Bisaya

After the sudden announcement of the quarantine protocols last March, one of the proponent's closest colleagues (one of Bisayan descent) uttered the in/famous curse word "Ay Pisting Yawa!" With how life would be after that, who could blame him? The proponent had long since attempted to investigate the historical roots of this evidently indigenous Bisayan term, prior to its usage for the Devil, as far as late 2017 although he had no full opportunity to do so. The pandemic had caused a thousand sufferings and inconvenience to all, but a spark of light during these trying times came through the form of ample free time to return to this research. The paper will primarily examine pre-Hispanic oral literature and early Spanish documents until the 17th century in an attempt to reconstruct a pre-16th image of the enigmatic Yawa prior to its eventual amalgamation with Satan of Judeo-Christian lore. Many aspiring folklorists theorize that the Yawa was derived from the Panay epic character Nagmalitong Yawa who was supposedly demonized after the introduction of the Roman Catholic religion however, a thorough investigation of our available sources leans to another direction: that the epic character was named after the Yawa, not the other way around. The proponent will utilize the historical method, alternatively called the descriptive-narrative-analytic method.

ISSN 2012-0311

Vicente Sotto (1877-1950) was a Cebuano journalist, writer, nationalist, lawyer, and politician. Living and struggling during the great period of the rising of Philippine nationalist consciousness during the late nineteenth century, and the beginning of the American period, he can be seen as a key transitional figure. This is because he was active in the social and political as well as cultural life of his 'lungsod' (nation) which is Cebu. For his nationalist efforts, he came into conflict with the newly-arrived colonial administration numerous times. His contributions to the development of the Cebuano language has been noted with the epithet given to him of being the 'father of Cebuano Language and Literature.' Interest with him however is now largely limited to the academic world, as young people take their cultural influences somewhere else. Cebuano literature never regained the popularity it once had during the decades before the Second World War.