Today I Learned: Balagtas Was a Polyglot and Other Things You Didn't Know About the Poet-Hero

Francisco “Balagtas” Baltazar’s Florante at Laura may be required reading in schools, but there is more to the man and his works that Filipinos could discover. Though the poet is long dead, he remains as influential and relevant as ever, a creative North Star or paraluman (compass)  for Filipinos.

Here are some essential “non-required” facts about the poet and his poetry.

Of course, we know that Balagtas (1788–1862) was a virtuoso of the Tagalog language. His elevated use of Tagalog made him the GOAT (but he’s often called the Prince of Tagalog poets) of his time. But his command of other languages made it possible for him to weave different concepts into Tagalog rhyme, meter, and talinghaga. As a student of Colegio de San Jose and Letran, he studied Spanish and Latin grammar. Couple that with courses in rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry, and you have a writer with a formidable linguistic and academic foundation for sustained creative work.

Rizal carried with him a copy of Florante at Laura in his journey across Europe. He proudly shared that Balagtas was the exemplary model for Tagalog poets and mentioned him in his lecture Tagalische Verskunst or Tagalog Poetry in Germany in 1887. Pilosopong Tasyo references Balagtas while warning Ibarra of the dangers of insincere gestures in Noli me tangere. The Katipunan, led by the writings of Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Jacinto, also quoted Balagtas in their important documents, such as the “Liwanag at Dilim” (Light and Darkness) and “Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora.” An exiled Apolinario Mabini, who was teased by an American captor in Guam that Filipinos didn’t have a literary tradition, wrote Florante at Laura by hand.

Katipunan records show that Bonifacio and Aguinaldo once had an argument in May 1896 when the latter stated that the revolution was bound to fail because of the scarcity of arms. Bonifacio replied that the lack of weapons was not the problem, but having the “guniguning tákot sa labanan” or the imagined fear of battle. This was a line from Aladin in stanza 262 of the Florante at Laura. And Aguinaldo had no literary clapback in the record.

Florante at Laura should just be the starting point of reading Balagtas. He was a prolific writer of poems and plays that were staged across Tagalog areas in fiestas and other celebrations. After F&L (for brevity’s sake), one should grab a copy of Orosman at Zafira and La india elegante y el negrito amante. The former could provide a lens in seeing the value of upholding love and dignity at the time of warfare. While La india dramatizes with humor racial discrimination under a colonial setting.  There are also a handful of surviving poems left, like “Labindalawang Sugat ng Puso,” “Paalam na sa Iyo!,” and the quirky “Dalit ni Nubio.”

National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario challenges scholars and Balagtas disciples to “discover” the lost works of the hero-poet. According to him, they may just be hiding inside lost, forgotten boxes of plays for the Teatro Tondo or other neighboring theater groups popular in the time of Balagtas and a few decades after that. Listed as missing are Mahomet at Costanza, Almanzor y Rosalina, Abdal y Miserena, Don Nuño y Zenaida, Auredato y Astrone, Rodolfo y Rosamunda, and many more.

The writings of Balagtas have shaped our heroes from Rizal, Bonifacio, Jacinto, del Pilar, and Mabini, and helped them imagine the Filipino nation. National Literature Month, which started in 2015, considers the poet-hero’s birthday every April 2 as a main reason for celebrating Philippine literature together with other birth and death anniversaries of important Filipino writers. The town of his birth, Balagtas (then Bigaa) in Bulacan, celebrates his birthday as an official holiday. Orion (Udyong in his time) in Bataan houses a striking bronze statue of Balagtas, made by renowned artist Julie Lluch and sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino continues promoting its legacy by leading Araw ni Balagtas celebrations every year. Writers and cultural workers continue to promote his status as a national hero for Philippine imagination. Because heroes aren’t just limited to those who used swords and guns and died fighting the oppressor. Balagtas is proof that the humble poet could be one.

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