Few people know that the popular Tagalog folk song Paru-Parong Bukid is actually a poor translation/rendition of the Spanish original which is entitled Mariposa Bella.
The original Spanish song was composed during the tumultuous decade of the 1890s. When the genocide of Spanish-speaking Filipinos commenced during the American invasion, the song itself was included in the casualty — little by little, many people started to forget it especially when the Thomasites began the English-language campaign in the country. The final nail in the coffin happened in 1938 when the Paru-Parong Bukid that we are all familiar with was released by Sampaguita Pictures as a soundtrack for the movie of the same name (it starred legendary actors Rudy Concepción and Rosario Moreno).
Of course, I haven’t seen the movie; but I can diss its accompanying theme song con mucho gusto.
In 1960, Señor Guillermo Gómez Rivera (who was then doing radio production work on a DZFM program called “La Voz Hispanofilipina” made a research on Filipino songs which were sung in Spanish. His research resulted in a bestselling 1962 LP entitled Nostalgia Filipina.
Fifty years later, some friends of Señor Gómez demanded that he re-release Nostalgia Filipina in CD format for the sake of today’s generation. And with the help of the Instituto Cervantes de Manila, the Spanish Program for Cultural Cooperation, and the Ministerio de Cultura of the Spanish Embassy in Manila, Nostalgia Filipina was relaunched in CD format on 14 August 2007.
My contertulio in Círculo Hispanofilipino, fonsucu, uploaded Mariposa Bella in the YouTube video below:
Here are the lyrics.
Mariposa bella
de mi tierra inmortal
es la filipina
en su traje natal,
que ostenta unas mangas
con gracejo y sal
y saya de cola
de una pieza de percal.
Con peineta de carey ¡uy!
y un pañuelo coquetón,
y enaguas de ojetes
que la roza el talón,
con el tápiz real
sobre el talle sutil
y es la mariposa
del malayo pensil.
Con peineta de carey ¡uy!
y un pañuelo coquetón,
y enaguas de ojetes
que le roza el talón,
con el tápiz real
sobre el talle sutil
y es la mariposa
del malayo pensil.
Mariposa bella
de mi tierra inmortal
es la filipina
en su traje natal,
que ostenta unas mangas
con gracejo y sal
y saya de cola
de una pieza de percal.
Con peineta de carey ¡uy!
y un pañuelo coquetón,
y enaguas de ojetes
que le roza el talón,
con el tápiz real
sobre el talle sutil
y es la mariposa
del malayo pensil.
¡Olé!
With Jesli Lapus’ efforts in bringing back the Spanish language into our educational system, hopefully all Filipino folk songs that were sung in their original Spanish lyrics will be brought back to our airwaves. Right where they belong.
FILIPINO eSCRIBBLES 
Hearing the lleismo brings a smile to my face. Means there’s still hope for Castellano after all.
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Yes of course! So let’s continue patronizing the TRUE Filipino language which is Spanish.
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señor pepe, with all due respect, but when did spanish become the true filipino language? according to many stuff that i read, majority of filipinos long ago didn’t speak it.
anyhoo, i wonder if i’m heard it right, but in some portions of the song, the R’s sounded like english R’s. tama ba ‘yon?
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Austronesian has always been the true Filipino language. The language was very complex, but Europeans forced us to learn roman letters. Spanish administration have always oppressed Filipinos. The Filipino-Spanish or mestizos were taught to believe that they are a few steps better than a pure Filipino.
Just look at Spain today. They are still under a police state. Very oppressive government. No offense to my Spanish relatives…
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I am spaniard and live in Spain, and sincerely I do not know why you have this opinion.What makes you think like this? In my truly opinion you are absolutelty wrong…but maybe if I listen to your though I can try understand.
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I think people are mmissing the point. The same kind of plagiarism/piracy/theft has been happening to Visayan songs. The 1933 vintage Cebuano Christmas carol “Kasadya ning Takna-a composed by Vicente Rubi and Mariano Vestil was rendered into Ang Pasko ay Sumapit without any attribution of the original composers. Likewise Sa Kabukiran of Manuel Velez was Tagalized without attribution of the original composer. Also, Cesar Mirasol’s Ang Kailo Nga Binayaan, an Ilonggo song copyrighted by the composer in the 1940s is being passed as Tagalog, Ibanag and Ilocano song without attribution of the original composer. A Orilla del Pasig by Echegoyen is sung in Ibanag without Attribution.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Manuel. I’m unfamiliar with the details with what you relayed to us here. But you know, I won’t be surprised anymore if they are true. Here in the Philippines –or perhaps all throughout the world– the powers-that-be are experts in twisting the truth for their own benefit. Likewise, US imperialists manipulate their powerful local lackeys to achieve their vile end.
