A BRIEF ON THE STATE OF CREATIVE WRITING IN EASTERN VISAYAS,

1982-2018
THE WARAY DIALECTS

There are four major kinds of dialectal distinctions in the Waray language. There
is the primary distinction between the Leytenhon and the Samarnon Waray. Tacloban
City is the center of the Leytenhon Waray. I dare not declare this as the standard Waray
for that would be treading on disputed ground. Then there are the secondary
distinctions among the Samarnon Warays, that subdivides into at least three
geographical and political sub-groups, each with its own distinctive dialect.
Kinalbayog, or Calbayognon, is spoken in Western Samar, or Samar as the area is
generally referred to; Estehanon is spoken in Eastern Samar whose center is Borongan
City; Nortehanon is the Waray dialect spoken in Northern Samar with Catarman as its
center.
Despite differences in lexis and intonation, Warays everywhere have no trouble
communicating with one another. The Taclobanon and the Nortehanon may speak to
each other, each in his/her own lingua without making any adjustments and no one
blinks. However, there are hardly any crossovers of vocabulary and intonation among
the varietals in the linguistic exchange. Judging from what we have seen of the few past
efforts to anthologize Waray writing, we note an unfortunate tendency to represent
Waray literature with works produced in Leyte. It might be because there was a fairly
accessible trove of published materials in the now defunct Divine Word University
Museum in Tacloban, printed in periodicals published between 1898 to the ‘60s.

ORAL TRADITION

The earliest description of Waray Literature goes back to the Jesuit chronicler, Fray
Ignacio Francisco de Alzina. This is contained in his nine-volume Historia de las Islas e
Indios de Bisayas" (1668). The Franciscan priest, Cantius J. Kobak, O. P. and Lucio
Gutierrez, O. P. translated Alzina’s works into English1 and annotated them. Alzina
noted the vigorous oral tradition among the Bisaya, recording a number of forms. The
ambahan, the bical, the balac, the siday, the anogon, and the awit were among the forms he
named. He mentions only two narrative forms: the sareta, or susumaton, and the posong.
In discussing those categories, he gives examples of stories and epics in summary form
and in Spanish translation. He was reluctant in recording whole narratives in the

1 Ignacio Francisco de Alzina, Historia de las Islas e Indios de Bisaya translated by Cantius J.
Kobak, O.P. and Lucio Gutierrez, O.P. into History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands:
Evangelization and Culture at the Contact Perio
Visayan dialect, because he feared that the non-Bisayan readers of his time would not
find them of value.2
One of the earliest scholars of Waray literature, Marilou Vilches, got her
information about early Waray literature from Alzina's account. Referring to written
literature, Vilches writes, “Waray poetry took shape in the 17th Century when the
people began to use the Romanized alphabet fairly well.”3 She affirms that the Waray
language community did have a well-developed oral literature, generally referred to as
luwa, "a spontaneous verse or oral discourse, [but] usually in verse."4 Poetry served a
variety of social functions, such as for entertainment, rituals of courtship and marriage,
to praise or honor people, to mourn, to teach, to pass on wisdom. Of the forms recorded
by Alzina, the survivors are those embedded in social functions. Examples of these are
the puplonganon or siringganon (proverbs), terse clever metaphorical statements bearing
wisdom or advice, and the titigohon (riddles). "Kun an taklap haligot, mabaluktot" (If the
blanket is short, curl up), an adage about living within one's means. "Diri mahuni an
balingkukugo kun diri tipatay" (The snail does not make a sound until it is dying), a
cryptic message which may refer to the truth in the confessions of the dying. In most of
the Visayas, riddling jousts are held during wakes to entertain the mourners and lift the
spirits of the bereaved. New riddles may be invented on the spot, but old riddles are
always rehashed. Gaming riddles reveal the playful side of language5 such as: ;An guti
iniibanan, an damo gindidinugangan" (paglimas han baluto), Take from the little to add to
the plenty (bailing a boat); "Uupat an siki, di nakakalakat" (lamisa), It has four feet but
cannot walk (table).
Many old songs are still part of the culture but being familiar, they tend to be
ignored. A second look at these seemingly innocent ditties reveal the inner codes of
sexual conduct and gender relationship cleverly disguised by euphemism. Lubi-lubi, for
example, has a thinly-masked narrative about an older man sexually attracted to a
precocious girl child who encourages his suit:

Lubi-lubi lubi-lubi, lubi lingkoranay,

Ayaw gad pagsak-i kay hibuboayay.
Kun maruruyag ka kumaon hin silot,
didto la, nga didto la kan Nanay,
nga didto la kan Tatay,
ngan didto la pakigsabot.

