Rare First Edition 'El Fili' Sold for P21 Million at Leon Gallery Auction

(SPOT.ph) The first-ever edition of Jose Rizal's El Filibusterismo was auctioned off for P21 million ("plus premium and VAT," according to historian Ambeth R. Ocampo) at the Asian Cultural Council Auction held on February 14 at Leon Gallery. It now holds the record of being the most expensive book sold in the country.

The book is from the collection of Don Trinidad Pardo de Tavera (a Filipino physician, historian and politician of Spanish and Portuguese descent), as evidenced by an ex-libris T.H. Pardo de Tavera on the marbled endpaper on the inside front cover. The title page, likewise, bears a stamp with the doctor's name. The next page also shows a handwritten dedication and signature from Rizal: "A mi querido amigo el doctor T.H. Pardo de Tavera, Jose Rizal, Gante, 16 / IX 1891." ("To my dear friend, the doctor T. H. Pardo de Tavera, Jose Rizal, Ghent, 16 September 1891.") Its initial price was P5 million.

In Noli Me Tángere, Crisóstomo Ibarra—the mestizo son of Don Rafael Ibarra—is a hopeful, European-educated idealist seeking reform through education. In El Filibusterismo, he has reemerged as Simoun: a wealthy, glittering jeweler whose outward charm masks a heart turned to designs of vengeance. Disillusioned by reform’s failure, he engineers a plot to ignite revolt—seeding dissent among students, officials, and the clergy and planning a catastrophic explosion at a social gathering to topple the colonial order.

If that sounded dark, that's because Fili was written at a time when Rizal faced horrible tragedies. In 1890, Spanish authorities seized his family's land in Calamba and exiled his father and brother to Mindoro. That same year, his beloved Leonor Rivera was married off to an Englishman, Henry Charles Kipping. What Leonor did not know was that her mother had intercepted Rizal’s letters, leading her to believe she had been abandoned by the man she loved.

"Rizal would capture these dark events in El Filibusterismo. He tells the harrowing tale of Kabesang Tales, the farmer who loses his land to friars, and also narrates the death of Maria Clara, whose life ebbs away from a wasting disease in a convent," wrote Lisa Guerrero Nakpil, curator at Leon Gallery, in the catalog "Jose Rizal’s Years of Unquiet Desperation: Art Imitates Life in El Filibusterismo."

The manuscript was finally completed in April 1891, but the author's struggles did not end there. Based on letters to his close friend Jose Basa (a Filipino merchant and member of the La Liga Filipina), Rizal went to great lengths to have Fili printed. He moved out of Paris to find cheaper living quarters and an inexpensive printing shop. He landed in Ghent, Belgium, where the Boekdrukkerij F. Meyer-Van Loo printers at No. 60 Vlaanderenstraat gave him extended installment terms. He rented a room nearby, at No. 47 Henegouwen Street, which he shared with Filipino chemical engineering student Jose Alejandrino (later a senator from the 12th senatorial district). According to Nakpil, the two "skipped meals and checked the galleys" to get by and scrape together funds to get Fili published.

Even then, Rizal struggled to pay for the printing. After exhausting the first loan sent by Basa, he pawned jewelry his mother had given him and lived on tea and biscuits. It was Valentin Ventura, his fencing companion in Paris, who heard about the situation and sent the funds.

Fili did not have as many copies as its prequel, but it was enough to "strike a stronger blow for the cause of revolution, a far more direct call to action and change than the reformist Rizal, who was better known in the Noli," wrote Nakpil.

The sequel included on the title page a message from Rizal’s confidante Ferdinand Blumentritt (in Spanish): "Facilmente se puede suponer que un filibustero ha hechizado en secreto á la liga de los fraileros y retrógrados para que, siguiendo inconscientes sus inspiraciones, favorezcan y fomenten aquella política que solo ambiciona un fin: estender las ideas del filibusterismo por todo el país y convencer al último filipino de que no existe otra salvacion fuera de la separacion de la Madre-Patria."

In English, it reads: "It can easily be supposed that a subversive (filibustero) has secretly bewitched the league of friar-lovers and reactionaries so that, unconsciously following his inspirations, they favor and foster that policy which ambitions only one end: to spread the ideas of subversion throughout the entire country and convince the last Filipino that no other salvation exists outside of separation from the Mother Country."

On top of that, the whole book is dedicated to the martyred Padres Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora. The dedication page says (in Spanish):

"A LA MEMORIA de los Presbíteros, don Mariano GOMEZ (85 años), don José BURGOS (30 años) y don Jacinto

ZAMORA (35 años).

EJECUTADOS EN EL PATÍBULO DE BAGUMBAYAN, el 28 de Febrero de 1872.

La Religion, al negarse á degradaros, ha puesto en duda el crímen que se os ha imputado; el Gobierno, al rodear vuestra causa de misterio y sombras, hace creer en algun error, cometido en momentos fatales, y Filipinas entera, al venerar vuestra memoria y llamaros mártires, no reconoce de ninguna manera vuestra culpabilidad. En tanto, pues, no se demuestre claramente vuestra participacion en la algarada caviteña, hayais sido ó no patriotas, hayais ó no abrigado sentimientos por la justicia, sentimientos por la libertad, tengo derecho á dedicaros mi trabajo como á víctimas del mal que trato de combatir. Y mientras esperamos que España os rehabilite un día y no se haga solidaria de vuestra muerte, sirvan estas páginas como tardía corona de hojas secas sobre vuestras ignoradas tumbas, y todo aquel que sin pruebas evidentes ataque vuestra memoria, que en vuestra sangre se manche las manos!

J. RIZAL"

The English translation:

"TO THE MEMORY of the Priests, Don Mariano GOMEZ (85 years old), Don Jose BURGOS (30 years old), and Don Jacinto ZAMORA (35 years old).

EXECUTED ON THE SCAFFOLD OF BAGUMBAYAN, on February 28, 1872.

Religion, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime imputed to you; the Government, by shrouding your cause in mystery and shadows, leads to the belief in some error committed in fatal moments; and all of the Philippines, by venerating your memory and calling you martyrs, in no way recognizes your guilt. Therefore, as long as your participation in the Cavite mutiny is not clearly proven, whether or not you were patriots, whether or not you harbored sentiments for justice and liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we wait for Spain to rehabilitate you one day and not make itself an accomplice to your death, let these pages serve as a belated crown of dry leaves over your unknown graves; and let anyone who, without evident proof, attacks your memory, stain his hands with your blood!

J. RIZAL"

This story originally appeared on Esquire Philippines. Minor edits have been made by the SPOT.ph editors.