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thanks for sharing.
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You’re welcome! =)
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So may we see the proper translation to Mariposa Bella?
Pepe said: “So let’s continue patronizing the TRUE Filipino language which is Spanish.”
Why? What makes Spanish a TRUE Filipino language? We were already here before the Spaniards came. What was our TRUE language before that?
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I’ve been asked these questions countless times before it honestly makes me feel sick already. So I suggest that you follow these links:
http://filhispanico.blogspot.com/2009/09/was-there-language-problem.html
After you’re done reading the above blogposts carefully, now you can tell the rest of the world that “no, there were no Filipinos before the Spaniards came”.
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A rose by any other name is still a rose. It is the same as Britanni (inhabitants) to the Roman conquerors of the British Isles where Latin was the official language yet its own people did not speak Latin. Having been conquered does not mean we have to cling to our colonizer’s language in order to survive. Just ask the people of the nations conquered by Genghis Khan and his descendants.
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They did not conquer us. They CREATED us.
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Oh sorry I did not know that the Romans CREATED Britain. Did the Moors CREATED Spain too?
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Ours is a different case. Click here to find out why.
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When indeed britons spoke latin and inherited roman culture to the same extend as Spain for example….what happened then? Simple…the British army left “former England” to defend other parts of the empire. And some decades later Britons were invaded by Normands ( also known as former danish and norwegians)…they imposed they culture…the former roman culture remained for a while, have you ever heard of “King Arcturus”? All the studies suggest him to be part of the romanized english world that could not resist the force of the normands.
Why was the culture of the Visigoths not imposed in Spain for example…. Visigoths agreed to be allied of Rome and therefore they adopted the roman style when ruled over Iberia.
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Austronesian. Malay.
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The FILIPINO STATE with Manila as its capital was established on June 24, 1571. In a synod referendum in 1598-99, all the native ethnic states (Tagalogs, Visayans, taga-Mindanáo etc.) incorporated themselves into that FILIPINO STATE to also become FILIPINOS in the course of a nearly four-century history written in Spanish. Since this fact is NEVER taught to our children in our own schools, we have generations of “English spokening Pinoyes” who are ignoramuses about the origin of their own nationality and they parrot the idiiotic lies taught to them by their WASPo colonizers and local cohorts in English. This is the reason behind all this denial of Spanish and even Filipino. So to the question: what was our TRUE language before that? —- the answer is none. There was no Filipino nation before that, so no national language. There were many nations, therefore many languages. That is why Nick Joaquín is right when he writes in LA NAVAL DE MANILA, “The FILIPINO is a Spanish creation.” We may add: the ignorant and marginalized PINOY is an American WASPo creation”.
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This folk song, Mariposa Bella, is part and parcel of our true identity as Filipinos. Sadly, it was in a way “desecrated” when it was translated into Tagalog.
Sa isáng bandá, ayos lang namán na may traducción o salin sa Tagalog ang canta na itó. But the problem is that the Spanish original is not being cited.
Now here’s the latest blogpost I wrote regarding another part and parcel of the Filipino Identity:
It’s about our flag. Soon, government officials will add a ninth ray to it. It is aggravating to note that the leaders of our government are at the forefront of destroying what is truly Philippine.
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can you publish the tagalog version? i grew up in manila in the 40s and 50s but now live in the united states. i have taught my older grandchildren a few spanish and tagalog songs. i now have a toddler grandson who i want to teach other songs too.
it is sad that during the nationalization of the philippines, anything passed down by “foreign powers” which became part of filipino culture was regarded as “bad” for the psyche. i think those of us who grew up in the philippines have a richer culture than those who grew up with just one.
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Con respecto al comentario de Don Pixart, sus pareceres no me sorprenden para nada. Pues él articula una perspectiva bien arraigada entre la apabullante mayoría ng mga Pinoy.
Nothing good eventuated from Spanish domination. How wonderful it is that the Hispanic facet has been purged absolutely from ang Inang Bayan. Mirabile visu!
Consider the assertion: The Philippines would not exist as such absent the three centuries of Spanish rule. One would be hard put to find a Pinoy who subscribes to the foregoing as most would find the assertion utterly execrable.
