Quezon y El Idioma Inglés (1921)

One of the greatest problems that the Philippines must solve is the question of language. An independent nation for which the Philippines is aspiring to be must have one and only one official language. Up to the present time, English and Spanish are used interchangeably or simultaneously. Assurances have been given that the English language will finally become the official language of the people of these islands, the promise having been made many years ago. However, that promise has not as yet been redeemed. It is, however, reassuring to know that while the promise has not yet been fulfilled, no backward step has been taken in this connection. The millions of children in the public schools will be more than glad to learn that Senate President Quezon favors no language other English as the official language for the Philippines as shown in the Speech he delivered before the Inter-Alumin Union on March 12 which partly reads:

    “I have just read your constitution and found that one of the things for which you are working is to have the English language declared as the only official language in the Philippine Islands. I have been for the proposition long before I knew English, and I really think that this is not a debatable question. It has been settled long ago by our Government and by our own people. When it has been decided that the English language should be the language to be taught in the public schools, that was tantamount to a definite declaration on the part of the Government that English will ultimately be adopted as the only official language of the Philippine Islands. For it would have been a waste of money to teach a language that could not be used by the men and women who have to go through many years of schooling to learn it. It would not have been only a waste of money but unjust to these young men and women. Of course, the English language has to be the official language of the Philippine Islands. It is out of the question to think of any of our native dialects for this purpose because we could not come to an agreement as to which one would be adopted. As a Tagalog I will fight to the end of my life for the adoption of the Tagalog, and Mr. De Leon, your President, will try to have the Ilocano as the official language. Besides, our native dialects have not the literature necessary for the education and intellectual training of our youths: If we have to pick up a foreign language English is the only language. It is the international language in the Far East. I remember when I first left the Philippine Islands in my trip to Russia — that was in 1909 and at the time I could only speak the Spanish language — from the time I landed in Hongkong until I met the first Filipino in Paris I could not understand anybody whom I met. And that trip made me learn English.

    “On one occasion I sat on a table and intended to order for some eggs. I picked up the menu and pointed at something in it. I thought it was eggs but they gave me fish. So I was right there and then convinced that if I want to eat eggs and not fish I had to learn English.

    “But there are some more important reasons. One of the aims of this society, as I learn it tonight, is to preserve democratic institutions, and, my friends, the English language is the best means of preserving democratic institutions in the Philippine Islands. I do not want to be more unpopular than I am now with the Spaniards and therefore I am not going to say what could be learned thru the Spanish language of liberty. I shall simply say that if you want to have a clear notion and conception of liberty and freedom you have to get it through English literature.

    “But there is another reason which at this juncture is much more important from our point of view than all the others. You know that we are having a very hard time in convincing some Americans that we should have an independent Government. Those who are opposed to Philippine independence, as I have said on various occasions, may be divided into two or three classes. I am not going to describe now these different classes but I simply want to say that I think we can meet all of them through some kind of argument. When they see already that the hands of ate are pointing to the day when the separation must take place they will at least want to see that something permanent has been left here by the American people. And that should appeal to the pride of the American nation, to their sentiment — which according to Professor De Joya governs the world.

    It would be a source of satisfaction and pride on the part of the American people to know that the time spent here by the United states has not been lost, that something has remained and will remain in the Islands forever. It would appeal to the American nation to know that even after their flag has been pulled down that American institutions and American ideals have become the heritage of the Filipino people. They will be assured of this when they know that the English language has been adopted by the people of the Philippine Islands as their official language. This is important that when I was a Resident Commissioner in the United states, in my travels I met people who discussed with me Philippine independence and generally at the end of the discussion they would ask: “What would be your language? What would be taught in your schools when we leave you?”. They of course know that English is now being taught in the schools. I invariably answered that it would be the English language. So I say, that the adoption of English as the official language of the Philippine Islands is a good means of securing Philippine independence.

Revista Filipina

April-May 1921

Link to Spanish Translation

Nelia (1912)

    Poor girl! That night, as she went towards his miserable quarters, her eyes were tearful with mournful sparks like those of a candle about to be blown.

    Juaning was already waiting for her.

    Finally, she had come.

    “Nelia!”

    “Jauning!”

    And the two were locked in a painful embrace.

