On Native Grounds: The Significance of Regional Literature

By Resil B. Mojares
Over the past decade there has been a widening effort at revaluing the concept of a “national”
literature in the Philippines. While the image of a national literature has preoccupied writers and
scholars at various turns in Philippine history — during the first flush of nationalism with Rizal and
the propagandists, during the Japanese Occupation with its cultivated mystique of a “Malayan” past
— it can perhaps be said that at no other time has the concept been subjected to as rigorous a
scrutiny as today.
In the current investigation of national literature, as well as in its formation, regional literatures have
assumed importance. By regional literature is meant the literary traditions, written or oral, of the
various ethno-linguistic groups in the country, communities that, despite much internal migration,
can still be said to have distinct geographical settings or identities. Often, and legitimately so, the
concept of regional literature is opposed to that of the literature of court and capital, the ruling
literatures in English, Spanish, and, to an extent, Tagalog. This is a reflex of our literary history where
regional literatures have often been consigned to the level of subliteratures. In practice, therefore,
the concept of regional literature in the Philippines is often subsumed under the wider concept of
vernacular literature, encompassing both creative and folk traditions. In view of the facts of
Philippine literary history, particularly the imbalances caused by the colonial experience, regional
analysis is necessarily involved in a study of the opposition between center and periphery, between
dominant and minority literatures.
Various critics have asserted that today we cannot as yet speak of a national literature. Constantino
and Sikat, referring to our literature as fragmented (watak-watak), argue that we cannot as yet
formally claim that we have a ‘national literature’ in the Philippines (Sa Pilipinas ay hindi pa rin natin
pormal na masasabi na mayroon nang pambansang literature). They cite the fact that in view of the
lack of sustained or systematic regional or cross-regional studies we still have to define the total body
of literary traditions in the country as well as bring these traditions to the level of popular,
interrogational appreciation. The need for a broadly-based, systematic investigation of vernacular
and regional literatures is then high in the agenda of today’s literary scholars. Rolando S. Tinio
comments: “At the moment, it is difficult to characterize the national literary sensibility because the
great bulk of vernacular literature has remained uncollected. Hence, it seems imperative that
massive basic research in vernacular literature be undertaken.” The importance of such a study is
underscored by Bienvenido Lumbera: “Herein lies the importance of research in the history of
regional literatures — as it attains thoroughness and accuracy, it is bound to assist in revising the
existing literary history of the Philippines.”
Such interest derives from the recognition of the importance of regional literature as a component of
national literature. In many cases in the past, the national literature has been uncritically equated
with the ruling literatures, the literature of ‘court and capital,’ one largely produced and patronized
by a small cultural elite and externally defined by its use of a foreign medium (Spanish and English),
and, to a certain extent, the literature of the primate region of the country though this may be
written in a native language (i.e., Tagalog) as well as popular in character. Because of such uncritical
equations, judgments on Philippine literature have often been distorted by deducing from a limited
area truths which are then made to generally apply to the total field of ‘Philippine literature.’
Such lapses are serious when we consider that the greater bulk of the population is in the outlying
regions, and that the literary experience of the people of these regions largely operates within the
limits of their respective traditions as expressed or transmitted in their own languages. Even
readership figures, though imprecise, will tell us something of what is missed. The prestigious
English-language magazine of the 1930s, Philippine Magazine, edited by A.V.H. Hartendorp, had a
registered monthly circulation of 6,500. This easily pales in comparison with such locally circulated
regional vernacular magazines of the same period as the Cebuano Bag-ong Kusog with a weekly
circulation of 10,975 and Babaye with a weekly circulation of 8,000, or the Ilonggo Ylang-Ylang with
7,793, and Banaag with 10,560, both of weekly circulation. Yet, while Philippine Magazine is well-
mined by researchers, as important as a ‘high point’ in Philippine letters memorialized, the regional
vernacular magazines just mentioned have remained in the bin of literary scholarship and of the
cultural consciousness of today’s writers.