2 Kobak in Gregorio C. Luangco, ed. Kandabao: Essays on Waray Language. Tacloban City:
Divine Word University Publications, 1982.
3
Kobak in Luangco.
4 Vilches, Maria Luz C. An Annotated Collection of Visayan Riddles from Leyte and Samar
Philippines. Tacloban City: Divine Word University Publications, 1978.
5
http://literarydevices.net/riddles/, Sept. 4 2015
 Lubi-lubi, lubi-lubi, / lubi lingkoranay, / Please don't climb it,/ it's too short. / If you
want to eat / the young coconut, / Get you now, get you now / to Nanay, get you now /
to Tatay, and there / make your wish known.

The oral traditions are active to this day, enhanced by the broadcast media and the
karaoke culture which Filipinos everywhere seem to have embraced with great
enthusiasm. To this day, print and publication remain elusive in Samar and Leyte.
Radio and the karaoke, and perhaps even the Internet, serve the literary impulse.

ENTRY INTO PRINT: SANGHIRAN SAN BINISAYA

AND ISSUES ON LANGUAGE 1860-1970

Pride of race and identity surged among the Warays at the end of Spanish
sovereignty in the islands. "The introduction of democracy and popular education by
the Americans,” Vilches notes, “provided a stimulus to cultural life, that resulted in the
emergence of literacy and the educated group.” The liberal atmosphere spurred the
appearance of periodicals which became the vehicles for publication of early written
Waray poetry.6 Among these periodicals are: An Kaadlawan, reputedly the first, founded
by Iluminado Lucente (1906), La Voz de Leyte (1907), An Makabugwas, Noli Me Tangere,
Pahayagan Sine nga Akademya san Binisaya sa Samar ug sa Sidlangan san Leyte (1925), Eco de
Samar y Leyte (1911-1940), An Tingog san Kabisay'an (1927), An Lantawan (1928-1942),
Leyte Shimbun (1942), The Courier (1959). 7
Sanghiran san Binisaya was founded in 1909 with the leadership of Norberto
Romualdez, Sr. The Sanghiran mission was to "cultivate, refine, and enrich the dialect
spoken in Samar and Oriental Leyte.”8 Notably the same people actively engaged in
setting out the periodicals were also behind the Sanghiran. Its members included Jaime
de Veyra, Iluminado Lucente, Juan Ricacho, Casiano Trinchera, Francisco Enfectana,
Espiridion Brillo, Francisco Alvarado and Eduardo Makabenta. Everyone of these men
was a poet. The Sanghiran also drew up the rules for the usage of the Waray language
in poetry. It adopted the dodeca-syllabic line, the quatrain, and the rhyme as norms for
Waray poetry, borrowing the form from the Spanish verse alexandrine, Thus there was
a uniformity of form in the poetry of the Sanghiran.
Resil Mojares uses the term “mitotic” to describe this near-uniformity of poetic
practice in the works of Visayan poets from the 1900s to as late as the 1970s.

In this period, one witnesses the triumph of Spaniard metrics and a concern for
correctness. The refinement of language was a popular preoccupation as writers
debated problems of vocabulary and such principles of poetry as sukod (meter),
ugtok or kudlit (accentuation), and bagay (rhyme). However the concern for
correctness and harmony (kananoy) combined with romantic notions of the Poet

6
Vilches in Luangco.
7
Ibid.___
8
Ibid.__.
 (Magbabalak), also locked Cebuano poetry into the “poetic" mode that had its
limits: the overcultivation of certain kinds of diction and sentiment, such that
Cebuano poetry acquired a mitotic quality (read one and you've read them all). 9

