Joshua Lawrence B.

Perez Socio 179 — Summary #4

2013-43336 / BA Sociology Prof. Laura Samson

Introduction to the Siday1

By Michael Carlo Villas

This paper introduces us to the Siday and does textual analysis on Waray poems produced from 1923
to 2010 that address the topic of the “language issue”.

- The oral literary tradition of Waray began way before the Spanish colonization as chronicled by the
Jesuit, Fray Francisco Ignacio Alzina.

- Of the early poetic forms such as ambahan, bical, balac, sidai, haya, awit, candu and canogon, it was
the siday that proved to be the most enduring

- Its adaptability to different occassions and its deeply reflective character may be the reasons for
its continued thriving today (Vilches,1982).

- It was originally sung and its purpose was to praise the virtues and achievements of people, their
ancestors, and the beauty of women.

Sanghiran san Binisaya

- The founding of the Sanghiran San Binisaya in 1909 provided the impetus to the growth of Waray
writing.

- It aimed to propagate the Leyte-Samar language, literature, and culture.

- Its founder, Norberto Romualdez, Sr. was joined by Leyte’s illustrious men of letters such as:

- Iluminado Lucente who is noted for his drama and poetry… [and] was hailed Poet Laureate at the
town fiesta of Palo, Leyte in 1927 (Salazar in Luangco, 1982).

- Eduardo Makabenta, Sr. is known for his Waray translation of Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El
Filibusterismo (Salazar in Luangco, 1982).

- Casiano Trinchera was the feistiest in using poetry as social commentary, publishing his pieces in
local broadsheets (Salazar in Luangco, 1982).

- Jaime de Veyra, also a reputable literary critic in Spanish, headed many government institutions
including the Institute of National Language and the National Library (Salazar in Luangco, 1982).

- Vicente de Veyra was not only a distinguished poet but also the first anthologist of Waray
literature — Hinugpung: Mga Siday, Garaygaday, Titiguhun, Liaw-Libang, Diwata Tinipun (1914)

- Francisco Alvarado was a playwright renowned for his two-act melodrama, An Bitay nga Bulawan
(The Golden Chain), which won first prize in a contest in May 1933 (Filipinas, 1991).

1 Villas, Michael Carlo (2015). Introduction to the Siday. In Alunan, M. (Ed.), Sa Atong Dila: Introduction
to Visayan Literature (pp. 654-674). Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press.
- The efflorescence of Waray literature in the 1900s could also be attributed to the presence of
periodicals that published poetry in Waray (Vilches, 1982; Sugbo, 2000):

- An Kaadlawan was the first newspaper on record, founded by Iluminado Lucente in 1906. Its
name, Braganza in Vilches (1982) notes, is “expressive of the intellectual awakening that then was
in process.”

- the diocesan publications: Eco de Samar y Leyte of the Diocese of Calbayog, Samar and An
Lantawan of the Archdiocese of Palo, Leyte

- others: La Voz de Leyte, El Heraldo de Leyte, An Katalwasan, An Makabugwas, Noli Me Tangere, El

Fenix, La Jordana, La Nueva Era, El Liberal, and El Obrero

- “The growth of Waray literature is by history tied to that long interaction between Waray
language and the national language policy.” (Sugbo, 2000)

- English periodicals like The Leader and Leyte News were countered by Sanghiran writers —
Iluminado Lucente with Mahagnaw and Casiano Trinchera with Haguishis (Montejo in Sugbo,
2000)

- the nationalist consciousness that drove the implementation of the national language policy
brought more harm than good, as “it heightened ethnic differences and caused feelings of
cultural inferiority for the non-Tagalog speaker, at least among the Waray (sic)” (Sugbo, 2003)

- The language issue is deeply woven into the consciousness of contemporary Waray poets.

- Using critical discourse analysis, Villas investigates how Waray poets sought to rescue
throughtreasoned argumentation the Waray lebenswelt or lifeworld from a social system that has
legitimized linguistic prestige hierarchies and fostered linguistic hegemony.

THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

- President William MnKinley and Secretary of War Elihu Root issued a decree stipulating the use of
the mother tongue as medium of instruction in primary education. This was the initial idea,
although in reality what took place was far from planned… Lack of textbooks and the inadequacy of
the mother tongue for scientific discourse were cited among the reasons for the program’s failure.

- Commonwealth Act No. 184, also known as the National Language Law, was passed establishing
the Language Institute to be the agency responsible for the propagation of the national language.

- Its author was Norberto Romualdez, Sr., a philologist and noted playwright in Waray, who sat as
one of the “seven wise men” of the Constitutional Convention and chair of the committee on
national language of the National Assembly (Gonzales, 1980).

- The coming of the Japanese occupation forces strengthened the hold of Tagalog as the national
language.

- Tagalog was renamed Pilipino in 1959. This was “a further step,” writes Andrew Gonzales (1980),
“… of supraregionalizing and, in effect, nationalizing what was once a regional vernacular oor what
was then a current term, dialect.”
 - The 1973 Constitution had to be a compromise because the non-Tagalogs felt as if they were
tricked with, in the words of Negros Occidental representative Inocencio V. Ferrer, the
“intellectual dishonesty of some people who insist that their pure and one hundred percent Tagalog
is the national language” (Gonzales, 1980).

- Bonifacio Sibayan (1999) remarks that Filipinos have not been totally sold out to the idea of a
national language because unlike the flag and the national anthem, most of them already had a
mother tongue to begin with.

- In [the 1986 Constitution], Filipino is named the national language of the Philippines and
mandated its development and enrichment based on existing Philippine and other languages…
regional languages were to be the auxiliary official languages of the regions and auxiliary media of
instruction (Gonzales in Bautista, 1996).

- …Gonzales observes, none of the heated language debates witnessed in 1935 and 1971-1972
were heard in Congress. Rather, there was a noncontroversial acceptance of Filipino as the
national language — a smoothness that perhaps could be credited to the nationalist bonding
of the times.

- …when the constitutional commissioners spoke of Filipino, they referred to Tagalog enriched
with the vocabulary of all the other Philippine and foreign languages that have become
part of Philippine culture such as Arabic, Spanish, and English (Gonzales in Bautista, 1996)

- the educational system constantly figured as an important instrument in language planning and
language policy implementation… the school [attest] as… the primary arm for language
dissemination and propagation.

- Currently, the Department of Education issued Department Order 74, s. 2009 entitled
“Institutionalizing Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education”… This was issued on the basis of
researches that testify to the effectiveness of the use of the mother tongue “in improving
learning outcomes” (Department of Education, 2009).

- Arguments have been outspread throughout the country by far on whether or not English or the
mother tongue should be the medium of instruction in primary education classrooms. What is
worth noting in this moment of history is that from the failed bilingual education scheme of the
1970s and 80s, efforts are now moving towards the recognition of multilingualism and
multilingual education in the Philippines.

WARAY POETRY AS A RESPONSE TO THE LANGUAGE ISSUE

In this section, Villas applies critical discourse analysis on eleven sidays:

1. Napolo nga Istraik (Ten Strikes) (1923) by Casiano Trinchera

2. Bakit? (Why?) (1923) by Casiano Trinchera

3. An Binisaya (Visayan) (1939) by Eduardo Makabenta, Sr.

4. Bakit Ba Natin Tatagalogin? (Why should it be said in Tagalog?) (1940) by Eduardo Makabenta,
Sr.
 5. Watsamara Yu? (What’s the matter with you?) (1963) by Eduardo Makabenta, Sr.

