“Sabi nga nila” -> “They said”
At first I thought it was Tagalog but the nga was off. I think it’s Cebuano or Visayas, which are major dialects of Tagalog that pretty much qualify as their own official languages given how many speak them, though the dialects have many dialects as well.



Admittedly it’s been over a decade since I was fluent in Tagalog, and this could be a more formal (meaning biblical) grammar that isn’t used in daily conversations. Similar to old/formal English (“For whomsoever doth…”) versus modern English (“Anyone that…”).
My Tagalog was learned while amongst the Bikolanos. It probably wouldn’t have equated to much more than Grade 5 fluency. I’d trust a native Cebuano much more than some rusty Amerikano like myself 😄 especially since I only know maybe three words of Cebuano to begin with