Balagtas: The Rebel Poet

Carmina and Patch discover just how colorful a life Balagtas lived. They discuss how artfully Balagtas infused the spirit of resistance in his famous masterpiece, “Florante at Laura,” by including themes and characters that defied the times in which he lived. They also make several other important discoveries, including how an almost-forgotten memory in Carmina’s childhood was unearthed because of a verse in “Florante at Laura.”

Learn more: COPING; Filipino Rap Debates City Life, Pro and Con, Mighty Magulang: Francisco Balagtas, Xiao Time: Francisco Balagtas, Bayaning Makata, "Florante at Laura" 1949 | Leopoldo Salcedo | Celia Flor, Florante at Laura by Animated Filipino Classics, "ANG LAKI SA LAYAW" (mula sa "Florante at Laura") ni Francisco Balagtas, 'Florante at Laura' by Ballet Manila Excerpts, The Four Revolts of Balagtas, Francisco Balagtas Birthday, and Francisco Balagtas.

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Transcript

Welcome to FilTrip, a podcast where we explore everything fun, weird and in between about the Philippines. 

 Hi Patch.

 Hi Carmina.

 Do you remember this tradition that we used to have? And I'm glad to see that actually it's alive and well in the Philippines still. Do you remember Balagtasan?

 Of course, that was... Why does it invoke fear?

 We used to partake in and watch these activities when we were in school.

 But honestly, I didn't partake in it. I don't think I was talented enough. But obviously, you know, we did practice it in school.

 We did see it. Do you participate in it?

 Why are you doubting? But you are right to doubt because I never did. 

 Okay.

 But let's describe what it is for the listeners. So in Balagtasan, it's usually two people, and they have what I'm going to call a showdown in the form of poetry.

 There's a debate topic. 

 Right. 

 So it's not like, let's just talk about anything out of the blue, right?

 Thank God. And then the delivery has rhyme and rhythm, and the content is mostly about societal issues. The criteria for the participants, they have to have great performance. And one article that I read described it perfectly. It's a poetic joust. Kind of sounds like rap, right?

 Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. What do they call? What do the young ones call it right now?

 But you know, it's not unique to the Filipino culture. There's apparently so many forms of this all around the world.

 The first Balagtasan was held in 1924 to commemorate the birth of Francisco Balagtas. And Balagtasan was very popular during the American occupation.

 And we're talking about Balagtasan today because he passed away on February 20, 1862 at the age of 73.

 He led a full and long life, especially life expectancy during those days wasn't as long.

 But before we talk about him, let's just talk about that first Balagtasan because I found that really fascinating. So you mentioned that it was first held on April 6, 1924 at the Instituto de Mujeres in Tondo, Manila. And there were two popular poets at that time who participated, Jose Corazon de Jesus and Florentino Collantes.

 Guess what the topic of this first Balagtasan was?

 Well, I see it right here. Bulaklak ng Lahing Kalinislinisan, which translates to...

 So I saw that and I was like, what the hell does that mean? I found out... 

I'm already scared.

It was about a butterfly and a bee battling over a Sampaguita flower.

Oh.

As we will find out, a lot of these works that Balagtas did, especially the one that he became popular for, was all allegorical. It has a deeper meaning.

A commentary on society.

And it kind of is really interesting. Like you said, it was during the American occupation period. And you have to wonder if there was some kind of hidden resistance in the messaging, because I found out that Instituto de Mujeres was the first lay Catholic school of women in the Philippines.

They created this because they wanted to prepare Filipino women to serve God and country under the American occupation. During that time, the Americans established schools, right? All around the country.

But those were taught entirely in English. It didn't allow religion as a subject. And, of course, it was mainly for the propaganda for American colonialism.

The founder of Instituto de Mujeres, Rosa Sevilla de Alveiro, was active in causes involving women's education and suffrage in the Philippines. She created this school focused on Filipino “history, culture and values. And it was an indirect resistance against American colonialism.

So, I couldn't help but wonder whether this activism was the reason the Balagtasan was first held there. Because, as I mentioned earlier, the most popular work of Balagtas disguised the struggles of the Filipinos under Spanish colonial oppression in his epic. Fun fact, Patch, do you remember this song, Bayan Ko, which became the anthem of the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986?

Of course. 

Jose Corazon de Jesus wrote the words.

Oh, wow. I didn't hear that.

Yes. And it was apparently a form of protest against American colonialism. He wrote it in 1929, which is about four years after he participated in this first Balagtasan. 

