Written By Karla Maquiling
www.pinoycentric.comMay 21, 2007
He writes a weekly column for a local daily in the Visayas (The Bohol Standard), comes up with five to six poems a day, and has published short stories in local magazines and in an anthology (Sands and Coral by Ian Rosales Casocot).
Except he writes them all in Bisaya.
Thailand-based Pinoy poet Mike Ligalig, 27, explained, “This is my means of telling the world that there is another way of looking at things, another way of expressing something beyond the trivialities of the common sense.â€
Now pursuing his master’s degree in business administration at the Troy University of Alabama, USA through its Thailand campus (St. Theresa Inti College), Ligalig started writing poems in Bisaya when he was 12 years old, becoming even more prolific while at Silliman University in Dumaguete City where he completed his undergraduate degree in mass communication.
Now with a collection of some 100 pieces, Ligalig expects to finish 10,000 poems before he turns 40.
One in a millionWhile Bisaya is spoken by some 45 million Filipinos in most cities in the Philippines—about 50 percent of overall population—Ligalig is only a handful of writers and poets that strive to unfurl creativity in a language that most others look down on, wishing that one day Bisaya speakers would appreciate the lilt or tone of their native language.
“Bisaya is a beautiful language,†Ligalig said. “Like any other language in the world, it has the power to move hearts and minds.â€
Unlike most Bisayan literature dealing with love, poverty, and domestic violence, Ligalig’s poetry is the opposite of what his family name stands for in Filipino (“cheerfulâ€).
“My poetry is nostalgic—loaded with longings of the past, whether a known or unknown past, existent or nonexistent. It’s about love and affection whose beauty has been overshadowed by the inconsistencies of the present time,†the sentimental poet shared.
But while most creative days are filled with frustrations over unrequited love and lost romances, Ligalig also has a more serious issue to consider: the fact that Bisayan literature is neglected, overlooked, and not taken seriously.
“The government has done nothing to promote and preserve the Bisayan language. Even the Carlos Palanca Awards has only one category for Bisaya, and only for short story at that. We don’t hear of contests, workshops, or scholarships dedicated to the promotion of the Bisayan literature,†he said.
Hope in the horizonWith a limited outlet for Bisayan creative expression—only one magazine caters to this type of literature: Bisaya magazine, recently acquired by Manila Bulletin, Ligalig has brought his esoteric poetry to a whole new level: the Internet.
Things have been rosy lately, shared Ligalig, who recently discovered the functionality of fora, blogs, bulletin boards, and yes, even social-networking sites.
“When I started publishing my poems on Friendster, I received encouraging comments from friends and even strangers,†Ligalig exclaimed. “I never realized they also appreciated Bisayan poetry.â€
One of Ligalig’s ongoing projects is archiving the works of great Bisayan writers and producing an intensive English-Cebuano-English online dictionary, which is the reason he is learning Web design on the side.
While the aspiration may be a bit lofty and exclusive—and only because Ligalig and his league write for a particular niche of readers—Ligalig has high hopes that Bisayan literature has potential, and will be appreciated and acknowledged by Filipinos, especially those based abroad.
“When you live in a country not your own, you begin to appreciate where you come from and what language you speak. You will miss the sounds and voices of people who speak your language,†he shared from experience. “With Bisayan literature widely available online, I am certain that those living abroad would find their way back home to where their native tongue is nurtured.â€
source: http://www.pinoycentric.com/2007/05/21/poet-in-the-minority/Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=7436.0
Topic: Something About Michael Ligalig (Read 2067 times)