Newspaper

A newspaper and magazine stand in Cebu, 1940

The main stream of literature written by Cebuanos is in the vernacular, significant bodies of work have been written in Spanish and English.

Spanish was the dominant medium of the print media beginning 1886 when the first Spanish newspaper, El Boletin de Cebu, was published. In 1915, the local newspapers began publishing sections in English. Cebu had its share of writers in Spanish, most of whom wrote during the early decades of the century. Although their output would diminish in later years, Jose del Mar still won a Zobel prize for his work Perfiles in 1965.

The best known of these writers in Spanish is Antonio Abad, who started his career in Cebu and them moved to Manila where he taught Spanish at the University of the Philippines. His versatile pen produce essays, long and short fiction, and plays. Four of his novels won prizes: El Ultimo Romantico (Premio Zobel, 1927); La Oveja de Nathan (Permio Zobel, 1929); Dagohoy(Concurso Literatio de la Mancomunidad Filipino, 1939); and El Campeon (Commonwealth Literary Award, 1939). Abad also won first prizes for the categories of essay and drama in the Commonwealth Literay Contest of 1940, thus becoming a symbol of perseverance in the advocacy to retain the use and influence of Spanish in the cultural life of Filipinos. He was master of costumbrismo (local color) and a new form of anecdote known as instantanea or rafaga. His novel La Vida Secreta de Daniel Espena (1960) is probably the last Filipino novel written in Spanish in the country.

Other notable writers in Spanish included three statesmen who wrote essays: Sergio Osmaña, who used several pen names from 1896 to 1898 in Boletin de Cebu and El Comercio (a Manila-based publication), and wrote editorials in his own paper El Nuevo Dia, the first daily Cebuano newspaper of Cebu; Vicenter Sotto (Una Rapida Vuelta al Mundo, 1930); and Manuel Briones (Discursos y Ensayos: Temario y Vida Filipina, 1955). Besides Abad and del Mar, at least three others won the Zobel prize, namely, Buenaventura Rodriguez (La Pugna, 1924), Ines Villa (Filipinas en el Camino de la Cultura, 1932), and Vicente Padriga (Vino Viejo en Odres Nuevas, 1962).

Of the Cebuanos writing in English, fictionist Estrella Alfon and poet Cornelio Faigao were among the first to gain national recognition. Alfon’s stories, collected in Magnificence and Other Stories (1994), are among the most-admired in Philippine literature. Faigao, on the other hand, was one of the most notable of early Filipino poets in English. Alfon and Faigao paved the way for other Cebuano writers in English such as Lina Espina-Moore and Godofredo Roperos. Two collections of stories and three novels by Espins-Moore have been translated into German, Bahasa Indonesia, Mandarin, Tagalog, and Japanese. Roperos has made notable contributions in both English and Cebuano.

Writing in English is still popular in contemporary Cebuano literature as proven by the works of Rodolfo E. Villanueve (Renato Madrid, pseud.), Resil Mojares, Ricardo Patalinjug, Dionisio Gabriel, Rene Amper, and Simeon Dumdum, Jr. Younger writers are also producing work that enriches the literature not only of the region but of the country. To this can be added significant work in English written by Cebuanos who reside abroad, such as fictionist Cecilia Manguerra-Brainard and playwright Linda Kalayaan Faigao, both based in the United States.

The Mariano F. Mangguera Award for Literature is the only Cebu-based literary citation awarded to individual writers in Cebu and the Visayas. Its roster of awardees includes fictionist Moore, poet Dumdum Jr., Edilberto Tiempo, Marjorie Evason, Erman Cuizon and Concepcion Briones.

If Cebuanos who used to write in English are now writing in Cebuano, there are those who used to write in Cebuano who are now writing in English as well. The quality of their writing attests to the fact that this bilingual experiment has been successful. On the other hand, the psychological resistance to the national language, rooted in the resentment of these so-called “Manila imperialism” is partly responsible for the lack of literature in Pilipino written by Cebuano writers. One may aw well ask: if,indeed, there is still a need to develop a readership for the literature written in Cebuano among the young, could this also be done for literature in Pilipino in Cebu?