And then when the People Power Revolution happened in 1986, Freddie Aguilar, our famous folk singer in the Philippines, adapted and performed it. Isn't that interesting?

I never knew. I always thought that it was an original composition by Freddie Aguilar. I didn't realize that it had even more rich history behind the lyrics of that song. 

It really had goosebumps when I read that because it just kind of threads history.

Absolutely. So, we're talking about Balagtasan, and of course, that comes from the last name of Francisco Balagtas, well-known for his literary contributions to the Philippines. 

He came from humble beginnings, from Bigaa, Bulacan. 

He was born on April 2, 1788. He was the youngest of four siblings, born to Juan Balagtas, a blacksmith and carpenter.

From such humble beginnings, you kind of begin to wonder, how is it that he became who he was? So, here was the interesting twist in his life. At some point, after he attended some initial schooling in Bulacan, he went to Manila.

Some articles say that he went to a rich aunt. Another, you know, source that I read just generically said that he worked for a wealthy family who noticed that he was very interested in learning and so took it upon themselves to send him to school.

I saw in an article that it was actually the Trinidad family who were, I guess, they were very prominent in Tondo during that time. He went to Colegio de San Jose, where he studied Humanities, Theology and Philosophy. And some articles mentioned during his childhood, he really was already, I guess, like a sensitive soul.

He loved to observe nature. He would climb trees and observe the birds. Poetry was always in his soul, even from a very young age.

I always thought that Baltazar was his pen name, and that's apparently wrong. Because the reason why he was also known as Baltazar is a consequence of a naming system that was imposed in the Philippines. Do you remember our episode about Filipino names?

Yes, yes. 

That was imposed by a Spanish governor general, Claveria. When Baltazar was presented with what name he wanted to adapt from that catalogue, he chose Baltazar. And so, at the age of 61, when that decree was issued, was when he switched from Balagtas to Baltazar.

Curiously, though, the eventual switch came in stages. So apparently, he used it on his marriage certificate in 1842, which was a few years before the actual official name changes by Governor Claveria. So he actually was, I guess, already transitioning the name change.

So I think I mentioned at the top of the episode, Patch, that he had a colorful life.

So we mentioned that he moved to Tondo, and that's where he studied. So while in Tondo, he met José de la Cruz, who was a prominent poet at the time, whose pen name was Joseng Sisiw. Sisiw means chick.

Right. That's a little funny. 

Right. It is. The reason why he was penned that name is because when he would write poetry for others, the payment he asks for is a young chick.

Yeah. Chick as in the chicken's child and not a woman. Just want to clear that up. 

Thanks for the clarification. But what does he do with that? Maybe, well, let's not go into that probably.

Well, I mean, you can think about it as like a bartering system, I guess, during the colonial period. If I were collecting these chicks, I would make a business out of it.

So in that way, so they met and he served as a mentor. But apparently, their relationship soured when Balagtas approached De La Cruz for help in arranging a poem he intended to use to court this woman that he was wanting to court.

Right. 

But De La Cruz refused because Balagtas couldn't pay him with a chick, apparently. And so this angered Balagtas and their relationship ended. And so this, however, became like, it eventually became like a positive thing because it motivated him, motivated Balagtas to improve on his poetry independently. So I guess he was too dependent on Jose De La Cruz's input on his poetry. 

Well, you mentioned this woman. Let's talk about her. Maria, well, I don't know if it's the same woman.

I don't think it's the same because this was when he was in Tondo, right? 

Oh, right. 

And so Balagtas eventually moved to, to Pandacan, Manila, where he continued writing songs, plays and poems. I believe that's where he met Maria Asuncion Rivera, his muse.  

Maria Asuncion Rivera was also being courted by a wealthy suitor. His name is Mariano Capule. And somehow, Mariano Capule was successful in imprisoning Balagtas to kind of eliminate the competition, so to speak.

Patch, do you think that it was a mutual love, or was this a situation of, again, obsession?

Yeah, I don't know. There's not much that I could find on Maria Asuncion Rivera, as well as Mariano Capule. Okay, so we're talking about this rivalry, right?

And apparently, Mariano Capule used his influence to imprison Balagtas, right? 

Mm-hmm.

But isn't there also, they're saying that Balagtas was imprisoned because of his work.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Maybe that's how Mariano Capule was able to have him imprisoned.

There's always these rumors going around that Balagtas was rebellious.

I mean, I guess it makes sense, right? Knowing what he did with his life after that, or what's known right now. 

While he was in prison the first time, that was when he wrote Florante at Laura.

Right. That is the work that he is most revered and known for. But before we talk about Florante at Laura, we should also mention the second time he was in prison was in 1856.

