José Rizal (born June 19, 1861, Calamba, Philippines—died December 30, 1896, Manila) was a patriot, physician, and man of letters who was an inspiration to the nationalist movement.The son of a prosperous landowner, Rizal was educated in and at the . A brilliant medical student, he soon committed himself to the reform of Spanish rule in his home , though he never advocated Philippine independence. Most of his writing was done in Europe, where he resided between 1882 and 1892.In 1887 Rizal published his first , Noli me tangere (), a passionate exposure of the evils of Spanish rule in the . A sequel, El filibusterismo (1891; The Reign of Greed), established his reputation as the leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement. He published an annotated edition (1890; reprinted 1958) of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, hoping to show that the native people of the Philippines had a long history before the coming of the Spaniards. He became the leader of the , contributing numerous articles to its newspaper, , published in . Rizal’s political program included integration of the Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament), the replacement of Spanish friars by Filipino priests, freedom of assembly and expression, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law., José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda[7] (Spanish: [xoˈse riˈsal, -ˈθal], Tagalog: [hoˈse ɾiˈsal]; June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino nationalist, writer and polymath active at the end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is popularly considered a national hero (pambansang bayani) of the Philippines. [8][9] An ophthalmologist by profession , José Rizal, a revered Filipino nationalist and prolific writer, fearlessly fought for his country’s independence through his literary works that inspired a revolution against Spanish colonial rule..