I was an indolent 12-year old when the Butuan local tourism office
coined and popularized the catchphrase, "Before Philippines, there was
Butuan." Like any proud native of the place, I embraced the information
as historical fact and never bothered to find out the truth.
Butuan, a city in northeastern Mindanao, boasts of its rich cultural and
religious heritage. Local historians say it is the first Christian city
in the country. According to them, Fr. Pedro Valderrama, who served as
Ferdinand Magellan's fleet chaplain, celebrated the first mass in Masao,
Butuan on March 31, 1521. Excavations in 1975 of seven balanghais and
other archeological artifacts served as proof of this major historical
event. In terms of literary texts, the city has never sufficiently
secured public documentations and accessible pieces of information to
justify the said claims. To date, some historians contest Butuan's
claim, and also declare Limasawa Island in Leyte as the original first
mass site.
The claims of these two places soon triggered the rebellious streak in
me. Out of confusion, perhaps due to inaccessibility to public writings,
I imagined how Butuan really is the fake claimant and its people just
invented rubbish to place themselves in the map. Around that time when
Butuan's local government was hell-bent on staking recognition as the
real first mass site, I figured the city was lost. It is trying very
hard to reclaim the old colonial past only to be faced with a harsh
reality that Butuan is not what they thought it is.
Its own Butuanon dialect has long been phased out. Younger generations
speak tamer form of Cebuano and Hiligaynon. Although my mother
understands her parent's tongue, she is not fluent enough to pass it on
to her children. My father, who was born in Bohol and raised in
Camiguin, once told my brother that Gultiano takes its roots from the
Spanish family name Gulle. Until later, I heard another cousin saying
Gultiano is actually my grandmother's name. What gives?
More often than not, native delicacy is also unknown to most of
so-called natives. Ask any member of the X or Zero generation and
chances are, he or she would tell you it is Wheegols, the roasted
chicken republic in the city. A farfetched answer to pao, a variation of
sweet potato, which my beloved grandmother used to proclaim; or probably
the teeming seafood industry.
I left Butuan in April 1998 right after my high school graduation. Like
Butuan, I was confused of my existence. Butuanon is a foreign language
to me. I am barely fluent in Visayan. I know a little Tagalog and
English. Still, Butuan is small enough to locate myself in the map, too.
I feel like a microcosm of Butuan - an unrecognizable heterogeneous mix
of values. Where are my roots? Why does my family grasp for words when
asked of the same question.
I aspire to become a full-time writer. By being one, I will have the
chance to read plenty of books, which, I believe, will answer why is
Butuan the way it is? Where did it all come from? Where do I come from?
I plucked myself out of the city to have an outsider's view of where
Butuan's rise to fame is going to; of where my historical research leads
to. I needed to come up a list of possibilities of more or less probable
future scenarios.
Having these questions, however, is nothing if I stayed in Butuan and
waited for other people to answer them for me. I somehow found my way in
a university that promotes quality education. Will it help me create my
building blocks to reconstruct a malformed soul in me? In UP, I
gradually find existing models scattered over the different disciplines
and ideologies. It gradually helps me distinguish the truth by delving
into my past.
But, I have a long way to go. My addled brain remains the same, I
realized. I try hard to understand my "world" the way Gabriel Garcia
Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa dig their own. This is why I'm never
going back to Butuan. Not yet. I am still getting ready for that.
