Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the

Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
There is no such thing as a monolithic Mindanao literature.

Mindanao is one of the most culturally diverse islands in the world, and its creative expressions
– including literature – are equally diverse and varied.

The identities that produce these Mindanao literatures can be categorized in many ways from
various perspectives – whether it be by locale, language, or religion.

But a dominant way by which the peoples of Mindanao have been studied is what is called the
Tri-people arrangement. In this lens, the island’s population is divided in terms of
ethnoreligious and colonial identity into three large umbrella groups:

The at least twenty indigenous, non-Islamized ethnic groups who have been controversially
called the Lumad;

Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
The over a dozen Islamized cultures collectively referred to as the Moros,

And we natives in Mindanao descended from historical colonial immigrants, the Settlers or
Colonos.

It is this latter group which we will focus on.

We speak of the Darangen and the fiction of writers like Ibrahim Jubaira as ‘Moro literature,’ of
the Tuwaang and the works of the likes of Telesforo Sungkit as ‘Lumad literature,’ but in most
anthologies and literary discussions, the text produced by Settler writers has always been
represented simply as ‘Mindanao literature.’

Because the bulk of published literary works from Mindanao are actually by Settler writers, this
has the unintended effect of making ‘Mindanao literature’ seemingly the exclusive prerogative
of the Settler.

This is telling of the sheer coloniality of our canon, and it only really serves to show the many
sordid realities of exoticism, cultural distortion, discourse hijacking, and exploitation that
characterize the dynamics of representation in Mindanao texts.

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Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
To talk about ‘Mindanao Settler literature’ is not a matter of inventing a new literary genre, but
really just calling texts what they actually are, and enjoining writers to be conscious about who
they are when they produce their literary output.

But who exactly are we Mindanao Settlers, and what makes us distinct?

I discussed this at length in a now rather controversial pamphlet, Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga
Colono, which was slated to come out for free public reading last year but which was
unceremoniously cancelled by literary gatekeepers in Soccsksargen. I am in talks with a
publisher to bring it out as a book, but for today I will touch on some of the points I raise there.

I mentioned that Settlers are natives of Mindanao descended from historical colonial
immigrants.

We put emphasis on the word ‘native,’ by which I mean those born to the place and/or who
have spent their formative years in the place.

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Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
Settlers are not immigrants, and we are certainly not migrants. Where would we immigrate or
migrate from? My great-grandfather immigrated to Mindanao before the War from Pampanga,
but I have never even been there, I, my parents, and grandparents were born here. Am I
supposed to be a Pampanga immigrant?

This, we must point out, would mean that Mindanawon writers who have roots elsewhere – the
likes of Ricky de Ungria or the late Tita Ayala – are technically not Settlers but immigrants,
Mindanawons, but in ways different from writers such as myself or Bro. Karl Gaspar.

The perspectives that immigrant writers bring into their work will invariably be different from
that of we who know Mindanao as our first world. And perspectives are important, especially
with representation, because if perspectives are not disclosed, distortions could be perpetuated
and agencies hijacked.

The word ‘native’ will also imply endemic localization of cultural elements. This establishes two
things.

First, I assert that the Settler is not ‘foreign’ to Mindanao anymore, the way some more radically
conservative bigots would say. For some Settler identities, such as the Chavacanos of
Zamboanga, they are even endemic to Mindanao, now found nowhere else in the world.

Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
Second, I also assert that the Settler is not just some ‘Mindanao branch’ of the cultures in our
supposed motherlands.

For far too long we have been expected to be culturally subservient to the origins of our
cultures, our local variations dismissed as ‘bastardizations’ and ‘distortions.’

But the Bisayas, the Ilonggos, the Tagalogs here in Mindanao are our own communities now.
We have our own cultural agency and unique localized peculiarities, and we need not seek the
validation of Imperial Cebu, Imperial Iloilo, and Imperial Manila to be considered ‘proper’.

For literature, this means that there is a need to realize that the literary output of we Mindanao
writers who write in languages originating from Luzon and Visayas have our own literary
canon, and should not simply be lumped with the Cebu, Iloilo, or Katagalugan repertoire.
There’s Davao Bisaya, South Cotabato Hiligaynon, Kidapawan Tagalog.

And our texts are certainly not to be judged simply by the linguistic and cultural standards of
these motherlands.

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Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
 In the early 2010s, a young literary gatekeeper from Cebu moved in Northern Mindanao and set
up a publication there, and began earning the resentment of local writers because he would
‘Cebuanify’ the Kagay-anon or Surigao Bisaya of works submitted him.

I would of course be a hypocrite if I do not call myself out on this out.