   He could have been good looking, but his face had been disfigured by that cursed disease. It was red due to leprosy.

    They talked for quite a while; they talked about his departure the following day on a boat where he was to be taken to Culion.

    She wept in despair with tears that sprang from souls that are to be separated forever!...

    “I shall go in peace tomorrow,” he smiled sadly, “trusting that the pain of never seeing you again will not be accompanied by that of jealousy. The dead do not feel that. Tomorrow when we’re apart…”

    “Yes, jump into the sea,” she replied, “but not to your death as you have been thinking. Jump that you might swim and get back to the shore.”

    It was a great idea and he was all for it. Yes, he would throw himself into the sea but not die as he had planned before, but to swim back to the beach. Why not? He was a good swimmer. She would await him and once they were together they would flee and live in the heart of the forest and there they would live away from society and those who despised him.

---------------

    It was time for the lepers to go aboard, the inevitable parting hour during which each kiss was a bit slashed off a heart which is torn away from the breast and each beat of that heart bears the most dreadful of dramas, the drama that takes place in the soul.

   How tragic a lepers’ life is ! Who has not shuddered with compassion upon hearing about the isolation in which a leper finds himself. Leprosy carries with it the most painful of curses; the curse of being contagious, of that contamination which forms an emptiness around the afflicted one, comparable only to the emptiness that surrounds the cadaver in a forgotten tomb.

    One shrinks away from the criminal because he is ashamed to be his friend, he shrinks away from the dead out of fear, but only out of repugnance does he keep away from the leper.

    And the foul-smelling crowd kept watching the procession of lepers who are boarding the ship…

    Juaning was among these unfortunate ones to be exiled forever.  He got on the boat calmly with that serenity that augurs a great cataclysm.

   Finally, the deafening ship’s siren was heard and at the start of the motor it began to move like a monster awakening from a nightmare.

---------------

    The sea was agitated in the darkness of night. The waves, chasing each other, jumped with fantastic pirouettes of a macabre dance.

    And in the sky, the clouds were moving about extremely fast as in an invasion of ghosts.

    Nelia wandered in the beach hoping to see her loved on arrive swimming…

    Nelia was lovely. She dressed up beautifully as if she were going to her wedding.

    The waves continued murmuring mournfully, caressing the sands of the beach gently.

    Nelia looked into the darkness, she tried to look for the desired object in the mysterious bottom of the immensity of the sea but saw nothing.

    And that sweet virgin who seemed to have been born to be the heroine of a dream, felt that agony of disillusion. She felt broken hearted and two burning bitter tears rolled down her silky cheeks.

    She sat on the sand, sad, tired, and with her face in her hands, she began to cry for the lost one whom fate had snatched from her.

    Suddenly she saw the surf playing with a bundle. She saw that it was getting closer to the shore and she anxiously cried out with joy. This cry echoed in the vastness of the waters which kept approaching agonizingly.

    Nelia recognized Juaning. Yes, he was coming, transported by the rolling, bubbling waves and which were getting closer and breaking up in shrouds of foam in the sands of the beach.

    Nelia, filled with joy, ran to the shore to wait for her beloved.

    The darkness grew dense and the night became black, terribly black at that moment.

    Behind Nelia, the lepers’ huts remained still, with something akin to the apocalyptic in its stillness. It remained abandoned like an empty grave…

    Wrapped in the waves, Juaning’s body arrived slowly, and Nelia rushed to hold him in her arms, and showered him with kisses.

    “Juaning! Speak! I am here!”

    Silence. Nelia’s words echoed dismally in the emptiness of space.

    “How cold your lips are, dearest one,” the young woman went on. “Are you tired? What do you feel? Juaning! Oh, Juaning!”

    She let off with a dreadful scream and amidst the mysterious prayers of the polyphonic murmur which seemed to have surged from the bottom of the surf at that moment as a wretched call of death, Nelia’s body fell slowly on the ground.

    She had just discovered that the body which she was caressing was that of a dead man. The waves had mercilessly drowned him whom she idolized so.

