This column celebrates the vibrant literary culture and heritage of Dumaguete City, in anticipation of its bid to be designated as UNESCO City of Literature under the Creative Cities Network. It is produced by the Buglas Writers Guild, a network of literary artists from Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, and Siquijor. Each week, we will focus on the work of one local writer. For this month, the guest editor is Dumaguete fictionist Ian Rosales Casocot.
It is almost Christmas time—but if we’re talking about local literature and the holidays, one of the things that comes foremost to mind is a tale penned by a Muslim writer named Lugum Lilao Uka, one of the earliest Muslim writers in English in the Philippines. He was from Maguindanao, but studied in Dumaguete, and delved into the local writing scene quite considerably while a student here. He led quite a remarkable life, and contributed much to the geopolitics of Mindanao later on, but he is mostly forgotten today, especially as writer—although some of his compositions have found new life in the repertoire of his grandson, the folk singer Rocky Uka Ibrahim.
Uka earned his Bachelor of Laws from Silliman in 1952. As a student, he was involved with campus writing through the Sands & Coral, of which he was editor in 1950 and 1951. Along with fellow Mindanao writer Reuben Canoy, he was also a member of the law debating team from 1951 to 1952. Later on, Uka would play a key role in national legislation. He was appointed as Chairman of the Commission on National Integration on 10 July 1959, and was also selected by President Carlos P. Garcia in 1960 to be a member of the National Committee for the celebration of the 14th anniversary of the Republic of the Philippines. He was one-time president of John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University, and was also significantly involved in the drafting of the 1987 Philippine Constitution as representative of the cultural community of Cotabato and the Muslim community as a whole. Many people claim him to be the unsung “Father of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.”
In 1948, in the very first issue of Sands & Coral, Uka contributed a Christmas story:
A Deer for Jesus
I can still see the 46 naked youngsters staring at me with very wide eyes as I spoke of the age-old Christmas story to them one morning. It was in the pagan Bilaan Settlement Farm School in the remote barrio of Malungon; and I, a Moslem teacher, was talking nostalgically of the customs of the Christian world. That in itself was bound to produce the unexpected.
It had been a most lonely life during my first year of teaching. As December approached, I remembered with almost a wave of homesickness Christmas seasons at the Normal School. Then I conceived the plan of introducing a program for the children.
Forty-six pairs of Bilaan eyes snapped and danced as I told them that they, too, were to have a party and a Christmas tree upon which they might hang anything which they wished to give to their friends. And I meant anything, for our mountain school was hundreds of miles away from the towns and sea coast.
Christmas day came and we had prepared painstakingly for the first Christmas program that would be held in that remote Moro-land. We began with a beautifully symmetrical tree no more than two meters high. Our decorations were wild varicolored flowers strung together and arranged on the tree. As the children brought in their gifts, the tree grew heavy with corn, wild honey in bamboo tubes, ripe bananas, corn cakes, roasted camotes. It began to sag alarmingly as the collection of taro, papaya, pineapple, wild fruits, and sugarcane streamed in. The fauna, too, was represented liberally by four parrots perched on the tree, a wild rooster, one small monkey, and a large edible iguana tied to its base. It might not have been the most elaborate Christmas tree, but it certainly was the most unique and naturalistic. Jesus would certainly have smiled to have seen it. At the base of the tree was a last, loving contribution—a baby deer with this tag dangling about its spindly neck: “To Jesus and Mr. Lugum Uka. Merry Christmas to you two! From Mandoen Katuan, Grade III.”
The program that followed reached a hilarious climax as the children began a Bilaan dance. One of the class exhibitionists, a little drunk with glory, tripped over his feet and sprawled headlong on the floor. Violent gales of laughter greeted this spectacle. As the crowd rocked and swayed, almost crying with mirth, sudden hysteria broke out under the Christmas tree. Simultaneously, the deer, the monkey, the lizard, and the wild rooster bolted from the tree, the room, and the Christmas program in wild panic. In complete disbelief, we watched them stamping and tugging at the tree, which with their combined efforts soon gave way. They raced from the schoolhouse, dragging the tree with them at the rate of fifteen miles an hour.
Everyone raced after the tree, but when it was recovered, only two parrots were left of all the animal offerings. The children picked up most of the fruits and vegetables in the bushes on the hillside. The monkey, the lizard, and the wild rooster were nowhere to be seen. Gone, too, was the deer which was addressed both to Jesus and to me. Who knows but that it preferred to be with Jesus alone. I have no regrets.
* * *
On 11 September 1949, Francisco Arcellana [who would later become National Artist for Literature] reviewed this first issue of Sands & Coral, edited by Aida Rivera [now Ford] and Reuben Canoy, with Ricaredo Demetillo and Rodrigo Feria as advisers. Mr. Arcellana’s review, found in his column Through a Glass Darkly for This Week, appeared on page 27 of the paper, and this is the notice he gave of Uka’s story:
“The second story is a Christmas story. It is called A Deer for Jesus. It is by a Moro by the name of Lugum Uka. It is a story that I personally like very much. I like to think that the writing did something for Lugum Uka. Christmas stories are always fun to write. They are such happy things. Christmas is a happy time, the best time of the year. One likes to write about happy things. One likes to remember happy times. And this is the reason why it is such fun writing Christmas stories and also why it is such fun reading them. But sometimes there is something else, something more than fun that you require of the Christmas story. Sometimes Christmas stories are written not only for remembering happy things and happy times. Sometimes they are written to do something, to help one resolve, admit, accept. A Deer for Jesus, I like to imagine, resolved the lovely Christmas myth for the Moro, Lugum Uka.”