In my younger days, I had published a poem in Bisaya Magazine which used Cebuano Bisaya,
substituting ‘l’s with ‘w’s the way they do in Cebu.

I now cringe whenever I read that poem. But in my defense, I was still a little larva when I
wrote it.

We also need to point out the colonial origins of Settlerhood.

The immigrant ancestors of a vast majority of Settlers came to Mindanao as part of Manila’s
colonial resettlement policies. Spanish, American, and later Filipino authorities encouraged
immigration to Mindanao, the so-called ‘land of promise,’ to invade the place by diluting the
indigenous population.

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Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
This colono-genesis, if I am allowed to coin a word, also means that, as the Philippines
established colonial reduccion ‘settlements’ for the people they brought into Mindanao, a
colonial, Christianized, ‘Filipino’ way of life was also introduced – lechon during fiesta, no
black teeth, no polygamy, no work on Sundays. Yes to English and Tagalog, no to ‘vernacular,
savage, and muslim dialects.’

Settlerhood, therefore, is invariably to have to live this culture, to be Bajo de la Campana, living
a life and having the sensibilities acceptable and desirable under the church bells of the
encroaching Filipino nation.

For literature, this coloniality means that the unwitting aspiration of most Settler writers is to be
considered ‘Filipino,’ ergo to conform to the homogenized expectations dictated by the
Tagalog-centric nation-state. The Ilocano in Kidapawan or even the Blaan in GenSan has to
write in Manila Tagalog or the colonially preferred English to be considered ‘proper’ Filipino.

But in a literary scene in which almost all publishing opportunities are in Manila, and where
education is designed form Manila, this means that it is the colonial Settler, who writes in
colonial Filipino or English and with colonial sensibilities, who actually occupies discursive
hegemony in Mindanao.

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Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
As mentioned, the vast majority of what we call ‘Mindanao Literature’ is in fact Settler
Literature. This ‘Mindanao Literature’ is very far from representing Mindanao’s ethnolinguistic
diversity, its multitude of poetics and aesthetics, and its diverse perspectives.

Settlerjacking is the term novelist Rogelio Braga coined to describe this phenomenon, the
Settler hijacking Mindanao’s voice.

This is why the Filipino, for instance, does not understand things like the Bisaya concept of
Hayahay, the Meranaw concept of Maratabat, or the Monuvu concept of Liru.

Because we do not confront Settler Literature as the flawed Settler Literature that it is,
distortions are perpetuated in the national imagination, and all the glorious nuance and
plurality in Mindanao that should have enriched Filipino nationhood is drowned out by crude
notions of ‘love for country.’

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So how do we go about looking at Mindanao Settler Literature?

The author is part of the text, and once we have established that a work’s author is a Settler, we
look for the following things:

 How does this text articulate the systems of significance – from associations and
symbolisms to values and aspirations – espoused by Mindanao Settlers?

 How does this text reflect and influence contemporary or historical Settler realities?

 How does it reflect and influence the Settler’s relations with the Lumad and Moro with
whom they share space?
 How does the Settler position himself, the Lumad, and the Moro within Mindanao?

 And how does the text position the Settler, the Lumad, the Moro, and Mindanao within
the Philippine nation-state?

Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
If one answers these questions for the extant body of texts, what emerges are generally Three
Waves of Settler Literature.

The First Wave is characterized by unwittingly Settler texts, works blissfully unaware of their
own Settlerhood, ones which make inadvertent assertions about the Settler, Lumad, and Moro.

The more benign among them may be ripe for subversion.

We note how the children’s stories of Mary Ann Ordinario Floresta, specially her early origin
legends-style storybooks, while not really conscious of the anthropological dynamics of
Mindanao, nevertheless play the beautiful role of being original Settler folklore. I grew up
reading her origin of the Durian and of the Rubber Trees. Ordinario Floresta’s fiction, if
properly curated so it does not displace indigenous folklore in the local imagination,
demonstrates the creative possibilities of the Settler urge to invent – the word in Bisaya is
Mugna.

Then you have that other great Kidapawan writer, the poet Rita Gadi, several of whose poetry
ends up being introspections into the very Settler realities of Kidapawan City where her parents
once served as mayors.

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Of particular interest are two poems, ‘Pack Up Day,’ and ‘His Mangosteen.’

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Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
‘Pack Up Day’ demonstrates beautifully how people impart a bit of their own lives on the
spaces they live in, how homes are ‘spaces where lives take shape,’ and how ultimately this
space dwells in our own inscapes.

‘His Mangosteen’ explores the same motif from a slightly different angle, focusing instead on
the process of taking root, whereby time and effort cultivate love and a sense of ownership.