Buenaventura Rodriguez

Renacimiento Filipino, Manila

September 14, 1912

Translated to English by Pilar E. Mariño

Link to Spanish Translation

La Oveja de Nathán (1922) - Segunda Parte

     Hernán González slowly closed the Bible. He looked around him and spoke:

    “Now, more than ever, our day of liberation is farthest. After the war, America has become excessively powerful. Like David, America is feared by its enemies, and respected by its friends. The battlefields of Europe sonorously affirmed the wholeness of its stature as a power of the first order, and now, in the intoxication of its triumph, it desires to confirm this personality even more, by exerting its power on those countries that, due to their weakness, cannot counter with arrogance, the arrogance of this great power. America now has everything, but is not satisfied. What cannot its power and wealth not attain? All nations are in its debt; while it owes nobody anything. All is found in the hands of America. Alexander the Great once dreamed of founding a universal empire, whose capital would be his kingdom of Macedonia; Caesar, Charlemagne, Charles V, Napoleon, all those great tyrants, also wanted to grasp the scepter of dominion overall the world But from Alexander the Great to Napoleon, all have failed. In turn, America, solely with its power based on its gold, has realized what no one of these captains of preceding centuries had attained, with the point of their steel. What more does America lack? Nothing. And yet, having everything, power, riches, all that a nation could desire to satisfy its vanity, America deprives a poor and weak small country of its liberty, that desires nothing more in its life than its own liberty. America has behaved in the same way as the rich man in the parable of Nathan, who, having a great number of oxen and sheep, when a stranger came to his house, fed him not with the sheep of his herd, but with the lone little sheep of his impoverished and weak neighbor, that creature whom ‘he cared for in his own home, among his children,’ and who was loved ‘as if it were his own daughter.’ Who will be the new Nathan Prophet, who would throw in the face of the modern David the ugliness of his conduct? Who will tell him that from his house, the sword of death will never part, warning him with heaven’s punishment, that always attracts injustice and tyranny? Nobody, Mariano, nobody! Juan de la Cruz is the poor of Nathan’s parable; Filipinas is the little sheep coveted by the rich man, his neighbor. America, wealthy, powerful, feared, and respected, wants to give a banquet for its friends, to affirm its power and prestige, and in this banquet, it would present to its guests a magnificent dish, concocted with the meat and juices of a little sheep, snatched from a defenseless neighbor —the richest dish of the Philippines, which is the beloved little lamb of the unhappy Juan de la Cruz.”

Antonio M. Abad

1922

Translated by Lourdes Castrillo Brillantes

Link to Spanish Original

India de Manila (1847)

The costume that is depicted in this drawing is exactly that of an elegant native woman of Manila. The peineta; the hair pin and the gold rings; the necklace or the gold and coral rosary with a medal of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico hanging from one end; the payo or umbrella; the crepe  shawl; the shirt or the blouse of piña or jusi; the saya of silk or cambaya; the short tapis worn by the more elegant women, made of silk from Baliuag; and the embroidered slippers, constitute the true costume of the wealthy native women of Manila. To these they add an embroidered piña handkerchief, which they hold in their hands. When they go to church, they place the handkerchief on their heads, gathering the ends under their chin.

The Spanish that they speak is charming and has been given the name “Kitchen Spanish” due to the tone and the absolute languidness with which they speak it. Duele conmigo este mi cabeza means “I have a headache” but the way they say it can be literally translated as “This my head hurts with me”. Dale usté con de aquél su pañuelo, meaning “Give him his handkerchief”, literally translates as “Give you with him his handkerchief.  ¿Como no? meaning “why not?” literally translates as “how not?” Más que! Which does not mean anything in Spanish, can be literally translated as “even though”. But most charming of all is their use of the sentence: Usté cuidao. All of these are expressions that give one an idea of the Spanish spoken by the mestizos and the natives. They do not use the gender forms of Spanish words or the plural of adjectives and pronouns, as these are also absent in Tagalog.  Thus, they say Este Tijeras,  and un punda for una funda, as they also always interchange the “f” and the “p”, or other letters such as Pilifino for Filipino, cape for café, cabayo for caballo, buerta for vuelta.

