Loren Legarda attends opening of Rizal Historic Trail in Germany

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Loren Legarda retraced the steps of Dr. Jose Rizal at the opening of the Rizal Historic Trail in Wilhelmsfeld, Germany, on Saturday, June 20, a day after the national hero’s 165th birth anniversary, according to a statement issued by her office on Sunday.

The opening of the trail — which was where Rizal took his daily walk between Wilhelmsfeld and Heidelberg — was organized by the Gemeinde Wilhelmsfeld and the Knights of Rizal Wilhelmsfeld–Heidelberg Chapter.]

The program began at the Hinterbergweg hiking parking lot in Wilhelmsfeld, where the national anthems of the Philippines and Germany were played. Officials welcomed the participants and took them on a guided hike along the route that Rizal once took to the Heidelberg University Eye Clinic, where he pursued advanced studies in ophthalmology.

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READ: Legarda marks Rizal’s 165th birth anniversary with call for unity

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Legarda, who had visited Wilhelmsfeld many times, is familiar with the house where the trail start.

“I remember the quiet of it, the vicarage where Dr. Jose Rizal stayed with Pastor Ullmer and his family, the garden he and Eta tended at dawn, the home where a young man from Calamba was treated less like a boarder and more like a son,” she said.

“When you stand in that house, the distance between 1886 and today grows very thin,” she added.

Explaining the significance of the trail, Legarda said: “The trail you have marked is simply his commute, the same path he walked to work and back, day after day. That is where the heroism began. In an ordinary walk, repeated every morning, by a man before the world knew his greatness.”

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She also secured an assurance of support for the maintenance of the trail markers from the Philippine Consulate General in Frankfurt and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

“A path without signs is forgotten. A path with them becomes a memory you can stand on,” she said.

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After the trail hike, Legarda also graced the induction of new members of the Knights of Rizal at the Evangelische Kirche Wilhelmsfeld, which was attended by local leaders and members of the Philippine community in Germany.

Vicarage where Rizal finished ‘Noli’

Legarda has been working for more than a decade to retrace Rizal’s journey and work for a wider Filipino cultural presence in Germany.

In March 2026, with her encouragement, her son, Rep. Leandro Legarda Leviste, bought the Ullmer vicarage where Rizal wrote the last chapters of “Noli Me Tangere, using private funds and placing the house in Filipino ownership, with plans to convert it into a museum and cultural center.

READ: Rep. Leviste buys Germany house where Rizal once lived, wrote ‘Noli’

The purchase realized a goal Legarda had pursued since touring the town in 2019, a visit that also gave rise to the 2021 documentary “Finding Rizal in a Time of Barriers,” which traces Rizal’s path across Germany and Europe, and to the “Rizal in Wilhelmsfeld” exhibit, opened on Rizal’s 160th birth anniversary at the Museo ni Jose Rizal in Fort Santiago alongside the unveiling of the German translation of “Mi Ultimo Adios.”

She has also worked to recover and document Rizal’s legacy held in German collections.

Legarda supported the digital exhibit “Connecting and Collecting: Rizal’s Ethnographic Objects in Germany,” which presents the 21 Philippine objects Rizal donated to the German ethnologist Dr. Adolf Bastian, founding director of the Berlin Ethnological Museum.

It was first opened at the Philippine Stand during the 2025 Frankfurt Book Fair before the National Museum formally launched it in December 2025.

Legarda also supported Dr. Stephanie Marie Coo’s research into Philippine material culture preserved in German archives, published as “Journey of Culture Through Objects: The Philippine Collection at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart” and her book “Seams of Sedition: Sartorial Symbols in Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere.”

The four-term senator’s institutional footprint in Germany runs just as deep:

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She drove the reopening of the Philippine Consulate General in Frankfurt in 2019.

She established Philippine Studies programs at German universities, including Ruhr University Bochum, University of Hamburg, and Humboldt University of Berlin

Brought the Hibla ng Lahing Filipino textile exhibition to Frankfurt in 2018.

Above all, she led the country’s long return to the Frankfurt Book Fair after a 14-year absence, a decade-long effort that culminated in the Philippines serving as guest of honor in 2025 under the theme “The imagination peoples the air,” a line drawn from Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere.” /atm