Fernando Buyser

Fernando Buyser y Aquino, also known by his pseudonym Floripinas (May 30, 1879 – November 16, 1946), was a Filipino Visayan poet, writer, and bishop of the Philippine Independent Church. He was a prolific writer and best known as the inventor of the Cebuano sonnet form called sonanoy and as a pioneer in the study of Visayan folklore.

Early life Fernando A. Buyser was born to a wealthy family of Don Gregorio Buyser y Virgeneza and Doña Eugenia Aquino y Gumba on May 30, 1879 in Kalunangan (known previously as Nazaret) in the town of Merida in the province of Leyte. in San Rafael II, an inter-island ship. After finishing his studies to be a priest in a seminary of the Philippine Independent Church (IFI), he was ordained by Manila Bishop Jose Evangelista in 1905 and then assigned in the towns of Almeria, Leyte and Placer, Surigao. Later, he married fellow poet Doña Bruna Aranas in Leyte, becoming the first homegrown IFI religious priest to be wed.

In 1930, he was ordained bishop by Gregorio Aglipay and this new role allowed him to travel in Visayas and Mindanao as well as to help in the religious reforms initiated by Aglipay.

Writing He compiled Cebuano traditional oral poetry and old verse forms, which he published in anthologies that were considered seminal in Cebuano literature: Mga Awit sa Kabukiran: Mga Balitaw, Kolilisi, Mga Garay ug mga Balak nga Hinapid (Mountain Songs: Balitaw, Kolilisi, Verses, and Braided Poems), which was completed in 1911, and Mga Awit sa Kabukiran (Mountain Songs) which was completed in 1912. in various genres, was one of the early writers who wrote short stories, and initiated the study of Visayan folklore through Mga Awit sa Kabukiran and Mga Sugilanong Karaan (Old Stories) in 1913.

Poetry Buyser, who used Cebuano and Spanish in his writings, wrote prose narratives using the pseudonyms "Alibangbang" (Butterfly), "Buddy", or the provocative "Paring Bayot" (Gay Priest). As a Cebuano poet, he was best known as Floripinas. Ang Suga, the pre-war Cebuano newspaper by Vicente Sotto, a Cebuano poetic form akin to the English sonnet, although alternative etymology was sonata nga mananoy (harmonious melody) due to the non-adherence to the sonnet's poetic structure. According to critic Marjorie Evasco, "The themes of Buyser's poetry lay very much within the tradition of pastoral and Romantic poetry where nature and the ordinary lives of ordinary people were celebrated. Buyser also wrote about the problems of human emotion and sentiment, but his mode of approach was influenced by the techniques of illustrative metaphor and of argument employed by the poets of the late English Renaissance."

Death Buyser suffered stroke in 1944 and died in Timamana, Mainit, Surigao, at the age of 67 on November 16, 1946.