Jose Rizal Love Story With Segunda Katigbak, First Woman In His Life

Jose Rizal and his love story with Segunda Katigbak.

JOSE RIZAL – Here is the story of Jose Rizal and Segunda Katigbak as to how they met and how they unfortunately did not ended up together.

Segunda Katigbak is a girl from a wealthy clan in Lipa who at young age was sent by her parents to La Concordia. She is a close friend to Olimpia who happens to be a sister of Jose Rizal and he, on the other hand, is a friend to Mariano Katigbak, Segunda’s brother. She was just 14 years old when she met Pepe who was then 16. They first met at the house of Rizal’s grandmother in Trozo, Manila which is now known as Tutuban.

Infatuation grew and both unaware that love is already enveloping them together. They would often see each other and the smitten Rizal would sketch her and write poems about her. In one of his writings, he described Segunda as:

“May mga matang kung minsan ay makislap at nangungusap, may ngiting nakagagayuma… Hindi siya ang pinakamagandang babeng nakita ko, ngunit hindi ako nakasilay kailanman nang higit na kaakit-akit.”

But even before he could make a move to them official, he knew from the start that Segunda is promised to marry Manuel Luz Y Metra, a tall and rich man from Lipa. Before, it was a predominant practice that women will be bound to marry someone within the same social circle in the locality as per GMA’s article.

In present times, we can consider that what happened to Rizal and Segunda was just “MU” or mutual understanding. He was not able to muster up the courage to put a label on them because she was bound to marry someone. He had his chance for several times but his young heart and mind let it all get out of his grip.

There was even one chance when Rizal went out riding his horse to catch up Segunda in their carriage with her siblings on their way to Batangas. And this is what happened:

“Ngumiti siya sa akin at iniwasiwas pa ang kanyang panyolito. Wala akong ginawa kundi magpugay. Ang aking dila, na karaniwang masalita, ay napipipi kapag ang aking puso ay natitigib ng mga damdamin.”

And that was the last time they met each other. Segunda ended up marrying Manuel and they have 12 children but only nine survived while Rizal went to Europe to study.