Teaching literature

in the mother
language

E
very time the subject of teaching literary materials in the
native language arises, there always comes up the question:
Where are the materials? If we feel alienated from literature in
general, maybe we can blame it on the fact that the literatures
introduced to us had always been in a foreign tongue. These
literatures often deal with experiences and ways of looking at
life that are alien to us. Literary materials in our own languages
abound all around us but we are deaf and blind to them. We have
this hard-wired misconception that literature is or should be
in English. Ever since the Americans landed on our shores and
taught us English, we have done all we can to fit the Anglo-American chronicles of
sensibility into our own culture through our educational system. Conversely, we
have also conscientiously excluded our own.
As a result, Filipinos have no sense of literature as something that may
be crafted in our native language. Despite a hundred years of independence, we
have not evolved the critical or pedagogical acumen to deal with our own literary
heritage. Edwin Thumboo, Singaporean poet says it best about his own country:
“We became international before we had become local.” The same might be said
for Filipinos—we have become global before we could understand our own local
flavors.
Another acute problem of the teacher who wants to teach literature in
the mother tongue could be: How does one teach Philippine Literature in the
languages? Specifically, how does one teach the Bisaya his/her own literary
legacy? The pedagogies familiar to us are mostly based on Western constructs and
Anglo-American models. In recent years there has been a consistent de-emphasis
on literature in the normal curriculum and a continuous emphasis on language
education, targeting English and Filipino. This has made literature a mere adjunct
to language learning. One reads a poem in order to learn about adverbs and
adjectives. After extracting the appropriate grammar lesson in a poem, the poem
itself is dropped. It is regarded as a mere casing for the grammar usage in question.
As a result, rare is the college graduate who can read literary text with
pleasure and understanding. Our system of education has conditioned our
students to approach text as a mere source of fact, information, data. They are
confused when faced with imaginative language. How would they deal with text
that does not give them data to memorize, facts to enumerate, or a formula for
solving a problem or performing a procedure? In short they do not know how to
read imaginative language.

Sa Atong Dila xvii

To Give Pleasure When teaching Literature in the Philippine Languages,
and to Teach: one must keep this one thought in his mind: The basic
Learning from functions of literature are to give pleasure, and to teach.
the Folksongs We have been so preoccupied in academe with the
cognitive functions of language that we have practically
ignored what we practice so instinctively in our daily exchange with one another.
I am referring to the affective properties of language. We do respond to these
properties in daily usage, accurately picking up meanings and nuances from tone,
accent, choice of words, pace, rhythms of speech, the loudness or softness of the
utterance—all these almost instinctively. We adjust our responses accordingly. Not
only do we read meanings in the non-verbal signals, we also use these elements in
our own conversations. We are adept in determining when a yes is really yes and a
no might actually be well, a yes. We say about women, for instance, that they never
say what they mean, but so do men. All of us are quite skilled in using these signals in
our daily interaction with one another.
Susan Sontag talks about art as eros. This is not to mean erotic only in the
sexual sense, but in the totality of our sensory capabilities. For instance, Filipinos
are so intensely aural—we enjoy sound, combinations of sound, rhythms created
by sound, we respond to sound with our bodies, dancing is such an ordinary skill
among us. Eros is in our native songs, and when we sing them, our bodies move
easily to their rhythm. Note this very popular Waray drinking song. The cognitive
element in this song is immediate. But more than that, it is also intensely physical.

Ipis-ipisi, tagay-tagayi
Han tuba nga palalaksi.
Kun diri nimo ipis-ipisan
Maluya ang kalawasan.

The first thing you will note in the lyrics is the regularity of the rhythm and
its liveliness; the second is the rhyme. When this is sang in a tagayay, a drinking
session, it is sang several times in succession, each repetition faster than the
previous, until it is impossible to go any faster and the tagay group breaks down in
laughter. The enjoyment of this song is muscular and erotic. The tune invites the
body to move along with the rhythm. It emphasizes the importance of community,
for this song is no good sang by a lone singer. There is a thin boundary between
song and poetry. In this piece, that boundary hardly exists. But as there are varying
characteristics and degrees of drunkenness, so are there drinking songs of a darker
vintage. The following drinking song has a bitter taste to it and mirrors an aspect
of oppression created by poverty and marginalization which even the pleasure of
drinking cannot disguise. This song is popular all over the region, although it was
recorded in Barugo, Leyte, reputedly, the producer of the best tuba in Leyte:

Nagkagurugilway, nagkagurugilway, an dahon han lubi

Hinin saka-saka, hinin saka-saka hinin mananggiti.

