HISTORY OF PHILIPPINE

LITERATURE

MR. CHRISTIAN JOS OBAÑA

SMU- SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
PRECOLONIAL PHILIPPINE
LITERATURES
(-1564)
 MAPPING OUT THE TERRAINS OF
PRECOLONIAL LITERATURES

• Pre- Hispanic Filipino society such as settlement

pattern, social organization and political set- up
can be gleaned through the many historical
documents, ethnographic researches and
anthropological discoveries made in the past.
 Early Philippine Small riverbanks
society clusters of
scattered seacoasts
villages Sheltered
bays
security Inter- barangay
marriage Kinship system Land use
Economic
activities
headhunting
Protection
slavery War Barangay from enemies
Unwarranted killing Degree of
Social Political political
Stealing of wives
system system development
 The Pre- colonial Philippine Literature
• Folklore- traditional learning of a group of people
bound by communally shared language, religion,
occupation and ethnicity.
• It is an all- embracing discipline which
encompasses oral literature, architecture, visual
arts and performing arts.
• Folk Literature- is a kind of verbal art constituted by
epics, myths, legends, folktales, riddles, proverbs
and songs.
 Folk speeches

Folk songs
Pre- colonial
Philippine Literature
Folk narratives

Indigenous
rituals
FOLK SPEECHES
• Folk speeches constitute the simplest form of
Philippine folk literature that provide insights on pre-
colonial Philippine society.

Riddles Proverbs
Riddles
• Riddles generally draw their subject matters from
the environment and other known sources
providing the folk salient insights about nature and
human life through close observation.
• These are terse and puzzling statements
exchanged for instruction and entertainment.
Nang hawak ko ay Sa lupa’y kukupad-
patay top kupad, boat
Nang ihagis ay Sa tubig ay mabilis
buhay umusad
Riddles
• The poetical form of riddles is also achieved in their
employment of a rhyming pattern especially
riddles that observed well- balanced lines.

Narito na si Amba,
Sa init sumasaya,
Sulong- sulong and
Sa lamig nalalanta
dampa

Acacia Pagong
Riddles
• Riddles are representations of antithetical elements
and human paradoxes.

Lumalakad walang Ako’y punong

paa, Sanggiring,
Tumatangis walang Di mamatay kahit
mata putulin

Pluma Buhok
Riddles
• The instructive purpose of riddles assume may be gleaned
from the allegorical and symbolical meanings they
convey.
• Since riddles are the folk’s interpretative articulations of
their daily experiences with nature and natural
phenomenon, riddles express metaphorical and figurative
leanings.

Maliit pa si Pedro,
Nakaakyat na sa
tore
Proverbs
• Most commonly known as wise sayings, are brief and
cryptic statements which express wit and wisdom
evocative of essential insights into the dynamics of
precolonial Philippine society.
• They are ornamented with stylistic embellishments such as
the employment of rhyme and other musical devices and
the use of metaphors derived from everyday life and
occupations of the folk.
Sa taong walang takot, Aanhin pa and damo,
Walang mataas na Kung patay na ang
bakod kabayo
FOLK SONGS
• Folk songs abound in the country.
• This is a form of folk lyric which expresses the hopes and
aspirations, the people’s lifestyles as well as their loves.
• They are often repetitive and sonorous, didactic and
naïve.
Ballads/ Narrative They tell a story from the beginning to end in
the medium of a rounded melody learned
Folk Songs
through oral transmission
These songs range from songs of infancy and
Songs which mark
childhood to songs of death and mourning. In
each stage of between infancy and death are courtship
human life and love songs.
 Manang Biday ilukat mo man
Ta bintanam ikalumbabam
Ta kitaem toy kinayawak
Ay matayakon nu di nak kasyan

Siasinno ka aglabas labas

Toy hardin ko pagay ayamak?
Ammom kadi nu balasangak?
Sabong ni lirio di pay nagukrad
FOLK NARRATIVES
• Narratives are demarcated from other forms of oral
literatures through the presence of a tale or story (in prose
or verse) and a story- teller.
• They are often varied, exotic and magical.

