izal did not write “Sa aking mga Kabata” E 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 Rigal’s Third Novel.” Rizal spoke and wrote 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? Isn’t the most quoted line from Rizal’s many poems that from “Sa aking mga kababata” that goes, “ang hindi marunong magmabal sa sariling wika/masahol pa sa hayop at malansang isda.” (be who loves not his own language/ is worse than a beast and a stinking fish). Did Rizal write this poem at eight 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 but 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-Filatélico, 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 na sa himpapawid. = > Rizal Without the Overcoatsaesy ara eee 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 magmiahal 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, sa pagka ang Poong maalam tumingin ang siyang nag-gawad, nagbigay sa atin. Ang salita nati’y huad 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 appear in Rizal’s voluminous correspondence, diaries, nor writings. When Jaime C. de Veyra established the definitive canon of Risal’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 companeros de nifiez.” 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 a 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 eight based on the use of the letter “k” which was a reform in Tagalog Rizal Without the Overcoat 6orthography proposed by the mature Rizal. In Rizal’s childhood, they spelled words with a “c” rather than a “k.” Furthermore, the word kalayaan (freedom) is used twice. First, in the third verse 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 verse 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! In a letter to his brother Paciano dated October 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. «_..L 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 malayd, kalayaban 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 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 Iupa, 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 could he have used it at eight years old in Calamba? In the 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 le Rizal Without the OvercoatFilipino children are miseducated each year during Buwan ng Wika when they are told that Rizal composed a poem in his mother tongue when he was cight. * 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 magmabal sa sariling tula mahigit sa hayop at malansang isda). 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. RH Rizal Without the Overcoat 8