It was July 7, 1892. The news of the day that time was the exile of Dr. Jose Rizal to Dapitan for all the headaches he has caused the Spanish colonial government and the Catholic Church in the country with his writings. It was said that Rizal was expecting that he would be executed that time, only that he would be getting an additional 4 years to his life.
Three days earlier, he founded a civic organization called La Liga Filipina which aimed at what can be called as “people empowerment.” Now with its founder and leader gone, it would be expected that the flame he started would be extinguished. But as fate would have it, the flame did not die as was expected, but it took a rather radical shift in its trajectory.