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Panitikan by Doreen Fernandezpdf PDF
Panitikan by Doreen Fernandezpdf PDF
Doreen G. Fernandez
Panitikan
AN ESSAY ON PHILIPPINE LITERATURE
Literature in the Philippines evolved with and through the country’s history—from riddles around a
tribal fire and chanting during a village celebration in earlier times, to the singing of the pasyon in barrio
chapels during Holy Week in Spanish colonial days, to the novels and poems that fanned the flames of
revolution against Spain in the late 19th century, to the voices of the present-day Filipino in grief or in
exaltation—in the native languages and in English, in verse and in prose, recited or sung.
Written and oral, in the two colonial and the many native languages in forms indigenous and
adapted, in various settings and for different purposes, Philippine literature today is living and present—
not only in books and classrooms, for reflection and study, but in communities and on the national
scene, for pleasure and in confirmation of shared ethos and national identity.
Indigenous Philippine literature was born in the ethnic community, growing out of a people’s needs
and customs. In the lineal villages along river banks and sea coasts, in farms and forests, riddles
(bugtong) were used to entertain. Around a fire, after a meal, parents and children would exchange
riddles as an affectionate game as well as a learning process. At the heart of a riddle is a metaphor, or
talinghaga, linking two unrelated images both found in the riddlers’ immediate setting.
Translation by B. Lumbera
(Lumbera and Lumbera: 1982)
The riddle not only sharpened children’s observation of their environment, but also taught them
about the surrounding world and its imaginative relationships, thus giving them a vision, a way of
seeing.
The proverb (salawikain) went further by offering a nugget of wisdom enveloped in short, apt,
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Writer-teacher and food lover DOREEN GAMBOA FERNANDEZ obtained her degree in English and History in
1954 from St. Scholastica’s College, Manila, and completed her M.A. and Ph.D. in Literature from the Ateneo de
Manila University. Her fields of interest were Philippine literature and literary history, drama, cultural history, popu-
lar culture, journalism and culinary history—a treasure trove she generously shared with her students in her more
than 29 years teaching in Ateneo de Manila, and readers of her columns in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. A prolific
writer, she authored the Iloilo Zarzuela: 1903-1930 (1976); In Performance (1981); Tikim: Essays on Philippine
Food and Culture (1994); Face to Face: The Craft of Interviewing (1995); Palabas: Essays on Philippine History (1996); Fruits of
the Philippines (1997). With E. Alegre, she co-authored: Writers and Their Milieu I and II ” (1984, 1987); Sarap (1988); Lasa
(1989); Lasa: Dining in the Provinces ” (1990); Kinilaw: A Philippine Cuisine of Freshness (1991); Lasa: A Guide to 100 Metro
Manila Restaurants (1992). She had a mind and passion for excellence and the higher arts, but at heart she was always in touch
with people, our ways of cooking and eating and coming together.
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rhyming verse:
Ang maralang bayani The man who goes about with more fish baskets
nagaasawa ng huli. is the one who brings home a lot of Fish.
Translation by B. Lumbera
(Lumbera and Lumbera: 1982)
Other forms brought the folk verse of riddle and proverb to the level of poetry, being written
around an idea or insight—to teach a lesson, to express a value or a view of the world—in the imaging
and speech of the people. The Tagalog tanaga, for example, often in monorhyming heptasyllabic lines,
speaks of values, of strength in pain:
Translation by B. Lumbera
(Lumbera and Lumbera: 1982)
199. Kalyaw dap sa abyagen Stop a while here from your trip!
Linong dap sa baaynan Stay here with us in the house.
Atay sudong di way man It is getting late and dark.
Duman dap sa salsagan Rest a moment on the floor.
Hignop dap sa bariwan Stretch yourself out on the mat
Hamoy ha balantian shaded by the balanti,
Bigsi ha banaynayan the bigsi or banay tree.
Hulag ha no sangbayan When you feel rested and fine,
Bag-o tam magtaladan let us talk together then
Sis hulinan hulinan for a long, long time to go.
Translation by A. Postma
(Postma: 1972)
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Songs were active literature, giving rhythm to the activities of daily life, such as fishing or work-
ing in the field, buying and selling food, putting children to sleep, joking and drinking, celebrating
marriage and victory in battle and mourning the dead.
(Hiligaynon lullaby)
ANOP HUNTING
From A. Fernandez,
“Busog ni Kupido”, 1910
(Gener: 1949)
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I offer you my most heartfelt hello
Here at the start of this game, duplo.
The bayok spoke of love; the balagtasan on stage and later, on radio and television, debated in
verse and in prose, seriously or in jest, various facets of Philippine life.
Myths about gods, creation and heroes explored man’s origins and the tribe’s racial history.
Legends about islands, mountains, animals and fruits explained the wonders of nature. Epics like
Tuwaang, 1958, Lam-ang, Hinilawod and Bantugan, 1930, linked tribal man and his gods, his physical
exploits and his spiritual strength, his real and supernatural worlds.
