WAS OUR NATIONAL HERO REALLY 4'11?

Dr. Jose Rizal's height? For a long time, Philippine historians have been attempting to answer this question, and a definitive answer may have finally arrived.

On Wednesday (08/31/2022), historian Ambeth Ocampo shared a note written by Rizal himself about his height: he stood at one meter and 61 centimeters at the age of 19 years and four days. This translates to 5.28 feet, or nearly 5-foot-3, according to Ocampo. The height was written in one of his Rizal notebooks, which he discovered while filing his Rizal manuscript scans.

"There has always been a debate about Jose Rizal's height, with many people insisting, without evidence, that the hero stood at four feet eleven inches," he stated. "The 4-11 club would not buy my method of measuring Rizal's extant clothing in the National Historical Commission to estimate his height at around five feet two inches," he added.