Probably the first anthologist of Waray literature was Vicente I. de Veyra, one of
the stalwarts of the Sanghiran. He entitled his early work Hinugpong nga mga Siday,
Garaygaday, Titiguhun, Liaw-Libang, Diwata (1914).10 In 1968, Fr. Raymond
Quetchenbach, SVD established the Leyte-Samar Research Center in the Divine Word
University. The Center published the bi-annual Leyte-Samar Studies Journal. An issue of
the journal was devoted to Lineyte-Samarnon Poems (1974). This was followed by
Gregorio Luangco's Kandabao, a collection of essays on Waray literature, and Waray
Literature, an anthology.11 The Journal lasted for twenty-four years and closed shop in
1982, four years before DWU itself shut down after losing a bitterly contested labor
conflict. These were among the early efforts to pay serious attention to Waray literary
heritage. These early efforts were followed by Ani IV No. 1, dated March 1990,12 a
literary journal produced by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and edited by Charo
Nabong-Cabardo, Fra Paolo Maria Diosdado (Casurao) and A. O. Llaneta. The book
contains twenty-seven pieces representing the works of some nineteen contemporary
writers. Included in this collection is a transcript of Mga Luwa nga Amoral, poetry about
courtship and love, and ismayling, a verse joust similar to the balitaw of the Cebuanos. In
the Introduction, Nabong-Cabardo, et. al. mentions Filomeno Singzon, Pablo Rebadulla,
Tomas Gomez, Oskar Munje, Sabas Abobo, Connie Sison, and Crescencia Beso as poets
of Samar, but not all these poets are represented in the collection. Thirteen years after
Luangco's work was published, Jaime Biron Polo came out with his Panulaan at Dulaang
Lineyte-Samarnon (1994) published by Ateneo de Manila University Press.13 Polo's
intention was to bring Waray literature into the mainstream of national literature by
translating them into Filipino. Victor N. Sugbo's Tinipigan (1995) came out a year after
Polo’s. He wanted to showcase the best of Waray writing from the Sanghiran poets up
to the 1990s. The collection is thin because, according to him, his “field work in
preparation for the book turned up little poetry and much ethnographic
memoranda.”14 Duke Bagulaya wrote his master's thesis for UP on contemporary
Waray literature. His book is entitled Writing History: Mode of Economic Production and

9
Resil Mojares, “Looking Backward, Forward” in Alburo, Erlinda K. et al., eds. Cebuano Poetry:
Sugbuanong Balak Until 1940. Cebu City: Cebuano Studies Center, 1988.4 Filamor, 89-108
10
http://waraymuseum.blogspot.com/2010/09/hinugpong.html
11
The works of Raymond Quetchencack and Gregorio Luangco were the only published materials
available on
Waray Literature for a very long time.
12
Ani: Literary Journal of the Coordinating Center for Literature, vol. IV no. 1, Waray Issue. Manila:
Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1990.
13
Panulaan at Dulaang Leytenhon-Samarnon Kalakip an Orihinal na Leytenhon-Samarnon. Manila:
Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994.
14
Tinipigan, __.
20th Century Waray Poetry (2006), the only book-length critique ever done on Waray
literature.15

BACK TO ORALITY: PERFORMANCE POETRY

By the ‘60s local periodicals have all stopped coming out except for sporadic issues of
short-lived community papers. Broadcast media and the national dailies served the
information and entertainment needs of the whole country. Waray writing leaned back
on the reliable tradition of orality, finding its audiences in town fiestas and local
festivals and celebrations. The governor may be obliged to recite a siday to honor the
fiesta queen. A siday to inaugurate the opening of a new school or an irrigation dam. A
siday to welcome a new arrival or bid farewell to someone leaving. Weddings,
baptisms, funerals were all occasions for the recitation of a siday, commissioned from
the local bard, for that very special event. Politicians hired poets to deliver sidays in
praise of his virtues. Poets offered their talents for free or for a fee. They turned to the
popular stock of poetic lines and phrases, which was more or less what their "clients"
expected, taking their pleasure from the tried and tested, the familiar and comfortable.
So far no women poets of any importance showed up in the period between 1898
to 1970. Men wrote about women in predictable ways. Women were praised as
goddesses or inspiring muses, or vilified as extravagant and capricious, cold and
faithless Jezebels. Male poets portrayed themselves as long-suffering victims of the
coldness and cruelty of women. No woman poet ever dared to talked back.
The enthusiasm for writing in Binisaya did not last beyond the generation of the
Sanghiran writers. We may attribute this to following factors. Only English and Filipino
were allowed in the classrooms of both public and private schools of the country.
English was used for the businesses of government and commerce. The educated found
little use for Binisaya in the pursuit of their careers. Binisaya became the language of the
streets and the marketplace, without status, pride and honor among its users. The
intelligentsia were no longer interested in writing or reading in the mother language.
English language publications dominated the print media. Venues for publication for
writers in the mother-tongue disappeared. By the ‘80s, Agustin El O'Mora, the poet of
Palo, was practically writing alone, without any hope of publication, the last of the
giants of Sanghiran. In the 70s and 80s, Waray literature went back into the closets. The
Sanghiran and its writers languished in neglect and oblivion.
By the 1980s, Waray literature was almost back to its preliterate state. Iluminado
Lucente and Eduardo Makabenta were vaguely remembered, but no one has read any
of their works, nor were they available anywhere. But this state of things affected, not
only the Visayan language communities but all other language communities reduced to
subordinate status by the national language policy. Keeping the mother languages out
of academe resulted in the marginalization and degradation of the cultures that they

