Rizal state funeral restaged for 116th death anniv

President Benigno Aquino III on Sunday (Dec. 30, 2012) led rites commemorating the 116th death anniversary of national hero Jose Rizal.

The ceremony included a symbolic interment of a piece of bone from Rizal’s spinal column, which was shattered when he was shot in 1896.

This year also marks the centennial of the transfer of Rizal's remains to a monument in his execution site in Bagumbayan (now Luneta) from the house of his sister Narcisa in Binondo, Manila. (Text by Kim Arveen Patria)