So he was a Major Lieutenant in the Spanish colonial government. But he got in trouble with an influential man named Alferez Lucas when he ordered Alferez Lucas' housemaid's head to be shaved. Did you find any details about this?

That was his second imprisonment, right?

Right. So again, this is a situation where without more details, it just seems so superficial.

And random.

Random and like, petty. But again, knowing his passion for the Filipino people and the oppression under the Spanish regime, I think this can also be quickly connected to the fact that during the Spanish colonial period, the authorities were very sensitive about people acting out of order in Philippine society. And again, this was the latter part of the colonial period, where, let's face it, the Spanish empire was starting to crumble.

Mm-hmm.

So you can imagine that when there are personal disputes like this, and especially against wealthy and influential people in society, it could quickly escalate into serious legal and social consequences.

When he was in prison, when he was released from prison, rather, he moved again to Balangga, Bataan, and that's when you mentioned that he served various positions. And that's also when he met his wife, Juana Tiambeng, who comes apparently from a wealthy family. At the later part of their life together, when he was in prison for the second time, she in fact used most of their wealth to free him.

Patch, he was already 68.

Yeah, because he remained in prison until 1860 or 1861. I don't think they ever really reconciled the date, but he's already sold most of his land and their wealth was already used up or dwindled by this time.

And especially since they had 11 children, only four made it to adulthood, but that must have been really stressful. And which is why, at the end of his life, he told his children that he does not want any of them being poets.

I mean, apparently he was very bitter and frustrated at that time 

But do you think his children heeded his warning about this? I read that at least some of them defied his wishes. One of his more notable children who took up writing was Basilio Balagtas, and he was said to have been involved in the literary world to some degree.

And sadly, most of his work, Francisco Balagtas' work, disappeared in a fire.

Yeah, because we always talk about Florante at Laura, but he had other works. So the only ones that survived were five or six of his known literary pieces, and he also had a lot of half-finished manuscripts.

One that did survive, obviously, is the iconic Florante at Laura, which he wrote when he was, like what we said, he was in prison for the first time, and it was pretty much an ode to his beloved Maria Asuncion Rivera, who he referred to also as Celia and M.A.R. at certain points in his life.

It was very curious that the setting was Albania, and I thought it was interesting, but in that period, it wasn't all that unusual. A lot of the writers of the time, their settings of their work usually were in Europe because of the Spanish colonial period. So to have broad appeal, and especially appeal to the upper classes, it was kind of almost a given that some of the works during that time were set somewhere else.

He wrote it in the style of the time, which is the “awit.” I guess you could call it an epic in the Western world. And it is a love story, as the title suggests, between a man named Florante and a woman named Laura, both of whom belonged to the upper echelons of society in Albania.

So Florante basically was based on him, right? It's supposed to be him, his character. And then, of course, Laura was supposed to be Maria Asuncion Rivera. It is a love story, after all.

But of course, being the rebellious soul that he is, and as we mentioned already, it really was an allegory and contained messaging against the Spanish colonization.

Yeah, it symbolized the Filipino suffering under the Spanish rule and the struggles of the nation during that time.

And he used very cleverly religious themes and romantic themes. One aspect of the story, which I guess wasn't that popular at that time, is the struggle between the Moors and the Christians. But notably, in the story, he befriended a Moor who saved him when he was facing death in the forest because of his political enemies.

And there were several lessons that he tried to impart in the story. So one is love of country, selecting leaders who have true love for their people, being good parents and the right way to raise children. Florante at Laura also defied tradition by featuring a Muslim woman named Florida who is the love interest of his Moro best friend in the story Aladin.

The character of Florida defied the stereotype of feminine characteristics of that time because she was depicted as a very skilled archer and she also played a big role in saving Laura from a predicament. That's how this character, Florida, was depicted, which probably was not typical.

Heroism, not only as a woman but as a non-Christian, I'm sure was very non-typical.

Yeah, I “was also surprised to see that friendship theme between a Muslim and a Christian. It really at that time must have ruffled the feathers of the authorities.

Yes, the establishment.

 So, truth time, Patch, this was assigned reading.

Yes.

Did you read it?

No. 

Well, it's not really long, but the way it was originally written in the original Tagalog, it's really difficult to follow, right? Because the spelling is different. It was like the spelling of the Tagalog language that we know today was not the spelling during the Spanish colonial period.

And I think we talked about it also in a previous episode where we gave examples, right? When we decided that this was going to be our topic, I made it my goal to read it.