6. Espanya, Amerika, Hapon, ngan han Yinaknan (Spain, America, Japan, and our Language)
(1957) by Agustin El O’Mara

7. Ngaran han Pinulungan (The Name of our Language) (1957) by Agustin El O’Mara

8. Debelopmental nga Istorya (A Developmental Story) (1979) by David Genotiva

9. An Magsusurat ha Adlaw han Paghukom (The Writer on the Day of Judgment) (2007) by Jethol
Paanod

10. Para han mga pulong ha Waray nha pinamatay (For the murdered words in Waray) (2008) by
Voltaire Q. Oyzon

11. Nagbabalyo-balyo ako hin Nanay (Changing mothers) by Voltaire Q. Oyzon

12. Panghimaya (Glory Be) by Voltaire Q. Oyzon

13. Tutuduan ko an Akon Suhag hin Spelling ngan Pagbaybay (I Will Teach My Eldest Spelling and
Syllabication) by Claire Salvacion (2010)

- Subtle and filled with humor and irony, the early poems that dealt with the language issue
expressed discontent at what was happening at the macro-level of language policy and
decision-making.

Napolo nga Istraik (Ten Strikes) (1923) by Casiano Trinchera

- If there is something the Spaniards have left us, [Casiano Trinchera says in his siday, “Napolo nga
Istraik” (1923)], it is this ridiculous mishmash of misplaced expressions.

- In the siday, Trinchera says that [intrusive foreign language (Spanish)] has made the Waray
language impure by way of substitution: Spanish words took the place of Waray words.

- The position of early Waray writers on language was undoubtedly purist but one has to
understand that language purification was the inevitable recourse of the times. In fact it could be
read as an admirable reaction against colonizers who have desecrated the mother tongue, as it
was a way of strengthening one’s fortress against colonization, of shielding the lifeworld against
the system, to put in Habermasian terms.

Bakit? (Why?) (1923) by Casiano Trinchera

- In Trinchera’s Bakit? (Why?) (1924), he lashes at Warays who immediately adopt the language of
Manila even if they have just stayed there for days and have just arrived.

- Because Tagalog is constructed as a prestige language, the Waray has to struggle with its
sounds and syllables to be admitted into the mainstream culture. The consequence,
however, is cultural displacement. To enter national discourse, the Waray has to speak the
legitimate language, the language of the center, even if he has to fake it — a feigning that has its
own sacrifices.
 - …Pierre Bourdieu (1991): “Integration into a single ‘linguistic community,’ which is a product of
the political domination that is endlessly reproduced by institutions capable of imposing
universal recognition of the dominant language, is the condition for the establishment of
relations of linguistic domination.”

- In the next stanzas, Trinchera satirizes several people as examples of linguistic hypocrisy… A case
in point is Norberto Romualdez, Sr., father of the National Language Law… [who greeted
Trinchera] not in Tagalog but in Waray… [because] he must have been ashamed of himself for
having exchanged his native tongue with Tagalog. This satirizing may be evidence of disputes
among Sanghiran members since their founder, no less than Norberto Romualdez, Sr.,
abandoned them for the Akademya ng Wikang Pilipino, where he became vice-president and to
whom he delivered lecture, Consagracion Nacional de la Lengua Tagal on 7 April 1935, a time
when language debates were fought eloquently in the halls of Congress.

- In the end, [Bakit] becomes a question posed on the language situation of the country: Why are
we (Warays) the way we are? Why have we forgotten our mother tongue? Why are we no longer
speaking the way we did before we were colonized? The answer is implicit in the admission that
Waray is the language of the “outsider” whereas Tagalog is the language of the “insider”. There
is… the deeper sense in which language displaces its speakers in their own country and
makes them second class where a primate language has been emphasized.

An Binisaya (Visayan) (1939) by Eduardo Makabenta, Sr.

- In An Binisaya, Makabenta seems to suggest that colonization has taken away the best of our
culture especially since [it] has become a successive event in Philippine history… He observes that
no matter how mangidlis, piercing to the point of aggravation the English language is, no matter
how tamburikis, “twisted,” the language the Spaniards have left us with, we still tried painstakingly
to suit its phonological structures to our native vocal apparatuses… the outcome of this lingiustic
mix-up is a tikwang nga Binisaya, atrocious Binisaya.

- Makabenta argues that colonization has made us illiterate in our own languages because we
have preferred a foreign tongue like English.

- Makabenta: had we not been colonized, we would not have changed languages, and our languages
would not have been pushed to oblivion.

Bakit Ba Natin Tatagalogin? (Why should it be said in Tagalog?) (1940) by Eduardo Makabenta,
Sr.