These dynamics are in fact the foundation of the Settler’s constant process of ‘settling down’ in
Mindanao, where we take root, live lives, are shaped, and become part of the island’s collective
identity.

Even if you drive away Settlers from Mindanao, to use Rita Gadi’s words, ‘we would still be full
of it.’

There are also many other texts which offer fascinating glimpses into Mindanao Settler life
across various sectors and over different historical periods –

Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
from Leoncio Deriada’s depiction of the urban-rural divide in his story ‘The Road to Mawab’
and the gothic horrors of frontier isolation in his ‘Pigpen;’

the Davao Chinese and their structural misogyny in Macario Tiu’s ‘Nanking Store,’

to many of the essays about life shortly after the War in The Davao We Know as edited by
Lolita Lacuesta.

But many texts within this First Wave need to be seriously confronted for their dangerous
distortions and misrepresentations.

We call out, for instance, how the late Antonio Enriquez exoticized the Maguindanaon in his
Palanca-winning novel Green Sanctuary.

In the novel, Enriquez describes Maguindanaons in Pikit as maggot-eaters, who put mudfish
on their roofs in order to let maggots grow.

In reality, while Pangus, a Maguindanaon delicacy, may sometimes contain a few maggots
from the drying process, the Maguindanaons usually remove this and eat the half-dried fish
Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
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instead. This is just one of many dehumanizing depictions of the Moros of my province of
North Cotabato in the novel.

We also call out Jude Ortega, who in his story ‘Brothers’ (part of his collection Seekers of
Spirits) represents the Waling Waling Flower as a panacea, and describes it as growing in Mt
Matutum.

Because he uses the distinctly Maguindanaon epic names ‘Indarapatra’ and ‘Sulaiman,’ the
story risks misrepresenting these inventions by Ortega as ethno-botanically accurate. The
unwitting would think Waling Walings actually grow in Matutum and are used as a medicine by
the Maguindanaon.

These distortions are the malignant manifestation of Mugna, a natural impulse for artists that
becomes problematic when it enters the realm of misrepresentation.

Often such texts can even perpetuate dangerously bigoted values, specially when not processed
properly for beginning readers.

This is the case for Green Sanctuary. But we also call out how Aida Rivera Ford portrays the
Bagobo in her much anthologized story ‘Love in the Cornhusk.’ In the story, the main
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character’s marriage to a Bagobo is portrayed as her great tragedy, and the would-be love affair
with a Spanish-named driver is the colonial happy ending she missed out on. The happy ending
for the Settler woman is to marry a fellow Settler, she is to be pitied if she ends up with a
Lumad.

That’s for the First Wave. The Second Wave of Settler Literature can be described as the newly
aware, and is characterized by sympathy for the Lumad and Moro and self-loathing for the
Settler. Such stories portray, often from the perspective of a Lumad or Moro and in glorious
social realism, the destructive tendency of Settlerhood and Filipino coloniality.

The textbook demonstration of this, perhaps, is the story ‘I am one of the mountain people’ by
Macario Tiu. It depicts how the main character, a Lumad boy, is put in a difficult and uncertain
position when his father, a tribal leader, decides to give him a colonial education.

The stories in Karl Gaspar’s recent book Mga Lumadnong Sugilanon nga Mahinuklogon also
fall under this category. In Bro. Karl’s stories, the Settler is often a sympathetic but detached
observer to the plight of the Lumad amidst Settler realities.

Of note is Leoncio Deriada’s short story ‘Dam.’ A Lumad family works hard to dam the
Tamugan river in Davao in order to gather the fish beached on its suddenly dry riverbed. But

Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
then the evil Settlers come in, taking the fish for themselves while leaving little for the Lumad to
gather for themselves. Unable to restrain his anger at this opportunism, the young Lumad
protagonist breaks the dam while the Settlers are still in the river, drowning the damn things.
We must remind ourselves that the writer, who grew up in Davao, is a Settler, and this story
demonstrates the Settler Self Loathing which characterizes this Second Wave

Works of this wave, while already ‘woke’ (to use the contemporary term), can nevertheless still
perpetuate distortions, and in fact end up being more dangerous. Because they pontificate their
distortions in a tone of moral correctness, there is a strong possibility that the factual
inaccuracies they present are also perceived as correct.

In Erwin Cabucos’ very Lumad-sympathetic story ‘Give us this day,’ (which came out in
Mindanao Harvest 4), the writer invents a town and Lumad tribe, but uses cultural elements
known to be associated with actual cultures. Cabucos’ tribe plays the Faglong and the
Tananggong, the instruments of the Blaan, but they worship ‘god Sandawa,’ Sandawa being the
name of Mt Apo in Obo Monuvu. The Blaan and Monuvu are very different cultures, and are
not even adjacent to one another. Careless inventions by writers like Cabucos only serve to
further muddle the understanding of a general readership already largely ignorant to the
complexities of Mindanao ethnography.

