Critical Paper: Literary Traditions and Cultures in Mindanao

Introduction

The Philippines is still dealing with major issues, one of which is unnoticeably
focused on its culture and traditions. This is a long-standing issue in this country.
Filipino literature is an important subject for them. This is one of the treasures left to
them by their forefathers; nonetheless, it appears that its popularity among Filipinos,
young and old, remains unfavorable. Because of their colonial mentality, Filipinos are
progressively losing interest and emphasis in their own cultural roots, sliding
rejection of their own traditional heritage, and continuing to lose interest in their
own literature. Foreign culture has an impact on today's generation. To put it
another way, we read a lot of literature from various countries than our own
literature written by our compatriots.

Pages from history have vanished. The past was supposed to be unknown to
future generations. Philippine literature appears to be dying. Its pages are fading into
obscurity and oblivion. Filipinos are more prone to become associated with or be
interested in the works of other countries. These issues come from colonial
mentality, whereby imported items are marketed as "better quality" than locally
produced goods. Filipinos lack interest in local works of literature due to a lack of
publicity; Filipinos study local literature for school assignments but read few outside
of class. Because of a lack of exposure to local literary works, writers can only publish
in limited print runs.

Most cultural authors in Mindanao have struggled with this issue since its
beginning, owing to a lack of funding and government assistance. It costs a lot of
money to produce and distribute a book, and most struggling authors are unable to
fulfill these costs. Thus, one way to keep the worth of Philippine literature from
dwindling is to promote Filipino writers and their works, as well as to entertain
Filipino literature through techniques such as advertising through media and
pamphlets, flyers, and maybe billboards. This can persuade other students or other
Filipinos to study and enjoy Philippine literature, as well as expose readers' eyes to
the current state of our dying literature. This aids in reawakening the sleeping hearts
of Filipinos, or simply in bringing our country's old literature to life.
Problem

There is no doubt that Mindanao has many cultural stories to tell, but,
surprisingly, there are still so few cultural storybooks that are being published and
read by the people. Younger generations no longer know any cultural and traditional
stories from their ancestors, because there are no longer written sources. Out of
thousands of folklore, epics, fables, and legends from various Mindanaoan groups,
only a few of these are published, and an even smaller number of these published
works are actually read by the people.

This problem has been faced by most cultural writers in Mindanao since the
early years, mainly because of the lack of budget and support by the government. It
takes a lot of money to publish and distribute a book, and most authors who are
financially struggling can't meet these finances. Being an author requires a lot of
financial support and if an author can’t have the funds he needs, then all his works
will become in vain. Even if an author manages to publish a written work, it will still
not be recognized by most people because authors lack the budget for book
advertisements; as a result, readers are not aware of their works. Most Filipino
readers don't even know that there are many versions and varieties of Mindanaoan
cultural books that are present today.

This goes to show that Mindanaoan cultural authors are being disregarded
too much. Cultural stories in Mindanao are slowly dying, and it is the job of these
authors to provide written materials so that these magnificent stories will be
preserved. Cultural books require a huge amount of effort, time, and study, thus, it is
just right to give more attention to cultural authors.
Seriousness/Consequences

The negative consequences supplied and perceived as a result of a lack of

exposure, advertising, and government support in literary works and traditions in
Mindanao leads to the adoption of foreign literature, which may result in the
extinction of our own literary culture and traditions. Also, increased support for
other nations' authors and literature, both giving and receiving. Importantly, it may
result in a lack of knowledge and comprehension of the literary cultures and
traditions of the Philippines, particularly in Mindanao. Thus there is ignorance of
one's literature and little known understanding of one's upbringing of traditions and
culture, one's identity as an individual suffers. Lastly, the negative effect of this
problem means losing the attainment of fostering insights and wisdom. Since in
literary culture and tradition, it is a reflection of life, this represents the thoughts on
life and the true state of the world around them. The lack of exposure to and
knowledge of one's literary cultures and traditions is both sad and unfortunate.

With the lack of implementation and understanding of our literary traditions

and cultures, we are losing the importance of our culture and traditions as a whole.
This is a major issue since making use of and knowing our own literary cultures and
traditions implies imparting significance to our identities. Not only it entails devoting
time and energy to learning about and reflecting on our history, but also making use
of it and keeping it alive to continue and execute our literary traditions. Knowing our
own literary culture and tradition comprises being able to dedicate and being willing
to promote our differences in writing from others, as well as being able to inspire
and motivate others to do the same.

One of the catalysts of change in our cultures and traditions is a failure to

appreciate our traditions, which must be acknowledged and prevented. It is
important to know our literary culture and traditions because it is an essential
element of all cultures and traditions. Knowing and implementing the literary culture
and traditions may educate people, share history, and become the history of a
certain location or the entire globe.

This problem is serious because it enables us to get to know of our writers

and the stories they want to tell that might help us, readers, to travel back in time
and learn about life in Mindanao or the Philippines as a whole from those who have
gone before us and make use of them to make it more alive. With this, if we are
estranged from our literary cultures and traditions we lost the connection of our
roots and we won’t have a deeper knowledge of our cultures and appreciate them
more. It is vital if this problem is addressed since implementing one’s own literary
culture and tradition is a mirror of mankind to a means of understanding and
appreciating their past and making use of it in the present that might be an
inspiration to the future.