Something of what is missed is also seen as we consider the tremendous volume of literary
productions to be found in the books, pamphlets, and periodicals which have been published in the
various regional languages. The massive work of collecting, cataloguing, and indexing these widely
scattered materials has just begun. Undoubtedly the bulk of works to be recovered and studied is
large. One only has to note that as against 64 Filipino novels in English produced in 1921–1966, some
1,000 Tagalog novels were published in the first quarter of the present century alone.
Furthermore, there is the matter of the rich oral traditions in the provinces, a field which literary
scholars, to their loss, have largely left for the ethnologists and folklorists to mine. Interest in
folkloristic studies has in recent years intensified as it has also adopted and developed more
sophisticated instrument analysis. This has resulted in, among other things, the recovery of many
oral texts and of such surrounding data as would be necessary for the full appreciation of such folk
creations. The importance of these efforts cannot be overemphasized for we have in traditional or
folk works the necessary foundation on which a national literature must stand and a source from
which writers can draw sustenance in the form of subjects, insights, and styles. In the light of the fact
that much contemporary Philippine literature is pallid for having been nourished on the thin surface
soil of borrowed literary ideas, this digging into the depths of traditional literature should augur well
for the future of Philippine writing as it situates writers more firmly in a more richly defined and
better understood native cultural tradition.
The neglect of vernacular and folk literature may be due, in large part, to a critical orientation
fastidiously cultivated in the academies since the end of the Pacific War which focuses interest on a
historically static order of “great works” and the analyses of formal qualities, and to literature
programs which accord only the most minimal share to the study of the native literatures. One
consequence of the situation has been a bias against sociological studies of literature; or, where such
studies are undertaken, an incapacity to probe deeply into the structure and meaning of the native
literary experience.
The study of the country’s ‘subliteratures’ should result in a number of consequential readjustments
in our understanding of Philippine literature. For one thing, it will uncover the importance of a great
mass of work often derisively dismissed as ‘popular’ or ‘hack’ writing — the fiction, verse, and other
works published in commercial vernacular periodicals. Much of this work is undoubtedly subliterary.
Yet, an understanding of Philippine literature in its totality will be incomplete and flawed if due
consideration is not accorded such works as have been called ‘the undergrowth of literature.’
There is another value to the study of regional and vernacular literatures. Philippine literature in
English is a literature distinctly bourgeois in the character of its producers, consumers, styles, and
preoccupations. Because of this, the reality it unfolds has its peculiar refractions, limitations, and
biases. On the other hand, vernacular literature, associated with as it is with a different and lower
social class, lies close to the soil, as it were, and provides us with insights into a different order of
reality, with its own characteristic patterns of thinking and feeling and modes of expression.
A study of regional and vernacular literature, therefore, should lead us to a fuller understanding of
the Philippine cultural landscape as we cut across social classes and geographical regions. Regional
analysis should lead us to an understanding of the cultural concomitants of “the areal differentiations
caused by the gradual variations in the spatial interaction of physical and human elements.” At the
same time, a more democratic approach to literature will enable us to see more fully not only a
people’s experience as it is revealed in art but also the genesis and growth of ideas and forms in
literature. What will emerge from all this is a more accurate estimation of Philippine literary
tradition. What need to be pursued assiduously today are scientific regional and cross-regional
literary studies. Such studies, insofar as they relate to the existing as well as emerging lineaments of
Philippine literature or literary history, will be important insofar as they reveal similarities or
continuities among various Philippine literary traditions, as well as variations among these traditions.
Constantino and Sikat believe that a basis for a common tradition can be found in the similarity of
the linguistic structures of Philippine languages, of historical experience, literary development,
motifs and conventions. “In general, it can be said that it is only in language that our literatures vary”
(Sa pangkalahatan, halos sa wika nga lamang nagkakaiba-iba ang ating mga literatura). Thorough
going regional and cross-regional studies should deepen our understanding of the overall continuity
of the Philippine literary tradition.
