WESTERN VISAYAS LITERATURE

West Visayan Writers

1. Magdalena Gonzaga Jalandoni
- Filipino novelist, playwright, short story writer, poet, sculptor and painter.
- Most prolific Filipino writers in the Hiligaynon language.
2. Ramon Muzones
- Writer and lawyer and the posthumous recipient of the National Artist of the
Philippines for Literature award in the Philippines in 2018.
- Wrote in Hiligaynon and popularized Hiligaynon literature.
3. Genevieve L. Asenjo
- A Filipino poet, novelist, translator and literary scholar in Kinaray-a, Hiligaynon and
Filipino.
- A professor of literature and creative writing and chair of the Department of Literature
at De La Salle University, Manila.
- Her first novel, Lumbay ng Dila
4. Guillermo Gómez Rivera
- Prize-winning author whose creative work intersects literature, music and dance.
- Most recognized contemporary Filipino writer throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
- Spanish-Filipino multilingual author, historian, educator and linguistic scholar whose
lifelong work has been devoted to the advocacy to preserve Spanish culture
5. Angel M. Magahum Sr.
- Great Ilonggos in the vernacular literary-musical world is Angel M. Magahum, Sr. in
the field of literature.
- Novel Benjamin, the first ever in Hiligaynon which was also his very first work.

REGION VI - Provinces and Capital

 AKLAN-KALIBO - Aklanon
- can be referred as the natives of Aklan and to their language
- Aklanon literature refers to all kinds of literary work in any language written by
aklanons in their native language.
 ANTIQUE - San Jose De Buenavista
- Antique is a province in the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. It is
situated in the western section of Panay Island and borders Aklan, Capiz and Iloilo to
the east, while facing the Sulu Sea to the west. The province of Antique is subdivided
into 18 municipalities.
 NEGROS OCCIDENTAL - Bacolod City
- Sugar Bowl of the Philippines
- Volcanic Land
- The locals used to refer to the province as "Buglas."
- Binalbagan and Ilog were the first native towns, and the people were known as the
"Negrense."
- Silay City was also known as "Negros' Paris."
 GUIMARAS
- Master in buildeing all kind of ships
- Relation by Loarca of the Philippine Island
- The island was rich in products such as wood, stone for construction, wax and honey.
Jordan
- The native harvested rice, corn, tabacco, and some coffee and cacao.
- The Philippine Islands Ecclesiastical Affairs, 1638-1640.
 CAPIZ - Roxas City
- Capiz is the capital of folk songs and folk dances in Western Visayas. It is a province
in Panay Island that has distinctive and astonishing folk literature existing, but the
dilemma is, the writings were not all recorded and compiled. The study identified and
analyzed the selected folk literature in the province.
 ILOILO - Iloilo City
Ilonggo Folktale
- The story of the first Durian Hinlawod (Western Visayas Folklore).
Ilonggo Poetry
- Ang pahigugma Katahum Sang imong gugma.

LANGUAGES
 Hiligaynon - Lingua Franca
- Ilo-Ilo City, North Ilo-Ilo, Guimaras, Rohas City in Capiz, Bacolod City most of the
town in Negros Occidental.
 Ikinaray-a/ Hiraya
- The mother language of central and southern Ilo-Ilo.
 Cebuano/ Sugabon
- Northern Negros Occidental
 Aklanon
- Province of Aklan

POPULAR LITERARY ART FORMS

o Ambahan - an unrhymed seven syllable line containing a complete thought.
o Balak- a love song which can also be a song of praise sung by a man and a
woman.
o Paktakon - riddle
o Hurubaton - proverb
o Asoy/Suliganon - refers to Western Visayan tales
o Bulong - refers to words, phrases, or songs devoted to gods and goddesses, as
well as babaylan's uttered spirits.
o Awiting bayan (Folk Songs) - something that's native to a culture, promoted
during events, and usually passed down orally
o Komposo (Ballad) - songs about love and other political and social concerns
in the society are common in popular music.
o Binalaybay - Western Visayas poem

TUNGKUNG LANGIT AND ALUNSINA

- Rene O. Villanueva
- Alamat ng Ulan
- love, jealousy, trust and regret
A popular deity of the Suludnon people of Panay. He is their version of the ‘creator’
who made the world out of primordial chaos. In other Visayan pantheons, Tungkung
Langit was a lesser deity and brother of Panlinugon, god of earthquakes.
Tungkung Langit was a loving, hard-working god. He wanted to impose order over the
confused world. He decided to arrange the world so that the heavenly bodies would
move regularly. On the other hand, Alunsina was a lazy, jealous, selfish goddess.

