A brief survey of Iloko literature from the beginnings to its present development, with a bibliography of works pertaining to the Iloko people and their language, by Leopoldo Y. Yabes.

CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE

73

pathy which is necessary in the production of worthwhile work,
and enables them to suppress the provincial or insular spirit
so characteristic of the vernacular writer.
Foreign observers have often referred to us as born artists.
But perhaps, as Epifanio de log Santos once humorously remarked, it is our being born artists that is responsible for our
being bad artists-especially in words. We have been so content with out artistic gifts that we do not bother to develop
them. Possibly if some nation other than Spain and the United
States, which are not highly artistic countries and which do not
have highly developed cultures, had been in control of the Philippines, our artistic gifts would have been cultivated more beautifully. If, for instance, we had been under the cultural influence
of France or England, it is quite certain that we would have
grown culturally more rapidly and more fully. But the sad f"nt
is that we have been under the influence of the Spaniards, who
were more interested in our material exploitation than in our
cultural development and who, anyway, have not much culture
to be proud of, and of the Americans, who are not much older
than ourselves, culturally speaking.
The literary and cultural influences of Spain and America,
however, have nevertheless been valuable to us in many respects.
Our contacts with the Spaniards and the Americans have initiated us into two different cultures, the Latin and the Anglo-Saxon,
which, together with the influences that have come in from India,
Arabia, Netherlands East Indies, China, and Japan, will be of
priceless value to the development of a distinct culture in the
Far East which will be neither purely Occidental nor purely
Oriental but a blending of the best of the Occidental and the
best of the Oriental cultures.
In the development of this culture the Ilokos have made
some important contributions, and will continue to make better
contributions because, more than ever, they are now in a better
position to do so. A sturdy and virile people who have spread
from a narrow and hilly strip of land to almost two-thirds of
Luzon and a great part of Mindanao, must be capable of surviving and achieving something worthwhile for the welfare of the
country. In the building of a national literature they have done
what has been expected of them. In our literature in Spanish they
have worthy representatives in the persons of Jose A. Burgos,
Antonio Luna, Isabelo de los Reyes, Eduardo de Lete, and Ignacio
Villamor; and in our literature in English, Iloko writers hold a
conspicuous position.
In our vernacular letters, the Ilokos likewise have made some
worthwhile contributions, and although Iloko literature has not
yet reached its full development, it being only in its adolescent
stage, it is possible that before the end of the present century
it will have reached a high degree of development. For, despite