On the other hand, a more dynamic kind of continuity can be appreciated if we delve into the
variations that diversify our common literary experiences as a people. In this respect, one can quote
Fr. H. de la Costa’s observation on an important aspect of Philippine culture:
… acculturation varied horizontally, from region to region, and vertically, from class to class, resulting
in significant differences within a recognizably common culture…. The piecemeal process by which
these islands were peopled, the varying patterns of our trade with neighboring lands, and the
greater or lesser degree of penetration effected by the Spanish and American colonial systems — all
these aspects of our history suggest that while it is possible to speak of a national culture common to
the Philippines as a whole, we must expect significant horizontal and vertical variations.
The study of regional literatures — and, more important, their entry into our shared cultural
consciousness as a nation — should both define and strengthen tradition. For one, it should lead us
to a juster estimation of our cultural history. In fact, a few themes in the current reevaluation of our
literary history have already been offered. Tinio says: “The tradition of Philippine literature must be
seen as vernacular, with writings in Spanish and English by Filipino as minor phases within the
historical continuum.” In the same vein, Lumbera remarks: “English writing and Spanish writing, for
that matter, ought to be treated as they should, as minor branches grafted into onto our literature by
Western colonialism.” More detailed research should show the degree to which such claims can be
made.
For another, by enlarging and enriching tradition, the study of regional literature should enhance the
value of tradition for us today. In this respect, one can paraphrase T.S. Eliot on the nature and value
of tradition for the contemporary writer.
What we know of our literature today forms an ideal order which shall be modified with the
introduction into our consciousness of the works of our dimly explored regional literatures. What will
happen as a consequence is the alteration of the existing order, the adjustment and readjustment of
the relations, proportions, and values of each idea and each work to the whole. We shall, in the
process, define the frontiers of tradition, the limits of this order, more accurately. On this basis we
shall then know the points beyond which we should go.
Harnessing Regional Literature for National Literature
by Bienvenido Lumbera
“Literature of the Philippines.” “Filipino Literature.” “National Literature.”
Do the above terms refer to one and the same body of literary works? The first—“Literature of the
Philippines” —refers to the totality of works found within the territory called the Philippines. It
implies that there is a unifying thread binding all works found within the said territory. It could be
that the unity derives from the race of people producing literary works in the Philippines. Another
possibility is that a common experience of history binds the works of authors residing in the
Philippines. It could be also that the authors recognize a single central government.
What might be the sense of “Filipino Literature?” First of all, the nationality of the authors is
“Filipino.” Secondly, that on the literary works taken together, nationality has left a mark that
distinguishes them from the writing of authors found elsewhere in the world. Juxtaposing the term
“Filipino Literature” with “Literature of the Philippines,” one may note that behind the term lies the
assumption that the literary works produced in one country carry the distinct stamp of the
nationality of the authors.
What lies behind the term “National Literature”? There is the assumption that the works are by
authors who are part of the nation and are willing participants in the aspirations of that nation. This
assumes that there exists a common concept of nation among the writers. Highlighted in the term
“National Literature” is the political character of literary production.
How did we get into the habit of assuming that the people inhabiting the territory occupied by the
Republic of the Philippines share a common idea of nationhood? According to Teodoro A. Agoncillo,
the people who were later to call themselves “Filipinos” began to have a consciousness of their
nationality as a result of events that started in the Cavite Mutiny of 1872. Although such an
interpretation of our history has been internalized by generations of young college graduates who
used Agoncillo’s textbook, up to the present, historiographers have not quite agreed on the signs
constituting the sense of nationhood among the Filipinos at that particular historical juncture. What
seems to have been clarified is the fact that by 1898, when the Malolos Republic was proclaimed, it
was the consciousness of the native landlord class that shaped the concept of nation among those
who called themselves “Filipinos.”
