Professional Documents
Culture Documents
”, April 30,
1896
Source: Archivo General Militar de Madrid: Caja 5677, leg.9.1.
The day that Gomez, Burgos and Zamora were executed, writes Jacinto,
was a day of degradation and wretchedness. Twenty-four years had since
passed, but the excruciating wound inflicted that day on Tagalog hearts had
never healed; the bleeding had never been staunched. Though the lives of the
three priests had been extinguished that day, their legacy would endure
forever. Their compatriots would honor their memory, and would seek to
emulate their pursuit of truth and justice. As yet, Jacinto acknowledges, some
were not fully ready to embrace those ideals, either because they failed to
appreciate the need for solidarity and unity or because their minds were still
clouded by the smoke of a mendacious Church. But those who could no
longer tolerate oppression were now looking forward to a different way of life,
to a splendid new dawn.
Gomez, Burgos and Zamora, affirms Jacinto, knew how to die for their
compatriots and the land of their birth. Would their compatriots, he asks, be
prepared to sacrifice their lives in turn? That was a difficult question to
answer, he concludes, but one thing was certain: the terror that began with the
scaffold at Bagumbayan in 1872 had not yet finished.
1
Jacinto prefaces his piece with a stanza from the famous poem Florante
at Laura by Francisco Baltazar (Balagtas), a metrical romance that tells in
“mellifluous and highly allegorical verse” the story of a knight and a princess
in the medieval kingdom of Albania. First published in 1838, its readers and
hearers attached to it their own meanings, some in later decades seeing in
Florante’s travails “a reflection of their own misery and outrage under the
oppressive rule of foreign tyrants.”1 Here, the stanza chosen by Jacinto to
introduce his tribute to the martyred priests is highly apt: “What lips yet
venture to uphold/ The cause of Truth, of Wisdom bold/ Straightaway are
struck, and stricken cold/ By swords that reap death in their fold.”2
Beneath the text, Jacinto has written “Year 1 – Issue 2,” which almost
certainly means he intended to publish the piece in the second issue of
Kalayaan. As already noted, however, the issue never materialized; it was still
being set in type when the Katipunan was discovered, and the printing press
had to be hastily destroyed.
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Tagalog text
F. Balagtas
1
Bienvenido Lumbera, “The Nationalist Literary Tradition” in Elmer A. Ordonez, ed.
Nationalist Literature: A centennial forum ( Manila: University of the Philippines Press and
PANULAT/ Philippine Writers Academy, 1996), 2–3.
2
Francisco Baltazar (Balagtas), “Pinagdaanang buhay ni Florante at Laura sa cahariang
Albania” [1838] in Jovita Ventura Castro, et al (eds.), Anthology of Asean Literatures:
Philippine metrical romances (Quezon City: ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information,
1985), 341. Translation by Tarrosa Subido.
3
Historians now agree that the executions took place on February 17. Jacinto may well have
2
¡Kailan ma’y di napapanood ng langit ang gayong kalaking
kataksilang linsil!
taken the date of February 16 from the editorial “16 de Febrero de 1872,” written to mark the
twentieth anniversary of the executions in La Solidaridad, the paper edited by Marcelo H. del
Pilar in Madrid, in its issue dated February 15, 1892. La Solidaridad in turn inherited the
date of the 16th from a report by Edmund Plauchut that it reprinted in the same issue
immediately following the editorial. Plauchut’s report, first published in the Paris-based
Revue de deux mondes in 1877, suggests in one passage that Burgos, Gomez and Zamora were
executed on the 16th, but indicates in another passage that it was the 17th. La Solidaridad,
parallel text edition with English translation by Guadalupe Fores-Ganzon, vol. IV (Manila:
Fundacion Santiago, 1996), 62–75.
3
Kung tinatanghal sa gunamgunam ng mata ng panamdam ang
inyong kahabag-habag na anyo, ang mga liig ninyong supil ng panakal na
bakal, ang ulong naglungayngay ng malamig ninyong bangkay, sa
nagsisikip na dibdib ng inyong mga kapatid ay sumisilakbo ang ningas ng
poot, naaalaala nila ang lubhang pagkaayop at pagkailing na lubha ng
kanilang kapurihan; naaalaala nila na ang kanilang pinagkalooban ng
kanilang kalayaan at mga banal na matuid, ang hinahandugang lagi ng
pagud, yaman, buhay at sampung karangalan, ay siyang ganid na halimaw
na sumisila tuina mahalagang buhay ng mga lalaking [one word illegible]
na sa kanila’y nagtatangol; naaalaala’t nakikilala nila na ang mga
kapusungang [?], ito’y nangyayari dahil sa sila’y kulang ng pagdaramdam
at pagkakaisa, puno’t mula [?] ng kanilang kahinaan; naaalaala’t nakikilala
nila na wala nang iba pang dapat pagkatiwalaang makapagbabangun ng
kanilang Katuiran, kung di ang sariling dahas ng kanilang mga kamay at
ang matapang na tibay ng kanilang loob. At sa di na makayang bathing
mga kaapihan, ang sa isip na mata’y itinititig sa ibang kabuhayan sa
pagasang sakdal, na darating at darating ang bagong maligaya’t marilag
na kaarawan.
Dimas Ilaw
Taung 1 – Bilang 2