The writers in the South speak out

I just returned from a four-day talkathon with our Visayan writers and teachers of literature in Tacloban and I must report with great elation that our Southern vernaculars are thriving and well, thanks to the efforts of writer-teachers like Merlie Alunan, Leoncio Deriada, David Geotiva, Raymond Fernandez, Resil Mojares, Marge Evasco and so many more who are out there, stoking their fires from out of the bushel. Our vernaculars are flourishing in revolt against the imperialism of Manila, the disdain of the Tagalistas and the snobbery of English writers. By striving as they do, they are also being rooted deep in our own soil.

Here are my answers to their questions:

Are Pilipino and Tagalog the same or different?

Tagalog chauvinists will go into euphemistic contortions to say that Pilipino — the so-called “National Language” — is not Tagalog. That is a blatant lie —Tagalog as it is spoken and taught is the same as the Pilipino that is propounded as the National Language. We go back to history and recall how Tagalog became the national language. Primarily, it was President Manuel Quezon’s doing; in 1935; being from Tayabas and true to his mother tongue, he declared Tagalog the national language, thereby creating the divisive discussion which continues to this very day. Let me cite again the case of Indonesia which succeeded in developing Bahasa without bruising ethnic sensibilities. As early as the ’20s when Indonesian freedom fighters were shaping the foundation of the Indonesian nation, they opted for Bahasa — the language of commerce in the ports of Southeast Asia.

Most of the Indonesian leaders were Javanese. Their language has classical literature and is the majority language as well. But those leaders knew that if they made it the national language, it would divide them. I know this for a fact; the leader of the Bahasa movement, Takdir Alisjahbana was a personal friend. Today, Bahas is spoken throughout Indonesia and is the language of instruction in all the schools. The Indonesian elite which spoke Dutch has also abandoned Dutch for English. But as the Indonesians themselves admit, they do not have enough translators to translate the latest scientific books in English and other languages.

Whether we like it or not, however, Tagalog has become the national language thanks to the movies, television and, of course to the public school system. In the 1950s when I was traveling in Mindanao, Tagalog was not understood in so many places there but English was. As for the real Pilipino which will be Tagalog based but will include a lot of words in our other languages, it will surely evolve not out of Manila but from Mindanao — Davao, which is the melting pot of all our languages, Leoncio Deriada predicted this 20 years ago.

Just consider this: if our leaders in the ’30s were from Cebu and Cebu was the capital, Cebuano would be our national language today. Also consider this —as my old friend Mochtar Lubis used to say, if the Dutch were only that strong, the Philippines would be a part of Indonesia today. Likewise, if the Spaniards were also more powerful, Indonesia would be a part of the Philippines today. Verily, our boundaries and our birthing sense of nation were shaped by colonialism.

What did I go through as a writer?

A Filipino writer’s life is harsh. There is no wealthy writer except one — but he did not grow rich from his writing. He inherited his wealth. For one, Filipinos do not read. At my doctor’s office and in the hospital corridor are so many people sitting, quietly staring into the cosmos. I am the only one who has brought a book or magazine. In other countries, in Japan, everyone is reading. The bookshops are full. So when young writers come to me and ask for advice, I ask if they are rich and when they say no, I tell them to marry someone rich, someone who can support them while they do their thing.

How do you assess your generation? Did you do a good Job?

My generation, alas, failed. We saw this nation slide into decay and despicable corruption; although we suffered greatly during World War II, in the 1950s and the 1960s, we were the country in Southeast Asia, the richest, the most progressive — next to Japan. Why did we decline? More than anything, we must remember to have a sense of the past so we can truly build the future. Look at us, at our neighbors who have surpassed us. Is Manny Pacquiao the only Filipino we can be proud of? We are a very talented and heroic people but our elites conditioned by colonialism do not appreciate us; they are now our colonizers. How I wish I had shouted louder, longer even to the point of becoming hoarse.

You said bad times create good literature. Are we not creating it now that we are in bad times?