Lo lamento muchísimo pero así es. ¡Como quisiera que la situación fuera distinta!
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The link below is my Spanish translation of this blogpost:
http://alasfilipinas.blogspot.com/2009/11/mariposa-bella-paru-parong-bukid.html
¡Saludos a todos!
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Señor Pixart
La única y primera lengua de Filipinas como unión de tribus fue el español. El tagalog fue una imposición, y del inglés, mejor no hablar, pues nos costó 3 millones de muertos.
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Language changes in the passage of time. Conquests of foreigners require the imposition of their own language and culture for assimilation and need for communication. One cannot say that Paru-parung Bukid is a poor translation of the Spanish Mariposa Bella because songs are handed down in a manner that a pidgin translation is done because itis understood as such. There is no careful translation that occurred probably because there were no serious translators during that time. Now that discvery was unearthed, why not try to make an accurate translation of the original Spanish version. At least, we can thank the Filipino version handed down to us that has become part of our heritage. Anyway, the artist who sang it in Filipino didn’t accumulate millions from royalties. I enjoy teaching this song to my kids when they were still young and I still relish to sing it to little kids. Whether it’s a poor translation, still I count it part of our Filipino culture.
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sorry but tagalog is not part of my culture!
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So?
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Swahili Aristocracy?……..Please specify why you are better off than Tagalogs.
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You need more linguistic education.
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All the comments are interesting. This is the first time I heard of Spanish-speaking Filipinos genocide. How come the Ayalas, Madrigals, Sorianos, (even the Lopezes) have survived this genocide? They have not even talked about it. US Imperialists? Who treated Filipinos better ..the Spaniards? And why are so many Filipinos going to America? The Philippines would have become like the Hawaiian islands if the Americans kept the islands…it would be clean and organized for zoning will be respected …. no squatters … lesser corruption …and yes, we will also have our freedom. There will always a big group of good Americans who would fight eveil just like all those white people who helped the black people fight racism.
AND DO YOU ACTUALLY PREFER WHAT WE HAVE NOW? The Filipinos have had years and years to govern themselves and what have we done? Now we have Koreans all over the place.
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@ AwitKilawit – With how bad things are now and how much better they were before. I can’t blame you for wanting the Americans back. But that would be a bit over the top. No one should run the country but us alone but anyway, do you really believe that the US left us? I hope you’re not that naive.
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English became the second language because it has always been taught from grade one all the way to college. For Spanish to replace Tagalog, Spanish has to be taught from grade one all the way to college. Before the 1960s no one could graduate from college without having taken 24 units of Spanish classes. It did not do anything as far as the progress of Spanish spoken in the Philippines. The bad translation of Paru parung Bukid reiterates that Spanish was never embraced by everyone.
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The bad translation of Paru-Parong Bukid had nothing to do with your “Spanish was never embraced by everyone” mantra. It’s simply proof of a lack of originality from present-day Filipinos brainwashed by US-WASP-inspired schools.
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Awit, you are partially right
Independence was given to Philippines in a very bad moment, the country was destroyed after the American-Japanese war. The reconstruction of the country should have been paid by the americans as the war USA vs Japan and not Japan vs Filipinas, but as americans gave independence they avoided paying ( what a wise movement!), instead paying the reconstruction, they financed ( with loans) recontruction… it was in fact a great deal for the americans, instead paying their bills, they received money.
If the end of american influence has happened at the same time than Cuba, Philippines would probably had never been invaded by Japan, because if the country had been independent the “pro axis” influence had been more important than it was, and a neutral status ( such as Sweden of Swiss) had been the more probable one.
Regarding the genocide… even the nazis left some jews in Europe, of course the spanish speaking genocide was not complete in Philippines. In fact there were two “genocides”:
1st one during the Filipino-American war 1898-1902, the american army killed around 1 million!! philippinos who embraced the total independence idea(that was around 15% of the total population of the country on those times). Many of those philippinos were educated people with political ideals, and on those times education was provided in spanish. around a 30%-50% of the killed are supposed to have been filipino spanish speakers. So theoricallty it was not a lingüistic genocide, but it worked that way, and the spanish speaking population declined vigorously on those times. But of course many still survived as the ones you mentioned.
