Bisayan studies

ABSTRACT

This essay briefly introduces Bisayan studies as a field of academic research, with a focus on literature and history. It outlines the designation of the Visayas as a distinct region by Spanish colonizers, despite linguistic diversity, and the development over the following centuries of a collective regional identity. It describes a shift in scholarly interests towards local culture and history in the 1970s that saw the creation of regional study centres in the Philippines. Finally, it provides a survey of the current state of the field, suggesting future avenues for research.

KEYWORDS:

• Visayas
• Philippines
• Philippines
• regional identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Etymologies range from the seventeenth-century Jesuit Francisco Alcina’s explanation that it comes from the Bisayan saya or sadya and the Sanskrit visaya, ‘pleasure of sense’, suggesting a person or people ‘happy, of fine disposition, fun-loving’, to the theses that the word derives the Sanskrit Vijaya and Malay Wijaya, meaning ‘victory, victorious’; the Peninsular Malay’s sahaya or saya, meaning ‘slave’, which may be the origin of the Maranao and Tausug’s use of Bisaya, meaning ‘slave’ or the territory where slaves are captured. There is also the nebulous connection H. Otley Beyer and Gregorio Zaide draw between the name Bisaya and Sri Vijaya, to support the thesis that the Philippines was once part of this Sumatra-based empire. It is speculated that the word is of Sanskrit origin and means ‘dominion, territory, country’, thus referring to the Visayas as a ‘remnant’ (visaya) of Sri Vijaya, or that it means ‘victorious’ (wijaya), meaning that it is a region successfully subjugated by Sri Vijaya. See Carroll (1960), Baumgartner (1974) and Rausa-Gomez (1967).

2 Of the seven major indigenous Philippine languages, three are Bisayan (Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Leyte-Samar).

3 In 1898, when the Aguinaldo government had not yet established its presence in the Visayas, leaders in Iloilo took the initiative to form the ‘Federal State of the Visayas’, anticipating the formation of a Federal Republic with three states, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Independent of this move, a draft constitution for the Federal Republic was presented by Mariano Ponce to Aguinaldo in 1898, and in 1899 a group of prominent Filipinos also submitted to the US–Philippine Commission a draft constitution for a ‘Federal Republic of the Philippines’ with eleven regions or states. In 1900, Isabelo de los Reyes also published a proposal for a federal constitution that would divide the country into seven states.

4 In a government reorganization in 1971, President Marcos divided the country into administrative regions, dividing the Visayas into Regions VI (Eastern Visayas), VII (Central Visayas), and VIII (Western Visayas). Romblon was joined to Mindoro and Palawan as Region IV, while Masbate became part of the Bicol Region (Region V).

5 Of the three in the Visayas, the Leyte-Samar Research Library ceased to operate after the university in which it was based closed down. The library collection survived the Haiyan/Yolanda devastation in Tacloban in 2013 but remains warehoused and closed to the public. The West Visayan Studies Program collection exists as part of the UP Visayas library system but does not appear to be engaged in other activities.

6 Also see Mojares 2017.