Nearly two dozen nationally and internationally sponsored literary contests underwritten by patrons of Ilocano arts and culture, including a few for new writers—young or old—or aspiring to become polished writers before long, reflect a rich culture field of northerners.
Northerners here refer to those who speak and write Iluko, sometimes spelled out Iloco, who are mainly in the north of the Philippines and are called Ilocanos.
Others are in the rising megapolis of Metro Manila, some provinces south of the capital, and overseas “invaded” by Ilocanos following the migration of workers to those countries in all but one of the seven continents.
The wealth of this culture is precise and unequivocal in the themes the sponsors declare in their respective contests: One that mirrors the distinct legacy of the language and the culture of the Samtoys.
Samtoys is a term from the corrupted “saomi ditoy”—our language here —which has for generations been a euphemism for Ilocanos, or the y-loco people, or people from the rivers.
The provinces in the north of the country, where Ilocanos have built their homes, are divided by, if adorned with, meandering rivers that overflow their banks in the rainy season.
Busy All Year Round. Many of these are almost dry to their beds in the scorching summer months of April and May—as those between Pangasinan and La Union which originate from Benguet, between La Union and Ilocos Sur, the Badoc River and the Laoag River in Ilocos Norte.
The sponsored contests make Ilocano writers literally very busy throughout the year—those aspiring to become richer by a few thousand pesos and winning Plaques of Recognition to display in their receiving rooms.
The contests cover various genres—from traditional to avant-garde poetry to fiction to short stories for children to one-act plays to novelettes and novels.
The contests here don’t include others—sponsored by the government or private institutions—which keep many Ilocano writers up with eyes open beyond midnight, hopes high they could participate eventually in a harvest of awards and recognition from peers or even from those outside their region.
Elegance of Doing Things. These Ilocano-populated areas have their identifying folk dances where they showcase the elegance and beauty of the manner Ilocanos do things.
That holds true with the way they dress, the way they see things as shown in different paintings—as they have been influenced by events in their colorful history.
The Ilocano culture—underscored in their literature and the other things that separate the Ilocanos from the rest of the world—depicts a colorful and lively culture that makes them distinctly of the north of this Land of the Morning.
Such culture is seen in their museums—many silently dotting the urban centers of the region—as well as their Spanish era-inspired Roman Catholic churches and galleries.
Two of these churches—the baroque-inspired one in Paoay, Ilocos Norte and the other in Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur are in the United Nations World Heritage List.
Showcase for Rich Culture. In the Ilocano-sponsored literary contests, sponsors see to it the contestants showcase the rich culture of their sturdy region—that culture generally referring to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give those activities substance and importance.
In the short story category, many are successful in depicting the arts, beliefs and institutions of the Ilocano nation that have been handed down from generation to generation, their way of life, their codes of manners, dress, language, religion, rituals, norms of behavior like law and morality as well as systems of belief.
Cultural Anthropologists. There are those who believe the harvest in the different Ilocano-sponsored literary contests will form part of what cultural anthropologists may well describe as communicating the experience of the authors through symbols their skills allow them to.
Whether the contestants write about hopes, aspirations, dreams, grief, sadness, bliss, social inequities, historical fiction and other zones of human experience, they invariably write on the ways of living together as a clan, their value systems, their distinct traditions and beliefs.
There are those that discuss folk beliefs, stories that take the reader through the rich landscape of the region, love of family and country in the last gasps of a bloody war, gender stories and others that entertain and educate.
There are stories about deaths in a family, underlining the values of a closely knit, if typical, Ilocano family, about ambition, which is one of the driving forces that push a man to strive for greater heights.
Then there are those about hostage taking, the destruction of marijuana plantations against all risky odds with the help of a Protestant pastor assigned in the mountain provinces—and many, many more that run through the valleys of human experience.
(HBC, award-winning poet and journalist, was president from 1995 to 1999 of the biggest formally organized literary association in the Philippines, GUMIL Filipinas, which has active chapters at home and overseas).