Did Jose Rizal write “Sa aking mga Kabata”
The hearsay: In 1869, the then eight-year-old Jose Rizal wrote his first Tagalog poem.
Entitled “Sa aking mga Kabata” (“To My Fellow Children”), it soon immortalized the line “ang
hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika ay masahol pa sa hayop at malansang isda” (he
who loves not his own language is worse than a beast and a stinking fish).
Fact check: To this day, no manuscript linking Rizal to the poem has been identified yet. And
let‟s admit it, Rizal was probably too busy playing with his dog and siblings to even thought of
making a poem mentioning the word “kalayaan” (freedom). In the first place, Rizal was already
21 years old when he first encountered such word.
In addition to that, the poem was only published ten years after Rizal‟s death, leading historians
into questioning its authenticity. Poets Herminigildo Cruz and Gabriel Beato Francisco have
since been linked to the poem but so far, the case of the lost author remains an open mystery.
(http://www.filipiknow.net/jose-rizal-myths/)
Something fishy about Rizal poem
Did Jose Rizal really write Sa Aking Mga Kabata?
Every year in August, students in the
Philippines celebrate Buwan ng Wika
(Language Month) and, after 75 years
of thenational language, educators still
find it necessary to invoke thefingerwagging admonition against neglecting
one‟s ownlanguage: Ang hindi
magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit sa
hayop at
malansang isda [One who does not love
his own language isworse than a beast
and a stinking fish].
Calling someone a stinking fish might sound a bit childish,but it could be forgiven since it was
supposedly a child whowrote this now-famous accusation. The line is a slightlymangled quote
from the poem Sa Aking Mga Kabata [To MyFellow Youth], which, as any Filipino
schoolteacher will tell you, was written by the national hero, Jose Rizal, when he wasonly eight
years old.
Even though generations of children have heard this poem hailed as an example of Rizal‟s
natural genius, a few academicssuch as Virgilio Almario, Ambeth Ocampo, Nilo Ocampo
andothers have expressed doubts that young Pepe really wrote the poem. We‟ll hear what they
had to say later.
I first read this poem many years ago when I was learning the Filipino language. The idea that it
might be a hoax never entered my mind, though I doubted that Rizal was so young when he
composed it. I thought some zealous biographer might have concocted that part of the story, like
George Washington‟s cherry tree incident.
Many years later, in 2007, I wanted to use the famous “malansang isda” line in an article, 1 but I
couldn‟t find the official version of the poem. There are a few different versions, each with slight
variations in some of the lines and even the title is not consistent; sometimes kabata, sometimes
kababata. It seems that there is no“official” version or even an original manuscript to consult.
While re-reading the poem, one word struck me like a thunderbolt: it was kalayaan. The word,
which means “freedom” and “liberty,” reminded me of a letter that Jose Rizal wrote to his
brother Paciano in 1886. Rizal had written a Tagalog translation of Friedrich Schiller‟s German
play, Wilhelm Tell and he wanted Paciano to review it.
Rizal’s manuscript
“From a historian‟s point of view, documentation for this poem is sadly lacking,” wrote Ambeth
Ocampo, then-future chair of the National Historical Institute (NHI), in a 1991 newspaper article.
“The manuscript,” he continued, “…is not, and never seems to have been, extant.”
This is quite significant because Rizal was very meticulous about documenting every facet of his
life. From his earliest childhood memories, recorded in his student diaries in Manila, to his
Ultimo Adios on the eve of his execution, Rizal wrote about it. While studying in Madrid in
1882, he sent this instruction to his sister Maria in the Philippines:I should like you to keep all
my letters in Spanish that begin, Mis queridos padres y hermanos, because in them I relate all
that has happened to me. When I get home I shall collect them and clarify them.Ambeth Ocampo
said in another article in 1996:It is clear from Rizal‟s letters, diaries, and other writings that he
meticulously planned both his life and death down to the last detail. Nothing was left to chance,
not even the choreography of his death.
Ocampo‟s point was that Jose Rizal consciously cultivated his legacy as a hero. Certainly this
poem should have had a prominent place in that legacy, but, apparently, Rizal was oblivious of
it. If the poem was, in fact, his “earliest known
revolutionary utterance,” as Austin Coates described it, surely Rizal would have remembered it
in 1889 when he described his actual reformist awakening to Mariano Ponce. He remembered
the Gomburza martyrdoms of 1872, which happened three years after the poem was allegedly
composed.
Since Rizal‟s death, hundreds of his personal letters and other writings have been published, but,
apparently, he never saved a copy of this now-famous poem or even bothered to mention it in his
entire lifetime of writing. Why not? The reason is inescapable: he knew nothing about the poem
and had no connection to it, excep for what others claimed after his death.
Where did the poem come from?
