Did Rizal write "Sa aking mga Kababata"?

(1st February 2013 by Carl Africa )

([Link] )
Rizal is one of the persons always linked to the National Language, along with Manuel L.
Quezon. However, one may ask, why didn't he write a Tagalog novel? Both his published
novels were in Spanish, the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. (On my succeeding articles,
I'd write why he really wrote in Spanish.) Actually, he did try to write a whole novel in Tagalog.
He realized that in order to reach a wider readership in his country he had to write in his native
tongue. He started it on 1892. Meanwhile, when he was in Hongkong, his brother Paciano
completed his Tagalog translation of the Noli. It was edited by Jose Rizal himself, and with
illustrations from Juan Luna. Unfortunately, the original manuscript was lost shortly after
Paciano's death and was never found till this day. If it remains as an extant manuscript, it might
replace the standard Tagalog translation of Noli by Virgilio Almario. Back to the Tagalog novel,
he never gave a name to it, the title "Makamisa" is only the title of the first chapter. Contrary to
what other biographers state, the third novel is Makamisa, not "Tagalog Nobility". The reason is
that the "Tagalog Nobility" does not fit Rizal's description of the third novel, the Makamisa does.
Rizal's description could be found at his letter to Blumentritt, dated September 22, 1891: "I am
thinking of writing a third novel, a novel in the modern sense of the word, but this time politics
will not find much space in it, but ethics will play the principal role. I shall deal mainly with the
habits and customs of the Filipinos, and only two Spaniards, the friar curate and the lieutenant
of the Guardia Civil will be there. I wish to be there. I wish to be humorous, satirical and witty, to
weep and to laugh, to laugh amidst tears, that is, to cry bitterly." He discontinued the third novel
because he said he's forgetting Tagalog a little, he's not speaking it to anyone. Anyway, he
rewrote it in Spanish, but did not finish it either.

Rizal spoke and wrote Tagalog fluently, but he was unable to write a whole novel in his mother
tongue. It's surprising since one of his most quoted lines is from Sa aking mga Kababata": "ang
hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika/masahol pa sa hayop at malansang isda." Did Rizal
write this poem at eight? Did Rizal write this poem at all?*

No original and extant manuscript exists for his traditionally believed first poem. Rizal had at
least 27 years to publish or assert authorship but did not. It was published posthumously as an
appendix to "Kun sino ang kumatha ng Florante: Kasaysayan ng Buhay ni Francisco Baltazar at
pag-uulat nang kanyang karununga't kadakilaan" (Manila: Libreria Manila-Filatelico, 1906) by
the poet Herminigildo Cruz. He claimed to have recieved it from a friend, the poet Gabriel Beato
Francisco, who got it from a certain Saturnino Raselis of Lukban, an allegedly bosom friend of
Rizal and teacher in Majayjay, Laguna in 1884. He claimed to have gotten it from Rizal himself,
as a token of their friendship. However, his name doesn't appear in Rizal's writings.

Rizal did not write the poem at eight because of two reasons: 1) He couldn't have used the letter
k, which was a reform in Tagalog orthography proposed by a mature Rizal. In his childhood,
they spelled it with c not k 2) The word kalayaan appears in the poem twice, which Rizal knew
only when he was 21!
In a letter to his brother, Paciano, dated Oct. 12, 1886, Rizal related difficulties encountered with
Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell that he was translating from the original German into Tagalog “I’m
sending you at last the translation of Wilhelm Tell by Schiller which was delayed one week,
being unable to finish it sooner on account of my numerous tasks. I’m aware of its many
mistakes that I entrust to you and my brothers-in-law to correct. It is almost a literal translation.
I’m forgetting Tagalog a little, as I don’t speak it with anyone.

“… I lacked many words, for example, for the word Freiheit or liberty, one cannot use the
Tagalog word kaligtasan of course because this means that he was formerly in some prison,
slavery, etc. I encountered in the translation of Amor Patrio the noun malayá, kalayahan that
Marcelo del Pilar used. In the only Tagalog book I have, Florante [at Laura], I don’t find an
equivalent noun.”
3) At the age of 8, Rizal did know Latin and English, and was not confident about Castillian.
Ang wikang Tagalog tulad din sa Latin
Sa Ingles, Kastila at salitang anghel

There are only two poems attributed to Rizal in Tagalog, the other is “Kundiman.” Both are
questionable. All his documented poems are in Spanish.
If Rizal did not write his poem, then who did? Our suspects are Herminigildo Cruz or Gabriel
Beato Francisco

THE POEM THAT RIZAL DID NOT WRITE

By Paul Morrow 2012 ( [Link]

words/[Link] )

in the Philippines is Buwan ng Wika [Language Month] when Filipino is celebrated and
promoted as the national language. During this month it is almost obligatory that somebody
quote the familiar lines of the national hero, Jose Rizal:

“Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit sa hayop at malansang isda, kaya ating
pagyamaning kusa, gaya ng inang sa atin ay nagpala.” [Whoever does not love his own
language is lower than a beast and a foul smelling fish. Therefore we must treasure it gladly,
like our mothers who blessed us.]

