Nawaya: bringing Baybayin back to the masses, breaking colonial lies
“Language has the power to unite us, to divide us. And language, when we use it regularly, also gives strength and support to those who rely on land.”
By Jian Zharese Joeis Sanz
Bulatlat.com
MANILA—It was one of the usual past afternoons in Cubao, the Filipino’s center of the world, as they joked. Expo, as always, is a place of modern hangouts, grunge fashion, and love for vintage but foreign stuff.
Thinking about it, one may not suspect that in a humble cafe’s second floor, a workshop on our culture is brewing.
The city usually isn’t a place of ancient culture. It barely reaches either the survival mode or the consuming mode masses of the city. But on August 23, in the urban Metro, with all its business, forest of buildings, fireflies of lights—hustle and bustle—Filipino commoners gathered in Silingan Cafe to study our own Orthography.
Behind the seemingly rare occurrence of these teachings reaching the city masses is Nawaya, a cultural organization that promotes Baybayin.
This workshop is essential, not just because August is Filipino Languages Month, but also because, with the continuous domination of imperialist culture, there ought to be resistance.
Nawaya’s backbone is a woman passionate about what’s ours
Nawaya was founded in 2016 by Maningning H. Vilog, an indigenous peoples advocate and volunteer teacher at Liwanag at Dunong, with her co-artists. Soft-spoken yet resolute, Maningning, whose name itself means to shine, embodies the very light she wishes to pass on.
Her eyes glimmered as she explained why Nawaya came to be. “It’s actually more about giving artists a space to showcase their talent. But from that point on, when that group was formed, there was a benefit event for the indigenous people. So, from there, when I went to the community, I realized that instead of just focusing on the event itself, why not center it on culture since I was already in the native community.” Maningning opened up while we conversed in the corner of one of Expo’s alleys.
She recalled the disagreements with Nawaya’s initial co-founders that led them to part ways, yet they continued to support each other. From this experience, wherein Nawaya’s vision was established, she thought of a way to deepen this focus on Indigenous culture—ultimately reigniting her long-held passion for Baybayin.
Maningning also unveiled that during that time, she was still deepening her knowledge of Baybayin. Just like how many may find their way home riding a vehicle to Cubao, art sparked her passion for the ancient orthography. “Even when I was in high school, I really loved art.That’s because of my passion for art; the beauty is that the script is the art itself. It has a flow, it has a look, and it has a symbol that I really wanted to study in high school.”
Upon entering college, she found herself irresistibly drawn to the beauty and depth of Baybayin. Like all great romantics, she immersed herself in its enchanting rules, subscribing to various cultural newsletters to deepen her understanding and appreciation.
This passion didn’t fade when she graduated and began her career as a teacher. Instead, it flourished. She skillfully wove Baybayin into her lessons, igniting a spark in her students to explore and embrace their own cultural heritage. Her classroom became a vibrant space where curiosity and pride blossomed.
Maningning’s love for Baybayin grew into a powerful mission. Seeing mountains being flattened, indigenous communities being displaced, the purpose of Baybayin even became clearer to her, “That’s why, when I say that I use Baybayin to assert rights, it carries more weight. I understood better, or could more vividly imagine, what those before us had gone through.”
Debunking colonial lies
Learning Baybayin is quite simple, as the script is inspired by nature and the land. Take, for example, ‘ha’ in Baybayin looks just like a soft breeze or ‘hangin’. Another is ‘ba’, often associated with women, as it resembles ‘womb’.
But just like many other things, and as Maningning quoted, ‘we need to know history so we can genuinely understand and value what we’re learning.’
Sitting in the dim-lit room at Silingan, and listening to the history of Baybayin was like tearing pages and pages of systemic lies ingrained in our colonized minds. Maningning’s passionate discussion of its history helped too–it’s empowering to see your own teacher believe in the power of unlearning and relearning.
Even before the Spaniards colonized the Philippines, the Filipinos, whom they labeled as ‘indios’, actually had their own writing system. Men and women used it. And when there’s orthography, there’s literacy and education, meaning Filipinos aren’t illiterate nor uneducated, as the colonizers claimed.
