Translatio unius poematis Josephus Rizal in Anglicam per Nick Joaquín, Nationalis Artis pro Literature.
Para comprender mejor el talante y la psicología de José Rizal, o quizás su amor apasionado por nuestra patria filipina, es mejor leer sus poemas llenos de amor y esperanza en lugar de sus novelas llenas de ira, desprecio, y dolor.
To better understand the viewpoints and psychology of José Rizal, or perhaps his passionate love for our country, Filipinas, it is better to read his poems that are full of love and hope rather than his novels that are filled with anger, contempt, and suffering.
Para más maintindihán ang sáloobin at psicología ni José Rizal, o ‘di cayá’y ang caniyáng marubdób na págmamahal sa ating bansáng Filipinas, más maínam na basahin ang caniyáng mg̃a tuláng punó ng pag-ibig at pag-asa en vez na mg̃a novela niyáng punó ng galit, pañguñgutyâ, at paghihinagpís.
Misa de Aguinaldo at the Holy Family Church in Cubáo, Quezon City, circa 2014 (Maurice Joseph Almadrones)
The traditional nine-day Christmas Season dawn Masses begin today. People have been calling it either as Misa de Gallo, Simbáng Gabí, or Misa de Aguinaldo. But which of the three, really, is the precise term? Is it acceptable if we just use them interchangeably?
First of all, it should be clarified that Misa de Aguinaldo is just the same as Simbáng Gabí. The Tagálog term, however, seems to be a recent coinage — it was never used during the Spanish times and US occupation era. It had always been Misa de Aguinaldo.
Secondly, there is a difference between the Misa de Gallo and the Misa de Aguinaldo / Simbáng Gabí. The first refers to the midnight Mass celebrated on Christmas Eve. The second pertains to the nine-day votive Masses celebrated in the early hours of the morning before Christmas Day (from the 16th to the 24th).
While a literal translation of Misa de Gallo would be “Mass of the Cock”, the term really means “Midnight Mass” as it is celebrated on Christmas Eve. Pope Sisto III (Sixtus III) instituted it in the third century and was celebrated for the first time at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. The name came to be because it was at midnight when the first cockcrow is usually heard in the ancient city.
Also, Filipinos know that the word aguinaldo is synonymous to “regalo” which means gift. The Real Academia Española defines aguinaldo as “que se da en Navidad o en la fiesta de la Epifanía” or a gift given at Christmas or on the feast of the Epiphany.
But where is the gift-giving in Misa de Aguinaldo?
The origin of the Misa de Aguinaldo can be traced back to the Masses celebrated at dawn, nine days before Christmas in honor of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the early days, churches in Spain were in the habit of providing food to the poor right after each dawn Mass. This corporal act of mercy is called Aguinaldo, and the gifts that the religious gave to the poor were called aguinaldos. Pretty soon, the dawn Masses, including the distribution of gifts, became known as “Misas de Aguinaldo“.
Finally, it is not true that the Misa de Aguinaldo was conceptualized to accommodate farmers who start working in the fields before sunrise. As can be gleaned above, this practice originated from Spain. No such accommodation was done for farmers there.
I swear, I am NOT kidding! This really happened this afternoon! 👻
I was watching episode 2 of Ms. Marvel (the MCU freak that I am) on my android while lying down on my sleeping mattress here in my mini library. My mattress is right beside one of my bookshelves. The lights are off inside my windowless room. So my only source of light was my android.
All of a sudden, something fell on my chest! Of course I freaked out and gave out a sissy scream coz I didn’t see what it was. 🤣 I immediately jumped to my feet and turned on the light…
Lo and behold, it was the certificate of appreciation given to me by Mr. Vladimir Nieto and his group Konseho ng Herencia ng Lucena (Heritage Council of Lucena) exactly six years ago today!
The appreciation certificate, encased in wood and glass, was given to me after I gave a lecture about the Spanish documents that I retrieved from the Portal de Archivos Españoles: PARES which proves that Lucena —the city of my birth— was founded on 3 November 1879. This means that the capital city of Tayabas Province (I will never call it Quezon) was founded 144 years ago today. But for reasons beyond me and logic, this foundation date is still not recognized by the local government unit of Lucena despite Mr. Nieto’s insistent lobbying.
Now what puzzles me is how this certificate fell on my chest exactly on the day that Lucena City is supposed to celebrate its 144th founding anniversary. It’s not hanging on my wall; it’s just standing on top of my bookshelf leaning against the wall. But in spite of several tremors we’ve experienced through the years, it didn’t even budge. It’s only now that it fell… and right on top of me!
I really don’t pay much attention to spooky stuff (I can watch horror movies alone in the dark), but when the city of your birth suddenly and literally haunts you on its birthday, well, that’s something else. Not scary, but something else that I couldn’t yet explain.
But I’m relieved the certificate didn’t fall on my nose.
Mother Ignacia Avenue, a two-lane commercial road between EDSA and Scout Chuatoco Street, is made famous because it is the address of ABS-CBN as well as the site of its 720-foot Millennium Transmitter. But has anyone ever asked who the person the road was named after?
