Literary Art History of Negros Oriental Past Present and Future

1. Literary Arts
History of Negros
Oriental

2. Learning Outcomes
 A deep understanding of our Local
Negrense Literature
 The Historical development of
literature in Dumaguete and Negros
Oriental
 The Key personality in the
development of Literature in the
Province of Negros Oriental

3. Visayan Literature in Pre-Colonial
Philippines
 Spanish accounts are unanimous in saying that Filipinos
did not use their alphabet for literary compositions or
records keeping: the Boxer Codex states unambiguously
that they used their script only for letters and messages.
Visayan literature therefore was oral literature, and as
such, was not recorded by friar chroniclers or
ethnographers who would have considered the idea of
oral literature a contradiction in terms. But it was well
developed, sophisticated, and presented by artists
rewarded for their skills. This is amply shown by Alcina’s
(1668a, 3:20) chapter, “Concerning the alphabet and
manner of writing of the Bisayans [and] the various and
particular types of poetry in which they take pride,”
which includes the full summary of what must have been
an actual epic.

4. Pre- Colonial Literature
 Catalina of Dumaguete
 Legend of Hari Laon
 The Story of Sicalac and Sikavay
 Lili-lli
 Dandansoy

5. Spanish Era

7. Rizal Novela
 Noli Me Tangere  El Filibusterismo

8. American Rule

9. A Woman's Journey through the Philippines
by Florence Kimball Russel
 This is a pre-1923 historical
reproduction that was curated for
quality. Quality assurance was
conducted on each of these books
in an attempt to remove books
with imperfections introduced by
the digitization process. Though we
have made best efforts - the books
may have occasional errors that do
not impede the reading
experience.
 We believe this work is culturally
important and have elected to
bring the book back into print as
part of our continuing commitment
to the preservation of printed
works worldwide.

10. Desire for freedom and Free Education
Love of country
Fight against colonialism and imperialism

11. This is a piece from 1907, from a page of The
Silliman Truth [the March 15 issue]
 The 1900s served not just as campus paper for what
was then Silliman Institute but also a community
newspaper [one of the first in the province] and a
Protestant missionary publication. This page contains
what I think is an unsigned short story in Spanish titled
"Una Palabra a Tiempo," probably the first one
published in the province. The Silliman Truth,
however, was first published in 1903, predating The
Filipino Student Magazine by two years. (That
magazine is supposedly the first publication in English
by Filipinos). Alas, we don't have copies of the
Silliman Truth from that year anymore, but if we do
come across any -- and if it contains any literary work
in the new colonial language -- we can effectively
rewrite the history of Philippine literature in English

12. Academic Influences in literature and
teaching English as a second language
 Silliman University 1901
 St. Paul University Dumaguete 1904
 University of the Philippines 1908

13. French Literature was introduced by St. Paul College

14. Cebuano Literature
 Vicente Rama  Vicente Sotto

15. Japanese Occupation

16. World War II Literature
 Between 1941-1945, Philippine Literature was interrupted in its development
when the Philippines was again conquered by another foreign country, Japan.
Philippine literature in English came to a halt. Except for the TRIBUNE and
the PHILIPPINE REVIEW, almost all newspapers in English were stopped by the
Japanese.
 This had an advantageous effect on Filipino Literature, which experienced
renewed attention because writers in English turned to writing in Filipino.
Juan Laya, who use to write in English turned to Filipino because of the strict
prohibitions of the Japanese regarding any writing in English.

17. Dumaguete during the War
 St. Paul Academy ( now a University) was the only
school in the Visayas area opened the school for a
few children with the SPC nuns teaching French
Language and French Literature at the time.
 Serafin Perez was the School Principal and
ENGLISH Teacher during the War in Public school
system in Dumaguete
 Adult classes in Nipongo JAPANESE LANGUAGE
were opened in Bais and Tanjay

18. Post –War Literature

19. Aida Rivera ( Mrs. Ford )
 Aida Rivera ( Mrs. Ford ) is a Poet
and Writer
 First editor of Sands and Coral
Literary Journal

21. Salvador Abcede
 This is Nita by Salvador Abcede, a book which calls itself a “historical novel
by the man who was there when the momentous events were happening,”
meaning to say Negros Oriental during World War II. It continues: “The story
is wove around a love story which depicts the life and conditions of the
people of Negros in their heroic struggle and sacrifices during the Japanese
occupation in World War II in order to resist the Japanese invaders and to
preserve their freedom.” This is a boon to my current research on the
history of Oriental Negrense literature, ad also because Abcede — the ROTC
Commandant of Silliman University when the war broke out in 1941, and
then CO of the 74th Infantry (Negros Sector) of the USAFFE — is not
generally known as a writer, much less a novelist. (He later became CO of
the 20th BCT with the UN forces in the Korean War, with Fidel Ramos and
Benigno Aquino under his command.) Abcede’s Nita and Edilberto K.
Tiempo’s Cry Slaughter (Watch in the Night) would be the two major
Oriental Negrense novels in English dealing with the Japanese Occupation
of the island.