Kun pagdudumdumon, kun pagdudumdumon mga kagul-anan,

Bisan Tatay, bisan Nanay di angay pagtagayan.

Baga saho ko man, baga saho ko man kun di ak’ tagayan,

Kay niyan nga gab-i, kay niyan nga gab-i tatangkoon ko man.

Ilusad ang lakob, ilusad ang lakob ngan yayaak-yaakan,

Basi tibway, basi tibway di pagpulsan.

xviii Sa Atong Dila

 In Leyte and Samar, the economy is ruled by the mighty coconut palm.
The speaker in this song is probably a mananggiti. A common complaint of the
mananggiti is that he does not get to drink the tuba that he labors so hard to produce,
every morning and evening of his life. Gathering tuba is so hard, he says, that not
even Tatay and Nanay deserve to get their drink for free. He resolves, Never mind
if I don’t get my share now. Tonight I’ll climb the tree, I’ll take down the lakob and
smash it with my feet so no one, no one would have any use of it forever. What is
the most powerful element in this poem? It is the tone which we can determine by
reading the poem in the way an individual of this character would have sounded.
Could anyone in class read the poem in a tone of voice that would sound the way
a man in the throes of this emotion would have sounded? It might be necessary
to evoke the implied context of the utterance. Is he speaking to anyone or is he
just grumbling to himself? Is such a character familiar to the students? Can they
imagine how he would be dressed, his age, his social circumstances, the kind of
family he comes from? One can even make a drama of this, a challenge to recreate
the social and psychological context in which the utterance was made.
We may call this the reimagination process. Meanings clarify when we re-
imagine the context of an utterance. But reimagining the specific circumstances
that might have induced the utterance, the socioeconomic issues, the dialectics
of oppression, marginalization and power inequity become evident. The above
poem provides a good example of possible reflections we can make, for instance
on the theme of negative power. The capacity to absorb punishment without
breaking down—that is the power which the oppressed possess. This is shown
in the persona’s resolve to destroy the lakob which collects the sap from the tree
as a means to end the real or imagined injustice that he feels. The poem may also
show the much bruited crab mentality of Filipinos. Or one may pursue the issue of
Filipino family values. Filipinos consider it their supreme obligation to take care
of their parents, but in this case, the persona thinks that making tuba is so difficult
that he cannot afford to give free drinks even to his own parents. The burden of his
message is that he himself is deprived of the enjoyment of the fruits of his labor. By
smashing the lakob, no one then gets any tuba, and he achieves, thus, a certain level
of justice. Is he being reasonable? What consequences would his action have on his
occupation as a mananggiti? On himself, as a lover of tuba? On the total life of the
community?
Discussion should be carried on in the native language. The discussion
should also be open-ended—no one is wrong or correct. Participation is generally
more active without the language barrier, the students get to think, to analyze,
to critique, to express their feelings, questions, insights about human nature,
community, the Filipino psychology. After the discussion, the song is sang again
or the poem read. Perhaps this final reading is done with more comprehension. A
poem’s purpose is to pleasure and to teach. The class may not come up with the
fabulous moral lesson which seems to be the usual end of our traditional way of
looking at a story or a poem. But who can say that they have not risen a notch higher
in their understanding of humanity and socioeconomic and political development.
They would improve their listening skills, their ability to pick up nuances of
speech, and to claim their own thoughts and feelings.
I learned this song from my helpers when I lived in Tagbilaran City:

Si Pedring manananggot
Sa lubing walay udlot.
Ay Inday, padaplin,
Peligro kun may hangin.

Sa Atong Dila xix

 It sounds like a perfectly innocent song with a rollicking rhythm and nicely
balanced rhymes. I used to sing this in play to my babies. But of course it is not
an innocent song. It uses the device of euphemism to deal with a taboo subject.
This four-line ditty covers an entire social landscape starting from the attitude
of the speaker towards what he/she knows and hardly can restrain himself from
talking about—a juicy, illicit love affair. Hence the leery remonstration, “Ay Inday,
padaplin, / peligro kun may hangin.” It would be interesting to ask the students if
the speaker is male or female.
The following is another Boholano song, or at least I learned this in Bohol.

Pinggan, pinggan pino,

Ihatag ko kini kanimo.
Mabuak kini, mabasag, ay ay,
Kan tatay kining hinatag.

Si tatay ug si nanay
Nagtanom og tangkong.
Ang lawas bayabas,
Ang dahon biyasong.

Namunga kinig kahil

Ug limon.
Panitan kay ukban,
Daw pinyang kaonon.