- Bakit Ba Natin Tatagalogin? is an interrogation on the nationalist insistence of Tagalog as the

national language.

- Language and identity, [Makabenta] writes, always go together. But what took place at the
Kapitolyo [the setting of the siday] was a discrepancy between language and identity. The
participants in this conversation are no longer themselves.

- …He says that there is no need to speak a different tongue because there is already language here.
He argues that all languages including Waray are able languages of communication, both for
everyday conversation and official business transactions. Their density and sweetness, he writes,
stays in the spirit.
Watsamara Yu? (What’s the matter with you?) (1963) by Eduardo Makabenta, Sr.

- The narrative is that of a certain Libarios who ended up in Manila’s streets after he left his office in
the province.

- The crux if the matter is that he has poor Spanish, the language of official business. Because of this,
he was unemployable and was fitter for the streets, the kanto, than Manila’s well-lighted, air-
conditioned offices. In a way, Makabenta showed the unequal relations of power between the
center and periphery, where the language of the center is always privileged.

Espanya, Amerika, Hapon, ngan han Yinaknan (Spain, America, Japan, and our Language)
(1957) by Agustin El O’Mara

- In Espanya, Amerika, Hapon, ngan han Yinaknan, the persona locates the language issue within the
country’s three colonization… Our language could have been developed by now, he says, had not
these colonizers come and exert their kagamhanan, their power over us, leaving us with confusion.

- We are like this because they did this to us. The “we asserts its we-ness against the “they.” Our
languages, after all, are ours and are ours to tend and protect.

Ngaran han Pinulungan (The Name of our Language) (1957) by Agustin El O’Mara

- In Ngaran han Pinulungan, El O’Mara underlines the politics of naming a language and the
necessity to affirm one’s identity against such naming.

- He quotes Iluminado Lucente in the epigraph: It is sad that Lineyte-Samarnon was named Waray-
waray by the sons and daughters of Leyte and Samar themselves. This is an outright insult to our
language… Waray in the language means ‘nothing’ and he refers to such naming as paghimo-
himo ug pagngaran-ngaran, (all made up and played up).

- He calls this naming as pakaalo, shameful to the Warays and pleads to the people of Leyte and
Samar to resist this namin and restore the dignity of our language. What this implies is that the
development of a language is fundamentally up to the speakers themselves — a thinking
already very much alive in the early years of Waray literature and which continues to the present.

Debelopmental nga Istorya (A Developmental Story) (1979) by David Genotiva

- This siday was written in the seventies, a period of tumult in the Philippines. Institutions that were
once thought to be invincible were now challenged by a rising youth culture.

- Debelopmental nga Istorya is the story of a fish vendor named Aning who went to Manila and
worked in what was once Manila’s burgeoning bomba (films with explicit sexual content) film
industry.

- Development is… represented first as externals like hairdo and makeup and because this is not
enough in the project of “development”, these have to be coupled with the knowledge of prestige
languages, which happen to be Tagalog and English. To access the country’s economic and social
processes, one has to approximate, if not exact, the look and talk of the center (Alunan, 1998).
An Magsusurat ha Adlaw han Paghukom (The Writer on the Day of Judgment) (2007) by Jethol
Paanod

- “…And the dead were judged according to their works…” It is a poet’s monologue when he faces
God’s judgment. He avows that a poet is judged by his work and determines within himself that he
will write the best poems he could… but then he also says he has to translate these poems into
English because it is what the critics are looking for and what the readers read.

- The persona is caught in a no-win situation. Unless he translates his case into God’s language, he is
not assured of salvation. This is now his dilemma: God has become like the critics; He might only
understand English… Although of a different context, the poem seems to be a response to a
theory of translation pervasive in the country today where works in the languages of the
regions are translated into Filipino or Tagalog.

Para han mga pulong ha Waray nga pinamatay (For the murdered words in Waray) (2008) by
Voltaire Q. Oyzon

- In Para han mga pulong ha Waray nga pinamatay, the persona… speaks of language death using
the metaphor of the dew that falls to the earth only to return to the skies to fall back as rain again…
Addressed to these murdered words, the poem reacts to the violence acted out against the
language… the poem restrainedly asserts and at the end turns these assertions into questions.

