BUYSER: Man of God, Man of Letters

Although he wrote fiction, drama and religious texts, it was poetry that he was best. In his lifetime, he was able to publish six volumes of poetry, one of which he entitled Kasakit ug Kalipay to commemorate a nephew’s death.

He was the largest single contributor in the history of the pre-war Visayan-language weekly, Bag-ong Kusog, having contributed more than 70 poems in just six years. His poems also dominated the literary pages of Bisaya magazine in its early years.

Unlike most poets of his day, Buyser did not limit his subjects to love and romance. Buyser along with Gardeopatra Quijano and other writers associated with him wrote on topics as diverse as dreams and objects of everyday life. (In his collection, Ang Kasingkasing sa Magbabalak one of the poems was entitled Handumanan sa Akong Iring.) More importantly, Buyser also expressed in poetry a nation’s desire for freedom and the working class’s historic mission in leading the struggle for that freedom.

Wanting to make Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios available to Visayans, Buyser translated the poem into Cebuano.

Not content with given poetic forms, Bishop Buyser experimented with the sonnet, creating as a result, a form something like the sonnet yet something different. He calls it Siniloy, a Cebuano version of a sonnet. Many Cebuano writers who followed him, making it Buyser’s own contribution to the development of Cebuano poetry, used the form.

Fernando Buyser was born on May 30,1879 in Kanlungan, Merida, Leyte. He served as secretary of several patriotic Filipino military leaders in both the 1896 Revolution and the subsequent Philippine-American War. After the war, he became a ship official of an inter-island vessel called San Rafael II.

Upon the prodding of Msgr. Jose Evangelista, Aglipayan bishop in Manila, Buyser joined the seminary of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente and was ordained a priest in 1905. He was assigned in Leyte, Samar, and Surigao before being transferred to the Cebu diocese wherein he later became bishop in 1930.

He was one of Gregorio Aglipay’s foremost ally in the religious reform movement and even later became president of the Venerable Consejo Supremo de Obispos de la Iglesia Filipina Independiente. He also edited Aglipayan publications like Yutang Natawhan and Salampati.

Buyser died at the age of 68 in 1946.

Sun*Star Weekend

SOURCE:

Sun Star (n.d.). BUYSER: Man of God, Man of Letters. Retrieved from http://cebuanohalloffame.com/HOF-Inspiration/Fernando%20Buyser.htm