Epics Myths Legends Folktales

Epics
• Epics relished a central position in the folk narrative
tradition.
• In fact, Philippine folk literature reaches its highest point of
development in its epics.
• To date, the Philippines has more than 20 epics that are
recorded, transcribed, translated and published (
Eugenio, 2001)
Hudhud hi Aliguyun(Ifugao)
Pagan Ullalim (Kalinga)
Biag ni Lam- ang(Ilocos)
Christianized
Handiong (Bikol region)
Epics
Common Features ( E.A. Manuel, 1975)

• Narratives of sustained length.

• Based on oral tradition.
• Revolving around supernatural events or heroic deeds.
• In the form of verse.
• Either chanted or sung.
• With certain seriousness of purpose, embodying or
validating customs, beliefs, ideals or life- values of the
people.
Myths
• Early Filipinos held myths as sacred and truthful accounts
since these are stories embodying religious dogmas of the
ancient past.
• These chronicle the role of gods and goddesses, animals
and heroes in the creation of the world and all its laws.
• Myths, however, transcend their function of simply
providing illuminations to the origins of what exist and
transpire.
• In occasions in which sprang doubts and disbelief, these
stories were invoked to legitimize belief systems and
practices.
Myths
• Hence, they are accepted on the firm grounds of faith
necessitated by the lack of scientifically founded
knowledge and explanations of natural phenomena.
• As Jocano (1967) asserts, myths form the fabric of
meaning by which our ancestors interpreted their
experience and guided their actions; they were the
source of their realization of how everything they thought
and did had precedents in the past.
Legends
• Unlike myths, the historical distance of legendary stories is
less remote and their characters are human beings.
• Like myths, legends are considered by folks as truthful
accounts- artistically rather than scientifically inspired
explanations of how early Filipinos defined their worlds and
made judgments on their experience and sense of place
in the natural scheme of things.
 Revolve around the life of culture and epic heroes,
Heroic great historical figures and others who posses
legends supernatural power
Religious Inhabit the orbit of miracles attributed to saints and
legends stories about punishment of sins
Legends
LEGENDS

about Include stories about aswang, tikbalang, pugot,

supernatural kapre and many others
beings

Miscellaneou
Encompass stories of buried treasures
s legends
Apparently provide explanations of how places got
Place their names- from a person, plant, a contraction of
name utterances by significant characters, a verbal
legends misunderstanding bet. foreigners and rural folk.
Folktales
• Unlike myths and legends, folktales are regarded as fiction
since they are not embodiments of history or a certain
dogma.
• They served a crucial role in precolonial Philippine society
since they became an avenue for entertainment and for
indoctrination as suggested by the corpus of available
moral tales or fables.
 Animal Generally revolve around animals ( The Monkey and
tales the Turtle)

A German term preferred over the terms “fairy

tales” and “household tales” refers to a tale of some
Marchen length involving succession of motifs and episodes.
FOLKTALES

(Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty”)

Religious and Are narratives for religious indoctrination,

Didactic underscoring the motif that the evil is punished and
Tales the good rewarded.

Jokes and The last type of folktales narrated for their humor.
Anecdotes
PHILIPPINE LITERATURES IN THE
SPANISH COLONIAL ERA
(1565-1897)
 HISPANIZING FILIPINAS
• The domination of the Philippines by the Spanish colonial
power was not only geographical but cultural.
• The disruption of the conquered people’s cultural life is
exemplified in the introduction and dispersal of three
keystones of European civilization:

Spanish Roman
Feudalism
Monarchy Catholicism
Spanish Monarchy
• The introduction of Spanish monarchy brought about the
consolidation of the archipelago into one political entity
under the power of the king and queen of Spain.
• Thus, it dissolved the scattered villages formed in the grids
of kinship and similarities of occupation during the
precolonial times.
• The subjectification of the colonized Filipinos to colonial
control generated the unification of scattered villages into
larger political aggrupations that transcended ethnic or
ethnolinguistic divisions.
Roman Catholicism
• Christianity assumed a pivotal role in colonial processes
since it operated as an apparatus to legitimize and
perpetuate the foreign control of the country.
• Filipino natives who lived in the shadow of bell and belfry
had to swear their allegiance to Christian doctrines
interpreted by Spanish friars who exacted obedience from
Christianized populations.
Feudalism
• The consolidation process in order to facilitate foreign
power in the country is however, subverted by the
dichotomies created by the introduction of feudalism and
Christianity.
• The horticultural Filipino society was transformed with the
introduction of feudalism that made Philippines a part of
the world.
• Feudalism ultimately created affluent landlords and poor
landless farmers .
 a. Civilized
Feudalism b.
c.
Cultured
Refined
d. Rich