22. Dumaguete/Negrense authors Dr. Edilberto K.
Tiempo's novel Cry Slaughter!
 hhhhhhh

23. The Most Prolific Dumaguete Writers of
the 1950s

24. 1960 Literature Revolution

25. Camp LOOK OUT Valencia home of Silliman
University National Writers Workshop oldest
running Writers Workshop

26. TRIBUTE TO EDILBERTO AND EDITH TIEMPO,
the founders of the Silliman University
National Writers Workshop

27. Cesar Jalandoni Amigo

29. Dekada 70 Martial law

30. Poet Dr. CESAR RUIZ AQUINO
Literature Professors at Silliman University
where he obtained his doctoral degree. He
has won the Palanca four times for his
fiction and his poetry, the Free Press
poetry prize and the Graphic short-story
prize. In 2004 he received the SEAWRITE
award from the Prince of Thailand in
Bangkok for Checkmeta, a personal
anthology of poems and prose pieces both
in fiction and non-fiction. His other books
include Chronicles of Suspicion (short
stories, Kalikasan Press, 1988), Word
Without End (poems, Anvil Publishing,
1993), In Samarkand (poems, UST Press,
2009), and Ceasuras (poems, UST Press,
2013).

31. “sugilanons”
 Cebuano folktales is the 1980 effort by ELENA
MAQUISO and SALVADOR VISTA to gather “sugilanons”
(Cebuano for stories) from around Negros Oriental.
Their effort was published in book form in 1980
under the title MGA SUGILANON SA NEGROS, edited
by Maquiso. (The out-of-print volume is so rare, only
one copy is left at the Silliman Library.) The
book, comprising thirty folktales, is the result of the
research of Vista’s Folklore Class in 1977-1978, “six
members of whom went to the different towns of
Negros Oriental and recorded the tales as told to
them in Cebuano, either on tapes or through direct
writing,” Maquiso wrote in her preface.

32. Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo Annual Drama and Literary Workshop among Liberal Arts
and Education Students in St. Paul College Dumaguete ( now a University) from
1968- 1980s
A part-time Professor of Fine Arts, Drama, Humanities & Graduate School in St.
Paul College Dumaguete.

35. Martinez was born in became
a lawyer in 1970; and was
arrested and detained for
his activism during the martial
law regime of Ferdinand
Marcos.
.English & Literature Prof.
SPUD
Global Filipino Literary
Award in 2011
Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for Literature winners
in the year 1997
Dr. /Atty. David C. Martirez

36. Atty Jose Montebon Jr.
 He was. People know him as a
lawyer and politician, but once upon a
time, in the 1950s and 1960s, he was
an award-winning writer. That school
project became this book, Cupful of
Anger, Bottle Full of Smoke: The
Stories of Jose V. Montebon Jr.,
which we launched today. I
 t took a while, but here it is: a book of
literary archaeology, saving from
obscurity one Dumaguete writer.

37. Rosario Fe “Sari” Saavedra
 Catholic Educators National
Heroes Awardee 2019 CEAP
 60 YEARS Service Awardee from
St. Paul University
 English, Literature, Spanish and
Music Professor
 She introduced Shakespearean
Literature in Dumaguete

38. Josefa Baena Villanueva- Perez
 Poet
 Historian
 Pioneer in Myth ,Legend and Tales
Research from 1960s to 1980s
 Writer
 She met and work with National
Artist Nick Joaquin
 Married to English Professor Serafin
Perez of Silliman University
 The legend story of Bais, Tanjay
and Dumaguete

39. Post Edsa

40. Merlie Alunan's "The Bells Count in Our Blood" remains one of the best poems written
about Martial Law. First published in 1988 in the pages of The Sillimanian Magazine, it tells
us about the horrors of those dark days and the disappearance of one activist priest.
 “Every night at 8:00 we shall ring the bells for Father Romano,
and we shall continue to do so until he is found.”
~ The Redemptorist Community,
Dumaguete City, September 1985
Every night just as we settle
To coffee or a mug of cold beer,
They ring the bells—
A crisp quick flurry first, then
Decorous as in a knell, ten counts.
Into the darkness newly fallen
The cadence calls for a brother lost.
At home as we try to wash off
With music and a little loving
The grime of markets from our souls—
The day’s trading of truth for bread,
Masks of honor, guises of peace—
The clear sounds infusing the air
Deny us the salve of forgetting.
We know for what they lost him,
Why expedient tyrants required
His name effaced, his bones hidden.
As we bend over the heads of children
Fighting sleep, not quite done with play,
The bells vibrating remind us how
Our fears conspires to seal his doom.