When Spain colonized the Philippines, they not only labeled our self-sufficient ancestors as ‘savage, uncivilized, and crude’, but they also began their arrest of our freedom first through weaponized Catholicism and the Latin alphabet, which resulted in the decline of Baybayin practice.
This is why it is no wonder that the first book ever written and printed in the Philippines, the Doctrina Christiana in 1593, used the Latin alphabet to explain the fundamental values of Christianity and Christian prayers in Spanish. Spanish is also the mastermind behind the spread of ‘Malakas at Maganda’, which limited men to being strong and women to being beautiful. This kind of thinking will be carried on to the modern Philippines; think of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and Imelda Marcos’ ‘malakas at maganda’ portrait––their centerpiece of propaganda.
According to Maningning, we even had our own version of this ‘Lak at Bay’, counterparts who were both strong and beautiful.
Maningning also debunked other colonial lies in the pre-colonial Philippines’ politics and more. Back before we were colonized, Filipino leaders like ‘Rajahs’ were actually strategic and honest. Think of Rajah Sulayman, Manila’s last king. Rajah Sulayman, described as strategic and charismatic, defended Manila against the Spaniards until he was executed in 1575.
Historically, even the Filipino revolutionaries brought Baybayin in their resistance. Katipunan used the “ka” symbol in its flags, which meant “Katipunan” and “Kalayaan”.
These, when woven together, point to another face of what’s lost during our Hispanicization—as Maningning emphasized, “language is the means of understanding and control,”– we not only lost control in our economy, politics, and sovereignty—but we also nearly lost language, the soul of our culture.
Relearning our Baybayin is resistance
With all that’s been stolen from us—how do we restore?
Back in the dim alley in Expo, Maningning, though in some way feels afraid due to the removal of Filipino and history subjects from schools and the continued expulsion of indigenous people from their lands, answered this question with hope and determination that in the future, more youth will learn what’s ours.
“From what I can see, we are still not free, and we are still under the imperialist country of the US. So Baybayin is not really a priority, and there’s still unification to do for our language,” Maningning introduced and cited the ways she envisions the efforts needed to help Baybayin thrive.
First, start by appointing deserving language commissioners with expertise. “So in their effort, it’s lacking. The KWF [Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino] right now seems misfocused; the current leaders in the KWF are a bit of a question mark for me because I think some more deserving people should be in the position so that the script can be further advanced.”
Maningning followed it with her advocacy to protect Indigenous Peoples from land aggression and displacement. She also called for the masses to learn about the IPs’ struggles and stand with them, “Because they are the ones who really enrich our language.”
To add to these, during her closing speech in the workshop, Maningning also unveiled another key form of cultural resistance–and it is to continuously use Baybayin beyond Filipino Languages Month.
“Language has the power to unite us, to divide us. And language, when we use it regularly, also gives strength and support to those who rely on land.” Practicing the script regularly and sharing it with others creates ripples of resistance. Ripples that may soon be waves and will bring us back to who we were before colonializers stole our identity.
The near-death of Baybayin is just one reality of cultural imperialism in the Philippines. Though there is nothing wrong with getting to know what’s foreign, but looking at everything in Cubao—the concept of Expo itself, brands dominating the malls, e-jeepney, and mini bus terminal making the Filipino jeeps seem ‘kolorum’. It makes one realize that we still have a long revolution to take, as much is also lost.
Part of this resistance is relearning what’s ours and unlearning the foreign. When we do this, little by little, we regain what imperialism stole from us: identity, culture, and language.
As Filipinos yield pen, guitar, and others in this cultural revolution, more organizations like Nawaya will rise. And Nawaya will continue to do its part; hold workshops in humble cafes, deep in Metro’s unforgiving forests of establishments until we come home and once again become our own.
Until we are once again free from imperialist claws. (RVO)
The post Nawaya: bringing Baybayin back to the masses, breaking colonial lies appeared first on Bulatlat.
Leave a Comment