Marcos jailed several writers but when he released them, they still wrote badly. Those years under the Marcos heel were difficult. I’m not too sure that those of us who suffered came out of the experience better writers. But of this I’m very sure. The late Nick Joaquin, Gilda Cordero Fernando, Gregorio Brillantes, Kerima Polotan — and the younger writers, Cirilo Bautista, Charlson Ong, Neil Garcia — they are excellent, better than some of the bestsellers in America and Europe. We are a small country, without the global reach of these Western writers but I know we have already produced excellent writing in English. So many brilliant young writers are coming up with astonishing fluency and imagination. Watch out for Vince Groyon, Dennis Aguinaldo, Criselda Yabes. I pray that they mature quickly, too.

Elaborate on the need for depth and more depth in literature.

Good literature should not only entertain but make us think, educate us about ourselves and teach us how to be more humane. My story, The God Stealer, it is not just about an Ifugao stealing his grandfather’s idol to give to an American friend. Nor is Melville’s Moby Dick just about a whaling ship captain obsessed with killing a giant white whale. Albert Camus’ “The Plague” is not just about a deadly disease enveloping a city; it inspired me to write Olvidon which is not just about an incurable skin disease that plagues a country’s leaders. We are a shallow people, but talented enough to make something more of our folk traditions. We don’t even know enough of our Christian faith, just as our Moslems have yet to understand Islam fully.

Is it important to write primarily for those who read you?

Rizal wrote in Spanish at a time when not even one percent of the 15 million Filipinos in the 1880’s could read Spanish. He had mastered the language — he was writing for himself, the Spaniards and the ilustrados. His novels impacted on even those who did not read them but knew about them. I am pleased to be read by Europeans, Americans and other Asians — I am not writing for them. I am writing for us. But my own countrymen do not really read me. In my own hometown, so few have read me.

Did you make a conscious decision to be a novelist when you were a journalist?

There is that saying that journalism is history in a hurry but that literature is history that is lived. When I say journalist, I don’t mean those who write daily reports for the front pages or the inner sections of a newspaper, or reporters who work for radio and TV. I am referring more to those who write longer pieces, analyses, reportage on people, places and events. I am referring to the articles of the late Nick Joaquin in the old Philippines Free Press and the longer essays on current affairs as they appear in our magazines and newspapers, to the commentaries of TV reporters like Howie Severino, Ces Drilon, Ricky Carandang. You will note that these people do a lot of research. Journalism has shortcomings, unlike in fiction where anything goes. Libel laws and other forms of harassment and even the ultimate criticism — assassination — are constant risks for the journalist; these are not the usual threats to the literary man. There are also more opportunities for journalists to be corrupted either by power or money. Such opportunities are rare for the literary writer. It is possible for the writer to be both; in fact, journalism offers the creative writer so much material, so much insight which he can use, material he cannot use as a journalist.

Literature is the noblest of the arts and writers should be of noble bearing. Forget it — some writers can be corrupt, mean; they can also be thieves and wife beaters. Writers should be judged not only by their writing but also by how they act and live.

The literary writer is, of course, superior. Almost anyone who can write a straight sentence can be a journalist. No, I did not make a conscious effort to be a novelist for I easily bridged the two professions.

The journalist is a craftsman, the novelist is an artist.

Some of those writers who stopped writing were also immersed in their times. How do you reconcile your statement that if you are not immersed you cannot continue?

Immersion is important because it enables the writer to know so much of his subject. But it is only part of the creative process. It is the rootedness that really matters, which sustains the writer, which makes him endure. Writers can be alienated from their own society without having to leave that society. I can see this in some of the writing of the very young today, their escapism, their copying trendy models, the literary and critical fads from the west, and for what? I can cite several writers in the Fifties who perished long before their time, of so many writers of great promise in the seventies who are now seemingly and permanently silent. Rootedness is the key, I repeat.

Indeed, rootedness defines the literatures in Cebuano, Waray, Ilonggo, Aklanon and Kinaray-a as they are written. These writers are also rectifying the Manila-centredness of our culture; a novel in Cebuano with a print run of 30,000 is regional, a novel published in Manila with a print run of only 500 is national.

Merlie Alunan who retires this month called her last academic contribution to literature “Claiming Home.” The claimers were the best from the region: from West Visayas: Genevieve Asenjo, John Barrios, John Iremil Teodoro, Mel Cichon; from Central Visayas: Lawrence Ypil, Josua Cabrera, Januar Yap, Adonis Durado, Servando Halili; from Eastern Visayas: Voltaire Oyzon, Timothy Montes, Antonino de Veyra, Daryl Delgado and Yvonne Esperas.