Wow. Did you succeed in the goal?

Partly, because what I did was, you know, I had the book. I've always had it. So I had the book. It's not really long. That's the first thing that kind of came to my mind is, wait, this is not really long. Why did I not read it when I was in school from cover to cover? But I found so much material on YouTube. So I actually found an animated rendition of this that I'm going to link in the show notes because it's easier to read when you also have the visual to kind of aid your reading. So what they did was they took more significant excerpts.

It just is so much easier to follow when you're watching the animation and listening to the words at the same time. And they also transcribed the poem in the modern way that Tagalog is written. So I was able to now appreciate the full story because of this.

And I do encourage everyone to do it because it's really like two or three minutes snippets. And I finally get it.

Okay. And also I'm glad you mentioned that because obviously we said this was very influential to our culture. They're continuing to try to show appreciation for his work.

And in fact, in recent years, they have converted the story of Florante and Laura into a ballet. So there's many, yes, different kinds of medium that this story is being converted to and very happy about that. The future generations can continue to appreciate his work.

I also found an old black and white film in the 1940s. We're also going to link it in YouTube. 

I feel like there has been more than one movie, or am I just dreaming?

I'm not sure. I saw that one and I was like, cool. I haven't really watched it, but I'm very curious to see how they interpreted it.

So we're saying that Balagtas wrote Florante at Laura as an ode to Maria Asuncion Rivera. And I am hoping that some of the work that was lost in the fire, that he wrote an ode to his wife, too. Because can you imagine?

 Oh my, I cannot even.

 Being his wife, and there's nothing about her, about you.

Oh God.

We're going to choose to think that he had a lot of work written about it.

Well, especially since he had a long life. He had a lot of time.

Right. Didn't she use all her wealth to free him from prison?

Okay, that is a very intriguing topic for another time.

Carmina, fun fact. Did you know that the International Astronomical Union, which is apparently an official, prestigious global organization of professional astronomers, officially named a crater on Mercury after Francisco Balagtas in 1976?

No! How?

Well, I don't know. It's really cool. Yeah, so there's a crater in Mercury out there named after Francisco Balagtas.

This is a practice that they do. They name, I guess, different areas of the universe out there after poets, artists who have significant contribution to culture.

How did they even know about him? There must be a Filipino on that thing. And speaking of fun facts, I found an article from the New York Times that was published on April 15, 2001. The article was talking about a citywide poetry festival, and a Balagtasan was performed at the Cooper Union. And they described it perfectly. It is a traditional form of poetic debate. What it didn't describe perfectly is when it said that this tradition is in honor of Francisco Balagtas. Well, that part is true, who was a poet of the 1920s. I wonder if it's too late to send the correction to the New York Times. So, this was back in 2001. And it described that the contestants did it in Tagalog, which was translated in real time to English. It was described also as a first in anyone's memory in New York City. And guess what the topic was?

Uh, what?

It was about whether Filipino-Americans should retire here or in the Philippines. Which is kind of significant, if you think about it, for our, you know, age group right now. Someone tell me where I can get footage of this. Because what was written in the article was already so entertaining, so I can't even imagine seeing it live. So, Patch, if you'll just indulge me, I want to play you something, and I hope it works. Okay, but here we go.

“Ang Laki sa Layaw 

Pag-ibig anaki’y aking nakilala

Di dapat palakihin ang bata sa saya

At sa katuwaa’y kapag namihasa

Kung lumaki’y walang hihinting ginhawa…”

So Patch, I played that clip because my father used to burst out, you know, with this poem when we were growing up. And that's why it's seared in my memory.

So your father used to recite this poem?

Yes, he used to, and I did not realize that it came from Florante at Laura.

Oh, wow.

And the first line, “pag ibig anaki’y aking nakilala,” meaning roughly, you know, the love that I've known or something like that. I thought it was about love, but it was actually about the proper way to raise children. And how parents should make sure that their children are not “spoiled, basically. That's the main message of that part of the poem. And I was thinking to myself, he said it often. So I wonder what kind of shenanigans my brothers and I were up to when he would just burst out into this oration. 

Wow. That's amazing.

He was probably doing a commentary on how we were behaving. 

Not probably, for sure. That's actually kind of sweet. I mean, I know it was meant to lecture you, but at the same time, for you to remember that through Balagtas' poetry is really very sweet.

If we didn't decide to talk about Balagtas today, that memory would probably have just remained buried. 

Okay. So with that sweet memory, Carmina, that's our episode.

We hope you join us on our next trip. 

O siya, siya.

Ingat.  

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