To My Fellow Children

Even at the early age, Rizal already possessed a gifted talent for literature. He was encouraged by his mother, who was a lover of literature, to write poetry.

            On Rizal’s first day at the Binan School, when he was eight years old, he was left by his brother Paciano after introducing him into his teacher, Maestro Justiniano Aquino Cruz. Before sitting on his assigned seat in the class, the teacher asked him if he knows how to speak in Spanish or Latin, he replied “A little, sir”. Because of his answer the teacher hit him. The students there laughed at Rizal. Rizal was very upset. And this happening cause Rizal to write his first poem in the native language entitled Sa Aking Mga Kababata (To My Fellow Children). He realized that in order to make our country in liberty, he had to write in his native tongue.

            Rizal’s poem “Sa Aking Mga Kababata” reveals his early dedication to our country. In the verses of his poem, he proudly state that people who truly love his native language will surely attempt for liberty “as does the bird which soars to freer space above” and Tagalog is the same with Latin, English, Spanish and any other language. And also the most quoted line of his poem which is “He who loves not his own language/is worse than a beast and a stinking fish”.

Rizal encourages the Filipinos to adopt Tagalog as their language, and since Tagalog was the language used before for the Filipinos to have an easy communication. Tagalog is our very own and when we are going to use Tagalog, it’s like you are acting or showing that you love your native country and are proud of being a Filipino that is distinct from other people who use language other than Tagalog. Loving your own native language is like having the feeling of enriching your own country and the language that was taught to you that you should learn to love and be proud of. We should treat Tagalog language the same as any mother loves to feed her young. We should be thankful that God gave us native language and Rizal making his effort that we should show the beauty in using Tagalog rather than other foreign language.

But some people was interrogating if Rizal did really wrote his said first poem at 8 years old or did he write the poem at all. Because there is no original manuscript in Rizal’s own hand exists for “Sa Aking Mga Kababata”.

-           MAGANTE,  RALPH RENZ