It was Benedict Anderson, seeking to understand nationalism in Southeast Asia, who used the term
“imagined community” to mean a community “dreamed up” by a people who aspired to become
one society, and whose members are in agreement about certain aspirations. And what was the
imagined community of the illustrados who thought up and constructed “the Filipino nation?” That
“community” began to take shape during the early years of the American occupation. When the
treaty ending the Spanish American War handed the Philippines over to the United States, many
ilustrados actively collaborated with the American invaders in anticipation of benefits that the new
colonial regime could bring them. The “imagined community” of so-called “revolutionary leaders”
like Pedro Paterno, Felipe Buencamino and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera was a community directed by
the interests of the rich landlords, and to be protected from the “simplemindedness” and
“ignorance” of the “indio” population.
Once the educational system set up by the Americans was in place, it was enthusiastically supported
by the Filipino upperclasses who saw in it their opening for participation in the blessings of the new
colonial regime. The literary works that came into the Philippines via the educational system catered
to the aspirations of the ilustrado class.
Aside from filtration by class, there was also filtration by language. With English as medium of
instruction, works by Filipino authors found only limited space in courses teaching literary
appreciation. Thus was the canon of Philippine literature, as we have received it from the past,
“purified.” Thus was our “national literature” constructed.
And so, let us turn once again to “regional literature.” Why is it that literary works in Spanish and
English, although written by regional writers, seem to transcend geographical and linguistic
boundaries, slipping away from the confines of “regional” literature” Surely, Resil B. Mojares must
have been revolting against such an anomaly when he put out under one cover a collection of English
fiction by Cebuano writers and called the anthology The Writers of Cebu (1978). Resistance to the
concept may explain why other anthologists have not come up with such collections as “Ilocano
Writing in English” or “Literatura Tagala en Español.” The language of the colonial masters have
indeed been so privileged that whatever is written in either Spanish or English seem to automatically
attain the stature of “national” writing.
Who was it who decided that regional literature ought to consist only of works written in the
vernacular? Who was it who relegated “regional literature” as a mere sub-category of “national
literature”? The questions are raised not so much to identify individual culprits as to identify the
structures that decreed certain literary works by Filipinos as “regional” but others, for reasons that
remain unclear, as “national.” As far as we can tell, such a system arose from the same consciousness
that set up the educational system, which in turn has been instrumental in spreading the notion that
language determines the classification of regional literature.
The task of historians and critics is to enrich the canon we now consider as our “national literature.”
Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for any one historian or critic to read and analyze literary works
coming from such a diversity of languages in the Philippines and thus be able to pick out individual
authors or groups of works for inclusion in the pantheon of “national literature.”
The need still remains for the bodies of works now designated as “regional literatures” to be
collected and studied by specialists. Translation into Filipino of regional works has been started, but
needs to be gone into with greater vigor. Since the 1960s, there has been a tremendous surge of
energy among young scholars and critics working on vernacular literature. Doubtless the coming
years will witness a radical shake-up of the existing canon of “national literature” which up to now
has been constituted largely by works coming from “Tagalog literature and Spanish and English
writing.
As we approach the day for the big shake-up, there is a need to find among the literary theories
proliferating in the contemporary academes in the world the theoretical framework that would best
engage regional literature and national literature in dialogue. The concept of “national literature” has
to be thoroughly interrogated so as to avoid the narrowness fostered by strictly formalist criteria, and
to make it possible for a set of politicized norms to allow hitherto marginalized writing and oral lore
to enter the canon.
And after the shake-up, what then? The categories “regional literature” and “national literature”
ought to be kept separate, with “regional literature” continuing to depict the specificities of life
experienced and viewed within a narrower framework and “national literature” expressing larger
concerns and broader perspectives. What ought to disappear, however, is the implicit judgement
that “national literature” consists of superior literary products and “regional literature” is everything
that could not make it as “national” literature. Such judgment was fed to intellectuals reared on
colonialist culture by our educational system, and future historians and critics should have no truck
with it.