valkyrie47no@yahoo.com wrote
Did
Rizal write "Mi Ultimo Adiós" on the eve of
his execution, or did he begin writing it when he felt
the certainty of a death sentence for him, a certainty
that might have come to his conscioousness weeks or even
months before that night? A popular painting shows Rizal
writing at his desk, with an oil lamp providing the only
light. Actually the "oil lamp" was an oil
burner to heat or keep food warm. That
food warmer could not have provided that much light
without a glass cover to disperse the light in a room,
but it provided space for Rizal to hide the poem in the
oil burner. It is more likely that he had drafted the
poem sometime before then, and wrote the finishing
touches on the eve of his death.
Andres Bonifacio translated "Mi Ulitimo Adios" in tagalog with
the title "Ang
Huling Paalam" with 28 stanzas,
each stanza corresponding to two lines of the original
Spanish version. In his article "Wife of Dr.
José Rizal, Prof. Isagani R. Medina wrote that
according to Santiago V. Alvarez's Memoirs, "Bonifacio asked
if he could borrow a copy of that poem so that he could
translate it into Tagalog"
After the execution of Rizal,
Josephine, with Paciano and Trinidad Rizal (her
brother- and sister-in-law, the latter a Katipunera
and a Mason), crossed the tightly-guarded enemy lines
towards Cavite. At the time of their arrival, the Magdiwang
and Magdalo factions were meeting at the Casa
hacienda of Imus, according to Artermio Ricarte.
Santiago
V. Alvarez' Memoirs, however, differs. He said
that the Rizals came at past one o'clock in the
afternoon of December 30, 1896 at San Francisco de
Malabon (now General Trias). Andres Bonifacio, the
Katipunan supremo, received the Rizals himself
at the house of Mrs. Estefania Potente where he was
staying.
In
fact, it was at this time that Bonifacio asked if he
could keep for some time a copy of Rizal's poem
"Mi Ultimo Adios" in Spanish so that he
could translate it into Tagalog with the assistance
of Diego Mojica, President of the Populat Council Mapagtiis
and local Caviteño poet and writer in
Tagalog.
Rizal is
called "the first Filipino", maybe
because he was among the first, if not the first native
to think of himelf as one, even when the term "Filipino"
referred to those of Spanish blood who were born in Las
Islas Filipinas. In his letter to Blumentritt, written
from Berlin on 13 April 1887, he wrote, "They are
creole young men of Spanish descent, Chinese half-breeds,
and Malayans; but we call ourselves only Filipinos." But does it really matter for Filipinos "in diaspora" what they are called according to the nationality or citizenship stamped in their passport? Yes, of course, in judicial terms. Let us assume there is a heaven. I would like to think that when we "Filipinos" meet St. Peter at the gate, we would greet him in the language of the heart, give praise and glory to the Almighty without using any language, as there is no need for any language at all; and then... when we see our loved ones, the words that will come would be Pilipino, or Cebuano, or Ilokano, or Tagalog, or whatever language has been deeply embedded in our hearts.