Iddinog komak
Na iyan din kanakan,
doddawetan,
“Ahad don meen mandon
Sodgeddaat Banuwa rut Gimukud,
Buyuan duman mandon
Kad tampilukat iling ku
Naddelotat pa:d ta unawa ku,
Na iyan dinit kaddiay
Na possaa ruk po:ndag
Nidtawwan kut ginawa’ku.”
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The oral forms of Philippine literature are the spontaneous expression of a people, encasing
their feelings and vision in words crafted by the poets and storytellers of the community. Transmitted
and preserved orally, these early forms of literature are not “primitive” in the sense of being rough and
inchoate, but in the sense of being the product of tradition and folk practice rather than of education and
artistic training, works of the bard rather than of the artist. Yet they are genuine artistic expressions
proper to the context and the time, and represent the ethos of the people before it was tampered with by
colonization or transformed by other external influences.
His pre-colonial literature shows the Filipino as being rooted in the Southeast Asian cultural
tradition. This Asian dimension later served as a filter for the Western culture brought by colonization.
THE SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD (1565-1897)
The establishment of the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines in the 16th century brought to
bear upon literature the influences of Spanish/European culture and the Roman Catholic religion.
Because of the monopoly of printing presses by religious orders prior to the 19th century, early
written literature was predominantly religious in content and/or in purpose; novenas, books of prayers,
(*The Manuvu describe this bird as twisting its neck when dying: and it is in this manner that the Young Man of Sakadna dies.)
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books of conduct, grammars and dictionaries for the use of friars teaching religion to the natives. The
Doctrina Christiana (Christian Doctrine), 1593, the first book published in the Philippines, was printed
by the Dominican press.
“May Bagyo Ma’t May Rilim” (Though It Is Stormy and Dark), which literary historian
Bienvenido Lumbera identifies as the first printed literary work in Tagalog, appeared in the book Memo-
rial de la vida cristiana en la lengua tagala (Guidelines of Christian Life in the Tagalog Language), 1605, by
the Dominican friar Francisco Blancas de San Jose.
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the weapon I’ll wield.
Translation by B. Lumbera
(Lumbera: 1986)
The monorhyming heptasyllabic line and the homespun talinghaga, or a controlling boat-
metaphor, link the poem to oral pre-colonial poetry, but the Christian content sets it in the colonial
context.
The Memorial de la vida cristiana also contains poems by San Jose and by the bilingual (ladino)
poet Fernando Bagongbanta. The ladino poems interwove lines in Spanish and the vernacular showing
the confluence of the native and colonizing cultures. Further, because the Tagalog lines were simply a
translation
the native. of the controlling Spanish, they also showed the ascendancy of the colonial language over
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Tomas Pinpin, printer for the Dominican press from 1610 to 1630, used the same technique in
the six auit inserted in his book Librong Pagaaralan nang manða Tagalog nang Uicang Castila (The Book
from which the Tagalogs May Study the Spanish language), 1610, as exercises to be chanted by students.
How happy I am, morning and afternoon, when this my work is not done in
vain, and my pupils learn a thousand things; and their fathers and mothers
ought to rejoice, for they are not like them, not savage brutes.
Translation by B. Lumbera
(Lumbera: 1986)
The first long work of “conscious design and careful composition” was the pasyon, or narrative
of Christ’s life and sufferings, entitled Ang Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong P. Natin na Tola (The Sacred
Passion of Jesus Christ Our Lord in Verse), 1704, by Caspar Aquino de Belen, which eventually was
followed by other pasyon in Tagalog and the major languages. The most popular of the Tagalog pasyon is
the Casaysayan nang Pasiong Mahal ni Jesucristong Panginoon Natin na Sucat lpag-alab nang Puso nang Sino-
mang Babasa (An Account of the Sacred Passion of Jesus Christ Our Lord which Should Inflame the
Heart of Anyone Who Reads It), 1814, popularly called the Pasyong Pilapil (The Passion by Pilapil), after
the ecclesiastical censor (long thought to be the author), and also called Pasyong Henesis (Genesis Pas-
sion), because it starts from the Creation of Adam and Eve. The pasyon has been called a Christian folk
epic because,italthough
has imbued its narrative
with Filipino comes
sentiments andfrom theThe
values. Bible and Christian
following tradition,
extract from thethe folk interpretation
Pasyong Pilapil shows
Mary and Jesus meeting before the Passion—the feelings of Filipino mother and son dominating those
of Virgin Mother Elect and Redeemer:
952. Ang sino mang tauo riyan “Even if he comes from afar
cahit malayo mang bayan anyone there—
cun ganitong pascuang arao, on a Paschal season [such] as this—
agad ooui sa bayan returns to his hometown
dadalauin ang magulang. and visits his parents.
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marks of classical learning and gems of native wisdom still much quoted as aphorisms. It has
been read by subsequent critics as bearing seeds of protest against colonization and oppression, and
thus as the root of a tradition of Filipino nationalist literature.
