Making It Hit Closer to Home
Kasaysayan ang Magpapawalang-sala sa Akin
Filipino translation of Fidel Castro’s History will Absolve Me by
Carl C. Ala
Published by AMISTAD
63
pages
2006 carries a double significance for
AMISTAD. Aside from marking the 80th birthday of Cuban
president Fidel Castro, it is also the 60th year of diplomatic
relations between the Philippines and Cuba. AMISTAD chose to celebrate
what its president George Aseniero calls “milestones” by publishing
Kasaysayan ang Magpapawalang-sala sa Akin, a Filipino translation of
Cuban President Fidel Castro's famous five-hour speech History will
Absolve Me by Carl C. Ala.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
2006 carries a double significance for
AMISTAD, a solidarity organization aiming to forge and promote friendship,
unity, understanding, and solid relations between the Filipino and Cuban
peoples. Aside from marking the 80th birthday of Cuban
President Fidel Castro, it is also the 60th year of diplomatic
relations between the Philippines and Cuba.
AMISTAD chose to celebrate what its
president George Aseniero calls “milestones” by publishing Kasaysayan
ang Magpapawalang-sala sa Akin, a Filipino translation of Castro's
famous five-hour speech History will Absolve Me by Carl C. Ala.
Delivered in 1953, History will Absolve
Me was Castro’s piece in his own defense as he stood on trial for the
botched siege on Moncada Barracks.
Ala's achievement in translating Castro’s
speech lies in his being able to give it a tinge of greater familiarity
within the Philippine context.
The attack on Moncada Barracks was
intended as the culmination of the uprising by the Castro-led
revolutionary forces against the U.S.-sponsored dictatorship of Fulgencio
Batista, which had wrested power through a coup backed by the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) the previous year.
The uprising that is the subject of
Castro’s speech aimed at seizing Moncada Barracks without bloodshed. The
revolutionary forces had no plans of shooting it out with the soldiers at
the barracks. What they intended was to seize the arms and ammunition
through a surprise attack and peacefully convince the soldiers to abandon
the dictatorship.
After seizing power, the revolutionaries
would have enacted five revolutionary laws that would declare the
legitimacy of Cuba’s 1940 Constitution and effect industrialization, land
distribution, and reforms in foreign relations, education, housing, and
labor and industrial relations. These were the same objectives that the
Castro-led revolutionary forces went on to attain after finally succeeding
in toppling the Batista dictatorship in 1959.
The 1953 siege on Moncada Barracks was
botched because the revolutionaries were vastly outnumbered and were
traversing unfamiliar territory. Castro and his companions were arrested
and many were tortured and summarily executed. Those who survived, like
Castro himself, faced rebellion charges.
In his speech Castro, a lawyer who had
opted to defend himself in court, questions the legitimacy and even
legality of the Batista regime:
Saang bansa ba nakatira ang
Kagalang-galang na (Tagausig)? Sinong nagsabi sa kanya na nais naming
mag-aklas laban sa konstitusyunal na kapangyarihan ng Estado? Dalawang
bagay ang malinaw. Una sa lahat, ang diktadura na umaapivsa bansa ay hindi
isang konstitusyunal na kapangyarihan, ito ay hindi konstitusyunal. Ito ay
itinatag laban sa Konstitusyon, kshit na may Konstitusyon at lumalabag sa
Konstitusyon ng lehitimong Republika. Ang lehitimong Konstitusyon ay
direktang nakaugat sa soberanya ng mamamayan. Patutunayan ko ang puntong
ito (nang) buo mamaya, kahit may mga panlolokong gawin ang mga duwag at
traydor upang bigyang-matwid ang di makatarungan. Pangalawa, ang tinutukoy
ng artikulo ay hinggil sa kapangyarihan na pangmaramihan at hindi pang-isahan.
Dahil isinasaalang-alang nito ang kalagayan na ang Republika
ay pinamumunuan ng lehislatibong kapangyarihan, ehekutibong
kapangyarihan, at hudisyal na kapangyarihan na nagbabalanse at (nagkokontrabalanse).
Na (inagaw) at pinag-isa ang lehislatibo at ehekutibong kapangyarihan ng
bansa, na siyang nagwasak sa buong sistemang pinagbabatayan ng artikulo sa
Kodigo na ating sinusuri, na siyang dapat nitong pangalagaan. Ni hindi ko
na babanggitin ang kasarinlan ng hudisyal na kapangyarihan matapos ang
Marso 10 dahil ayokong magbiro ... kahit anong paghatak, pagpapaikli o
pagkumpuni sa Artikulo 148, hindi ito aangkop sa mga pangyayari noong
Hulyo 26. Iwan muna natin ito hanggang lumitaw ang oportunidad na maaari
itong gamitin laban sa mga talagang nagsulong ng pag-aalsa laban sa
konstitusyunal na kapangyarihan ng Estado.
