Intramuros: Cuarto de Repuesta / Plaza de Armas

Main entrance of Cuarto de Repuesta with my tour guide Miko (he loves cam whoring LOL). The walls are made up of bricks piled on top of each other. This is the prison where José Rizál was detained before his execution by pelotón de fusilamiento (firing squad) in 1896, 2 years before the Philippine Independence. A brief background will suffice. Rizál wanted:

• The Philippines be a province of Spain
• A representation in the Cortes (the Spanish Court)
  
• The Filipino priests instead of Spanish friars--Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans--in parishes and remote sitios
• Freedom of assembly and speech
• Equal rights before the law (for both Filipino and Spanish plaintiffs)

But the colonial authorities in the archipelago did not favor these even with the endorsement of Spanish intellectuals in Spain. That made him establish a civic movement La Liga Filipina in 1892. Prior to La Liga Filipina's birth he already became an enemy of the state after writing his two novels Noli Me Tangere (The Social Cancer) & El Filibusterismo (The Reign of Greed). ¡¡¡Vivá La Republica Filipina!!!