His Works. part lll

This reflection was written by Dr. Graciano Lopez-Jaena as a tribute to the death of Pepe Panganiban. All of his works found posted in this blog was copied from the book stated in an earlier post, Graciano Lopez-Jaena: Speeches, Articles and Letters.

TO PEPE PANGANIBAN*

Here lies the avenger of Filipino honor.

(Meditation)

You went down to your grave young. Your brief life resembles that of Imbert Gallois who, desirous of fame, went to Paris from Geneva in search of renown and glory; but instead of applause, distinction and honor, he found only misery and with misery his early death. You, too, avid for learning came to Europe in search of the infinite life; but, alas, you found only the infinite of nothing: death.

The parallel between you two cannot be more perfect: two graves, two pits opened up for two young lives who could have brought honor and glory to their native countries.

Imbert died in poverty, forgotten and lost among the masses who breath their last in he dunghill of poverty. Notwithstanding, a letter of his – only one letter – found on the corpse of Imbert, sufficed to reveal to the immortal pen of the immortal Victor Hugo a genius, dead no sooner than born. Thus, likewise, through your writings, certainly very few, because of the disease undermining you health and paralyzing your mind, we discovered, we observed that in your fragile body a genius was quickening, now a lost hope for the Philippines.

Your brain was a fountain of beautiful ideas. What a pity that you did not have time and inexorable death prevented you from revealing the sublime conceptions of your fecund mind, which could have earned you an illustrious name in the history of science, a distinguished name in the history of rational eclectic philosophy to whose study you were truly dedicated.

*This tribute to José María Panganiban (1 Feb. 1863 – 19 August 1890), nom de plume “Jomapa”, was published in La Solidaridad, 1890.

José María Panganiban died of tuberculosis. – T.A.A