José Rizal

José Rizal (1861–1896) was a Filipino novelist, physician, scholar and reformer, and the national hero of the Philippines. Born in Calamba to a prosperous family, he studied medicine in Manila and Madrid and specialized in ophthalmology in Paris and Heidelberg. His novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, written in Spanish and published in Europe, exposed the abuses of the friars and the colonial government and were banned at home. He founded the reformist Liga Filipina on his return in 1892, was exiled to Mindanao, and after the revolution broke out in 1896 was tried for sedition and shot in Manila on December 30.