Moral Lesson
Alunsina and Tungkung Langit - love and loss. At the heart of this classic, it aims to
reconcile how there can be a benevolent god when there is so much suffering in the
world.

THE HINLAWOD
- F. Lando Jacno
- discovered "by accident" in 1955
- Hinilawod is the epic from Pana
- fascinating as it tells the exploits of three Sulodnon demigod brothers Labaw
Donggon, Humadapnon and Dumalapdap of ancient Panay
- The Hinilawod is not just a literary piece but also a source of information about
culture,
- religion and rituals of the ancient people of Sulod

Hinilawod recounts the story of the exploits of three Sulodnon demigod brothers,
Labaw Donggon, Humadapnon and Dumalapdap of ancient Panay. It would take about
three days to perform the epic in its original form. Thus, making it as one of the longest
epics in the world.

Moral Lesson
The Hinilawod is a source of knowledge on the ancient people of Sulod's culture,
religion, and rites, demonstrating that ancient Filipinos believed in the "holy," the value
of family honor, and personal courage and dignity.

MARAGTAS
- Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro
- He wrote maragtas in the panay languages of hiligaynon and kiniray.
- He saw it as an essential part of Visayas' tradition, thus he gathered and published
diverse stories from the elders of the island.
- named Panay's History: From the First Residents to the Arrival of the Spaniards The
piece was created in Iloilo in 1907 in a blend of Hiligaynon and Kinaray-a languages.

LABAW DONGGON
- The epic of Labaw Donggon / by F. Landa Jocano. (actually has no distinct author)
- Ancient epic poem written by the early residents of Sulod, Panay's central province.
- Alvarez Enriquez is the author of narrative poem.

HARAYA
- Haraya is a Visayan morality tale collection with accompanying stories. Because of
how it was written, most people do not consider it an epic.
- It is a collection of heroic tales about moral behavior.
ILI-ILI (Batang Munti, Matulog Ka Na Muna)
- A hiligalyon folk song
- A popular lullabay sing by mothers
- The composer of the song is unknown

Moral Lesson
This lullaby, usually performed by a mother or female relative, encourages the infant to
sleep while their mother goes out to get food. The tune is a lovely song that
encapsulates Filipino family values.

ANG GUITARA by Magdalena Jalandoni

- The Guitar is a revolutionary and feminist work.
- The guitar was still predominantly a man's musical instrument at the start of the
twentieth century, when the composition was created, and it was commonly utilized in
serenades to distress one's love interest.

LUMBAY NG DILA by Genevieve L. Asenjo

- Lumbay ng Dila tells us the story of Sadyah Zapanta Lopez as she searches for the
truth about her roots and its interconnections with the country’s political history and
socio-cultural specificities of Panay: from events such as the First Quarter Storm, the
three EDSAs, everyday rural life realities in Antique, cultural curiosities like the
Babaylans and the Binukots, to myths like “Tungkung Langit and Alunsina.”
- Sadyah’s grandfather is a traditional politician aligned with the Marcos dictatorship
who was suspected to have masterminded the death of an opposition figure in Antique.
Her two parents are said to be armed guerrillas based in the mountains of Central Panay.

What do you think are the essence of these literary pieces of Western Visayas?
- Western Visayas literary pieces are Rich and composed of varied Hiligaynon
literatures that manifested different beliefs, traditions, customs, everyday life, human
relationships and occupation of the Western Visayan people. This Collected literatures
such as the Guitara and Lumbay ng Dila and the others, had something to do with the
different aspects of Panayanons’ way of life. It is also concluded that the people of
Western Visayas had the gift of writing.

Why is it important that each region province has its own literature?
- It will be more successful if we, the natives of our areas, are the ones who will cherish
and understand our language and culture. Learning and reading literary works from the
regions make you proud because the original language amplifies the words and has an
influence on the heart...

The literary traditions, written or oral, of the country's various ethno-linguistic groups,
communities that, despite much internal migration, can still be said to have distinct
geographical settings or identities, are referred to as regional literatures. This is a relic
of our literary history, in which regional literatures were frequently relegated to the
status of sub-literatures. In reality, regional literature in the Philippines is sometimes
subsumed within the broader idea of vernacular literature, which includes both creative
and folk traditions.

Philippine literature has grown in diversity and depth in tandem with the country's
history. This is best understood in the context of the country's pre-colonial cultural
traditions as well as the colonial and current traditions' socio-political history. Because
colonialists were so effective in erasing the country's mostly oral history, today's
Filipino authors, artists, and journalists are attempting to rectify this unfairness by
acknowledging the country's wealth of ethnic traditions and distributing them through
schools and the media.