Interview with Karlo Antonio David by Prince G. Binondo

 

Mount Apo’s Raconteur: Karlo Antonio David

Prince G. Binondo

 

Palanca winning playwright Karlo Antonio David has always been promoting the culture, issues and history of Mindanao in his writings. In this interview, the native son of Kidapawan City reveals his insights on the Mindanawon writers’ plight and gives views on the importance of a southern raconteur in cultural development and nation building.

 

How would you differentiate a Mindanawon writer from other regional writers?

Mindanao is home to a diverse array of cultures which are often at odds with one another. If by ‘Mindanawon’ you mean the Settlers (the Moro Lumad are always being ignored), then they too are a rather diverse group, but they do have commonalities that they do not share with writers from Luzon or Visayas. Many of them have a tendency to betray an insecurity of being inadequate by the standards of their cultural motherlands, but others are also prone to cultural appropriation of the Lumad and Moro, and almost all are guilty of Settler jacking. The Settler condition is the topic of a long conversation. 

Do you think Mindanawon writers are overlooked by Manila based critics and publishers?

Of course they are. Open any Philippine literature textbook and see how little writers from Mindanao are there. Look at your nearest bookstore and measure the proportion of books by Mindanao writers and compare that to those by writers from Luzon and Visayas. That’s only talking about relatively privileged Settler literature, remember that the Moros and the Lumads have been passing down oral (in the case of the Maranao with their Kirim and the Tausug with their Jawi, written) literature for centuries, but have you read any Lumad or Moro literature lately? Mindanao is so much at the peripheries of the Philippine nation-state that even the settlements (colonies) the nation established are ignored. Leoncio Deriada sent a story to Graphic from Nabunturan but was not published because Nick Joaquin did not know where Nabunturan was.  

 

What Mindanawon themes must be read by the readers in Luzon and Visayas regions? Why?

Everything. If it’s from Mindanao, read it. Mindanao has so many stories to tell – many of them contradicting one another – that if you choose one perspective or subject as ‘worth reading’ you invariably exclude other competing perspectives. This is why it is such an easy place to misunderstand. Read about the Moro struggle, but also read about the plight of the Lumad in Moro hands. Read about the Settler stories of success in adversity, but never forget what happened in Katindu and what the Ilaga did.   But always pay close attention to who is writing what. The Settler writing Lumad or Moro is the Settler claiming Lumad and Moro agency, the Lumad or Moro writing Settler is usually the Lumad or Moro demonizing the Settler.  

What should Mindanawon writers do so that their works will be in the same level as Manila based writers in terms of exposure and prestige?

The Mindanawon writer should seek to be relevant in Mindanao, not just to its gatekeeping literary mafia (who only ever read Americans and their friends) but to everyone in home lands. What will you do with all those awards and accolades when your works remain irrelevant to your people? Tony Enriquez’ Palanca-winning novel Green Sanctuary is set in Pikit, but it’s irrelevant to Pikit because it is hardly read there (I don’t think anyone even has a copy of it there). Perhaps the only time a Mindanawon writer should write to Manila is if he/she were to assert the interest of his/her locale in the National agenda. To tell the stories and realities of their homes in Mindanao to their homes and to the nation, to put their places in the map. What is a writer from Mintal doing writing a story set in Makati?  The writer is the unsung legislator of mankind, let’s make sure our ‘legislations of the soul’ are actually relevant to our people.    

What is the role of a Mindanawon writer in nation building?

Putting our locales in Mindanao on the national agenda. If we won’t do it, nobody will. Mindanao is always being ignored, even by its own people. As I said the Mindanawon writer must show the capital and the rest of the nation that Mindanao exists, that it has  more complex realities than perceived, and that it should be on the map of the national imagination. Shame to that Mindanawon writer in Davao who cried over Kian de los Santos and condemned the war on drugs while a little girl was raped and murdered by a drug addict in Samal.