The tone is rather harsh but the advice given – to treasure our language – is commendable.

However, Jose Rizal never said those lines, nor did he write the poem from which they were
paraphrased. By now it is no secret that the poem Sa Aking Mga Kabata [To My Fellow Youth]
does not belong to Jose Rizal. Many scholars doubted the authenticity of the poem for decades
but it was only recently that matters seemed to converge with at least three near simultaneous
exposés. In July of 2011, Virgilo Almario debunked it in his book Rizal: Makata, Ambeth
Ocampo wrote a couple of articles about it in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and I published a
series of articles here in the Pilipino Express.
Nevertheless, traditions are not easily discarded and many institutions continue to attribute the
poem to Rizal. I clipped the above quotation from [Link] and the entire poem can
still be found at [Link], a web site maintained by Jose Rizal University.

What is the evidence?

How do we know that Rizal did not write the poem that gave us the famous “stinky fish” quote?
There are many clues in the poem itself. For example, the language is too precocious even for
an eight-year-old prodigy like Jose Rizal. There are also details that betray a 20th century
authorship while the poem was purportedly written in 1869.

For me, however, the real clincher is the use of the word kalayaan [freedom], which appears
twice in the poem. Kalayaan was not a common word in 1869 and there is irrefutable evidence
that Jose Rizal himself did not learn the word until he was 25 years old. We know this because
of a letter he wrote to his brother Paciano in 1886. Jose had written a Tagalog translation of
Friedrich Schiller’s German play Wilhelm Tell and he wanted Paciano to review it. He explained
that he found it difficult to translate some of the concepts in the play:

“My Dear Brother,

There I’m sending you at last the translation of Wilhelm Tell by Schiller… I lacked many
words, for example, for the word Freiheit or liberty. The Tagalog word kaligtasan cannot be
used, because this means that formerly he was in prison, slavery, etc. I found in the
translation of Amor Patrio the noun malayà, kalayahan that Marcelo del Pilar uses. In the
only Tagalog book I have – Florante – I don’t find an equivalent noun.”

Evidently, Rizal had not encountered the word kalayaan until he saw it in Marcelo H. del
Pilar’s Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa [Love for the Native Land], which was his Tagalog
translation of Rizal’s own Spanish essay, Amor Patrio. Naturally, if Rizal didn’t know the
word kalayaan when he was 25 years old, he could not have written a poem in which the word
appears twice when he was only eight years old.

Who wrote the poem?

Rizal wrote many things in his life apart from his two famous novels. He constantly wrote letters
to friends and family, personal memoires, and essays for various magazines. A vast amount of
his authentic writing has been preserved but apparently he never saved a copy of this now-
famous poem or even bothered to mention it in writing in his entire lifetime. It is very clear that
he had no connection to the poem. So, who is the true author?

The earliest documented appearance of Sa Aking Mga Kabata was in a book published in 1906,
almost ten years after Rizal’s death. Author Hermenegildo Cruz presented it as an example of
modern naturalist Tagalog poetry in the book Kun Sino ang Kumathâ ng̃ “Florante” [The Person
who Composed “Florante”]. Cruz introduced the work as “a Tagalog language poem written by
the hero Jose Rizal in 1869 when he was only about eight years old.” In a footnote, he added
this about the poem’s provenance:
 “For this poem I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Gabriel Beato Francisco. This was given to
him by Mr. Saturnino Raselis, a native of Lukban, who was a teacher (maestro) in
Mahayhay in 1884. This gentleman was a very close friend of Rizal who gave him (the
teacher) a copy of this poem himself, a symbol, apparently, of their close friendship.”

Gabriel Francisco was a poet, novelist and the author of an 1899 play, Ang Katipunan. Mr.
Saturnino Raselis, however, is a bit of a mystery. Rizal never mentioned this “very close friend”
in any of his writing. Since Cruz was apparently the first to bring the poem to public attention, I
would suspect that either he or one of his sources was the true author. And since we can’t even
be sure if Saturnino Raselis ever existed, we are left with only Cruz and Francisco.

Did Francisco dupe Cruz with a phoney Rizal poem or were they in cahoots? Did one of these
men commit a fraud by passing off his work as Rizal’s or did they attribute an anonymous poem
to Rizal by mistake? With only circumstantial evidence — and my suspicions — I would place
my bets on the poet, Gabriel Beato Francisco, as being the real author of Sa Aking Mga
Kabata and the source of the malansang isda.