2nd happened during WWII. American troops bombed Manila in a brutal way, Manila is most bombed city in WWII after Warsaw. So the casualties of civil population are big. Around 300000 people died in Manila then. And in Ermita and Malate on those times spanish was the lingua franca, and the main language of at least 50% of the population, and in Intramuros situation was quite similar,being spanish the lingua franca, and the main language for a figure of 25-50% of the total people of Intramuros.
So 100000 of those 300000 killed by the American bombings were spanish spakers.
After this, the spanish community died, spanish speakers survided WWII, but just in a way of isolated families, and the “feeling” of community was totally lost after the death of Manileños. Newspapers stopped from being published in spanish, no more films were filmed in spanish….
So american troops killed around 400 000 spanish speakers filipinos ( as 1st language), and considering that the total number of native speakers of spanish probably never was over 1,5 million, it was or it was not a genocide?
But consider one more thing many of the filipinos killed by the american troops during 1898-1092 and WWII that were not spanish speakers as 1st language, were speakers as 2nd language, so the chances for the survival of the spanish speaking community killing natives and no natives spakers, and forbiding the teaching of the spanish language in the educational systems… was totally a strong genocide against the hispanofilipino culture.
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Beautiful Butterfly
Of my immortal earth
Is the Filipina
In their native dress
Holding a sleeve
Wit and salt on
And tail skirt
And a piece of calico.
With tortoise shell comb, uy…
And a natty scarf
And eyelet petticoat
That touches the heels
With real tapestry
On the subtle size
is the butterfly
Of hanging Malay.
FUNNY TRANSLATION…
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i miss singing it in spanish version… thanks
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“Kasadya ning Takna-a composed by Vicente Rubi and Mariano Vestil was rendered into Ang Pasko ay Sumapit without any attribution of the original composers.”
I remember a conversation 10 years ago with Mang Levi Celerio and he did mention Rubi as the composer of this song. What intrigued me was that Mang Levi went on to say that another Filipino composer went to claim this work as his own. I do not wish to mention who this composer was but Mang Levi would say that this person had the gall to even claim something that he did not own. By the way, Mang Levi wrote the Tagalog lyrics of this song.
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Thanks for sharing this, Nikos. By the way, a granddaughter of Levi Celerio is a friend of mine. And she’s good with the piano as well. Best regards. =)
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Thanks for sharing the original lyrics of this song. I’m teaching this song to my students, but I honestly don’t understand the Spanish words. Now, I know what to tell them (plus the origin of this song). Maraming salamat! 🙂
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I think Paru-parong Bukid was meant to be a Tagalog version and not a translation of the original song Mariposa Bella. Malik translated it in English from Spanish quite accurately and it does sound funny as he demonstrated. What’s nice is that the Tagalog version is as gay (merry) as the Spanish original and maybe even more, Ambas versiones demuestra el caracter alegre de nosotros los filipinos.
In my youth, I heard a comedian over the radio sing the entire song Paru-parong Bukid by just uttering its title then reversing it, i.e. Paru-parong Bukid, Bukid Paru-paro…. I think you can do the same with the Spanish version, although it does not sound as good. This makes the melody and lyrics unique for both versions.
Then comes Fabian Obispo who arranges the Tagalog version for chorale singing and its popularity gained recognition across our borders. Many foreign choirs have this in their repertoire. Olé!
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Thank you for posting this valuable information, Pepe. As a lifelong student of Philippine music history, I am interested in the actual citation of the Spanish text of “Mariposa Bella.” Which book or music journal can this be found? If this text was passed on orally to you, it would be helpful to know from whence it came. It would be good for you to connect with my former colleagues–UP Profs. Felipe de Leon, Jr. and Elena Mirano–to let them know about this and other mis-attributions.
On another note, the choral setting of Paruparong Bukid that is gaining wide exposure now here in the U.S. is the one arranged by George Hernandez. It is published by Pavane Publishing. I’ve heard quite a number choirs perform them. Some are even posted on YouTube.
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I’m organizing a Rondalla group in a small town here in the U.S. where can I buy cd’s or whatever, of filipino songs {kundiman} complete with books and or instructions? your help will be appreciated.
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Please send your inquiries to: ggrhisfil@yahoo.com
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La historia Ed la historia. Superlarlo. Segue adelate! Solo Filipinos pesimistas gustaria vivir en pasado.
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That’s right. Spaniards long gone and we are still clinging to them.
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We’re not clinging to the Spaniards. We’re clinging to the heritage they bequeathed to us which in turn formed our national identity.