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 Kun Sino ang Kumath ng “Florante” The Person who
Composed “Florante”].The poem, like the rest of the book, was rendered using the new Tagalog
spelling that Rizal himself had helped to develop in the mid 1880s.
If Cruz possessed an original manuscript of the poem, he apparently updated it from the standard
Tagalog orthography of the 1860s, which followed Spanish spelling conventions and did not use
certain letters that appear in this version, such as K and W.
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 BeatoFrancisco. This was
given to him by Mr. Saturnino Raselis, anative of Lukban, who was a teacher (maestro) in
Mahayhay in 1884. This gentleman was a very close friend of Rizal who gavehim (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. So far, I have found no mention of this “very
close friend of Rizal” anywhere except in this footnote by Cruz. A letter from Rizal‟s brother-in-
law, Manuel Hidalgo, reported the cholera death of a Judge Saturnino in Calamba in 1882 but
our Maestro Raselis
(or Racelis) was apparently alive and well in Majayjay in 1884. The Racelis clan of Lucban,
Quezon has a web site showing their family tree reaching back to before 1870, but nobody
named Saturnino is listed.
Another origin story
Austin Coates had a different story with even fewer details about where this poem, or perhaps
another copy of it, came from. In his 1968 biography of Jose Rizal, he wrote, “This poem, copied
from hand to hand, is said to have made a deep impression on Tagalog poets and those few
others interested whom it reached…”
and in a footnote, he added, “One of the very rare copies of this poem came many years later into
the hands of Antonio Luna, the Filipino revolutionary general … to whom it owes its survival.”
While Coates‟ book is generally considered one of the better biographies of Jose Rizal, he did
not provide extensive information about the sources of specific claims such as this because he
was writing for the general public rather than academics. He offered nothing further about
Luna‟s connection to the poem, however, the part about the popularity of the poem among
Tagalog poets seems to echo what Pascual Poblete wrote in his 1909 biography of Rizal:
The public came to recognize his skill in poetry when he was only eight years old because of a
beautiful poem that he composed, which astounded all the Tagalog poets in the province of
Laguna.
Who really wrote Sa Aking Mga Kabata?
At this point we can only speculate. 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 at this point if the schoolteacher Saturnino Racelis ever existed, we
are left with only Cruz and the poet/playwright/novelist, 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 own work as Rizal‟s or — as Nilo Ocampo speculated — did their unquestioning
admiration for the national hero simply lead them to attribute an anonymous poem to Rizal by
mistake? (See part 1 of this series) 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.Next time we‟ll look into some of the possible reasons why this poem might have
been attributed to Jose Rizal and why it has been so successful.
(http://www.pilipinoexpress.com/pdfs/inotherwords/Something%20Fishy%20About%20Rizal%20Poem.pdf)
Ambeth Ocampo: Rizal did not write Sa Aking Mga Kabata
Finally.
Two years ago, I contended that Rizal never wrote Sa
Aking Mga Kabata which reeked of Tagalista fervor as
well as dubious, “unRizalistic” entries in almost each
line. Early this morning, no less than the country‟s
foremost historian today, Ambeth R. Ocampo, finally
ended the issue.
Did young Rizal really write poem for children?
By Ambeth R. Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
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:
Sa Aking Mga Kabata
Kapagka ang baya‟y sadyang umiibig
sa kanyang salitang kaloob ng langit.
sanlang kalayaan nasa ring masapit
katulad ng ibong nasa himpapawid.
Pagka‟t ang salita‟y isang kahatulan
sa bayan, sa nayo‟t mga kaharian,
at ang isang tao‟y katulad kabagay
ng alinmang 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 angel,
sapagkat ang Poong maalam tumingin
ang siyang nag-gawad, nagbigay sa atin.
Ang salita nati‟y tulad din sa iba
na may alfabeto at sariling letra
na kaya nawala‟y dinatnan ng sigwa
ang lunday sa lawa noong dakong una.
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.
Unfortunately, Raselis‟ name does not appear in Rizal‟s voluminous correspondence, diaries or
writings. When Jaime C. de Veyra established the definitive canon of Rizal‟s 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 Spanish translation of the Tagalog by Epifanio de
los Santos as “A mis compañeros de niñez.”
Tagalog, according to the 8-year-old Rizal, has its own alphabet and letters. It goes back to preSpanish times. The precocious child even compared Tagalog with Latin, English, Spanish and
“the language of angels,” whatever that is.
Second look
Filipinos raised on textbook history that depicts Rizal as a superhuman genius should give the
poem a second look and ask, “Was it really written by an 8-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 eight 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.” Further, 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 this young age? Kalayaan appears the second time
in the last line of the second stanza.
Encounter with ‘kalayaan’
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!
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.”
‘El Amor Patrio’
“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 in Spanish and a
Tagalog 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 8 years old in Calamba?