FE A T U R E D S O N G : S A A K I N G M G A K A B A T A
Almario, V.S. (2011). Rizal: makata. Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing.
Kundiman ni Rizal (1997). Tawid Publications.
Himig Collection, On Philippine History and
Culture ([Link] )

It was a long-held belief that the poem Sa Aking mga Kabata (To My Fellow Children) was
written by Dr. Jose P. Rizal. According to popular belief, Rizal wrote the poem in 1869 to
express the importance of loving one’s native tongue. This is the poem where one finds the
popular line, “Ang hindi magmahal sa kanyang salita, mahigit sa hayop at malansang isda.”
However, in his recent book Rizal: Makata, National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario clarifies
that the poem was not by Rizal. Almario provides pieces of evidence to prove his point, and one
of these is a letter Rizal wrote his brother Paciano in 1886. In the letter, Rizal admitted to finding
it difficult to translate into Filipino the German word freiheit, or the Spanish
word libertad (freedom or liberty in English), which Rizal found in the story of William Tell.
It was in Marcelo H. Del Pilar’s translation of Rizal’s article, El Amor Patrio (Ang Pag-Ibig sa
Tinubuang Lupa), that Rizal saw the word “malaya” or “kalayaan” as the Tagalog equivalent of
the word “libertad.”
According to Almario, since Rizal only discovered the Tagalog word kalayaan when del Pilar
translated El Amor Patrio in 1882, it was unlikely that Rizal wrote Sa Aking mga Kabata, which
uses the word kalayaan, in 1869.
Nonetheless, the poem delivers a very patriotic message, particularly about the use of one’s
native language as a way of expressing love for one’s own country. This poem was later set to
music by Pedro Gatmaitan Santos, a composer from Bulacan.
By: Ambeth R. Ocampo - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 02:53 AM August 22, 2011

IN 1892, Jose Rizal began a new novel in Tagalog.

He realized that in order to reach a wider readership in his country, he had to write in his native
tongue.
During this time of exile in Hong Kong, his elder brother, Paciano, had completed a translation
of the “Noli Me Tangere” from the original Spanish into Tagalog that was corrected and finalized
by Rizal.
Envisioned as a popular edition with illustrations by Juan Luna, this book was never to be. The
original manuscript translation by Paciano has since been missing.
Nevertheless, Rizal completed a chapter of his satirical Tagalog novel and gave it the title
“Makamisa” (After the Mass), but unfortunately he did not have the energy to complete it.
He stopped writing in Tagalog and began anew in Spanish. The drafts of this work were first
published in 1993 in my book “Makamisa: The Search for Rizal’s Third Novel.”
Rizal spoke and wrote in Tagalog fluently, but he was unable to write a whole novel in his
mother tongue. This is quite surprising for is he not, like Manuel L. Quezon, inextricably linked to
the adoption of Tagalog as the national language of the Philippines?

Most quoted line

Isn’t the most quoted line from Rizal’s many poems that from “Sa Aking Mga Kabata” that goes,
“Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika/masahol pa sa hayop at malansang isda.” (He
who loves not his own language/is worse than a beast and a stinking fish.)
Did Rizal write this poem at 8 years old? Did Rizal write this poem at all?
No original manuscript, in Rizal’s own hand, exists for “Sa Aking Mga Kabata,” traditionally
believed to be his first poem.

ENHANCED photo of the young Jose Rizal at the age of 14.

IN 1892, Jose Rizal began a new novel in Tagalog.

He realized that in order to reach a wider readership in his country, he had to write in his native
tongue.
During this time of exile in Hong Kong, his elder brother, Paciano, had completed a translation
of the “Noli Me Tangere” from the original Spanish into Tagalog that was corrected and finalized
by Rizal.
Envisioned as a popular edition with illustrations by Juan Luna, this book was never to be. The
original manuscript translation by Paciano has since been missing.
Nevertheless, Rizal completed a chapter of his satirical Tagalog novel and gave it the title
“Makamisa” (After the Mass), but unfortunately he did not have the energy to complete it.
He stopped writing in Tagalog and began anew in Spanish. The drafts of this work were first
published in 1993 in my book “Makamisa: The Search for Rizal’s Third Novel.”
Rizal spoke and wrote in Tagalog fluently, but he was unable to write a whole novel in his
mother tongue. This is quite surprising for is he not, like Manuel L. Quezon, inextricably linked to
the adoption of Tagalog as the national language of the Philippines?
Most quoted line Isn’t the most quoted line from Rizal’s many poems that from “Sa Aking Mga
Kabata” that goes, “Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika/masahol pa sa hayop at
malansang isda.” (He who loves not his own language/is worse than a beast and a stinking
fish.)
Did Rizal write this poem at 8 years old? Did Rizal write this poem at all?
No original manuscript, in Rizal’s own hand, exists for “Sa Aking Mga Kabata,” traditionally
believed to be his first poem.
Rizal had 35 years to publish or assert authorship. He did not. The poem was published
posthumously, a decade after his execution, as an appendix to “Kun sino ang kumatha ng
‘Florante: Kasaysayan ng Buhay ni Francisco Baltazar’ at pag-uulat nang kanyang karununga’t
kadakilaan” (Manila: Libreria Manila-Filatelico, 1906.) by the poet Herminigildo Cruz as follows:

Provenance
Tracing the provenance of the poem to its source, 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.

Read more: [Link]

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