Rizal Shrine (Calamba)

 museum, place with historical importance, shrine, interesting place

Birth place and ancestral home of the Philippine's National Hero, Dr. Jose Protacio Rizal. José Protacio Mercado Rizal y Alonzo Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), variously called the "Pride of the Malay Race," "The Great Malayan," "The First Filipino," "The Messiah of the Revolution," "The Universal Hero" and "The Messiah of the Redemption." He is the national hero of the Philippines. Despite his relatively short life, Rizal's passion as a patriot together with his intelligence as one of the first intellectuals of the post-colonial era have inspired succeeding thinkers and revolutionaries of the centrality of national identity as a social force in the project of nation-building. He is called by Benedict Anderson as one of the best exemplars of nationalist thinking.

Rizal was a polyglot. The medium of instruction in various academies in the Philippines and Europe where he studied were Spanish, French, Latin and German. There are facsimiles of letters of his that are in excellent German, and he also had correspondence in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, English, German and Dutch. He made translations from Arabic, Swedish, Russian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, Sanskrit. In addition he had at least some knowledge of Malay, Chavacano, Cebuano, Ilocano, and Subanun besides his native Tagalog.

He was a poet. As a polymath, he was also an amateur architect, artist, educator, amateur economist, amateur ethnologist, scientific farmer, historian, inventor, journalist, mythologist, internationalist, naturalist, novelist, ophthalmologist, physician, propagandist, sculptor, martial artist, amateur sociologist and a Freemason.

A patriot of the highest order, the anniversary of Rizal's death, December 30, is now celebrated as a holiday in the Philippines, called Rizal Day.