Taga- bayan Embraced Christianity and

other Spanish cultural
influences at the expense of
submitting to colonial power
Taga- bukid
a. Barbaric
Resisted Spanish control at the b. Ill-refined
expense of being regarded c. Uncivilized
with condescension and d. Unchristian
snobbery e. Poor
The Emergence of a New Literary Culture
• Spanish colonization surfaced many dramatic changes
which reshaped native literature and redefined a new
trajectory of the literary sphere.

a. Introduction of the printing press

b. Suppression or neglect of folk forms
The Emergence of a New Literary Culture
Introduction of the printing press

• The printing press was introduced by the Dominicans in the

17th century.
• Mojares explains that the dearth of written literature by the
natives originated from the monastic control of printing
establishments, inaccessibility of higher education to
Filipino natives and religious orthodoxy that stifled local
imagination in the orbit of literary production
The Emergence of a New Literary Culture
Neglect to folk forms

• Spanish missionaries regarded folk forms to be hindrances

to evangelization as they linked the native to a ‘pagan’
past.
• For example, the epic was considered to be a work of the
devil because it displays communal chanting and
dancing that coupled the tribal rituals inherent in the form
The Emergence of a New Literary Culture
Neglect to folk forms

• The withering away of popularity of the epic

compounded by the rise of literacy and an evolving
socio- economic organization was further facilitated by a
nascent Christianized epic form- pasyon.
Literature as ACCOMODATION
• The European cultural influences that pervaded the
country did not completely erode folk literature.
• By the virtue of Spanish colonization, the forms of folk
literature were modified and foreign literary forms were
deformed as they took roots in the soil of folk narrative
tradition.
• Foreign elements were assimilated into the local
experience and the local experience had to adopt to
new conditions.
Literature as ACCOMODATION
Metrical Romances

• Metrical romances are verse narratives revolving around

the life and adventures of noble persons, a subject matter
generally derived from Spanish ballads.
a. Corrido- presents noble characters with supernatural
powers and is meant to be read.
e.g. Ibong Adarna by Jose dela Cruz
a. Awit- characterized by the absence of characters with
supernatural powers and is meant to be sung.
e.g. Florante at Laura by Francisco Baltazar
Literature as ACCOMODATION
Pasyon and Sinakulo

• Alongside undertakings to propagandize for the spread of

Christianity is the pasyon which chronicles the life of Christ,
centering on His passion and crucifixion. It is chanted
during the Lenten season and is dramatized on stage
(sinakulo).
e.g. Ang Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Panginoon
Nation by Gaspar Aquino de Belen (1704)
Literature as ACCOMODATION
Hagiographical Accounts

• Hagiographical accounts are religious accounts that

include saint’s lives, sermon’s dialogues, exempla and
others.
• They are meant to foster and naturalize Spanish colonial
power.
• They cultivated among the Filipinos the desire to model
their lives after admirable Christian heroes whose life of
religious piety, humility, courage.
e.g. Barlaan at Josaphat
Literature as ACCOMODATION
Anatomies of Conduct