During her lifetime, nobody called Ignacia del Espíritu Santo as “Mother”. She was referred to as “Madre” because she lived between the 17th and 18th centuries, back when Spanish was still our country’s lingua franca. Madre Ignacia was born in 1663, the daughter of an “india tagala” named María Jerónima, and a Chinese immigrant from Amoy named Jusepe Iuco, thus making her a “mestiza sangley“. They all lived in the Chinese “arrabal” (suburb) of Binondo.
Upon reaching the age of 21, her parents had wanted to marry her off, but she didn’t want to. By then, she was already inclined toward living a life of saintly solitude. So she sought the counsel Fr. Pavel Klein, a Bohemian Jesuit priest, who advised her to read Saint Ignacio de Loyola’s “Exercitia Spiritualia” (Spiritual Exercises). Hence she received inspiration to “remain in the service of the Divine Majesty” and to “live by the sweat of her brow”. She left her parents, bringing with her only a needle and a pair of scissors, and moved to a house at the back of Colegio de San José in Intramuros, at the corner of Calle Escuela (now Victoria) and Calle Santa Lucía.
Eventually, other women with the same calling joined her. This led to the establishment of the “Beaterio de San Ignacio” (Beguinage of San Ignacio) in 1699. It conducted eight-day spiritual retreats where women worked, ate, and prayed together.
Madre Ignacia died on 10 September 1748. Her funeral was attended by the Church and State’s highest officials.
On 6 July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued a papal decree (Decretum Super Virtutibus) regarding the status of Madre Ignacia:
“Servant of God, Ignacia del Espíritu Santo, Foundress of the Congregation of the Religious of the Virgin Mary, is found to possess to a heroic degree the theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity toward God and neighbor as well as the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude.”
The following year, 1 February, 2008, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales presided over the promulgation which officially accorded Ignacia the title “venerable” at the Church of Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario (aka Minor Basilica and National Shrine of San Lorenzo Ruiz) in Binondo, her hometown.
Today is her 275th death anniversary. May we never forget her.
DID YOU KNOW? One of our country’s patron saints was one of the most beautiful women who had ever walked the face of the earth. And weirdly enough, she had tried many times to make herself ugly! Because she knew that beauty only invited temptation.
“Santa Rosa de Lima”, oil on canvas by Claudio Coello (1642–1693).
This lady was none other than Isabel Flores de Oliva (1586-1617), commonly known in the Catholic world as Saint Rose of Lima, Perú. She was a queer saint in the sense that not all female saints like her were mentioned for their beauty. But even she, who had led a life of holiness, of fasting and penance, would rather not talk about her physical attributes; she was aware that beauty invited temptations, and she was no exception to it. Although a woman of exceptional pulchritude, she did many strange things to ward off temptation (which means a battalion of suitors left and right). She cut off her long hair, slept on a bed of broken glass and thorns, did manual labor to make her delicate hands rough, wore coarse clothing, and even rubbed her beautiful face with pepper and lye!
And to finally defeat the temptation of getting married, she joined the Third Order of Saint Dominic, thus taking a vow of perpetual virginity, a life dedicated solely to God.
This extreme holiness of life was already forecast by a miracle: while still a baby, a family servant claimed to have seen Isabel’s face transformed for a moment into a beautiful rose, hence the famous appellation that replaced her name later in life.
On 11 August 1760, Pope Clement X declared Saint Rose, or Santa Rosa de Lima, as one of our country’s patron saints. In particular, she is the patroness today of the city of Santa Rosa in La Laguna as well as the municipalities of Santa Rosa in Nueva Écija and Teresa in Rizal. Ironically, our country today has embraced the worldly adage “if you’ve got it, flaunt it”, a far cry from Santa Rosa’s spiritual stand against physical beauty.
Today is the 14th death anniversary of President María Corazón Cojuangco vda. de Aquino (1933–2009), known among her followers as the “Mother of Democracy” for her role in toppling the two-decade Marcos dictatorship. Her fans and historians alike take it upon themselves to learn many details of her colorful life to heart (translated pun intended), from her elementary school days at St. Scholastica’s College to how she raised her children on her own when her husband was incarcerated during Martial Law. We remember many of her interviews in English, almost rarely in Tagálog. But what many of them do not know is that Tita Cory or simply Cory (her famous nickname) comes from a Spanish-speaking family.
Tita Cory’s father was José Cojuangco, a former Representative of the 1st District of Tárlac during the Commonwealth Period. The Cojuangcos were a chino cristiano family whose scion, Khó͘ Gio̍k-khoân, also known as “El Chino”, was forced to learn the Spanish language upon arrival from his native hometown of Hongjian in Fujian province, China. During the Spanish times, it was compulsory for the Chinese to be baptized into the Christian faith and learn the Spanish language so that they would be allowed to conduct business as well as marry natives.
Upon Christianization, Khó͘ Gio̍k-khoân changed his name to José Cojuangco, effectively making him the country’s first Cojuangco. He married a mestiza española named Antera Estrella from Gapan, Nueva Écija. José and Antera had three children: Ysidra (heavily rumored to be General Antonio Luna’s lover), Melecio, and Trinidad. Melecio was Tita Cory’s direct grandfather.