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Too many books written by the Spaniards residing in the Philippines during colonial times. Most of them said that the reason Spanish was not spoken by the people on the street, other than Manila (where the action was) and provincial capitals, there were too few migrants from Spain. The government wanted the natives to learn Spain’s language but it did not happen. The writer below hated Rizal with passion but both of them made a very similar statement
“El argumento del castellano es un argumento mito á más de fiambre pues se ha probado con toda evidencia que en los siglos que han precedido ha habido imposibilidad material absoluta de enseñarlo” – Filipinas: Estudio de algunos asuntos de actualidad By Eduardo Navarro, Eduardo Navarro Ordonez – Madrid 1897
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Most of them? So, you’ve read all of them? Because most books written during that time were religious and literary in nature. My golly. Also, the 1916 Henry Ford Report to then US President Woodrow Wilson is laughing out loud at your source:
“…as I travelled through the [Philippine] Islands, using ordinary transportation and mixing with all classes of people under all conditions. Although based on the school statistics it is said that more Filipinos speak English than any other language, no one can be in agreement with this declaration if they base their assessment on what they hear…
“Spanish is everywhere the language of business and social intercourse…In order for anyone to obtain prompt service from anyone, Spanish turns out to be more useful than English…And outside of Manila it is almost indispensable. The Americans who travel around all the islands customarily use it.”
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NAH, nobody should laugh at my source. Kind of judgmental aren’t we? Here is my rebuttal to your proof written by the SAME AUTHOR, THE SAME YEAR and is EASY TO FIND. Only one Henry Ford was sent to the Philippines by Woodrow Wilson.
Woodrow Wilson: The Man and His Work By Henry Jones Ford – Princeton March 1916
P. 213 – “The Filipino gentry speak Spanish and the masses speak native dialects which are not low languages but are refined and capable instruments of thought producing poetry drama and romantic literature although deficient in science”
Here’s another author with his own observation of Spanish as spoken in the Philippines
Diccionario de filipinismos: con la revisión de lo que al respecto lleva publicado la Real academia española By Wenceslao Emilio Retana-Imprenta de la Casa Editorial Bailly-Baillière, 1921 Page 2 “When the Spanish domination in the Philippines ceased, only the privileged were speaking Spanish. The curious phenomenon is that nowadays Spanish is spoken more than it was spoken and written when Spain was in the Philippines.”
YES, Wenceslao Retana said that Spanish was spoken and written more AFTER the Spaniards left and your Henry Ford (in the same book that I have mentioned in here)did mention that more people spoke Spanish in the Philippines than when the Americans first set their feet in the Philippines but then he immediately followed that statements with the following:
Page 217 – “Meanwhile the hold of native dialect is apparently not shaken at all but on the contrary its use is being strengthened by the activity of patriotic sentiment. Native dialect is the medium through which the abundant literature of Filipino politics reaches the masses and at present it looks as if the VERNACULAR WILL BE THE PERMANENT CHANNEL OF POPULAR THOUGHT AND FEELING”
Was the increment of Spanish speakers by leaps and bounds? Not if your Henry Ford did write the following in the same book that I have mentioned.
P. 215 – “As an incident of the educational scheme, literacy qualifications for the suffrage were confined to those who could read and write either Spanish or English. This provision while designed to stimulate acquisition of English speech had incidentally the effect of propagating grave misrepresentations of the situation.
Attention has often been called to the fact that the qualified electorate is an extraordinarily small percentage of the adult male population thus indicating that illiteracy generally prevails.
But this is not really the case and it appears to be so merely because natives who cannot read and write a foreign language are officially classed as illiterate.
Probably it is the only instance in history in which people who can read and write their own language are classed as illiterate.”
“Because most books written during that time were religious and literary in nature?” Not really, some of the following authors may have belonged to a religious order but the following books I’m citing in here were not only about religion nor literary.
Aside from Navarro, the very first author I mentioned and an Augustinian friar, there was another Agustinian friar. They differ in the description of the stuation but just the same: Spanish was so minimal during the Spanish regime. The religious orders were being blamed for the failure of the propagation of Spanish. If it were not true, because on the contrary just about everyone was speaking Spanish, why would they write a description on how the school system was a failure?
