hi this is seret and welcome to another episode of the Ral lectures today I am here at the Ral shine in kalamba city and right outside the house of Ral is a bah Kubo this is where the little boy Ral made the Statue of Napoleon and right over there a little over there is the statue of the little boy Ral with his pet dog history books tell us that the dog has a name his name was Usman his male and his color black historians also tell us that every afternoon Ral would walk with Usman to the Lakeshore of Laguna De Bay and along the way he would lecture to his dog about social issues isn't that interesting join me today in this episode and learn more interesting things about resol the Wonder child this lecture is a collection of some notable anecdotes on ral's childhood As Told by his mother and his sisters during the American period you know after Ral died in 1896 the Americans took over our country and during the American Colonial period ral's relatives were very much alive they were the subject of many interviews by journalists and biographers so many stories about Ral circulated during this time the last Ral relative lived up to 1951 that's his sister Trinidad so you can just imagine from 1900 to 1951 there were many stories that you can hear about straight from the horse's mouth so let's begin the first one is about ral's physical appearance ral's childhood nickname was Pepe in the Spanish language all people with the name Jose had the nickname Pepe and his sisters would make fun of little Pepe because he was short for his age and his body and head were not proportional his head was bigger compared to the normal heads of children his age some people would argue that maybe he had a larger brain compared to others he's not a genius for nothing speaking of geniuses do you know that Ral learned how to read and write before the age of five during that time very few Filipinos could read and write and how much more for a 5-year-old most kids in the last century would learn how to read and write when they reached grade one maybe age six or seven so relle was quite different during his time his mother was his first teacher he would very patiently teach vizal the alphabet and how to speak in Latin and Spanish at night she would tell stories to little Pepe and it was said that his favorite story was the story of The Moth or the Gamu Gamu the Gamu Gamu was so curious about the light or the flame on the candle or the gasera and so it flew very very near the flame until it caught its wings and the gug Gamu burned and died this story was told by his mother as a warning for Ral to be very careful because they were living in a society with many dangers incidentally this happened to Pepe in his adulthood he flew very near the flame or the Spanish authorities he fought them too much and it cost him his life there was also this story about dzal and his dog Pepe had a male black dog named Usman and he would walk his dog every afternoon from their house up to the lake shore or uh applia in kalamba and once there at the lake shore Ral would talk to his dog about social issues about the abuses of the Spaniards on his country meates wow that dog must be really smart he had res for a social studies teacher and then there's the story about gal showing his poetry prowess even when he was a little boy it was said that Ral would write poems and he would recite them or brag about them to his sisters then their priest Uncle Father leono Lopez would drop by their house because father ytho just lives next door ral's house is just beside the big Catholic Church in the camba plaza their Uncle priest would tease Pepe that he doesn't believe that Pepe wrote those poems and that would make Pepe very irritated and he would raise his voice and argue with his uncle priest that it was really him who wrote those Poes when Ral was old enough to go to school his mother sent came to ban to study under the famous teacher justiniano Akino Cruz during the Spanish era there were no elementary schools yet similar to our elementary schools the equivalent of Elementary education in their time was the children would live in the house of the teacher the Spanish word for teacher is Maestro and in the house they would help around with the chores and during daytime the teacher would teach them various subjects like science literature and Mathematics it was said that Pepe excelled over his other classmates who were bigger and taller than him and he became a better writer and speaker in the Spanish language one day there was a classmate who was jealous of Ral and he bullied him but Ral even though he was small was able to defeat that bully in a fist fight because r had some martial arts training provided by his uncle the bully's name was Pedro who happens to be the son of the teacher there was also this myth about a controversial poem that Ral supposedly wrote and this controversial poem had the very famous line no Malang is have you heard of that line everybody thought that that poem or that line was originally from Jose Ral but actually it's not this line came from the poem sa aking which was allegedly written by Ral when he was 8 years old but actually the Ral sisters couldn't and wouldn't confirm this they said that they never remember Pepe writing such such a poem but how did this poem actually circulate and was being taught in schools up to today actually M kabata first came out in 1906 which was one decade after ral's death in 1896 this poem was published in a magazine during the American Colonial period in those years many other poems and writings came out with the Jose Ral by line it was a popular practice during that time that writers would gladly attribute their Works to Ral relle was such a big hero during that time and if I wrote a poem instead of writing my name I would write written by Jose Rizal so most probably this poem was one example of that one clue that resel didn't write it is that was written in Tagalog all the other result poems novels and essays were written in Spanish another clue that Ral didn't right is the word kalay in the poem remember the legend says that Ral wrote this when he was 8 years old when the Philippines was not yet free so how could a little boy talk about kalayaan when he has no idea AA what it is all about where did he get that idea about kalayaan at the very tender age of 8 when the Philippines was very much deep into Spanish colonial rule another clue is that the spelling of kalayaan uses the letter k in results time the letter K was not used instead they used the letter c so Kalaya would be spelled with a c and all the other words like AO EA would be spelled with a c not a k because there's no K in the Spanish alphabet we just started using the K during the time of Andres bonasio when he started the Katipunan and it was spelled with the K and also during the American Colonial period when the tagal language had a Resurgence in popularity and the letter K was used instead of the C so this poem most probably wasn't composed when Ral was 8 years old when the letter c was the one being used to spell out the K sounds and then the biggest clue that this poem isn't really from Ral is that his sisters wouldn't agree that it was little Pepe who wrote this all of them couldn't remember Pepe writing such a poem but nonetheless the fact that kabata was so popular and the legend says that Ral wrote it when he was 8 years old it's just a testament of how big Jose Rizal was during the American Colonial period people believed that the little boy Rizal had in him a big big big potential he can be a very very great man he was so great already at a young age how much more when he would grow up to be an adult so people really looked up to Jose Rizal as the greatest of all Philippine national heroes the last story is about how Ral prophesied about himself when Pepe was a little boy he would hang out by himself in the bah Kubo in their yard his Kua pasano is around 10 years older than him so he doesn't have a playmate and so Pepe would just play alone inside the bah Kubo and one day their sisters found him molding a clay statue of a man and they asked him who is that man and relle said Napoleon and his sisters left at him for idolizing Napoleon who was a short man they must have said ah the reason why you are short because your idol is short and that made Pepe very angry he snapped back at his sister saying remember this one day you will be surprised that people will be making statues of me and true enough people did make statues of Ral everywhere his sisters were guests of honor in the inauguration of of result statue in lunetta in 1913 the American colonial government sponsored the erection of this statue and when it was finished there was an unveiling ceremony and the living members of the relle family were there as guests of honor and just imagine you're one of result sisters you remember the day when little Pepe told you remember this ate one day people will make statues of me and you're right there in lunetta in 1913 and you're seeing with your very own eyes that results prophecy is being fulfilled right there in front of you and it didn't stop there because in the years to come many more results statues were erected all over the Philippines in public schools in government buildings in uh the plaza of every town and in these occasions the sisters of Ral were invited for the unveiling ceremonies so they were fully booked the living sisters of razal had appointments here and there all over the country for the unveiling ceremonies and in these ceremonies they would tell how Ral prophesied about this moment these are some of the notable anecdotes about ral's childhood so there we are now done with this episode I hope you learned many things keep on watching the rol lectures this is Sir jet saying goodbye and thank you