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The greatest peril presented by these works is when they are misidentified, specially by careless
literature teachers, as coming from the cultures they represent. To avoid this with my own
works, I usually put a disclaimer disclosing my own Settler perspective.

The Third Wave, which is preciously rare and in which I rather vainly put my own later writing,
is composed of the body of literature which is conscious and confident of its own position as
Mindanao Settler text.
Such texts confront the complexities of Settlerhood, from the realities of inter-ethnic relations
(both among Settler cultures and the Lumad and Moro), to the dynamics of multilingualism,
hybridization, localized variation, Mindanao urbanization, and postcoloniality.

Most crucially, such works seek to articulate and develop the distinct and unique sensibilities
emerging among Settlers.

Put graphically for instance, this wave of Mindanao Settler Literature would explore the
inherent sexiness of hot salads in CdO, or makes Camus’ absurdity as the subject of banal
dancing in Davao. Only a Mindanao Settler could make sense of that.

Still at the threshold of the Second Wave, Macario Tiu’s short story ‘Balyan’ is an important
precursor to this still emerging Third Wave. It is written from the perspective of a Settler

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sceptical to Lumad spirituality, and in Bakthinian carnivalesque, it opens up the possibility of
the Settler being the minority within cultural space where the Lumad or the Moro is dominant.

Antonio Enriquez’ Green Sanctuary would also be within this same threshold point if its
inaccurately distorted and dehumanizing depiction of the Moros were not stuck in the
exoticizing backwardness of the First Wave.

Bro Karl Gaspar’s recent fiction would also be coming to this point, specially as his stories start
reflecting Mindanao’s multilingualism and embracing its role in rectifying historical injustice
more.

So far, his depiction of the Settler ‘I’ is still too detached, and where I look forward to him going
further into the Third Wave is in exploring what actual impact the realities he depicts will have
on Mindanao Settlers.

Because it is still a creative and critical terra incognita, it is no accident that almost all those
writing consciously Mindanao Settler Literature are young, often rebellious Mindanao Settler
writers.

The ones who join me in this panel are among them.

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In his poetry, Gerald Galindez of Tacurong writes with Settler language hybridization about the
realities of dehumanizing decadence in our region of Soccsksargen, which is somewhere
between rural and urban.

Niño Dosdos is starting to write about the dysfunctional lives of the political elite in Pagadian,
as well as urban street humour, while finding creative inspiration from indigenous Subanen
folklore for his Bisaya Settler imagination.

And Frank Lloyd Dela Cruz explores the postmodern possibilities of inter-ethnic relations, and
the localized dynamics of the urban poor, and the daunting possibilities opened up by
technological advancement in Davao City, particularly his area of Panacan.

I will let these three give more details about their works.

In my own work, I join Gerald and Bro Karl in exploring linguistic hybridization, with many of
my stories written in several languages and with dialogue often extremely localized.

Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
Mindanao Creative and Cultural Workers Group, Inc., in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs
Like with Frank and Niño, localization is also a big part of my writing approach. Unlike Lumad
or Moro identity which has general similarities, because the genesis of Settlers is so varied,
Settlerhood manifests itself in almost idiosyncratic multiplicity, with the conditions of being a
Mindanao Settler often unique to a place, or even to a family.

I focus my writing on the many ways Settlerhood manifests itself in the people of my hometown
of Kidapawan City in North Cotabato, where my family have been Settlers for four generations.

My most consciously Settler story, perhaps, is ‘Lahadda,’ which saw print in Bangkok in 2019.

The story is not only told from the Settler perspective, it is also an exercise in the role Settler
writers like me have to play in helping remember and process historical injustices done on the
Lumad and Moro peoples.

The story ends with the Settler protagonist, Kurt, using his Settler urge to Mugna to help move
the moral situation forward, coming up with a way by which the memory of the massacred
Meranaw family could be remembered.

The Literature of Mindanao Settlers is both a large body of old works to respond to, and a rich
world of possibilities waiting for new works to take it forward.
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Many Settlers have written and continue to write badly and dangerously, but rather than
censoring them, I believe the solution to that is to write back, and write better.

It is time, I believe, for Mindanao Settler writers to discourse themselves, write for and to each
other.

It is time they realize that they are writing their own literature.

This has been Karlo Antonio Galay David, mabuhay ang mga Colono!

Delivered as introductory talk in Pagguho (Decline/Emergence): Literature and the Pandemic , an Online Literary Conference by the
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