UP FORUM Volume 13 No. 6 November-December 2012 9
UNDERSTANDING, NURTURING AND DISSEMINATING.... continued from page 1
world view, ethical, social, political, religious values and behavior. Historically, folklore activities in the University have centered on two major settings: the academic curricular offerings that started before the war and continues to the present, and the Philippine Folklore Society (PFS), which was founded in 1958 by faculty members. Whereas the former provides subjects to students, the latter holds national and regional gatherings of scholars, teachers, and sympathizers devoted to the discussion of a theme. In this regard, members engage in two major activities: first, the Congress that elected officers every four years, and second, the Conference that was held every year. Both similarly involved presentations of select papers by experts on a chosen theme for the year. Through such activities, the University’s influence spread beyond the campus that radiates in concentric circles over the archipelago.
Multidisciplinary research Some of these research works have been published by the PFS itself, and by others through the collaboration of other institutions. How did this happen? Long after Isabelo de los Reyes and Jose Rizal forayed into native folklore, UP was founded. Here, later, foreign professors started folklore courses, notably H. Otley Beyer and Dean S. Fansler. After the Second World War, as decolonization gathered momentum in the postcolonial period, Filipino academicians rightfully took over—a fact highlighted by the increase of interest in folklore and the organization of the Philippine Folklore Society in 1958 by faculty members. Subsequently, it dawned on them that folklore studies involve, basically, a multidisciplinary approach. This enables folklorists to stray beyond a discipline or a department. In practice, foremost among these are the disciplines of the arts and letters (Humanities), the social sciences (History, Anthropology, and Linguistics), and Music, among others. Highlighted in such activities are some works on: Anthropology (E. Arsenio Manuel, Juan R. Francisco, Alicia Magos, F. Jocano, etc.), Music (Jose Maceda), Literature (Florentino Hornedo, Leopoldo Yabes, Carmen Unabia, Resil Mojares, Mario Rosal), Literary Theory and Criticism (Angelito Santos, Vivencio R. Jose), Language and Linguistics (Ernesto Constantino, Ma. Lilia Realubit), Education (Max Ramos), and so on. In retrospect, we can see that early senior members studied and then reviewed, initially, the works done by folklorists ahead of them. They also collected and published floating oral materials and subsequently developed their academic offerings and theoretical framework, approaches and plans.
In the early years, a group saw the necessity of preparing a bibliography (E. Arsenio Manuel, Alfredo Tiamson) that was badly needed then. Another group researched in the field (E. Arsenio Manuel, Juan Francisco, Florentino Hornedo), and still another, in the fields of literature (Damiana Eugenio) and education (Max Ramos). From this early group arose the critical works of E. Arsenio Manuel, who served as the first president of the PFS and provided the best model for folklore study in the Philippine setting. He was well qualified for this in many ways: academically, he finished law and PhD, apart from having taught and written much on Philippine culture, language, history, anthropology, and biography in Filipino and English. He worked throughout his university stint as a classroom teacher and field worker as well. Hence, the fruits of his experience capably provided him with the scientific method and approach as well as the correct field guide for folklore students.
concept of what the Filipino epic is, was simply contentious or conjectural at best. Manuel, faced by this problem, cleared the ground so well by using a rigorous empirical and deductive methodology. First, he surveyed the recorded local epic songs. The times proved auspicious for this for, apart from the genuine epics already recorded, fresh batches of epics were being retrieved from the field. As importantly, Manuel himself was then doing field work in Mindanao where he discovered epic gems from several ethnic groups. His keen perception, empirical system, and analytic method enabled him to prepare the criteria for determining the authentic Filipino epic from those claimed with just patriotism as basis, by over-enthusiastic citizens. He added credibility to his criteria by that time as he himself had collected, transcribed, translated and published two epic songs from Mindanao, one on the Manuvu folk hero Tuwaang, and another on the Ilianon folk hero Agyu. Remember, these ethnoep-
By Vivencio R. Jose
Landmark works An early result of his field work is the manual A Guide for the Study of Philippine Folklore, which was published in 1985. This manual proved helpful in gathering and studying all types of folklore. He followed this up with his landmark studies on “Oral Literature Scholarship in Philippine Universities” showing the whys and wherefores, and the nitty-gritty of excellent post-baccalaureatte studies. Another outstanding work followed later in a branch of folklore studies— the epics. For the longest time, the
ics are indigenous and undoubtedly Filipino. His theory and practice on epic studies and also on folklore studies in general proved to be landmarks on raising folklore methodology onto a higher stage of development as well as in upgrading academic standards. Significantly, since then, the UNESCO had included two Philippine epics, the Hudhud of the Ifugaos and the Darangen of the Maranaos, in its roll of intangible heritage of the Filipinos and of mankind. Such work done in the academe
was not enough; neither were folklore congresses and conferences. Folk materials have to be compiled and disseminated. This task, urgent and necessary, was eventually done by Damiana Eugenio. Apart from her PhD on Philippine metrical romances, which she finished in the US and later published, Eugenio embarked on compiling recorded myths, epics, legends, tales, songs, proverbs, etc. She gathered the essential materials of such genres, hitherto scattered, and put them together into books with her introduction, summaries and notes, when necessary. The result is the monumental multivolume series on Philippine folklore published by the UP Press. One cannot go through a folklore course in the university without having to read these books.
Trends Practice has shown that the above theories, trends and methods of folklore studies in the various disciplines are not really separate from or unrelated to one another. While one goes on with his fieldwork, s/he may also use the bibliographical, literary, music and social science approaches, or vice versa. As the years rolled on to the Third Millennium, younger folklorists were inspired to explore other approaches and methods in the development of their expertise. Some studied the relationships between folklore and mass movements, ideological trends and history, emphasizing their roots, value, significance and ideology (Vivencio R. Jose), and others the application of current theory (Florentino Hornedo, Angelito Santos) in order to understand our literary growth in the context of a developing university amid a changing world. Those above tendencies in the academe and in the field continue today in varying degrees of accomplishments. We are sure that other tendencies, viewpoints, and theories will emerge in the coming years. May it be well so, especially at a time when the knowledge revolution creeps on firing up human energy and creativity in every activity in the planet! The impact of advanced technology is felt in every aspect of human endeavor from the digital to the Internet, so how can folklore escape from this global trend? Happily today, folklore studies are being done at the undergraduate and graduate levels in various units, disciplines and departments of the university as well as in other universities. No wonder, a new generation of folklorists has arisen. With the above precedents set in the past, the new folklore organization UP Aliguyon should be encouraged. We hope that the youth will be challenged to expand the scope of folklore studies, explore new areas, and produce studies more than what has been done by their predecessors. --------------The author is retired professor of English of UP Diliman. Email him at ose64@yahoo.com.