15
Duke Bagulaya. Writing Literary History: Mode of Production and 20th Century Waray Poetry. University of the
Philippines Press, 2006.
embodied. Even the native speakers learned to look down on their own language.
Those with literary talent turned to English or Filipino as their creative medium, these
being the only two languages in the country with publication opportunities. The
situation prompted the National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera to declare in the early
1990s that Visayan literatures, including Waray, were dead. After all, no new literary
pieces were being created in the languages and readership hardly existed.

REVIVAL: VISWRITE: VISAYAS WRITING WORKSHOP:

UP TACLOBAN COLLEGE

Four faculty members of the Arts and Sciences Program began the UP Tacloban
College creative writing workshop in 1983: Victor N. Sugbo, William Remollo, David A.
Genotiva, and Merlie M. Alunan. The 1983 workshop gathered poets from the
grassroots whose literary practice was based on the poorly-understood stylistics of the
Sanghiran. On the other hand, the teachers were no better, schooled as they were on the
Anglo-American literary traditions and practically ignorant of local traditions. In any
case, it was a beginning.
Leoncio Deriada started holding workshops in Panay in the 80s. Merlie Alunan
together with her colleagues continued holding workshops in Tacloban. In the mid-90s,
the UP Diliman Institute of Creative Writing (UPICW) was trying to expand its reach to
the Philippine countryside and was tentatively admitting mother tongue writers into its
workshops. Deriada and Alunan, who can both read in the Visayan mother tongues,
became associate faculty of the ICW. The ICW affirmed the value of writing workshops
and the work that the two were doing. Their involvement in the UP Diliman workshops
more or less affirmed the value of creative writing and obliged the autonomous
university to support the fledgling workshops in its campuses. Creative writing
workshops became regular annual events for the UPV campuses, supported by a
succession of chancellors, from Dr. Arsenio Camacho in 1993-98, Dr. Ida Siason (1998-
2005), and Dr. Glenn Aguilar (2005-2008).
The UPTC Visayas Writing Workshop or VisWrite was established in 1997
following a grant from UP President Emil Javier. VisWrite survived for more than ten
years, augmenting its original fund from other sources, including the UPV Office of the
Chancellor and the NCCA. In 2004, VisWrite collaborated with the TTMIST (Tiburcio
Tancinco Memorial Institute of Science and Technology, now the Northwestern Samar
State University or the NorWeSSU) in Calbayog City in developing the Lamiraw
Creative Writing Workshop for Samar. The first step was to link the Lamiraw with the
NCCA-CLA as funding source. This enabled the school to sustain the workshop from
2004 to 2014.
Thus creative writing workshops have been going on in Samar and Leyte among
the Waray language communities over the last thirty years or more, starting from 1983.
Fellows from VisWrite and Lamiraw were accepted in other workshops in the Visayas
and Mindanao, notably the Cornelio Faigao Creative Writing Workshop in Cebu, the
MSU-IIT workshop in Iligan City, and the Iyas workshop of the University of St. La
Salle in Bacolod City. Lamiraw also counts writers from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao
among its Fellows. VisWrite, the "mother" workshop held its last gathering on
December 2008. Lamiraw carried on the work under aegis of the NorWesSSU.

BACK TO PRINT

At least six collections of poetry in Waray came out in the first twenty-five years
after the first workshop in 1983.

1. Voltaire Oyzon, An Maupay ha mga Waray ug Iba nga mga Siday, NCCA (2008)
2. Victor N. Sugbo, Inintokan, UP Press (2008).
3. Harold L. Mercurio, Ayaw Pagpudla an Tuog ug Iba pa nga mga Siday, UBUD-
AILAP (2010)
4. Neil Lopido, Ha Salog ug Iba pa nga mga Siday, UBUD-AILAP (2010)
5. Janis Claire Salvacion, Siso Sakradang ug Iba nga mga Siday ha Taguangkan,
6. Victor N. Sugbo, Taburos han Dagat, UP Press (2014)
7. Jerry Gracio, Waray Hiunong ha Gugma, AdNU Press, 2016

