This Palanca winner writes for the poor

Ordinary people in the villages also fascinate him. He observes that the Cebuano that they speak acquire nuances that would be very difficult to translate into another language. “I’ve deepen my understanding of the Cebuano only by listening to them speak,” said Balino, whose parents came from the Ilocos region up north. “This is not the ‘dictionary’ Cebuano but the Cebuano spoken by the people.”

He is conscious about his choice of language because he wanted to show the nuances of the rural life, the language spoken by the people while they are toiling the land. He has been writing in Cebuano after he left college. “You should listen to them while they are washing the raddish or tomatoes — the Cebuano they use is already different,” he said. “I know how it feels to live close to the soil. How it is to plant and then to harvest, and wash the radishes day and night, how language change with the reality that we experience.”

Fortunately for him, the writing did not get in the way of his development work, neither did his development work get in the way of his writing. In fact, they seem to complement each other, he said.

He was supposed to submit the story to the Palanca in 2004 but the computer where he had written it bogged down and he did not have another hard copy. Fortunately, he was able to save the first draft in another computer so that he had to write it all over again. But he noticed that while he was writing it, the story also kept on changing until he came up with what almost felt like a different story.

More established Davao writers, Dr. Macario Tiu and Don Pagusara, also Palanca winners in their own right, had been encouraging him to write. “The fact that they’ve been winning Palancas tend to inspire other writers from Mindanao,” Balino said.

He wanted his real life “inspirations” to read his story, so that they might also be encouraged to write. “Not necessarily to win competitions but to learn and appreciate the aesthetics of writing,” he said. “It would be very interesting to develop a pool of writers from the grassroots.”

Balino, who is more at ease in jeans and sandals, said dressing up formally for the Palanca made him feel “self-conscious,” almost ill at ease. But he said he was also glad because it gave him the chance to meet the big names in Philippine literature.

More than half of those who win the Palanca this year are newcomers to the literary scene. Balino said he considers it a good sign. He will continue to write, to bring the stories of the toiling masses out in the open, he said.

“I strongly believe that it’s the writer’s job to be socially relevant,” he said. (Germelina Lacorte/davaotoday.com)