Speaking as a Bisaya, I am not optimistic, since we were never originally one nation, to begin with.
Major ethnolinguistic groups don’t have much in common if you remove the western imperialist clout that superficially binds us as a nation. We wouldn’t even be able to talk to each other.
Then most of us also harbor a lot of resentment against what we perceive as the Tagalog-speaking elites of Imperial Manila.
Our language and culture are banned from being taught in our own schools, our local government units are sued and punished for translating the national anthem into our language to make it more accessible to those who only speak Bisaya, and our areas are deliberately neglected by the National Government.
If you are kept poor, you will be easily controlled and manipulated, that was what the Catholic clergy did, and that was what the Spaniards did, they kept all the power in Metro Manila, the oligarchs are all based in Metro Manila, and they speak Tagalog but they have huge tracts of land outside the capital.
It’s the same system we have right now, it’s very feudal. There was no incentive for them to develop the areas outside the capital region since the function of the “provinces” was just to keep the capital fed with labor and supplies, just like now. They even created a system called the “provincial rate” to keep the salaries of areas outside of the capital region, lower.
The Marcos administration is not supportive of federalism, he also doesn’t want to change the constitution, he wants to continue with the centralized, feudal system. Marcos is supposedly Ilocano but he doesn’t even speak Ilocano, he is another elite who only speaks Tagalog and English. This has not set well with politicians in Visayas and Mindanao.
The Tagalog-speaking elites don’t seem to bother improving the Tagalog-based national language, they borrow as much Spanish and English as they can, they just wanted to pin everyone down, especially us Bisaya for their convenience so they can dominate the country.
As you can see from the fantasy map below, the Visayan ethnolinguistic group dominates 2/3 of the archipelago. The map below doesn’t even show that in Palawan island, Cuyonon is the original language of the people, Cuyonon is also part of the greater Visayan ethnolinguistic group.
The only reason why there are more Tagalog speakers nowadays is only because of migration to the capital region since that is where the majority of government spending is concentrated. It was all planned to wrestle power from the Visayans.
And before someone assumes, no I do not want Bisaya to be the national language, I don’t know anyone who wants to make Bisaya the national language, we just want to be formally taught our own language, just us.
Inflation is through the roof at 9%, so Bisaya and other disenfranchised groups will feel the effects of the bad economy even further. (the image below with paying items with onions is 100% real by the way). Onions are so expensive in the Philippines under BBM that you can use them as cash.
These American bases are another issue, the former President Duterte, who is loved by a great majority of Bisaya and is a proud Bisaya himself has already voiced disapproval of these bases. Also note that the Bisaya areas are mostly agricultural, and most of our exports are bought by China.
If China retaliates and stops importing from the Philippines, the Bisaya people will be the first to be affected. China did this with Taiwan island, and it made the Taiwanese realize that it is better to work with the Mainland than listen to the poisonous whispers of America.
It was an expensive and painful experience, but at least now it caused Taiwan to mellow down and they brought the Kuomintang back into power which then caused China to resume the importation of Taiwan’s produce.
And knowing that Taiwan won’t be useful anymore, the US has now set its sights on the Philippines as a potential tool to instigate China. And the biggest tool is President BBM.
Causing a rift between the Philippines and China through BBM’s pro-American actions will cause further division. None of the locals were even consulted about these sites and this is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Another American-worshipping idiotic president from Luzon island, Noy Noy Aquino brought these bases back, and BongBong just added 4 more.
BBM has no foundation, no philosophy, no culture, and no identity to hold on to, that’s why he is easily swayed, he is weak.
If the economy is bad, the people become restless. The Communist insurgency and the Moro rebellion that has been going on for decades is an economic problem first and foremost. Ideology and religion are just like kindling to the fire so to speak. It all boils down to the economy, desperation drives people to commit all sorts of things.
Thankfully, the younger generation of Bisaya is becoming more self-aware of their own identity, separate from the predominant Hispanic culture that is cooked up in Manila. And before someone tries to call me out, the “Cebuano” speaking Bisaya and our language have always been called Bisaya since at least the 16th century, by even the Spaniards.
The Bisaya were all interconnected.
Bisaya Culture.
Not cringey hispanized, wannabe white, subjugated indio culture from Imperial Manila.
We have our own Bisaya music, we listen to Bisaya drama and music on the radio, watch Bisaya content creators on Youtube, FaceBook, and Tiktok, and we hold events that are all about Bisaya things. It’s like a secret subculture, a different world on top of the mainstream Filipino culture, our very own. Young people are becoming more confident in their own skin, their own culture, and their language.
Then there’s the rise of Korean shows/movies/drama/manwa, Kpop, Chinese drama/manhwa, and Japanese anime/manga, to keep us entertained, so there’s no need to rely on Tagalog-based shows anymore to pass time. Tagalog is becoming irrelevant to us, most of us don’t even use it daily. I only use my Tagalog skills when watching the national news, that’s it.
We Bisaya have a lot of things that we can piece together to form our own distinct identity, from architecture to clothing, language, politics, and even our pre-colonial past while the mainstream Tagalog culture can only rely on Hispanized/Catholic SUBJUGATED culture.
If given the chance, it will be super easy to form a national identity by ourselves, plus most of the golden treasures excavated from the Philippines are from the Bisaya specifically from Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, and Northern Mindanao.
We Bisaya are proud to have resisted Islamification. We're also proud of Lapulapu and Dagohoy who resisted the Spanish and were never defeated in battle.
Notice below, these elitists always claim Visayan things as “Filipino” but when it’s something about the Tagalog, they call it tagalog, like “barong tagalog” as the national shirt for men like it’s exclusive to them. They also label these archeological finds in Tagalog, or sometimes they use Sanskrit and even Moro terms for it, anything but Bisaya.
They call wide gold belts, “kandit” which is a moro (maranaw and tausug) word instead of the actual Bisaya word for it which is “paha”, why would they call it a Maranao or Tausug word when it’s not from the Marano or Tausug culture? They try to always discredit the Visayans.
Maybe we should start calling our items Bisaya this and that, like Bisaya Kalis, Bisaya Baro, Bisaya Paha, Bisaya Talikala, Bisaya Habak, Bisaya Sablay, etc. to protect our culture and stop these Imperial Manila elitists from appropriating our culture.
When the time comes for us to choose whether we want to stay in this Tagalog Republic or form our own Bisaya Federation, I am confident that we Bisaya will be much better off independent than the state that we are in right now.
We can feed ourselves, we are self-sustaining, we control 4 geothermal plants, an oil and gas field, lots of fishing grounds, agricultural land, shipbuilding, mines, and our cities are progressing fast on their own with very little help from the national government, plus this time if independent, we get to keep what we earned instead of sending it back to the capital and getting scraps in return.
But, if our Bisaya ancestors could see us today, how can we face them, knowing that we allowed ourselves to be put in this situation where even the proper instruction of our language is restricted?
How can we allow the Americans, those who butchered our people to set up bases on the very soil where our ancestors shed their blood, fighting the same American Empire, generations past?
We exist only because those before us like Lapulapu, Tamblot, Bankaw, Dagohoy, and their compatriots fought hard, knowing that they will never see the fruits of their work themselves. They fought hard so our people and our language can continue to live on.
We owe these heroes our existence and I believe the only way to honor them is for us to bring dignity back to our people by promoting our Bisaya culture and pushing for federalism.
I also think that we Bisaya as a group should never again vote for someone from Luzon, they are quick to bow down to the American colonizers.
If the Philippines continues this warmongering path then maybe it is best to opt for independence, before our people get sacrificed again for the benefit of the Americans.
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