Dr. Marot Nelmida-Flores on Santiago Villafania’s Balikas ed Caboloan
Pangasinan poetic tradition has seen rebirth in the verses of Mr. Santiago Villafania. While the anlong (Pangasinan poetry) as oral literature has always been part of Pangasinan folk life, as literary genre, it had its golden years in the vernacular magazine Silew only from 1934 to 1943. Subsequent publications gave more space to short stories and serialized novels. In the 1970s, the local magazine Traveler became an outlet for Pangasinan poetry in English except for a few bilingual writers who dabbled both in English and in the vernacular. In recent times, vernacular writers dwindled in number as more and more Pangasinan writers educated and exposed to foreign literatures and periodicals shifted to English. Literary tradition in the province such as the anlong (poetry) and tongtong (narratives) has yet to be given form and structure after having been interrupted by the valorized meta-narratives and canons from the West. With Villafania’s poetry in the vernacular, the Pangasinan anl