The Oral Tradition: The Epic Hinilawod
Visayan literature boasts one of the world’s longest known epics: the ethno-epic Hinilawod of the ancient Sulod people in Central Panay. This monumental work, the only recorded epic from the Visayas, was documented in the 1950s by anthropologist F. Landa Jocano. Hinilawod is more than 53,000 lines long and requires approximately thirty hours to recite. Its cultural significance continues today, with segments being adapted for festivals, such as the Hirinugyaw-Suguidanonay in Calinog, and for the stage, exemplified by Nicanor Tiongson’s Labaw Donggon: Ang Banog ng Sanlibutan.
Spanish Colonial Roots: Religious and Didactic Genres
During the Spanish colonial era, native writers began indigenizing popular Spanish literary forms like the pasyon (a narrative of the Passion of Christ) and the korido or corrido (metrical romances). Early literary works in the Visayas were heavily influenced by the religious and didactic models available at the time, such as saints’ lives, prayers, and books of conduct.
Examples of these initial works include the immensely popular Cebuano work, Lagda sa pagca maligdon sa tauong Bisaya (1734), and Fr. Blas Cavada de Castro’s Ang Suga nga Magadan-ag sa Nagapuyo sa Cangitngitan sa Sala (1879). These texts often combined dialogues, maxims, tales, meditations, and ejemplos (pananglitan) into single volumes.
The Rise of Vernacular Writing (Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries)
A convergence of economic and social shifts in the late 19th century—specifically the relative prosperity in Iloilo, Negros, and Cebu due to export crops like sugar—created a middle class. This class could afford to send their children to Manila or abroad for education, coinciding with educational reforms (like the secondary schools established in Cebu and Jaro in 1865).
Filipino-led movements, such as the secularization of the Filipino clergy, the Propaganda Movement, and the 1896 Revolution, fostered a liberal atmosphere. While the early 20th century merely traded Spanish colonizers for American ones, this liberal environment spurred a remarkable golden age of vernacular literature. It was further enabled by the declining influence of the Spanish language and the as-yet-unestablished presence of English.
This literary boom was inextricably linked to the rise of provincial journalism. Native language periodicals began to eclipse pro-Spanish publications, such as El Porvenir de Visayas (Iloilo, 1884-1989). New periodicals flooded the region:
- Cebu: Ang Suga (1901) and Ang Camatuoran (1902).
- Iloilo: Ang Kagubut (1900) and Kadapig sang Banwa (1905).
- Later Weeklies: Bag-ong Kusog (1915-1941), Nasud (1930-1941), Babaye (1930-1940), Bisaya, and Hiligaynon.
The primary literary form that gained mass popularity through these publications was the serialized novel. These periodicals became heavily dependent on serialized fiction, particularly in the 1930s, as they successfully dramatized popular sentiments and drove sales.
Hybrid Forms: The Romance Novel and the Problem of Definition
The early serialized fiction achieved immense popularity because it seldom departed from the romantic traditions deeply beloved by ordinary folk. For instance, when the prolific Magdalena G. Jalandoni transitioned from writing versified corridos to long prose narratives, she infused the romantic elements of the corrido into her “novels,” often resulting in texts that read more like corridos-in-prose than true realist novels.
This brings up a crucial distinction:
- The Novel (Strict Definition): Inherited from the European Enlightenment tradition (the model for Rizal’s Noli and Fili). It is a long work of realist prose that focuses on the psychological aspects of human character and the socio-political dimensions of collective existence. Realism allows for the development of complex characters and a multifaceted social environment.
- Romance: An older mode, often rendered in poetry, that celebrates and idealizes life. Because it does not incisively examine social issues, it is seen as the opposite of the realist novel.
At this juncture in Visayan literary history, vernacular writers steeped in the age-old versified romance tradition were experimenting with the newer prosaic realist novel. The result was a large volume of hybrid forms, often labeled “romance novels.”