Las corporaciones religiosas en Filipinas, por … . Zamora, Eladio, Valladolid, Impr. y librería religiosa de A. Martín, 1901
page 242 – “Upon establishing the Normal School, the government set out its plan with the principal objective: the rapid and within a short time diffusion of Spanish as the bind between the Metropoli and the colony. The goal was good and commendable. However the government made a mistake with the means through which it could have been achieved. The means they used were not sufficient and not efficient. The children read and and wrote in Spanish, learned the grammar through memory and some teachers explained the lessons in Spanish. The teachers asked questions in Spanish and the students reply in dialogs that they learned through memorization. What was the result? The children did not understand, not even an iota of the teachers’ explanations. The children were like parrots when answering questions. The few termininologies they learned were forgotten before they reached home. Except in schools, they never heard Spanish, not with their peers, not at home, not even in school because the regular and daily school attendance left a lot to be desired particularly in the last decade of Spanish domination. ”
This author was a Spanish soldier in the Philippines: Filipinas por España: Narración episódica de la rebelión en el archipiélago filipino, Volume 2 By Emilio Reverter Delmas, Printed Centro editorial de A. Martín, 1897 – Philippines
Page 445 “The natives have no knowledge of our Spanish language. It’s almost the same as it was during Legazpi’s time. They barely understand us and we do not understand the natives, not little, not much. The leyes de Indias (Laws on Education) that has been much talked about has never been complied with and they are dead letters. The same as other laws on the teaching of the Spanish language”
Régimen politico-administrativo para el porvenir en el Archipelago filipino …MADRID IMPRENTA DE JUAN LÓPEZ CAMACHO 1897
P 42 – Spanish as a language has no place or stronghold than in the official world. On the contrary, the languages being used are almost entirely that of the natives’. With the exception of Manila and other provincial capitals, it is impossible for a European to understand and be understood in any place. The dominant language is the natives’ own language in the region generically known as Indo-China
This author was an ex-governor of many provinces in the Philippines
Estudio social y político de las Islas Filipinas By Enrique Polo de Lara Imp. de la Andalucia Moderna, 1896 – Philippines –
Page 50 “Little has been done to improve the natives’ conditions so that they can take advantage of their aptitudes and encourage others. Today, the statistics show that 1.56 % speak Spanish, leaving 98.44% in the middle of confusion among the 34 dialects that markedly impede their progress.”
El gran problema de las reformas en Filipinas: planteado por el Español ..By Camilo Millan y Vellanueva,Consejero Ponente de Administración y ex gobernador civil de varias provincias del archipielago -J. Lafont, 1897 – Philippines
Page 36 “Just stop by unexpectedly in a school in any town to be convinced that the gap reigns such that very few students understand or can get by with Spanish. Very few students write fairly. Students only know their Cathecisms in their own local language. This will sound sad but it is very true that 9/10 of the children of each town has not set foot not even once in the assigned school where he should have been going”
Filipinas y sus habitantesMain Author: González y Martín, R. Published: Béjar, Estab. tip. de la viuda de Aguilar, 1896.
Page 98 – “In spite of the four long centuries that Spain has owned and dominated the Philippines, the elegant and rich Spanish language is barely known and spoken. In the Philippines 8/10 or 9/10 of the natives have no knowledge of Spanish. Without changing the current circumstances in the Archipelago, it will be difficult if not impossible for natives to accept the mother tongue of the country.”
La Solidaridad – AÑO III Madrid 15 Enero de 1891 Num 47
The knowledge of the Spanish language is so limited that interpreters are still needed so that Spaniards may be understood by the natives, communication that should have been easy between peoples of the same nationality
Author described himself as EL MALOGRADO RECIENTE INTERINO DE LA AUDIENCIA DE MANILA
Filipinas: notas de viaje y de estancia By José Fernández Giner, Louis de Rute MADRID Imprenta Popular Plaza del Dos de Mayo, 1889
Page 102 – “As God made the interpreter understand, the interpreter translates into the local language my public speech. Even though it seems impossible that after all the many years of Spanish domination, there are still very few who understand Spanish specially in the province that this report is referring to.”
DE MANILA A ALBAY By DON JUAN ALVAREZ GUERRA1887
Page 81 – “The natives copy the Spanish writings without understanding and they learn through memory with such ease, phrases or speech that are more or less long. This ease of saying words that they do not understand put a gobernadorcillo in a tight spot on one occasion. One time a general was visiting the towns in southern Luzon and in the middle of the official reception during one of his visits, the general asked the gobernadorcillo about the status of the locality, to which with great clarity and precision, he answered “cholera lobster smallpox and town visit by Your Excellency at the hair.”
Page 81 “In the Philippine Exposition appears a calligraphy of Don Quijote done by the natives of Albay who do not speak Spanish.”
