My article aims to introduce Roger Felix Salditos (1958-2018), a revolutionary martyr, painter, and writer from the Visayas who is better known by his pen name Mayamor and Maya Daniel, to scholars and readers of Philippine literature. For a long time, Salditos’ writings can only be read in the publications of the revolutionary movement because of his vocation as a revolutionary who has been active in the countryside of Panay Island. My paper presents some facts about the life of Salditos and the historical narrative of the revolutionary struggle in Panay Island which he was involved in for four decades. I analyze his poetry published in the collection 50: Mga Binalaybay ni Roger Felix Salditos (Mayamor /Maya Daniel)(2020) as active interventions in the writing of Panay Island as a particular terrain of resistance by toiling masses of workers, peasants, and indigenous Tumandok. In conclusion, I read in his poetry both a rooting in local practice, knowledge, and language and their linking and raising to a national and internationalist revolutionary project. The publication of Kerima Tariman’s translation of Maya’s poetry thus addresses the marginalization of an important voice who embodies the mingling of indigenous literary tradition and the emancipatory vision of the revolutionary movement in the Visayan countrysides.
Read the article in the December 2021 of Daluyan: Journal ng Wikang Filipino 27(1): 96-116.
Bombard the Headquarters! 