DYVL’S LIVING POETS SOCIETY

By Rolando O. Borrinaga


(This article originally appeared as a column item in Bankaw News. It was reprinted in the Eastern
Visayas Quarterly, April-June 1996 issue.)



The contest started out as a search for the best puplunganon (quotable quotes) in the Waray language. The participants broke the rules and sent in their siday (verses) instead. Without a better choice, the sponsor and the prize donors gave in to the popular trend. Thus, we now have a Siday Contest, perhaps the longest running radio program of the literary kind in this part of the country.

The Siday Contest sponsored by Radio Station DYVL in Tacloban City has been around for more than five years already. From Monday through Saturday, around 7:15 in the morning, the station broadcasts to its audience a choice work in Waray poetry. Daily winners are read during weekdays, and weekly winners are read on Saturdays.

The prize donors for the contest now include the local Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) branch, the Pacanan Insurance Agency, and former Leyte Vice-Governor Aurelio Menzon.


Literary tradition

DYVL’s Siday Contest sustains a literary tradition among the people of Leyte and Samar. Its roster of participants perhaps include a thousand names. A few hundreds may have made it as daily winners. But the potential saving grace for the Waray language is a "critical mass" of about 50 contributors, who have been pouring out their creativity and trying to outwit each other with their mastery of the Waray tongue and of the poetic form.

The Waray language is in danger of being swamped or petered out by the more dominant languages such as Tagalog and Cebuano. Indeed, the absence of magazines and publications written in Waray places this language in a precarious position. Yet the threat of extinction of Waray can be significantly averted by such simple acts as sponsoring native poetry contests, folk song contests, folk comedy and drama contests, and related activities that elaborate the uniqueness and promise of the Waray language.


Limitations

Of course, Waray poetry has its obvious limitations when measured according to current "western" standards of literary criticism. In his preface for a compilation of Lineyte-Samarnon poems in Leyte-Samar Studies in 1974, Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo, a Leyteño writer in English who is based in Silliman University, noted that "... the Waray poets, if this collection were the basis for evaluation, were still languishing in cloying nineteenth century romanticism ... The dominant qualities about the poems are the moralistic obsession and the deadening descriptiveness ... (The) most important parts of speech in any language are the nouns and verbs, (yet the) poems have an abundance of adjectives and adverbs and qualifiers, and the consequence is that most of them are too long."


To delight, to instruct

However, many other writers have contested Dr. Tiempo’s "harsh" comments on Waray poetry. One of them is Dr. David Genotiva, Dr. Tiempo’s former student who is now a language professor at the UP Tacloban College. Dr. Genotiva once commented that poetry in one language must be measured by the poetic demands and yardstick of that language, and not that of another language.

Throughout the ages, the fundamental two-fold functions of poetry have been: 1) to delight, and 2) to instruct. When judged by these literary criteria, it seems obvious that the audience of DYVL’s Siday Contest have been served well.

In the following box in an example of a siday that was both a daily winner and a weekly winner.


***


An Kalibutan

By Geronimo A. Ragrag
Jaro, Leyte


Aton paghihisgutan,
Kanan Makagarahum binuhatan,
Iya ha aton guinpabantayan,
Ini nga kalibutan nga luhaan.

Kadam-an nga rayandayan,
Kabukiran, kabakidlan, kakahuyan,
ug kahaluagan nga kapatagan,
Kanan hayop, kamanampan,
ug katamsihan sinisirongan,
Pati kaisdaan han iya kadagatan,
Ngatanan han tawo guinpupulsan.

An Diyos ura-ura hin kamaluluy-on,
Ngatanan nga butang dinhi ha kalibutan
at’ daw pagsagukumon,
Pero naglabay an panahon,
Iya mga butang han tawo guinpanamastamasan,
Kay taginting han salapi
han tawo pinamamati-an.

Larang han Ginoo, pagdamo kamo ha kalibutan,
Mga rayandayan ko diri kamo magkukulang,
Dara han ka-iresponsable han tawo gumikan,
Peste, sakit, lunop, linog,
bulkan, bagyo, ug gutom han Ginoo,
Pinadangat nga sinyal ha mga katawhan.

An kinabuhi han tawo usa nga tiriguhon,
Kay an pagtitikadamo buot han gobyerno pagpuypuyon,
Pinaagi han pagplano han pamilya mga anak pag-igoon,
Gamit han contraceptives ug kondom,
Pero sistema natural kanan Katoliko tugon.

Mga kasangkayan ayaw pagpasibaya,
Buruhaton ug obligasyon ha at’ gobyerno
ug pamilya at’ tumanon,
Mga kabataan ha Diyos pasusundon,
Komo iya gahum ug kaburut-on.

Mga lideres ha at gobyerno nagmando,
Puypuyon an sakit, ka-ignorante ug pangurakot han tawo,
Kamakugi, katangkod ug kadisiplinado isilsil ha at mga ulo,
Bas’ kita makakab-ot han kamahusay ug an kamurayaw
nga pangukoy dinhi ha bawbaw han mundo.



home

.