๐ ๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ฉ๐ข๐ง๐จ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ฌ๐ก๐๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐ฒ ๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ฎ๐ ๐ ๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐ก๐๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ก๐ข๐ฉ
By Junelie Velonta
HAPI Youth Ambassador & HAPI Scholar
While we now know and have rediscovered the ancient epics and myths of our forebears, it came with heavy labor. Yes, some of our stories survived. Yes, Filipinos still write and recite stories and poems. But what of our storied past? What of the poems that the Spanish, Americans, Japanese, and Marcos did not approve of? What of those that were lost?
In one of the earlier surviving poems made by an inhabitant of the Philippine islands, a Chinese mestizo named Carlos Calao wrote of Lapulapu as โthe giver of death to the Captain Magellan, under the orders of Satanโ and those that remembered Lapulapu were, themselves, โanother vile traitor.โ Titled โQue Dios le Perdoneโ (May God Forgive Him), it was published in 1614, less than 100 years since the โVictory at Mactanโ where Magellan died. While not unique in its lecture of โyouโve been defeatedโ and โyou should be thankful to the Spaniards,โ this was the type of literature that proliferated during the early colonial period. Why? Because it’s what the Spaniards liked. Those that the Spaniards did not like were not โworthyโ of being recorded. Sometimes, the Spaniards did something worse to the authors than to their works. If anything, these works were written by inhabitants of the Philippines, not for the other citizens to read and cherish, but for the Spaniards to congratulate themselves on.
Thus, old histories, myths, and stories, passed down from one generation to the next by word-of-mouth, were replaced by the memorization of prayers. Original works, written in Spanish by the intelligentsia of the time, which bore even the slightest sentiment of revolt were put down like how the Spanish put down uprisings.ย
The Spanish were not unique in this practice, however. In fact, the Americans did it. The Japanese did it. Even the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos did it, with his banning of Voltes V (among many TV and radio stations). But creativity finds a way. Near the end of the Spanish occupation, Rizal and his compatriots wrote extensively to rouse the Filipino identity. Filipino guerillas during the American and Japanese occupations sang of their mothers and their families to come to terms with their mortality, and to remind themselves for whom they fight for. Poets, fictionists, singers, and all types of artists came together in unity to create, countering the Marcos dictatorship in ways they knew how. Most famously, the song โHandog ng Pilipino sa Mundo,โ a song born out of cooperation and collaboration, shouted to the world that even when faced with systemic violence, a revolt founded on justice and peace could be done: such was the offer of the Filipino to the world!
Today, writing and literature are no longer monopolized by the moneyed and connected. (Well, at least to a certain degree.) Through social media, through the internet, anyone can project their voice. Today, Filipino literature still lives. The literature of today is a sign of who we are as a people. The literature of today is our dedication to the past. The literature of today is our message to the future.
๐ป๐ข๐ค๐๐ ๐๐ข๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ฆ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ข๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐.
๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ค๐๐ก ๐ก๐๐’๐ฆ ๐๐๐๐ฆ๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐.