I could not quite follow the various readings but the locals did which illustrates only too well the close relationship of the Visayan languages unlike here in Luzon where an Ilokano like me can hardly understand Pangasinan, the other language in the province where I was born. What this intimacy with the other languages also illustrates is how effectively the water — the sea — truly unites us, not the land.

The workshop also showed how well the writers are extracting from their own traditions, their folk stories. And most of all, although many of them studied in the metropolis — like John Barrios — they elected to return to write in their mother tongue and claim their homes. They are very fortunate in this return for they have great teachers like Raymund Fernandez, David Geotiva and, of course, Leo Deriada who had for so long raised the torch for the native son.

One evening, if only to show that they have not foresworn their western tutoring, the students of Merlie Alunan did a dramatic reading and gave life to a couple of Filipino-English stories. They then staged in Waray a classic Greek play to the delight of an appreciative audience. They should present the play to a wider audience in Leyte and for the poets to declaim in public celebrations and revive our oral tradition.

Yvonne Esperas read her Waray poem — short, carefully nuanced, and ended it by singing a lullaby which many of the auditors — literature students and teachers — picked up, for it was a popular lullaby. To those who didn’t know the lullaby’s background, it was just beautiful. But to those who knew its genesis, it attained a poignancy rooted in history — the Balangiga massacre in Samar during the Philippine American war when the Americans made a “howling wilderness” of that island, killing villagers including women and children in retaliation for the death of their soldiers. The lullaby plaintively asks about a father who is gone and will never return. Balangiga: this is the theme of Merlie’s own anthology of poetry which will be released early next year.

Hope Yu of Cebu talked about her research on the mistress in the Cebuano novel. Since she said the mistress is the precursor of the modern Filipino woman, she was asked if she would make a moral judgment on her. Genevieve Asenjo said that literature is political. Resil agreed that, indeed, literature is moral but the writer should decide which side he is on.

Our vernaculars form a continuity with our oral and folk literature whereas the so-called mainstream literatures in Spanish and English obviously do not. Moreover, it is these vernacular writers, located in their native habitat who are closest to the land and people; they are truly writing for their very own.

Resil Mojares who is one of our leading lights is from Cebu. Some 20 years ago, he set up the Cebu Studies Center at the University of San Carlos wherefrom he is now retired but is still actively writing in Cebuano and, of course, in English. He relates how he once attended a writers’ conclave in Davao which also discussed regional writing and he felt that the discussions gave the conference the indelible appearance of an agro-industrial meeting. He warned the writers and teachers that regional writing should not be in a box, that it should contribute to the larger treasure trove which is the national literature.

This is a view which older writers like myself have always supported, because it relegated Tagalog literature into its correct position as just one of our literatures.

Workshops and writers’, conferences are not of much value in the fostering of the creative effort; yes, they do provide some insights into the craft, provide the younger writers some lessons particularly the clichés to avoid, the shortcuts to take in the achievement of technique. In the end, the importance of such gatherings lies in the bonding of the writers, in their getting to know one another so that they can form a community, and most important, a sense of purpose which unites as well. And in Tacloban, this decrepit octogenarian finally met and learned from Januar Yap, Timothy Montes, Voltaire Oyzon and so many others, not as feeble bylines from the cave, but as tomorrow’s purest literary gems.

Resil had long given our cultural development serious effort and thinking and is one of the firmest pillars in our culture. For all that the writers have done to bring historical consciousness to our people; he despairs that cynicism has grown, that for all the corruption, the mayhem that our leaders are committing, we are no longer outraged, we seem to take their rapine and wanton greed as constants to endure and live with.

All through life, we come across slogans, phrases in Latin which encapsulate our feelings and which we live by. Words like Sic transit gloria mundi. I came across this phrase when I was in high school and it has stuck with me since then: Ubi boni tacent, malum prosperat. “Evil prospers where good men are silent.” Fr. Joel Camaya of Don Bosco put down in Latin my paraphrase: Mors irae, ortus mali. “The death of outrage is the birth of evil.”

Think it over.