A Balmori Poem about the Spanish Language

Below is one of my favorite poem from Jesús Balmori, arguably one of our greatest poets in Spanish alongside Rizal, Recto, Cano and Bernabé.

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Recently, his novel “Pájaros de Fuego” was released with the assistance of Instituto Cervantes and the embassy of Spain. The poet not expecting he’ll survive saved his work during the Japanese occupation by putting them inside empty bottles and burying them in the backyard. The government later bought the rights to publish it but never did. It was long considered a “lost novel”. After decades of gathering dust in the archives, it finally saw the light of day two years ago. It took a foreign institution’s effort to save something that we should, as Filipinos, be promoting and protecting in the first place.

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The last two stanza of the poem was a desperate voice of a man proclaiming how wonderful Spanish is and how it is intricately connected to our historical identity. These Filipino writers gave spiritual meaning to our Spanish writing tradition. Its sad that to many of us, Fil-Hispanic literature nothing more than colonial art. Its strange how some consider Spanish foreign when our awareness as a people and as a nation came from the ideas and imagination of men who considered it “their” language.

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El Castellano en Filipinas

Querido amigo: se trame lo que se trame
y se legisle y ore y se cante y se ame
en toda Filipinas, mientras alumbre el sol
se seguirá escribiendo y hablando en español

No hay peligro que muera el castellano idioma
sobre el tallo en que un día floreciera fecundo
el pueblo lo conserva como un precioso aroma
y con él se perfuma ante Dios y ante el mundo

Triunfará sobre el cálculo y la ruin amenaza
y se hará en nuestros labios ritmo de gloria eterno
lo defienden los hombres más aptos de la raza
y lo guardan las leyes más justas del gobierno

No existe valor patrio a su valer análogo
ni late en nuestra historia otro motivo igual
en español Mabini redactó su Decálogo
y en español cantando dio su vida Rizal

Puedo decir, henchido de orgullo soberano
que bajo el exotismo de nuestra vida extraña
en Filipinas se habla y escribe en castellano
como se escribe y se habla en España

Luciendo hasta cegar su clámide suntuaria
marchará el español bajo arcos triunfales
mientras cincele Briones su prosa lapidaria
y cante Bernabé sus versos inmortales

Es el verbo que se hace pálida luz de luna
cuando hombres y mujeres van del amor en pos
el verbo con que Recto deslumbra la tribuna
y Monseñor Guerrero habla en nombre de Dios

Es la seda primorosa con que la sampaguita
el seno de la virgen del terruño engalana
y es el santo rosario que ofrece la abuelita
cuando se hace la noche filipina y cristiana

¿Cómo vas a extinguirte, dulce idioma español?
¿Cómo vas a dejarnos, romancero de amores?
¡Si has de morir será cuando se muera el sol
cuando no queden pájaros ni mujeres ni flores!

Cuando la voz de Cronos con acento apagado
resuene señalando una nación en ruinas:
¡Aquí existió un país florido y encantado
que en honor de Felipe se llamó Filipinas!

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February 2011

Mula Aparri Hanggang Jolo

Reading my friend’s recent article about Manuel Bernabe’s “Al Sagrado Corazon de Jesus” made me reflect on our neglected literary tradition in Spanish. The Cory constitution had shut the door on Spanish as a Filipino language. The removal of Spanish as a compulsory subject was the final blow to a language that has been maligned throughout our history.

What would men like Bernabe think about what just happened to their beloved Spanish? Instead of honoring it by promoting it, our leaders paved the way for its uprooting in our society.

A few years ago I took up Spanish in Instituto Cervantes. My objective was to learn enough Spanish so I could read literature and accounts about our country written in that language. During this time, I developed an interest in our forgotten Spanish literature.

Although I’m far from being an expert I could say that knowing Spanish has brought me closer to our ancestors world. The one that’s closest to us. There’s nothing more liberating than knowing the language they spoke, the music they listened to and being able to read the language they wrote in.

When our leaders decided to turn their backs on what has been historically a Filpino language. We had been separated, without us knowing, from the cultural, spiritual, and intellectual experiences of our ancestors – somehow we must find a way to bring Spanish back.

“Al Sagrado Corazón de Jesús” became a song and was translated to English and Tagalog. The tagalog version was what I heard a few years back. A friend, GGR, actually recorded the song for one of his album. Last week I saw a youtube clip of a group called Koro Bulakan and I had goosebumps listening to their wonderful version. “No Mas Amor Que El Tuyo” according to the Bishops Conference of the Philippines is their official theme song. A recent recording by the Jesuit Music Ministry included the song in its original and Tagalog versions. The song is as popular today as it was half a century ago.

GGR told me that Bernabe once wrote that Filipinos are “waves separated” only to be “rejoined again”. His generation are the most hopeful of all Filipinos, they had a vision for who we would become. For them Filipinos have yet to fulfill their promise and potential as a people. GGR first met Bernabe in the 1950′s. I’m not sure if he met the man again. Bernabe died in 1990 in La Huerta. Here’s his recollection of the Bernabe who religiously attended Sunday mass at St. Andrew’s:

“I used to lived there (Parañaque)... I’m talking of 1954, my mother goes to church there, in San Andres… and my mother would talk to Bernabe (A year earlier he was awarded with the prestigious Orden de Isabela la Catolica and he was extremely popular among Spanish speakers) Of course, I was not inclined then so Bernabe was just another guy that speaks Spanish… Reciting his poem makes me want to cry… his poem should be sang by all because of that phrase (aparri hasta jolo) alone…Al Sagrado Corazón de Jesús is a  mix of religiousness and nationalism… the poet Barcelon (Emeterio Barcelon y Barcelo-Soriano) once said that this poem is Bernabe’s passport to heaven!”

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Hurtado de Corcuera who  with his regular army and volunteers defeated Chief Kudarat (a battle immortalized by the “Moro-Moro”) used “Appari hasta Jolo” as his battle cry. “Mula Appari hanggang Jolo” are words that embodied the desire to unify the islands. We could argue against the spaniards real interest but if they lacked that common goal of pacifying Mindanao that island would not be with us today. Just imagine what Mindanao would be like if Christian settlements were not established. If the Spaniards and the volunteers stayed out of Mindanao, the country’s geography would have been very different from what we see today.

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