My Family Connection to a Historical Figure
by Oliver Carlos
As a history professor, I’ve seen a lot of Rizal movies. But I haven’t seen one that focused on his love story with Leonor Rivera. I believe that one is worth making into a movie or a telenovela.
Many experts would agree that Leonor Rivera was Rizal’s greatest love if we would base it on the number of years they were in a relationship. Compared with the other women romantically associated with Rizal, Leonor’s relationship with the Philippine national hero was 8 long years, the longest of them all. However, they were on LDR mode. LDR means long distance relationship.
Leonor Rivera y Bauzon (Leonor B. Rivera, in our modern-day way of writing names) was Rizal’s distant cousin. Her father and Jose’s father were cousins, we just don’t know whether they were 1st, 2nd or 3rd degree cousins. She was born in 1867 in Camiling, Tarlac. Her mother was Silvestra Bauzon, whose clan was from Pangasinan.
Silvestra didn’t like Jose for a son-in-law because he had a bad reputation among the Spanish government and church officials in the colony. Getting associated with Rizal would mean trouble for her and her family. So she did everything to prevent her daughter from getting married to Rizal.
When Rizal was studying in Europe, Silvestra bribed the postmaster in the Philippines. They had an agreement that he would block all the letters of Jose to Leonor, and vice versa. Thus, the lovers never received correspondence for a long time. Rizal thought that Leonor might have fallen in love with another man, and Leonor thought that Rizal must have had another girlfriend abroad. With this, Silvestra was able to convince Leonor to marry a foreigner, the Englishman Henry Kipping. He’s the engineer who built the Manila-Dagupan railway. When Leonor and Jose learned about Silvestra’s heist, it was too late, the wedding cannot be cancelled anymore.
The Bauzons was said to have originated from eastern Pangasinan. The great basketball player Orly Bauzon was from that province. I had a student surnamed Bauzon, he’s from Pangasinan too. My maternal great grandmother was a Bauzon as well. Her maiden name was Feliciana Bauzon. She is the mother of my maternal grandmother Amparo Bauzon Blando-Tamolang. In my estimate, Feliciana’s father was a contemporary of Leonor. They could be cousins. Here’s how and why:
In 1849, the Spanish Governor General Narciso Claveria issued a decree that natives must have a Spanish-sounding family name. He had a catalog containing more than 60,000 alphabetically-listed family names to choose from. Since there was no photocopy machine yet at that time, the Spaniards ripped the pages of the catalog, distributed them, and posted a handful of pages per town. The head of each clan then selected a surname from the posted page. That’s the reason why in many places, the natives had family names beginning with the same letter. Also, only one person would receive a certain family name in one area. There cannot be two unrelated fellows being awarded the surname Bauzon. Only one guy in Pangasinan got that name for his clan. If this happened in 1849, then it was Silvestra’s father who selected the surname Bauzon. Silvestra was born in 1851. And from there, the Bauzon clan grew and spread.
It’s fascinating trying to dig through history to discover one’s roots. Sometimes you would find out that there’s somebody famous down your family tree. That’s the reason why the Gospel writer Matthew, wrote about Jesus’ genealogy in the opening chapter of his book. He wanted to establish that Jesus was a relative of King David, their national hero. He wanted to say that Jesus is kingly as well, in fact, he’s the promised King of kings. We read in Matthew 1:1 (ICB):
“This is the family history of Jesus Christ. He came from the family of David…”
Another part of the Bible says that all those who accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior has become co-heirs of him. Those who have become one with Christ are considered God’s children. We read in Romans 8:16–17 (ICB):
“And the Spirit himself joins with our spirits to say that we are God’s children. If we are God’s children, then we will receive the blessings God has for us. We will receive these things from God together with Christ.”
Friends, let us rejoice today knowing that we are related to Christ because of his blood. Be glad! You are blessed because of that connection to Jesus.