The yo cuidao, el cuidao or usté cuidao, which is applied to all and used to answer various questions, is very expressive. ¿Harás esto? Yo cuidao, which can be translated as: “Will you do this? I’ll take care of it”.  ¿Cuánto vale esto? Usté cuidao meaning “How much is this? Make an offer or whatever you can afford”. Procura que no se vaya fulano. El cuidao, meaning “Make sure he does not leave. He should fend for himself or he is old enough to take care of himself”. Hence the short phrase uste cuidao expresses completely different concepts, depending on how it is said and the tone in which it is said. It also answers questions in such a manner that it does not compromise the speaker. 

José Honrato Lozano

Álbum de las Yslas Filipinas

1847

Link to Spanish Translation

Damián, el Cojo (1940)

Damian was the most popular person on Rizal Avenue. Damian sold newspapers and sweepstakes tickets on the various sidewalks of our “Broadway” Manileño.

Damian was “half a man,” because the popular seller of newspaper lacked legs. He walked with a pair of skates. Damian had lost his legs when he was working in a gold mine in Baguio; a dynamite explosion blasted away his limbs. The company retired him with two thousand pesos which the lame man invested successfully.

Damian had very few needs. He was a bachelor, and the little income that his little capital produced was enough for him to live on. But he could not accustom himself to an idler. This is why he dedicated himself to the selling of newspapers and lotteries.

Damian, like it was said, roamed the sidewalks of Avenida Rizal morning, noon, and night. He was known in all the stores, restaurants, and cinemas. He was not a handsome man, but he was devastatingly warm and friendly. That is why he sold more newspapers and lotteries than all the rest of the vendors of his “zone.”

Damian, the cripple, like they called him, was something of a poet. In his spare time, he used to read all the literature that fell in his hands, and he wrote poetry that he sent to Taliba, Liwayway, Sampaguita, and other newspapers published in Tagalog, and this added some more pesos to his monthly income. He wrote, shielding himself with a pseudonym, because he was afraid that people would recognize him. Damian had always been very timid, and his misfortune had added to his timidity.

The cripple of Rizal Avenue had never been in love, not even when he was a whole man. But one fateful day, a woman came into his life. The first and the last. He saw her enter a Japanese business house. And she did not leave the store the whole day. Damian made the corresponding inquiries. She was called Inday and worked as a saleslady in the Japanese store.

Inday was not beautiful, but she had a beautiful body and what Americans call “it” attraction. Despite her modesty, she dressed elegantly, and she had an enchanting smile, a smile that captivated the cripple.

Damian resigned himself to seeing Inday enter and leave the store. He remembered the hours of the opening and closing of the Japanese store, and not a day passed that he did not contemplate the woman who had taken possession of his heart. And the poor cripple suffered his tragedy in silence. Until the day he saw Inday for the first time, the loss of his legs had never bothered him much.  But now it was different. If only he had legs!

If Damian had his limbs which he lost in the mines, Inday would have been his. But a “half a being”  like him could not win the heart of Inday, nor of any other woman. And for the fist time in his life, Damian felt his misfortune. And he cried, cried bitterly because of his misfortune.

To lighten his tragedy a little, he composed poems, many poems, and dedicated them to Inday. And these poems were so beautiful that they aroused the interest of the people, and he was paid a lot for them. These poems flowed from the bleeding heart of poor crippled Damian.

Inday received the poems that Damian sent her. The first ones she did not read. It is so silly to read poetry in these times, she thought. But she received them so often that her interest was aroused. And she read them … And Inday loved them. And she became interested in the author. But who was he? Why did he not introduce himself?

Inday dreamed about her unknown suitor. She imagined he was young, handsome, and intelligent. Because those poems could not be written by a person who was not such. How beautiful were those poems! And how its author must like her! But all the investigations she made did not reveal her anonymous lover.

Benigno G. del Río.

Prejuico de Raza

Manila. 1940.

Translated by Pilar E. Mariño.

Link to Spanish Translation

¿Qué vais á conseguir con el castellano, los pocos que lo habéis de hablar? (1891)

Now you ask for the teaching of Spanish, an aspiration that would be ridiculous if it did not entail such deplorable consequences. For you would add one more language to the more than forty already spoken in these islands, no doubt so that you may understand one another less and less!

“On the contrary,” objected Basilio, “if knowledge of Spanish may bring us closer to the Government, it can also unite all the islands.”