Exposicion General De Las Islas Filipinas En Madrid 1887 by Comision Central de Manila -Official Edition – MANILA IMPRENTA DEL COLEGIO DE SANTO TOMAS – 1887- Page 337 “Spanish is not generally known within the indigenous population even within the province of Manila and provincial capitals. In all the towns, few know Spanish and few are those who write and speak it well.”
Exposición de filipinas: colección de artículos publicados en El Globo, diario ilustrado político, cientifico y literario Madrid 1887 –
Page 212 – In a population of 7 millions at least 200,000 speak Spanish. Only at least 200,000 has knowledge of our language, understand our laws, and able to study our civilization. Not a single amount appears on the budget to boost the teaching of Spanish, not even the slightest effort is being done to end this shame.
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Well, as the provider of those quotes himself says: “it is a matter of semantics”. If we are to believe this provider, then José Rizal was a big fool to write in Spanish, and Claro M. Recto, who was jailed by the invading WASPos for writing “Solo Entre Las Sombras” in Spanish was lying all along when he wrote “Por La Cruzada del Español En Filipinas”. The quotes were said at different times and from different places where the indigenous Filipinos had their communities. And Retana was proved a pessimist by other contemporaries of his on this matter aside from Teodoro M. Kalaw, Jesús Balomori, Manuel Bernabé (who wrote “El Problema de la Lengua Oficial” because of the imposition of English at the expense of Spanish way back in 1911), and, of course, Recto. Spanish is a victim along with three million or more Filipinos who were also victims of a series of WASPo massacres from Vigan, Ilocos, to Balañgiga, Sámar.
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First Henry Ford will be laughing out loud. Now it is a matter of semantics. Go to the Google Books website, then read Woodrow Wilson: The Man and His Work By Henry Jones Ford. You only need to search the website, you don’t even have to get up or buy a book or go to libraries. There are non-profit digital libraries offering free universal access to archived books, That’s how I found Henry Jones Ford’s book. I copied it and pasted it just exactly the way he said it. Sorry that book did not contain what you wanted us to believe. These archived books are not only written in English, too many Spanish books as well. That’s how I found books written by the Spaniards who were in the Philippines during the Spanish regime.
I wish you never brought up Rizal. Was Rizal a big fool and fooling everyone when he wrote this in El Filibusterismo because on the contrary Spanish was spoken by everyone?
El Filibusterismo from the Spanish / of José Rizal by Charles Derbyshire.
“Spanish will never be the general language of the country, the people will never talk it, because the conceptions of their brains and the feelings of their hearts cannot be expressed in that language — each people has its own tongue, as it has its own way of thinking! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH CASTILIAN, THE FEW OF YOU WHO WILL SPEAK IT? Kill off your own originality, subordinate your thoughts to other brains, and instead of freeing yourselves, make yourselves slaves indeed!
But fortunately, you have an imbecile government! While Russia enslaves Poland by forcing the Russian language upon it, while Germany prohibits French in the conquered provinces, your government strives to preserve yours, and you in return, a remarkable people under an incredible government, you are trying to despoil yourselves of your own nationality!”
El Filibusterismo – por Jose Rizal
El español nunca será lenguaje general en el país; el pueblo nunca lo hablará, porque, para las concepciones de su cerebro y los sentimientos de su corazón, no tiene frases ese idioma: cada pueblo tiene el suyo como tiene su manera de sentir. ¿Qué vais á conseguir con el castellano, los pocos que lo habéis de hablar? Matar vuestra originalidad, subordinar vuestros pensamientos á otros cerebros, y en vez de haceros libres, ¡haceros verdaderamente esclavos!
Por fortuna tenéis un Gobierno imbécil. Mientras la Rusia, para esclavizar à la Polònia, le impone el ruso; mientras la Alemania prohibe el francès en las provincias conquistadas, vuestro Gobierno pugna por conservaros el vuestro, y vosotros, en cambio, ¡pueblo maravilloso bajo un Gobierno increíble!, ¡vosotros os esforzáis en despojaros de vuestra nacionalidad!
Was Manuel Quezon lying, because on the contrary everyone was speaking Spanish? Again go to Google Books, easy breezy to search because Google Books just like other archived books websites can be accessible without even creating an account.
