Author Topic: Dr. Jose Rizal did not write "Sa Aking Mga kabata" poem  (Read 22226 times)

Justine A.

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Dr. Jose Rizal did not write "Sa Aking Mga kabata" poem
« on: June 20, 2013, 11:40:56 AM »
Dr. Jose Rizal is known for his landmark novels, the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo and the poem “Sa Aking Mga Kabata” but I can no longer agree about Rizal’s authorship of the poem after reading an article in the book of Ambeth R. Ocampo, Rizal did not write "Sa Aking Mga Kabata" poem, ( Looking back 5:Rizal’s teeth, Bonifacio bones p.34-40). This is an excerpt in that article:

“No original manuscript, in Rizal own’s hand, exists for ‘Sa Aking Mga Kabata’ traditionally believed to be his first poem. Rizal had 35 years to publish or assert authorship but he did not. The poem was published posthumously, a decade after his execution, as an appendix to ‘Kung sino ang kumatha ng Florante: Kasaysayan ng Buhay ni Francisco Baltazar at pag-uulat ng kanyang karununga’t kadakilaan’ (Manila: Liberia Manila-Filatelico, 1906.) by the poet Herminigildo as follows:

“Sa Aking Mga Kabata

Kapagka ang baya’y sadyang umiibig
sa kanyang salitang kaloob ng langit.
sanlang kalayaan nasa ring masapit
katulad ng ibong na sa himpapawid.

Pagka’t ang salita’y isang kahatulan
sa bayan, sa nayo’t mga kaharian,
at ang isang tao’y katulad kabagay
ng alin mang likha noong kalayaan.

Ang hindi magmahal sa kanyang salita
Mahigit sa hayop at malansang isda,
Kaya ang marapat pagyamaning kusa
na tulad sa inang tunay na nagpala.

Ang wikang tagalog tulad din sa latin,
sa ingles, kastila at salitang anghel
sa pagka ang Poong maalam tumingin
ang siyang nag-gawad, nagbigay sa atin,

Ang salita nati’y haud din sa iba
Na may alfabeto at sariling letra
Na kaya nawala’y dinatnan ng sigwa
Ang lunday sa lawa noong dakong una

“Tracing the provenance of the poem to its source, Herminigildo Cruz claims to have received the poem from his friend, the poet Gabriel Beato Francisco, who got it from a certain Saturnino Raselis of Lukban, a bosom friend of Rizal and teacher in Majayjay, Laguna in 1884. Raselis is alleged to have received a copy of this poem from Rizal himself, a token of their close friendship. Unfortunately, Raselis’s name does not apperar in Rizal voluminous correspondence, diaries, nor writings. When Jaime C. Veyra established the definitive canon of Rizal poetry in 1946 with a compilation published in the series Documentos de la Biblioteca Nacional de Filipinas (Documents from the National Library of the Philippines). Sa Aking Mga Kabata was not published in the original tagalog but in a free translation of the tagalong by Epifanio de los Santos as ‘A mis compañeros de niñez.’

Tagalog, according to the eight-year old Rizal, has its own alphabet and letters, it goes back to pre-Spanish times. The precocious child even compared Tagalog with Latin, English, Spanish, and ‘The language of angels,’ whatever that is. Filipinos raised on textbook history that depicts Rizal into superhuman genius should give the above poem a second look and ask was it really written by an eight-year old from Calamba just learning to read at his mother’s knee?

“The poem could not have been written in 1869 when Rizal was based on the use of the letter ‘k’ which was a reform in Tagalog orthography proposed by the mature Rizal. In Rizal’s childhood they spelled words with a ‘C’ rather than ‘k.’ Furthermore, the word kalayaan (freedom) is used twice. First, in the third line of the first stanza, there is mention of sanlang kalayaan (pawned freedom). Was Rizal aware of the colonial condition at the young age? Kalyaan appears the second time in the last line of the second stanza. These two references ring a bell because kalayaan as we know it today was not widely used In the 19th century. As a matter of fact, Rizal encountered the word first in the summer of 1882 when he was 21 years old!

“El amor patrio was the first article Rizal wrote on Spanish soil. He wrote it in Barcelona in the summer of 1882 and it was published in Diariong Tagalog in August 1882 both is Spanish and a tagalong translation, Pag-ibig sa tinubuang lupa, by Marcelo H. Del Pilar. If, as Rizal admitted, he did not encounter the word kalayaan until he was studying in Europe at 21 years old, how can he have used it at eight years old in Calamba?

“In the light of its complicated provenance and the anachronistic use of the words kalayaan as well as the ‘himpapawid’ that seems of more recent vintage a shadow of doubt has been cast on Sa aking mga kabata. There are only in poems attributed to Rizal in Tagalog, the other is Kundiman, both are of questionable authorship. All his documented poems are in Spanish.

“National Artist for literature Virgilio S. Almario in his study of Rizal’s poetry “Rizal Makata” arrived at the same conclusion through another route, so if Rizal did not compose Sa aking mga kabata who did? Our prime suspects are the poets Hermigildo Cruz or Gabriel Beato Francisco. Identifying the true author of Sa aking mga kabata is important because millions of Filipino children are mis-educated each year during Buwan ng Wika when they are told that Rizal composed a poem in his mother tongue when he was eight…”

To My Childhood Companions
(Nick Joaquin translation)

Whenever a people truly love
the language given them from above,
lost freedom will they ever try
to regain, as birds yearn for the sky.

For language is a mandate sent
to each people, country and government;
and every man is, like all free
creation, born to liberty.

Who does not love his own tongue is
far worse than a brute or stinking fish,
for we should foster and make it great
like unto a mother blest by fate.

Like Latin, English, Spanish, or
the speech of angels is Tagalog,
for God, a wise provider, it was
who made and handed it to us.

Like the others, our language was equipped
with its own alphabet, its own script,
which were lost when a storm brought down in woe
the barque on the lake long, long ago.

Further reading:Something fishy about Rizal poem
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 10:21:26 AM by Joe Carillo »