Marcelo H. del Pilar his inability to contribute articles to the La Solidaridad, Rizal said that he was haunted by certain sad presentiments, and that he had been dreaming almost every night of dead relatives and friends a few days before his 29th birthday, that is why he wanted to finish the second part of the Noli at all costs…’
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