41.  We could say to the ringers:
Your bells won’t bring him back,
But just supposing that it could,
What would you have?
A body maimed, perhaps, beyond belief—
Toes and fingers gone, teeth missing,
Tongue cut off, memory hacked witless.
The nights in our town
Are flavored with the dread
The bells salt down measured
From their tall dark tower.
It falls upon our raw minds wanting sleep.
Shall we stop them?
Though we smart
We know they keep us from decay.
Shared in this keening,
A rhythm beating all night long
In our veins, truth is truth still
Though unworried. The bells
Count in our blood the heart of all
We must restore. Tomorrow, we vow,
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

46. Lilius Pinili has released a
book, “Climbing the Ladder,”
on Christian ministry and
discipleship, which is published
by Tate Publishing and
Enterprises.
Poet ,Author and Writer
LiliusP. Pinili

47. Msgr. Rodolfo E. Villanueva
 As ‘Renato E. Madrid’ he won many a
literary distinction in such secular venues
as the ‘old’ Free Press, Graphic,
and Midweek magazines. Southern
Harvest, his first collection of stories,
won the National Book Award while each
of his other books was short-listed for the
same Prize. Although Madrid’s book
publisher is the Ateneo de Manila
University Press, the out-of-the-ordinary
launching in Manila of his novel Mass for
the Death of an Enemy, in year 2000, was
hosted (i.e., paid for) by National Artist
for Literature Mr. Nick Joaquin, who also
had it on record once that ‘of the two
discoveries of which I am most proud,
one was Renato Madrid…’

48. Lakambini Sitoy  Lakambini A. Sitoy is an author,
journalist and teacher. Her
novel Sweet Haven was published in
French translation by Albin Michel as
"Les filles de Sweethaven" in October
2011, in the original English by the
New York Review of Books in 2014,
and by Anvil Publishing Inc. in 2015.
 She received the David T.K. Wong
fellowship from the University of East
Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom in
2003.
 She has an MA from Roskilde
University, Denmark, in the fields of
English Studies and Cultural
Encounters,

49. Stacy Danika Alcantara-Garcia
 Author of Children literature
 Writer
 Foreign Service Officer IV @
Department of Foreign Affairs
 Third Secretary, Vice Consul,
Administrative Officer, and Public
and Cultural Diplomacy Officer @
Embassy of the Philippines in
London

50. Simon Anton Diego Galera Baena
 Poet and International literary
writer
 spends his spare time on the road
with his wife, Xandy. His
chapbook, The Blood Is Within the
Architecture (Pawn Press), will be
out this year. His poems have
appeared in The Bitter
Oleander, Catamaran Literary
Reader, Osiris, UCity Review, Off
the Coast, and are forthcoming
in Caliban Online, Cider Press
Review, Saltfront, Clark College
literary journal and Skidrow
Penthouse.

51. Penn Tulabing Larena
 Son of Baisanon Poet
Leonaga Tulabing
Larena
 Literature & Social
Sciences Professor
 Poet
 Writer
 Visual Story Teller
 Baisanon Poet

52. Rolin Migyuel Cadallo Obina
 Creative Writer
 2018
MGA BATA SA SELDA 43
Written by Rolin Cadallo Obina
The Virgin Labfest (an annual festival of
untried and untested one-act plays curated by
the Cultural Center of the Philippines,
Tanghalang Pilipino and The Writer's Bloc)
Cultural Center of the Philippines, June-July
2018
 2018
SAN NICOLAS (ANG SARSUWELA)
Sole winner, Full-Length Filipino Play
Category
Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature
October 2018
 2019
ANG PAG-UULYANIN NI OLIVIA MENDOZA
Written by Rolin Cadallo Obina
The Virgin Labfest
Cultural Center of the Philippines, June-July
2019

54. The City of Dumaguete is the hub of
culture for the island of Negros. As
the capital of the Negros Oriental
it’s the central meeting place for all
of the province’s people

55. Thank you

56. Photo by :
 1. Dumaguete City Tourism Office
 2. Dumaguete City Festival & Arts Society
 3. St. Paul University Liberal Arts & Science
 4. Silliman University Library
 5. Engr. Marty Pileo of Bais Hermano FB
 6. Atty/ Dr. David C. Martinez
 7. Dumaguete Post Office
 8. Prof. Penn Tulabing Larena
 9. Dumaguete Public Library
 10. Dr. Tichie Ann E. Baena Ph.D in English
 11.Foundation University Museo de Vicente
 12. Dr. /Atty David C. Martinez