It uses a series of metamorphic images, such as one finds in the very popular
Filipino song, Leron, Leron Sinta. This metamorphic devise is widely used in
Philippine folksongs. The Pinggan Pino song which I encountered for the first
time in Bohol, occurs in combination with Si Tatay ug si Nanay which makes the
narrative more intricate. This is a song of sexual awakening. A girl, anticipating
her deflowering, addresses a prospective lover. She describes herself as fine
china, delicate and easily broken. She warns the man, If I am broken, you will be
responsible to my father. The second and third stanza details her metamorphosis
or transformation from the humble creeping tangkong, to the tough and resilient
bayabas (guava) and then to the fragrant biyasong (kafir lime). Her progress
continues, she bears the lemon fruit, fragrant but sour, but she says, once it (she)
is peeled and eaten, she is delightful like the pineapple. Is this a warning to her
prospective lover? Or is she anticipating with both fear and delight her own sexual
awakening? The ambiguity enriches the poem.
There are three little folksongs in Waray that commemorate a little-
heard-of event in Philippine history, the Balangiga incident, known popularly as
the Balangiga Massacre. This happened in September 27 of 1901. The USA was
spreading out to the countryside to enforce its power over its new colony. In late July
1901, a contingent of seventy soldiers landed in the obscure little town of Balangiga
in the southeastern coast of Samar Island. More than half of the contingent was
killed by the rebellious locals on the 27th of September of that year, unhappy
over the intrusion and impositions done on their own life ways. The Americans
responded with a brutal reprisal operation that turned the island into a “howling
wilderness.” Local families sent their sons and daughters and their menfolk away,
anyone who could be target of reprisal actions, out of Samar. Four songs came out
of that period, well-remembered and well-loved record of those years of terror.

xx Sa Atong Dila
 I
Inday, Inday, nakain ka
Han kasunog han munyika?
Pito ka tuig an paglaga,
An aso waray kitaa.

II
Di ak’ nahuhulop ha tiyempo amihan.
Damo an sundalo nga pagpipilian.
An pipilion ko an binansilan
kay maupay ini pagburubag-iran.

III
Di ak’ nagtatangis,
Di ak’ nagtatangis
Han kawaray dirig.
An igintatangisan ko
An kawaray dirig.
Ini nga lawas ko
Nangingibig-kibig,
Baga gud an bata
Nagpurupulilid.

IV
Inday, kun waray ka la magyaga-yaga
Kinasal na kita yana,
May ada na naton bata,
Mata-bata, nagdurudalagan ha tuna.

The speaker asks the illusive Inday: “Nakain ka han kasunog han munyika.”
He tells her, “Pito ka tuig an paglaga. An aso waray kitaa.” The song uses the device
of a riddle to hide the horrors experienced by the people in the wake of the massacre.
The Americans torched the town, including the church. The proud bells that
summoned the local warriors to action on that fatal day were taken down as war
trophy by the American army. These bells are subject now of negotiation between
the two governments. No one outside of Samar and Leyte had any knowledge of the
purging that took place. None of our history books mention Balangiga, although it
is said to be the only battle won by the Filipinos against the Americans. The smoke
of this conflagration was well-kept from the eyes of the generations that came after.
The poem provides a good opportunity to study the political function
of literature. The riddling verses serve as an instrument of resistance against
oppression. How does the poem express resistance? What are the devices employed
by the poems to express displeasure against the political situation? What narratives
are implied in each of the poems? Do the poems proceed from a single speaker or is
each poem unique in its choice of the persona? The poems speak of the disruption
of the social life of a community. What are the effects of such a disruption? Are the
songs interrelated, or are they to be approached individually? In a discussion of
this sort, there is no wrong answer. The more varied the insights, the better. The
exercise will develop the ability to note details, to see parts in relation to the whole.
They might perceive in the metonymic process of the poems how a whole social
order, or disorder, may be inferred from the parts of the experience that are shown.

Sa Atong Dila xxi

What do you We might think that there is no magic left for us to
teach when discover in our folk poetry because they are too familiar
you teach to us. We have known them since childhood and we can
literature? almost recite some of them backwards. But by rereading
them from critical perspectives, we might be able to find
elements of expression we have not bothered to examine before. Here are a few rules
of thumb that could help in this rereading process. We must see poetry first of all as a
human utterance. Human utterances do not happen independent of the causes that
provoked them. No one, not even a mad man, screams without a reason. This is how
one might infer the context of the poem. Next to context is the voice, also known as
the persona. Who speaks in the poem or the song? That voice may speak in a certain
way—it trembles or is hushed, is sarcastic or angry, is tender or irate, depending on
the situation that provoked the utterances. The reader stands outside the poem, the
better to see its internal dynamics. In this way, he is able to perceive the tensions
within the utterance.
By understanding the context of the utterance and identifying the voice or
the speaker, we also understand our role with regard to the utterance. The persona
defines the role of the reader: he becomes by turns eavesdropper, confidante,
spectator, critic, judge, conspirator, sympathizer, or simply, as we are most of time,
the passerby who catches a remark and is moved by the encounter to empathy or
hate. Understanding the reader’s position is as important to the unravelling of a
poetic utterance as the utterance itself, for without the reader, the print on a page
does rise to meaning or significance.
What do you really teach when you teach literature? Let us read a poem by
a young Cebuano poet, Adonis Durado. Then afterwards we can sum up together
what we learned from our reading.

