Humor and Satire in Isabelo de los Reyes’s El Diablo en Filipinas

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary study on humor and satire in Isabelo de los
Reyes’s text, Ang Diablo sa Filipinas ayon sa nasasabi sa mga casulatan
luma sa Kastila (The Devil in the Philippines according to Ancient
Spanish Documents), published in 1886 as a serialized text in La
Oceania Española (De los Reyes, 1886/2014). In Isabelo De los
Reyes’s efforts to critique the excesses of Spanish rule, he used satire to
elicit awareness and laughter, and at the same time, contribute to the
creation of an imagined community. The search for the magical librito
in a dead man's library is the beginning of a journey of the book as a
material object and the exploration of other Spanish historical texts in
the library. Unlike Marcelo H. del Pilar's satirical technique of
rewriting the Spanish original material in his critique of the excesses of
the friars, De los Reyes quotes verbatim (at times in an edited form)
from Spanish historical writings. Sharing jokes and laughter towards
the Spaniards creates a shared community, increases one’s awareness of
abuse, and elicits revolutionary action.

Keywords: satire, humor, el diablo, librito, De los Reyes, Gaspar de San
Augustin