(In what country is the Honorable
Prosecutor living? Who has told him that we have sought to bring about an
uprising against the Constitutional Powers of the State? Two things are
self-evident. First of all, the dictatorship that oppresses the nation is
not a constitutional power, but an unconstitutional one: it was
established against the Constitution, over the head of the Constitution,
violating the legitimate Constitution of the Republic. The legitimate
Constitution is that which emanates directly from a sovereign people. I
shall demonstrate this point fully later on, notwithstanding all the
subterfuges contrived by cowards and traitors to justify the
unjustifiable. Secondly, the article refers to Powers, in the plural, as
in the case of a republic governed by a Legislative Power, an Executive
Power, and a Judicial Power which balance and counterbalance one another.
We have fomented a rebellion against one single power, an illegal one,
which has usurped and merged into a single whole both the Legislative and
Executive Powers of the nation, and so has destroyed the entire system
that was specifically safeguarded by the Code now under our analysis. As
to the independence of the Judiciary after the 10th of March, I shall not
allude to that for I am in no mood for joking ... No matter how Article
148 may be stretched, shrunk or amended, not a single comma applies to the
events of July 26th. Let us leave this statute alone and await the
opportunity to apply it to those who really did foment an uprising against
the Constitutional Powers of the State. Later I shall come back to the
Code to refresh the Honorable Prosecutor's memory about certain
circumstances he has unfortunately overlooked.)
Translated into Filipino, this paragraph
in large part bears similarities with what is happening in the Philippines
today. There is something particularly in the reference to an
“unconstitutional” dictatorship "that oppresses the people" that sounds
extremely familiar. The paragraph could very well have been lifted from a
testimony by any of the opposition leaders – whether Left or traditional –
who were cracked down upon in the wake of the foiled Feb. 24 attempt at
withdrawal of support by soldiers led by Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim.
Castro goes on to elaborate on the siege
itself: How it was done, why it was done in the manner that it was, and
what the revolutionaries sought to accomplish had they succeeded. This is
all summed up in the following paragraph:
Kaya ng (Cuba na) pangalagaan ang
populasyong tatlong beses ang laki kaysa sa ngayon. Walang dahilan para sa
kahirapang nararanasan ng kasalukuyang naninirahan dito. Ang mga palengke
ay dapat na umaapaw sa mga produkto, ang nga eskaparate ay dapat na puno,
ang lahat ay dapat na may trabaho. Ito ay hindi pangarap lang. Ang di
kapanipaniwala ay may mga taong natutulog (nang) gutom, samantalang may
masasakang lupa, ang mga bata ay namamatay dahil sa kakulangan sa medikal
na pagkalinga; ang di kapanipaniwala ay 30% ng mga magbubukid ay di man
lamang kayang isulat ang kanilang pangalan at 99% sa kanila ay walang alam
sa kasaysayan ng Cuba. Ang di kapanipaniwala ay kalakhan ng mga pamilya ng
mga magbubukid ay nabubuhay sa mas masahol na kalagayan kaysa sa mga
Indian na natagpuan ni Columbus sa pinakamagandang lupa na nakita ng tao.
(Cuba could easily provide for a
population three times as great as it has now, so there is no excuse for
the abject poverty of a single one of its present inhabitants. The markets
should be overflowing with produce, pantries should be full, all hands
should be working. This is not an inconceivable thought. What is
inconceivable is that anyone should go to bed hungry while there is a
single inch of unproductive land; that children should die for lack of
medical attention; what is inconceivable is that 30% of our farm people
cannot write their names and that 99% of them know nothing of Cuba's
history. What is inconceivable is that the majority of our rural people
are now living in worse circumstances than the Indians Columbus discovered
in the fairest land that human eyes had ever seen.)
Again, an eloquent passage that, when
translated into Filipino, could have been an indictment – if not
condemnation – of the Philippines’ own wretched conditions, were it not
for the direct references to Cuba and to statistics particular to the
Cuban experience.
Ala’s shortcomings in the way this book
was done lie chiefly in his having fallen prey to the grammatical errors
most commonly committed by non-native speakers of Tagalog, on which
Filipino is largely based -- as can be found, for example, in his frequent
interchanging of "nang" and "ng." There are also some parts
where his translation gets too literal, as in his having translated
“edible oil” as "nakakaing langis" – a phrase that is absent from
the Filipino lexicon – when he could have easily used "mantika."
There are a few hyphens where there should be none, as in "Taga-usig"
which should be written as "'Tagausig."
These shortcomings, which could easily be
corrected for the next printing, are however small compared to his success
in translating the most important parts. By and large Ala’s main
achievement in this translation is in making a 1953 Cuban speech hit
closer to home for today's Filipino readers.
Ala is an alumnus of the University of the
Philippines (UP) in Manila, where he was an active member of the National
Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates (NNARA) Youth. He is now the public
information officer of the Kilisang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).
Bulatlat
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