Nagbabalyo-balyo ako hin Nanay (Changing mothers) by Voltaire Q. Oyzon

- The poem Nagbabalyo-balyo ako hin Nanay, is about how a child’s concept of mother changes in
the course of his education… First, the child learns the language of home metonymized in the word,
nanay. Upon grade one, the child learns from his classmates the word mama. According to his
English teacher, the word is mother so the child again shifts to that term until eventuallly… “Now,/
Well/I call her “mommy.”

- As a significant apparatus in carrying out language policy, the school is the site of cultural
processes and the classroom is the microcosm of the language issue. The acceptance or
rejection of a language of power is formed in the classrooms.

- Patricia B. Licuanan (2010): “English as the medium of instruction will not improve the quality of
education. It will actually have a damaging effect.”

Panghimaya (Glory Be) by Voltaire Q. Oyzon

- For Villas, the strongest statement Oyzon issued against the language situation is found in
Panghimaya, a hodgepodge of parodied popular Roman Catholic prayers… In a mocking tone, [the
characters of Polana and Polano] are glorified for imposing the Tagalog language on Waray
speakers and their children and the insanity that ensues from such imposition… saying mental
illness is the effect of forcing a language on a child…

Tutuduan ko an Akon Suhag hin Spelling ngan Pagbaybay (I Will Teach My Eldest Spelling and
Syllabication) (2010) by Claire Salvacion

- Tutuduan ko an Akon Suhag hin Spelling ngan Pagbaybay shows how the language issue is played
out in the home (subjected to the demands of school) through the mother, being the prevailing
figure in domestic space.
- Waray, she is saying has lost its relevance because now it is just used in the merkado, marketplace.
More useful and helpful to the child are the Filipino or. Tagalog and English languages, which are
taught in school and used for official purposes.

- After dedicating her time to teach her child these languages, she questions the consequences of
her decision: What will now happen to Waray?

- For more than a century of writing, [Waray] poets have constantly reacted to the national language
policy, stirring the thinking Waray reading public to value their own language. Clearly, this
consciousness remained — a sign that not much have changed in the country in such a long
span of time. For unless languages outside of the center are treated with respect, writers and
speakers of these languages will continue to resist, in writing and in deed, the
dehumanization of the violation of their linguistic rights.

CONCLUSION

- [The history of Waray literature] has been marked by discontinuity because of factors like the
national language policy that have favored English and Filipino or Tagalog over the local
languages.

- Since the eighties, academics have been increasingly interested in the study of the Waray
language, literature, and culture.

- Writing Literary History (2006) by Jose Duke Bagulaya

- Mga Siday ha DYVL (2005) by Merlie M. Alunan, et. al.

- Ha Salog ug iba pa nga mga Siday (The River and other poems) by Neil Lopido

- Ayaw Pagpudla an Tuog ug iba nga mga Siday (Do Not Cut the Tuog Tree and other poems) by
Harold Mercurio

- Siso Sakradang ug Iba pa nga mga Siday han Tagoangkan (Siso Sakradang and other poems from
the womb) by Janis Claire Salvacion

- attributed to:

- the workshops at the University of the Philippines in the Visayas-Tacloban College (UPVTC) and
the Lamiraw Regional Creative Writing Workshop of the Northwest Samar State University
(NwSSU) in Calbayog City’

- the daily DYVL Puplonganon program;

- literary contests: Leyte Normal University’s Pasidungog Eduardo A. Makabenta, Sr. Para han Siday,
NwSSU’s Chito Roño Awards for Literature;

- Department of Education (DepEd) Order No. 74 known as Institutionalizing Mother Tongue-

Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE)

- but still to be addressed are:

- lack of venues for publication;

- a congressional law to make official the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction in
the elementary level;

- more research on the local language, literature, and culture;

- [cultural workers and the community] to see the value of their linguistic and literary heritage