The first Visayan novel, Hiligaynon author Angel M. Magahum’s Benjamin (1907), exemplified this hybridity, blending the Spanish-era exemplum (novel of manners) with the modern chronicle (a short historical account). The chronicle, being closer to realism, allowed fictionists to touch on current social problems.
However, the romantic impulse remained strong. Nicolas Rafols‘ novel, Ang Pulahan (1919), attempted a semi-fictionalized chronicle of actual Cebuano events—the abuses of the Philippine Constabulary—but still incorporated the characteristic devices of the romance mode: idealized characters, surprises, coincidences, and sudden changes in fortune.
The Rise of Didactic Melodrama
As serialized novels published in newspapers were subject to commercial pressures, they had to cater to readers’ tastes. It was through this commercially driven popular form that journalists-turned-novelists managed to sustain age-old folk sensibilities (the tendency to romanticize and moralize found in epics, tales, corridos, and Spanish-era friar literature) in a modern context.
Vernacular writers began integrating the socio-political element (like that found in Rizal’s works) into this mixed stream of native expression. For instance, Cebuano writer Juan I. Villagonzalo’s Walay Igsoon (1912) incorporated the social issue of labor problems into the familiar romantic-didactic mold.
Local media entertainment forms—often criticized for having predictable, formulaic plots and conventional character types—actually draw their popular energy from these deep-seated folk and vernacular traditions. Their “formulaic” quality can be interpreted not as a lack of creativity, but as sensitivity to persisting social issues embodied by familiar tropes (e.g., the star-crossed lovers from different classes, the corrupt mayor). The socio-political element is often depicted through the moralistic framework of the didactic melodrama.
This period produced fine fictionists, including Siilpicio Osorio, Angel L. Enemecio, Elpidio E. Villacrucis, and Natalio B. Bacalso. Societal ills depicted through the moralistic melodrama appeared in the works of early writers Vicente Sotto and Juan I. Villagonzalo, and later in those of Vicente Rama and Tomas Hermosisima.
The Grand Dame: Magdalena G. Jalandoni
The most prolific of the Visayan writers is arguably Magdalena G. Jalandoni, often dubbed “The Grand Dame of Hiligaynon Literature.” Her astonishing output, as noted by Panitikan.com.ph, includes: “36 nobela, 122 maikling kuwento, 7 nobelita, 5 korido, 8 tulang naratibo, 231 lirikong tula, 7 dulang ganap ang haba, 24 dulang may isang yugto, 7 tomo ng mga sanaysay, at 2 sariling talambuhay.”
Jalandoni is believed to be the inspiration for the main character Anabella in Rosario Cruz Lucero’s “Doreen’s Story,” a major specimen of 21st-century Hiligaynon literature in English.
Note: The preceding account of Visayan regional literature is heavily indebted to Resil B. Mojares’s seminal work, Origins and Rise of the Filipino Novel.
Exploring Texts and Contexts: Rosario Cruz Lucero’s “Doreen’s Story”
For further reading, Rosario Cruz Lucero’s Feast and Famine: Stories of Negros (2003) is highly recommended. The novella “Doreen’s Story” is exhilarating in its complexity, being a work of meta-fiction that masterfully blends historical facts and fiction, magic and realism, and academic research with town gossip.
The narrative features a frame story where the narrator meets the real-life author and scholar Doreen Fernandez, who shares the story of Anabella of Silay, a reclusive hacienda heiress whose life became a town legend. The story constantly breaks the frame: the narrator offers her own interpretations, incorporates revisions suggested by an academic named Jonathan, and provides research notes. The story is not just about Anabella, but about the process of storytelling itself. Anabella is eventually revealed to be a writer herself, with an output tally that strikingly parallels Magdalena G. Jalandoni’s: “72 novels, 122 short stories, 7 novelettes, 5 corridos, 8 narrative poems of 100 to 1,000 stanzas each, 231 short lyrics, 7 long plays, 24 short plays and dialogos in verse, 7 volumes of essays, and 2 autobiographies” (49).