• The polarity between the taga- bayan and taga- bukid

cultures is ingrained in books prescriptive of socially
acceptable behavior
• These include manual de urbanidad and rule books for a
civilized , urban culture expressed in, among other things,
refined, decorous and ceremonial life
e.g. Modesto de Castro’s Urbana at Feliza
Literature as RESISTANCE
• The 19th century witnessed dramatic changes that had far
reaching impact on Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines.
a. Opening of the Suez canal in 1869
b. State control of public education through the creation
of Commission on Public Instruction
c. Provision of teacher training program in line with the
pursuit of establishing public school system
d. Widespread use of the vernacular especially in the case
of local newspapers
Literature as RESISTANCE
• Literature served the ends of the colonial masters in
Hispanizing the country but ultimately served the ends of
the colonized in decolonizing a Hispanized country.
• Philippine literature in the last century of Spanish
colonization marshaled a resistance literature marked with
national character.
• Literature as combat.
e.g. Diariong Tagalog (Marcelo H. Del Pilar)
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo ( Jose Rizal)
Kalayaan ( Emilio Jacinto)
PHILIPPINE LITERATURES IN THE
AMERICAN COLONIAL ERA
(1898- 1945)
Enforcing the Blueprint of Colonialism
• The American power pervasive in the country was
grounded on fostering its hegemony in the Pacific coast.
• Propelled by the dream of establishing a greater
commercial power, the U.S. superseded Spain in the
colonial administration of the Philippines.
• The US conquered the country by force, employing in full
swing a variety of repressive apparatuses such as the rigid
enforcement of laws to curtail the incubation of any
insurrectionary acts.
Enforcing the Blueprint of Colonialism
• Sedition Law of 1901- imposing death penalty or long
imprisonment on those who advocated Philippine
independence.
• Brigandage Act of 1902- labeled insurgents as bandits,
imposing death penalty or long imprisonment on anyone
proven participating in any rebel group.
• Reconcentration Act of 1903- known as the ‘law of
divide’, mobilized local residents for resettlements in rebel-
infested areas for monitoring guerilla movements.
• Flag Law of 1907- declared the display of Philippine flag as
treason.
First Period: Philippine Literature in the
Vernacular
• The printing press owned by investors imbued with
patriotic fervor addressed a wider readership all over the
archipelago since local periodicals that serialized literary
works in fiction and poetry were widely circulated.

Liwayway Bannawag
1922 1934

Hiligaynon Bisaya
1934 1930
 First Period: Philippine Literature in the
Vernacular A theater form originating from the
Euro- Hispanic literary tradition that
Philippine Literature in the

Sarswela paints various scenes from Filipino

landscapes
1st Period

e.g. Walang Sugat (1902) by

Severino Reyes
A theater form that concretizes
abstract concepts and ideas

Allegory e.g. Tanikalang Guinto by Juan

Abad
Second Period: Philippine Literature in
English
• Philippine literature in English blossomed occasioned by
the use of English as a medium of instruction and the
founding of the University of the Philippines in 1908.
• Philippine writings in this period were then greatly
influenced by American sensibilities, values, cultures and
literary tradition which seeped deep into the
consciousness of Filipino writers through the American
educational system implemented in the country.
Second: Philippine Literature in English
• Jose Garcia Villa (1906- 1997)

- Advanced the autonomy of art from politics, religion and

other disciplines that constitute the Filipino nation.
- He advocated ‘art for art’s sake’ which echoes the
American New Criticism which centers on art as a verbal
artefact and which therefore erodes the links between art
and the society.
Second: Philippine Literature in English
• Salvador Lopez (1911-1993)

- rallied against the US colonial government through the

establishment of the left-oriented Philippine Writers League
(1939-1941)
- Advocated ‘literature as propaganda’; Proletarian
Literature/ Utilitarian Literature/ Socially Relevant Literature
- Literature/ art should represent the conditions of the
masses
Second: Philippine Literature in English
• The growing popularity of English as a medium of literary
production is also felt in poetry, short story and novel.
• The poetry became the first genre attempted to mastered
by Filipino writers in English.
• The short story displayed a more Filipinized orientation
despite a colonial medium.
• An early successful attempt in the novel is seen in Juan C.
Laya’s ‘His Native Soils’
Second: Philippine Literature in English
• Despite colonial efforts to retard Filipino cry for
independence, there was intensification of Filipino
national consciousness as gleaned in the works of Lope K.
Santos and Faustino Aguilar.
• The growing discontent of the Filipinos regarding
American colonial administration in the Philippines was not
only chronicled in the novels produced during this time
but much were expressed in the tabloid.
e.g. Sakdal (Benigno Ramos)- became an instrument in
expressing the anti- colonial sentiments of the oppressed
and the inarticulate.