The history of Philippine poetry can be described in four major literary periods: precolonial (before 1521), Spanish colonial (1521–1898), U.S. colonial (1898–1946), and contemporary (1946–present). A strong indigenous oral...

Centuries before the Spaniards came, the Filipinos already had their own cultural traditions, folklore, mythologies and epics. There were substantial writings by early natives that Jesuit historian Fr. Pedro Chirino noted: "All of the islanders are much...