In light of its complicated provenance and the anachronistic use of the word kalayaan a shadow
of doubt has been cast on “Sa Aking Mga Kabata.”
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 compose “Sa Aking Mga Kabata,” who did?
Our two suspects are the poets Herminigildo Cruz or Gabriel Beato Francisco.
Identifying the true author of “Sa Aking Mga Kabata” is important because millions of Filipino
children are miseducated each year during Buwan ng Wika when they are told that Rizal
composed a poem on his mother tongue when he was 8.
Will the real author of “Sa Aking Mga Kabata” please stand up for he who does not love his own
poem/is worse than a beast and a stinking fish (“ang di magmahal sa sariling tula/mahigit sa
hayop at malansang isda”).
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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ambeth.jpg)
(http://filipinoscribbles.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/ocampo-rizal-did-not-write-sa-aking-mgakabata/)
Historian’s Point of View
To historian Ambeth Ocampo, also the current go-to person
for all things Rizal, state at the UP Baguio last Wednesday
that he was quite certain the line and the poem “Sa Aking
mga Kababata” were not written by Rizal. Ocampo cited a
couple of items to support his take.
First, said he, there is language in the poem that does not
belong in 1869, the (now) supposed year that the poem was
supposedly written. Ocampo in particular cited the word
“himpapawid,” used in the poem, calling it a 20th century
term, “langit” being its 1869 version.
Second, Ocampo pointed out that there is no extant
manuscript of said poem, when other writings of Rizal
either have extant manuscripts or were once manuscripts
whose existence can stand the test of verification.
Ocampo also points out that “Sa Aking mga Kababata” was
published only in 1902 and cannot be traced back to Rizal,
i.e., there is no evidence that said poem was actually part of
his body of work. That said works were actually already
accounted for even during Rizal‟s lifetime, as Ocampo
points out, lends credence to the theory that the poem was
actually not written by Rizal.
(http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/opinion/2011/09/17/carino-malansang-isda-179891)
XIAO CHUA Opo, alam ko po‟ng masakit
tanggapin ngunit ilang dekada po‟ng naniwala sa
kasinungalingan ang mga kabataan sa bagay na iyan.
Maging ako po nasaktan. Biruin mo, 12 years na
akong nagaaral, sa 12 years na yun, since Prep ang
alam ko si Rizal ang nagsulat ng Tulang iyan.
Hardcore! [term courtesy of Prof. Xiao Chua]
So eto na nga, may mga bagay akong babanggitin at
pilit ko‟ng ipapaliwanag sa abot ng makakaya ng
neuron(s) ko.
(Private Message from Mr. Xiao Chua consultant
of HISTORY: TSISMIS NOON, KASAYSAYAN
NGAYON TV5)
Una, dapat muna natin‟g isipin na ang “Sa Aking
mga Kabata” ay lumabas sa Madla sa isang libro
ng isang manunulat na Pilipino matapos ang ilang
mga taon buhat ng pumanaw si Rizal. WALA po
sa anumang dokumento ang DIREKTANG
nakaugnay sa pangalan ni Jose Rizal- Walang
manuscript. Gayundin, sa hinaba-haba ng buhay
ni Jose Rizal hindi po nya ito naipublish
at hindi nya po ito nabanggit sa kahit sinumang
kaibigan, kamaganak at hindi manlang itolumabas
sa kahit anong diary and correspondence nya.
Pangalawa, sa kanlungan lamang ng kanyang ina sya natuto magbasa at magsulat. at sa edad na 8
y/o di umano nya ito isinulat. Sa edad na ito, kahina-hinala na alam na nya ang mga konsepto ng
pagkakagapos o kolonyalismo (nabanggit nya ang kalayaan).
Pangatlo, wala pa‟ng salita‟ng KALAYAAN noong 19th Century sa Pilipinas. Ni-hindi rin alam
ni Rizal ang salitang KALAYAAN. Ito lamang ay nalaman nya noong sya ay nagaaral na sa
Europa. Sa katunayan, sa isang sulat nya sa kanyang kapatid na si Paciano, nabanggit nya na ang
libro‟ng (Wilhem Tell ni Schiller) kanyang isinasalin sa wikang tagalog ay hindi nya lubusang
maperpekto. Sinabi pa nya na literal translation ang ginawa nya. Ang salitang LIBERTY ay
isinalin nya sa tagalog na salitang LIGTAS.
Pangapat, ang paggamit sa letrang “K” ay hindi prominente sa panahong yaon. Sa unang
publikasyon nito (orihinal na kopya) ang lahat ng pagbabay-bay ay naaayon na sa “revised”
Filipino language.
(http://edito-real.tumblr.com/post/38590510401/sa-aking-mga-kabata-not-rizals)