Alang Kang Yana

Sa pagpaabot sa adlaw sa imong pagkatawo

mobutho tingali ka uban sa kataposang
hapos sa balod nga misuwayg dunggo
sa gapnod gikan sa wa hiilhing isla,
ug tugbang sa igmat nga pagtidlom
sa mga hinlilitik ug tamala nga natugaw
sa lim-aw niining gilaay nga aya-ay.
Tingali, iatol kini nimo dihang gibugsay
sa mga hagok ang kagabhion, o kaha
sa higayong miutong ang dag-om,
ug mibuhagay ang daman nga uwan.
Dili—sa imong pagtunga, dungan kini
sa paghunong sa gahadyong nga unos,
diin kalit nga mopuli ang pagpugtak
sa mga sunoy nga gihapak sa kabalaka
dihang napuwak ang mga lubing lahing,
ulahing buwakaw sa bag-ong kaadlawon.
Kaha, mokuyog siguro ka sa pagpamukhad
sa mga pako sa alindahaw ug kabakaba
nga gakat-on paglupad—sa unang higayon!
O moduyog ba ron sa awit sa galansiyang
nga gapundok ug nahinangop sa isig usa.
Sa imong pagbutho, dungan ba sab kahang
hikaplagan sa himungaan ang gapiyakpiyak,

xxii Sa Atong Dila

 nagkatibulaag niyang mga piso—kini,
sa wa pa gidahik sa mananagat ang baruto
nga gituya sa sulog sa bag-ong taob?
Pinangga, angay kang masayod karon,
nga sa di mo pa malitok ang unang uha,
uban sa ngisi sa unang hinog nga bunga
nga namituon sa ngiob nga punoan,
iapong ko kanunay ang akong mga palad
aron paabuton ang imong pagkapunggak.

In this poem, a father awaits the birth of his first child, a daughter. His
big question: When will it happen, when will you come? He thinks about several
situations in which the birth would take place, some difficult, some awkward, some
dangerous, delicate, challenging, in tune with some natural event or contrary to it.
In the end, he simply says to himself as if to his unborn child, no matter, you must
know that my hands are held out, waiting to catch you when you fall. What role do
we play as readers of this poem? We are eavesdroping on an internal monologue
of someone anticipating fatherhood in the best way possible, with eagerness,
with passion, with joy, and also with a breadth of consciousness that the poetic
utterance allows us to imagine. Having read the poem, our own consciousness is
thus enriched and broadened, and we may certainly affirm that we are the better
for it.
In any typical Philippine college, literary studies are at the bottom of the
heap, hated and reviled by teachers, students, and administrators who do not quite
understand its place in the educational curriculum. Language teachers use it as
an adjunct to the teaching of grammar. It is used as a tool for values education. It
is seldom examined as itself and thus lead our learners to new paths of discovery.
What do you really teach when you teach literature? Here are a few points that have
guided me in my own teaching:

You teach the beauty and power of language and its tremendous
civilizing influence.
You restore the dignity of our indigenous languages and spur our
sense of pride over our own culture.
You enhance your moral and ethical sense, which will make
you a better person and functional member of the human
community.
You develop compassion and sympathy and thus become better
equipped to face life’s challenges.
You educate the imagination.
You encourage creativity.
You improve your thinking and analytic skills.
You enhance language skills.
You increase your knowledge of human civilization.
You become a well-rounded thoroughly educated person.

Poetry may not teach you a trade by which to earn a living, from which you
may eventually pay rent, light and water, and earn your daily bread. But poetry
will enhance every breathing moment of your life. If we educate our children to
be able to use their hands and minds for the rigors of making a living, we also owe
it to them to educate them on the challenge, the joy and the glory of being a human
being, the domains of feeling and the aesthetic sense, the domains of the heart, as
we may call it. The tool for such an education is literature.
Let’s begin. Magsugod ta karon.

Sa Atong Dila xxiii