The
last verse should leave no doubt that Rizal believed that a
bloody revolution was a distinct possibility. Compare this
last verse and the first two verses of another kundiman of
Rizal's "Alin
Mang Lahi" , and then to a verse in his "Mi
ultimo adios"
En campos se batalla,
lunchando con delirio
Otros te dan sus vidas sin dudas, sin pesar
El sitio nada importa, cipres, laurel o lirio,
Cadalso o campo abierto, combate o cruel martirio,
Lo mismo es si lo piden la Patria y el hogar.'
and
the meaning is clear, Rizal was no mere reformist. In his
letter to Ferdinand Blumentritt dated January 26, 1887, Rizal
wrote "A peaceful struggle shall always be a dream, for
Spain will never learn the lesson of her South American
colonies. Spain cannot learn what England and the United
States have learned." Andres Bonifacio who was the first
to translate "Mi ultimo adios"
into tagalog used two stanzas for those
5 lines, which reads
Sa pakikidigma at
pamimiyapis
ang alay ng iba'y ang buhay na kipkip
walang agam-agam, maluwag sa dibdib
matamis sa puso at di ikahapis
Saun man mautas ay di kailangan
cipres o laurel, lirio ma'y putungan
pakikipaghamok at ang bibitayan
yaon ay gaon [gayon] din kung hiling ng Bayan.
Bonifacio
distributed copies of his translation to the katipuneros and
this, probably more than anything they have read in the Noli
me tangere and El
Filibusterismo, inspired them to
continue fighting with only their bolos and too few rifles.
Certain historians and writers have tried to discredit
Bonifacio's ability in Spanish, as if a mere anak-pawis
had neither the capacity nor the right to literary merit.
That Bonifacio was the first to translate Rizal's poem into
tagalog is
In his The
Katipunan and the Revolution, Memoirs of a General
(1927), Gen. Santiago Alvarez wrote that at about one o'clock
on December 30, 1896, the Rizal sisters Josefa and Trining
and their brother Paciano met with Andres Bonifacio at the
house of Mrs. Estefania Potente. They brought with them two
pieces of paper folded very small that they found under the
alcohol-fueled food heater in Rizal's cell when they last
visited him. It was the last poem that Rizal wrote, now
generally known as "Mi ultimo adios" One paper was
in Spanish written in very small script, which Bonifacio
asked them to leave the poem with him for a while because he
wanted to translate it. The other paper was written in
English, which was then brought to Mr. Lorenzo Feno of
Batangas who read it and then translated it into tagalog.
(Gen. Alvarez did not say what the content was in the second
piece of paper).
Rizal
was not against a revolution but he wanted them to wait for
the proper time, as when he said that if they want to launch
a revolution, they should make sure they have enough arms. A
study of Rizal cannot be complete without looking into the
kundimans that he composed. Listening to the melody while
reading the words show that Rizal was no less a katipunero
despite his strong words that appear to condemn the untimely
revolution that Bonifacio was forced to launch. By the early
1890s Rizal no longer looked on reforms as the only means to
give the Indio equity and justice in their own land.
Two of
Rizal's sisters and his brother Paciano were Katipunan
members even before he was deported to Dapitan. Did they,
perhaps, sing the two kundimans that Rizal composed? Did
Rizal's sisters who hurried to the old Paco cemetery to dig
up his remains feel "tunay ngayong umid yaring dila at
puso"? Did Rizal, perhaps, sing "Alin Mang
Lahi" to his dear Josephine when they watched the sunset
from Dapitan beach?
More
than a hundred years after Rizal wrote the words, the anak
pawis today are still "umid"
Who shall speak for them?
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