Enabling this situation to persist means allowing the nation's literary legacy
and culture to be lost and forgotten forever by its inhabitants. If this situation
persists, there is a greater chance that these stories will remain buried and unknown
to everyone in Mindanao and the country as one, particularly the message they wish
to share and express. There would be a lack of acknowledgment of our literary
heritage and culture, which would be unable to be represented by the world for a
connection, communication, and reaction to be made. This might have an impact on
the Philippines' literary culture and traditions as a whole.
Solution

This organization believes in the importance of giving significance to literary

traditions and cultures that needs to be preserved since it is one of the crucial parts
that embody Filipinos as they are. What if these individuals read and appreciate the
writer's work it acquires information and learns the language, symbols, values,
norms, customs, and traditions of their own.

Since a country's literary tradition and culture are a reflection of the country,
they are a crucial factor of how a community reacts, responds, and evolves. With the
difficulty or problems we faced and encountered in terms of the lack of support and
exposure of the literary traditions and cultures in Mindanao, we devised various
ways to be able to save, transmit, and aggregate these human experiences, tales,
narratives, so that they might be known in Mindanao and its people. Since each
person's literary tradition and culture define them.

We came up with the idea of conserving the works of our Mindanaoan

writers who wrote about cultural stories and narratives through creating a program
called: auduaiwodi which allows us to organize a gathering, connecting and
communicating the local writers in Mindanao and their literary works, even more
also to those cultural stories or books that were not known by the people to be able
to give them proper exposure and support needed that enables these stories and
writers be known to its people. This program gathers Mindanao writers to be able to
showcase their works and to publish their works into pocketbooks or storybooks that
would be given to youngsters in their education as we make this program accessible
to all the regions in Mindanao and to allow these texts to be adapted as books and
be seen in the area.

Since these works were unable to publish or exposed by the region due to a
lack of government and public backing, this program allows the benefit of the new
generations so that they can at least learn and look back about their ancestors'
cultural and traditional stories.

Not only that, but we came up with a solution that is not limited to the use of
paper but can also make these works be seen in a narrative animation video that is
shown in this program that may be able to attract institutions and be able to
showcase them in school and possibly be seen in a platform where everyone has
access to gain the knowledge and entertainment provided by these Mindanaoan
writers' literary works. With this, it is critical that we enable this program to be seen
and active on social media to make it known to a large number of people; it is not
limiting and it is simple for us to display these works to Mindanaoans who may be
capable of increasing the exposure.

Since our cultural writers' greatest challenge may be their fellow Mindanaoans,
some of us are already aware of how some of our fellow Mindanaoans believe. Some
of them are closed-minded and difficult to approach; we may highlight the works of
our cultural writers, but not everyone is open-minded and simple to approach. Some
of them may scoff or dismiss our writers, stating that "cultural novels/stories are
totally out of time," because some readers prefer to read using e-books, Wattpad,
and other books that are popular among this generation. Not to mention the authors
themselves, some of whom may be difficult to approach and converse with. Because
some of them may give up due to not having their early limelight, we will make some
plans to address such issues through the usage of digital platforms to expose their
literary works and traditions to the people of Mindanao.

Thus, if we have proper budgeting in implementing this program, we might

try to use creating and making a theatre play or act with the use of these literary
works by Mindanao writers to fully emphasize the narrative storyline and be able to
entertain and allow fascination to evade in the minds of Mindanaoans.

Visual presentation can be extremely beneficial and successful in attracting

interests and allowing these works to be recognized by many people when it comes
to allowing these interests on books. In a theatre production, it helps you to bring
the tale to life, making it more enticing to the audience. Although we are conserving
Mindanao's literary traditions and customs, it is not limited to books. Since in our
generation now, attraction connects with visual presentation, where we can be able
to show these literary works to them after they have shown interests in the play
because they would be curious for more and be keen for other works made in
Mindanao which they were not aware of in the first place or they may have known
but have forgotten, which is the main point of this organization. This initiative
enables some Mindanaoan writers or authors to write freely without fear of financial
repercussions in the future. So they may keep writing about their cultural books,
which are made up of their cultural tales since cultural writers want attention.
Conclusion

One of the most fascinating and challenging aspects of literature is the

vastness of its historic and geographic range. This means that through literary texts,
twenty-first-century readers like us can have access to the lives and thoughts,
sorrows and pleasures, fears and desires not only of men and women around us, but
also those of people who lived hundreds of years before us or hundreds of
kilometers away from us, and may not even have shared a language with us.

With this being said, literary tradition simply means such an accumulative
process of handing down texts for future generations. By this, such valuable literary
pieces mustn't only be posted through the web but also, should be printed out for
physical references so Mindanaoans have easier access, particularly, to the places
where the internet couldn’t extend.

Mindanao has a lot of stories that needed to be told, Writers that are brilliant
but need recognition, and readers that are compassionate to these literary
traditions. The reason why these literary traditions seem to go into oblivion is that a
lot of people especially the new generation are more attracted to the literary works
of foreigners, and schools rarely give credit to the local literature that exists already,
waiting to be analyzed.

That is why we thought that as a solution to this problem, the right funding
from the Government and Non-Governmental Organizations might help to the
revival of these cultural literary traditions by printing these literary works and
exposing them to the locals and schools not just in Mindanao but also in some parts
of the Philippines where literary traditions are rich but not getting the recognition it
deserves. Through these, writers would be acknowledged and these might improve
their works as it will serve as a motivation for them.

Literary traditions form the basis for many pieces of modern literature and
can help provide readers with knowledge of stories passed through various
generations. Because traditional literature is that which has been passed from one
generation to the next, it can provide readers with insight into the world's various
cultures. It is only fair that we give recognition to these traditions so we can share
them with the generation that may come after us.