“A gross mistake,” interrupted Simoun. “ You let yourselves be fooled by big words and never get to the bottom of things to study the ultimate consequences. Spanish will never be the national language because the people will never speak it. That tongue cannot express their ideas and their emotions. Each people has its own way of speaking just as it has its own way of feeling. What will you do with Spanish, the few of you who will get to speak it? You will only kill your individual personality and subject your thoughts to other minds. Instead of making yourselves free, you will only make yourselves truly slaves. Nine out of ten among you who presume to be educated are renegades  to your country. Whoever among you speaks Spanish is so indifferent to his own language that he can neither write nor understand it. How many have I seen who pretend not to know a single word of their native tongue! Fortunately you have a stupid Government. While Russia compels the Poles to study Russian in order to enslave them, while Germany prohibits the use of French in the provinces she has conquered from France, your Government fights to keep alive your native languages, while you, on the other hand, an extraordinary people under an incredible government, struggle to get rid of your national identity.  Both of you forget that as long as a people keeps its own language, it keeps a pledge of liberty, just as a man is free as long as he can think for himself. Language is a people’s way of thinking. Fortunately your independence is secure. Human passions watch over it.

José Rizal

Chapter VII – Simoun

El Filibusterismo. 1891

Translated by Leon Ma. Guerrero (1961)

Link to Spanish Translation

Cuando los Dioses Lloran (1936)

     Aunt Valentina was sleeping. The girls were very careful not to disturb her, for nothing infuriated her more than to have her sleep disrupted.

    The crimson velvet of the armchair enhanced the fairness of her face and her still smooth body. Her hands, covered with jewels, were lily white. Aunt Valentina, an incurable worshipper of herself, had happily reached her sixtieth year. The Gods favored the youthfulness of that body that seemed to remain strong and beautiful.

    Every morning, upon getting out of bed, in front of the mirror, she scrutinized her face on which not a single wrinkle had dared draw the sadness of its lines. When she parted her lips, rosy like those of a child, they revealed the sparkling harmony of her healthy teeth. She had stifled the only treacherous cry of the enemy in the secrecy of her bedroom, her inaccessible sanctuary, where only Monica, her old maid, was allowed. She was faithful to her like a dog, and zealously kept the secrets of her mistress. Only she knew that Valentina by indiscreet how she kept herself so fit, Valentina would reply smiling tat all it took were a good sleep and a cold shower. Monica knew that she was lying with admirable rheumatism which was torturing her! No one but the maid knew about the famous and indispensable foot baths which her mistress had to undergo before she went to bed. How her hands could soothe the pain of those muscles softened by massages and liniments.

     Valentina loved to be surrounded by beautiful faces, by the frolicsome gaiety of everything that was truly youthful. She tried to have her unmarried nieces with her. And since she had never had a daughter of her own, all her zeal for embellishment and care centered on herself and also a bit on the naughty youngsters who filled her house with laughter and chattering like a singing goldfinch. Monica was the target of their mischief. How often she felt suddenly embraced by playful arms: two, four, six, eight hands on her shoulders and back moving her to and fro and turning her round and round. She would drop the dressed chicken and between fuss and complaints, she would free herself from them raising an outcry.

     Other times they would approach her silently, and whisper in her ears the question which infuriated her: “ Tell us the truth, dear one. How do you manage to have Pedro, the charcoal maker, kiss you all the time?”

     Pandemonium would break loose! Monica, furious, —she had always been the most ardent champion of celibacy —would grab the broom and chase the mischievous girls trying in vain to attack them.

     Valentina would come to the rescue, in the midst of their continuous shouting and running around wildly.

    “What’s that noise all about, girls? And you, Monica, what are you up to with that furious broomstick?”

     “What do you expect me to do? The girls, Señora, the girls who …” Panting, Monica would become speechless and turning away would go to the kitchen.

     Valentina, trying to appear serious, reprimanded the naughty girls, but as if joining with them in a certain complicity, would end up saying:

     “Girls, don’t be mean. Poor Monica is old. She is very old! The poor creature is very old!”

     “Poor Monica” was just as old as Valentina.

Evangelina E. Guerrero- Zacarias

Excelsior. Manila

August 1936

Link to Spanish Translation