“Epics help foster cultural pride as they showcase the wealth and diversity of indigenous Philippine culture”
(First of Three Parts)
Many oral traditions in the Cordillera Administrative Region remain unrecorded or only partially documented due to their nature as sung, chanted, or ritualistic performances.
While famous epics like the Hudhud are well-documented, many other regional variations and indigenous narratives are endangered, requiring immediate transcription and writing, especially as older generations pass away, according to many scholars of regional languages from Batanes to the Sulu archipelago..
One weekend, we had the chance to have coffee with Benito Melendo, who suggested, and we agreed immediately, that documenting and recording the epics of different tribes in the Philippines is crucial.
Beyond the alphabet, these narratives are invaluable repositories of pre-colonial history, culture, and values that are rapidly fading and are considered a vital part of Philippine cultural heritage and a foundational, yet mostly oral, form of literature.
Dr. Melendo’s position why documenting Philippine epics is important and significant is that these epics, such as the Hudhud of the Ifugao or the Darangen of the Maranao, define the identity of diverse ethnic groups within multiethnic Philippines, now with a population of 118 million.
His take is that recording them prevents them from being lost to time and colonization.
We listened as he geared up to the next pages of his arguments that these epics offer insights into the traditions, beliefs, social structures, and worldviews of Filipinos before Spanish colonization.
They represent, according to him, admitting he was echoing the views of other culture buffs, a “history of tradition” rather than just a history of events, and that epics teach morals, including bravery, honor, love, and loyalty, passing down community values to younger generations.
They help foster cultural pride as they showcase the wealth and diversity of indigenous Philippine culture.
We asked Dr. Melendo if these epics were written literature or cultural heritage.
His page is that Philippine epics occupy a unique space in both categories, but they are primarily identified as follows:
- Cultural Heritage: They are officially recognized as part of the country’s intangible cultural heritage. The Hudhud and Darangen are recognized by UNESCO for their significance.
- Oral Literature/Folk Literature: They are considered the highest point of development for Philippine folk literature. Traditionally, they were not written but chanted or sung by tribal elders.
- Oral to Written Evolution: While historically oral, many have been documented through field research and transcription, making them part of the written literature of the Philippines.
He gave examples well-known Philippine epics whch include Biag ni Lam-ang (Ilocos), Hudhud (Ifugao), Darangen (Maranao), Bidasari (Tausug), and Ibalon (Bicol).
It is heartening that several government agencies, academic institutions, and private organizations are actively involved in documenting, recording, and preserving the unwritten, oral epics of Philippine indigenous tribes to prevent the loss of this vital cultural heritage.
For instance, we cannot just gloss over the efforts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts which formulates policies to conserve, promote, and document Philippine cultural heritage.
We also have the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, mandated to protect and preserve indigenous knowledge systems, including oral traditions, through programs that support Indigenous Cultural Communities; the National Library of the Philippines, which preserves recorded cultural heritage, including Filipiniana collections of oral literature and indigenous knowledge.
Alongside these agencies are the National Archives of the Philippines; the Department of Foreign Affairs; as well as private entities and academic institutions, including, but not limited to, the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and University of Santo Tomas which have extensive folklore studies departments that transcribe and publish epics;
UNESCO-Philippine National Commission; Non-Governmental Organizations, and not the least Individual Researchers and Anthropologists.
