Pinoy Wit

Cultivating the Filipino soul through culture and history

El Filibusterismo Index of Chapter Summaries

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I must admit, I’ve paid less attention to El Filibusterismo than I have its predecessor Noli Me Tangere. This is despite having had the same set of circumstances surrounding my introduction to Rizal’s second novel as I did his first — I had an equally passionate Filipino literature teacher, and I again had the good fortune of witnessing the brilliant John Arcilla breathe life into Ibarra’s dangerous alter ego, Simoun, on stage.

Perhaps I haven’t revisited El Fili much because it feels darker, heavier, sadder and more painful than Noli. This is not my critique of the work; it is simply an indication of my personal inability to cope with bitter literary outcomes.

El Filibusterismo translated versions

El Fili for Modern Readers

Although I must count El Filibusterismo as a tragedy of the saddest sort, I hold it in high esteem. It is a necessary conclusion to Noli Me Tangere, and must be read not just to discover Ibarra’s end, but to understand the sociocultural context of our history as a nation, and how this impacts our attempts to shape our present and our future.

For these chapter summaries, I relied heavily on Harold Augenbraum’s English  translation for Penguin Classics.[1] For clarity and additional insights into difficult passages, I turned to the English translations by Ma. Soledad Lacson Locsin and Leon Ma. Guerrero.[2-3]

For readers looking for online translations of El Fili, you’ll find The Reign of Greed, Charles Derbyshire’s English translation in Project Gutenberg, and an audiobook version of it in Librivox. The original Spanish version is also free to read online.

If you’re interested in reading the book in Filipino, I recommend getting a copy of Virgilio S. Almario’s translation.[4]

El Filibusterismo Chapter Summaries

The chapter summaries are organized by groups of 5 chapters each. I shall later attempt to integrate the full chapter stories in audio-video format after each chapter summary. Click each link below to access the summaries. 

Read Noli Me Tangere chapter summaries here.

References:

1. Rizal, Jose. El Filibusterismo. Translated by Harold Augenbraum. USA: Penguin Group, 2011.

2. Rizal, Jose. El Filibusterismo. Translated by Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin. Makati: Bookmark, Inc., 1997.

3. Rizal, Jose. El Filibusterismo. Translated by Leon Ma. Guerrero. Manila: Guerrero Publishing, Inc., 2012.

4. Rizal, Jose. El Filibusterismo. Translated by Virgilio S. Almario. Quezon: Adarna House, Inc., 1998.