Tita Cory’s mother, Demetria Sumúlong, is also from a prominent Spanish-speaking political family from Antipolo, Rizal Province. Her uncle Juan (brother of Demetria) was a writer in the Spanish language who wrote for at least two Spanish-language newspapers: La Patria and La Democracia.
That is why it was quite a surprise and to some extent a disappointment as to why Tita Cory took up French instead of Spanish when she enrolled at the College of Mount Saint Vincent. Worse, the Spanish language in our country officially died during her stint as president when her 1987 Constitution relegated it as a mere optional language instead of as one of the country’s official languages as it had always been since 1565.
It is no wonder that many Spanish-speaking Filipinos made a joke out of her name. When they spoke her first name and middle initial, they would point to their heart: “¿Corazón? ¡Sí!” (Corazón C.). And then they would shift their inder fingers to their heads: “¿Aquí? ¡No!” (Aquino).
Qué descanse en paz eterna. ✝️🙏✝️🙏✝️
Follow me on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. I have also opened up a Threads account. Happy History Month! 😊
Cuando se incorporó nuestra Academia fue el Magistrado Claro Recto y Mayo quien la registró bajo nuestras leyes para dotarla personalidad jurídica. Fue Don Enrique Zóbel de Ayala quien le dio Casa y Dinero para que funcionara cabalmente.
De miembros, la Academia Filipina tuvo a Guillermo Gómez, Manuel Rávago, Juan Alegre, Torres Florentino, Teodoro Kálaw, y Manuel Briones…
¡Grandes cultores! ¡Grandes defensores del español fueron los académicos filipinos! Su lema fue “Limpiar, fijar, dar esplendor” además de “Custodiar, difundir, y enaltecer” por estas Islas pese al genocidio que tenían encima, perpetrado por el Nuevo Señor de lengua inglesa.
Pero nuestra Academia Filipina. como organismo tenía sus juntas regulares; veladas culturales frecuentes; su anual premio literario, el Premio Zóbel, y su boletín, la Revista Excelsior, y su prestigio…
Ahora nuestra Academia languidece en espera del héroe que le infunda nueva luz restaurándole su fuero ante los filipinos estatutos… y de allí desplegar actividades pertinentes a su razón de ser.
Hoy conmemoramos el aniversario de la inauguración de la Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española el 25 de julio de 1924 en el Casino Español de Manila, coincidiendo con la festividad de Santiago Matamoros, el santo patrón de España, la patria grande de todos los filipinos. El lema de esta Academia es «custodiar, difundir, y enaltecer» el idioma español en Filipinas. Ahora es una de las instituciones más antiguas en la historia de Filipinas. El poema anterior fue escrito por su actual Director, Guillermo Gómez Rivera, el 12 de octubre de 2008, durante el Día de la Hispanidad. Fue incluido en su colección de poesía, La Nueva Babilonia. Hice algunas modificaciones leves para que el endecasílabo encajara.
Both the Ku Klux Klan and the Kataastaasang, Kagalanggalangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan were adjuncts, if not direct creations, of Freemasonry. The striking similarity of both groups can be gleaned from their initials: KKK (the letter K has also come to symbolize belligerence, as witnessed in the Basque region’s obsession for it especially during its intermittent calls for independence from Spain). Another striking similarity of both the Ku Klux Klan and the Katipunan were their bloodthirsty motives, but in reverse — the Klan was a white supremacist group, sworn to eradicate all blacks in North América; the Katipunan was brown supremacist, sworn to eradicate all whites in Filipinas. However, the Klan is now considered a terrorist group. But their Filipino counterparts are hailed as heroes, especially every 7th of July.
Ysabela Gómez (en rojo) y Anne Gómez (en amarillo) bailando un número flamenco bajo la mirada de su abuelo Don Guillermo Gómez (sentado en el extremo izquierdo, con gafas). Soy el que está de pie a la izquierda, con abrigo oscuro y bombín. 📷 Quintín José Pastrana.
UN RENACIMIENTO SIMBÓLICO Pepe Alas
Celebramos en este día alegre la resurrección de la herencia hispana de nuestra amada ciudad bastionada una herencia que desde hace mucha época se ha estado ahogando en un mar de olvidos, odio y torpeza. Pero aquí ahora en el restaurante de herencia de Bárbara, mientras disfrutamos de las pasmosas actuaciones del baile español de las dos bellas nietas del Padre del Idioma Castellano de estos lares (y el número uno Maestro de Flamenco),1 también somos testigos del regreso de la herencia hispánica de Manila. Cada zapateo que se escucha en el piso de madera son latidos canoros para avivar a la bella durmiente que es el alma y corazón de Filipinas.2 Y este merendero icónico de nuestra Doña Bárbara de los Reyes servirá como núcleo de la reaparición española que acabamos de mirar.
Misa de Aguinaldo at the Holy Family Church in Cubáo, Quezon City, circa 2014 (
EL FILIPINISMO 