Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda, José (1861-1896)

Filipino physician, patriot, and novelist. In 1886 he published Noli Me Tangere, a novel exposing the evils of the rule of the Spanish monks in his country. He was driven from the Philippines in 1887 and in 1891 published a sequel to his novel, El Filibusterismo. In 1892, returning to Manila, he founded the Liga Filipina, a non-violent society for reform, but was arrested and banished to Mindanao, where he established a school and a hospital. In 1896 he was again arrested, for alleged complicity in the Katipunan rebellion of 1896-97, and shot.

Mercado y Rizal was born in Calamba, Laguna province, Luzon, Philippines. He attended the Jesuit school in Manila, Madrid University, and visited several European universities, becoming an accomplished linguist. After leaving the Philippines to go into exile he practised medicine in Hong Kong.