Hermenigildo Sanchez came out with a compilation of the hagsi (haglipot nga
siday, ‘short poem’), a form that he invented. Nemesio Baldesco published ___, and __,
two volumes of his collected poems (add titles)

In the Arts Month celebration of 2018, .members of the KATIG WRITERS

NETWORK came out with zines and chapbooks showcasing their works. The
publications enjoyed respectable sales in the towns where they were displayed. The
writers endeavored to spend for the printing of their own works. These publications
may be attributed to the activities of the creative writing workshops of VisWrite and
Lamiraw over the last thirty years. Waray writing is back to print after a hiatus of more
than fifty years. An interesting development is the collaboration and exchange among
the Visayan language communities. Waray poets are also claiming the authority of their
language for publication opportunities in the global scene. The publication of the poetry
of Firie Jill Ramos in Cha An, a Hongkong based Asian literary journal is an example.

MORE PUBLICATIONS. Building up the spare corpus of Waray literature are the
following new publications:

1. Alunan, Merlie M., Sa Atong Dila Anthology of Visayan Literature

(UP Press, 2015). (Winner, National Book Award, 2016)
2. Alunan, Merlie M. Susumaton: Oral Narratives of Leyte (Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 2015). (Winner, National Book Award, 2017)
3. Alunan, Merlie M. et. al. Tinalunay Hinugpong nga Panurat nga Waray (UP
ress, 2017).
4. Alunan, Merlie et. al., An Siday Siday han DYVL (NCCA, 2005).
 KATIG WRITERS NETWORK

In 2003, a respectable number of writers, mostly alumni of the VisWrite and the
Lamiraw Workshops, decided to organize. This was the nucleus of KATIG or KATIG-
UBAN HAN MGA MANUNURAT HA SAMAR UG LEYTE. The organization is
registered with the SEC It has taken charge since then, of managing the literary art
scene in Region 8. As of the present, KATIG is running the following programs:

1. Lamiraw Creative Writing Workshop (LCWW). NorWeSSU divested itself of

interest in the LCWW and turned it over to KATIG in 2014.. Under KATIG,
LCWW has become a mobile community workshop, with a different host
institution each time, within Samar, Leyte and Biliran.
2. Chito Roño Awards for Literature. This contest is held annually. Prize money
comes from film director, Chito Roño.
3. Gawad Makabenta Award. Prize money was originally donated by the
Makabenta Family.
4. Boy Abunda Fellowship for Literature. This is a fund donated by the TV
personality, Boy Abunda, to support the attendance of a young writer from
Samar or Leyte in the Lamiraw creative writing workshops or in any creative
writing workshop held elsewhere.
5. Kaliding han Siday. An annual event usually held during the Arts Month
(February), a reading tour done in collaboration with LGUs and key
institutions all over the region.
6. Zinefest, also held during the Arts Month.
7. Publication. Katig is set to publish a few titles in this first endeavor at
Publication. In the pipeline are these projects: Pinili: Fifteen Years of Lamiraw;
Garab; Dalan Tipauli; Sasaro.
8. Translation. Some writers of Katig believe that translation is one way to enrich
and broaden the literature of Eastern Visayas.

HONORS AND RECOGNITION

GAWAD PLARIDEL AWARD 2016 for An Mga Siday han DYVL. A recognition for Mass
Media, the award was given to the Radio Program, Poplunganon for Outstanding Public
Service. The book, An Mga Siday han DYVL, written under the auspices of the UPTC
VisWrite, was cited as concrete proof of the importance of the radio program to the
cultural development of Region 8. The award was given to Ms. Francisca “Babes
Custodio,” station manager and anchor of the Poplunganon program.

UMPIL GAWAD ALAGAD NI BALAGTAS for NEMESIO BALDESCO and VICTOR N.

SUGBO. Apart from their own outstanding performance as artists, recognition for these
poets are an offshoot of their engagement in the literary development of Region 8.
 DEVELOPMENT GOALS

1. More publication and increased readership. Sustain the growth and development
achieved over the last thirty years by increasing interest in Waray writing and
improving the quality of literature being produced.
2. Improving the quality of contemporary works in the mother tongue.\
3. Retrieval and scholarship of the Waray literary heritage, including materials in the
oral tradition to build up the bod of Waray literature. The works of known Waray
writers such as Lucente, Makabenta and Rebadulla remain inaccessible.
4. Training teachers how to teach mother-tongue literature.
5. Training teachers how to teach creative writing.
5. Translation of works in other languages into Waray to increase the quality and
quantity of available reading materials in the language.

###

Merlie M. Alunan
September 26, 2018