THE FILIPINO PEOPLE ASK JUSTICE SPEECH OF HON. MANUEL L. QUEZON OF THE PHILIPPINES IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON FEB 1913
“I have asked the gentleman from Pennsylvania how many voters there would be in this country if the people of the United States were required to read and write German or any other foreign language. And I ask the same question again. Neither Spanish nor English are native languages in the Philippines”
We have been talking about how widely spoken was Spanish all along, that American atrocity has a different place. Claro M Recto?, the one who spoke English, not Spanish, and Tagalog in the Visayan Bukidnon to win the people’s vote. My source: first hand account in a blog by this writer Nelson A. Navarro – Recto: The Man and the Legend. While he is not known to be a historian, he wrote it as a first hand account, not quoted through someone else’s writings. The majority of the voters back then were born before 1930, right at the time you claim overwhelmingly Spanish was spoken by just about everyone.
Did Claro M Recto ever claim the majority of the people spoke Spanish?
His friend Renato Constantino, a historian and diplomat certainly said that Spanish was not spoken on a wide scale, on the contrary few did. He invoked Rizal’s Simoun in El Filibusterismo and then compared Spanish to English
“What are you going to do with Castilian, the few of you who will speak it?” What Rizal said about Spanish has been proven to be equally true for English. Very few college students can speak except in mixed English and the dialect. Our congress has compounded their confusion by a completely unwarranted imposition of 24 units of Spanish” – The Miseducation of the Filipino , Renato Constantino
Claro M. Recto was not imprisoned because he wrote in Spanish. He was imprisoned for something else. To use Spanish as the reason for his imprisonment is an intention to mislead your readers, to incite hatred against a group of people, making hatred as a reason to make Filipinos speak Spanish. Twisting history too! Have some decency. Spanish as a language was not being singled out by the American regime. Years before The Bird of Prey, Tagalog playwright Aurelio Tolentino was sentenced to life in prison in 1904 for his stage play, “Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas”. He was paroled in 1912. Same charges of sedetion was brought against Juan Abad for his play script “Ang Tanikalang Ginto”.
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Rizal made Simoun say that tract against Spanish, but then there is the short answer of Basilio which reveals Rizal’s true stand for Spanish as the Filipino national language. There are other tracks in El Filibusterismo by other Rizal Characters for Spanish.
The individual hiding behind the phrase “it is a matter of semantics” to deserve further attention from us should sign his true name and surname and identify himself properly. If not, he can go on talking to himself!
Nevertheles, where is your proof that Recto was not imprisoned for writing “Solo Entre Las Sombras”? Not only Nick Joaquín attests to this fact but Recto himself when we interviewed him shortly before his trip to Spain (which he did not reach because “scientifically” murdered when he was deprived of his heart medicines in Rome according to a credible source we know). Now look who is lying and hiding behind a pseudonym. Come out first. Identify yourself. I have already identified myself very clearly. It is now your turn, if you have any decency, to also identify yourself. Don’t be a coward not to identify yourself like the scoundrels who twist Filipino history to justify US intervention in this country and justify those misguided and misled Filipinos in their ridiculous present day colonial “Americanization”.
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IT IS TRUE THAT SPANISH WAS NEVER SPOKEN BY ALL FILIPINOS, AS IT IS ALSO TRUE UP TO NOW THAT ENGLISH IS NEITHER SPOKEN BY ALL FILIPINOS. BUT THE ISSUE TO SEE IS THAT SPANISH WAS ALREADY THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE SPOKEN BY A GOOD NUMBER OF FILIPINOS AND, IF ONLY ALLOWED TO CONTINUE, WOULD HAVE ULTIMATELY BECOME THE FILIPINO NATIONAL LANGUAGE AS DESIRED BY JOSÉ RIZAL AND ALL FILIPINOS THAT LOVE THEIR COUNTRY’S FREEDOM. BUT WE HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF HAVING A GENOCIDAL US WASP AMERICAN GENOCIDAL POLICY TO REPLACE SPANISH WITH ENGLISH, AS POINTED OUT BY THE FORD REPORT, AND THE RESULT IS THE CHAOTIC PRESENT DAY IMPOVERISHED AND IGNORANT FILIPINO PEOPLE WHO CAN NOT DEFEND THEIR NATIONAL TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY BEFORE THE BANGSAMORO SUBSTATE, BECAUSE THEY HAVE LOST THEIR ORIGINAL IDENTITY AS A FREE PEOPLE. AN IDENTITY THAT IS HISPANIC.
We reproduce here a protion of the essay we wrote: “STATITICS: The Spanish Language in the Philippines”
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