Prose works in narrative mode first appeared in print in the 19th century, most of them directly
dedicated to colonizing strategies and colonial ideals. Fr. Miguel Lucio y Bustamante’s narrative Si
Tandang Basio Macunat (Old Basio Macunat), 1885, warns of the dire effects of studying Spanish or other
things “unfit for natives and their condition.” Fr. Modesto de Castro’s Pagsusulatan ng Dalawang Binibini
na si Urbana at Fetiza (Correspondence Between Two Young Women Urbana and Feliza), 1864, a proto-
novel in the form of a series of letters between sisters, set out colonial mores for feminine behavior
which still affect social attitudes and behavior today and also sketched stereotypes of popular charac-
ters found in later Tagalog dramas and novels.
Cun icao, i may anac na babaye ay turoan mong matacot sa Dios, houag
pagpapaquitaan nang nðipin, paca-inðatan ang canilang pagca virgin ... turoang
magmahal sa asal at magpaca hinhin, nang di lapastanðanin nang binata.
Houag tutulotan, na sa canilang pagtinðin, ay mabasa ang cagaslauan
at pagcaPacaalagaan
rnairoguin ...nang ina ang caniyang anac, tingnan ang canilang manða
quilos, nang maquilala ang lico at buctot, at cun sumasama ...
If you have daughters, teach them to fear God, be stern with them, and safe-
guard their virginity ... teach them to love good ways and modesty, so they
may not be treated discourteously by young men....
Do not permit them to show vulgarity or amorousness in their glances....
A mother should take great care of her daughters, looking after their
manners and movements, so as to recognize any impropriety, wickedness, or
tendency towards evil.
Fr. Antonio Ubeda’s La Teresa (The Teresa), 1852, is a Cebuano narrative in dialogue form “that
presents a story that is mainly a framework for a discourse on dogma and sound Christian living”. Also
concerned with duty and behavior, especially for women, it includes criticism of superstition and ad-
vice on an economic practice ( prenda or mortgage), and concludes with the maxim: Ang matood nga pag-
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higugma anaa sa pagpadayag sa buhat — True love is revealed in works (Mojares: 1983).
In spite of the literature of colonization, which imposed Spanish culture, mores and forms, a
national and nationalist consciousness grew. This came through such pathways as education (on one’s
own or abroad in freer climes), the actual experience of forced labor, eviction from land and other forms
of injustice and oppression, and such catalyzing events as the Cavite Mutiny and the execution of
Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora in 1872.
A royal decree of 1863 provided for a complete educational system at elementary, secondary
and tertiary levels. This eventually produced writers who could and did use Spanish for literary pur-
poses rather than for religious purposes or under the direction of the religious as the ladino poets had
done. Pedro Paterno’s collection of poems, Sampaguitas, 1880, and his novel Ninay, 1885, were insis-
tently “Filipino”, the latter taking detours through native customs and traditions, not only for local color
but for cultural assertion. Ninay, antedating Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) by two years, is the
first Filipino novel ever written.
From these circumstances was born the literature of reform, prelude to that of revolution. The
literary realism of the novels of Jose Rizal, Noli Me Tangere, 1887, and El Filibusterismo (Subversion),
1891, did not only have impact on the consciousness of Filipinos beginning to reject Spanish rule, but
also on the works of succeeding writers. Many later works of fiction, drama, dance and other arts have
drawn from or referred to his characters, plots and literary style.
Tandang Selo vive todavia y aunque sus cabellos se han vuelto todos canos,
conserva no obatante su buena salud. Ya no va a cazar ni a cortar arboles; como
ha mejorado de fortuna solo se dedica a hacer escobas.
Su hijo Tales (abreviacion de Telesforo) primero habia trabajado como
aparcero en los terrenos de un capitaliata, pero, mas tarde, dueño ya de dos
karabaos y de algunos centenares de pesos, quiso trabajar por su cuenta ayudado
de su padre, su mujer sus tres hijos.
The woodcutter who had sheltered Basilio in the mountains as a boy was still
alive and healthy, although his hair had turned completely white. He no longer
went
brooms hunting or wood-gathering; his fortunes had improved and now he made
as a pastime.
His son Telesforo, Tales for short, had first worked as a share-tenant;
later, having acquired two carabaos and saved some hundreds of pesos, he had
struck out on his own with the help of his father, wife and three children.
They had cleared a thickly forested tract on the edge of the town which they
thought belonged to no one. The entire family, one after the other, had gone
down with fever when they were breaking up and draining the ground; the
wife of Tales and his elder daughter, Lucia, in the prime of youth, wasted away
and died. It was only to be expected from the nature of their task but the family
blamed it on the vengeful guardian spirit of the forest, resigned themselves,
and went on with their work confident that the spirit had been appeased. Then,
on the eve of their first harvest, a religious Order which owned lands in the
neighboring town had claimed ownership of the newly cleared fields, alleging
that they were within the limits of its property, and to establish its claim imme-
diately attempted to put up boundary markers.
(Guerrero: 1965)
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PRAY CLEMENTE: Senyor, sinasaka ninyo ang lupa namin! ... Tumahimik kayo!
FRAY CLEMENTE: Sir, you are farming our land! ... Be quiet!
TALES: Why should I be quiet? What is wrong with what I said? What work
have that rascal and his servant done on this farm? He has never seen it. He
only knows how to collect rent and raise it again and again till we can no longer
pay. I believe the land is not their property. Fray Clemente just heard about the
bounty of our first harvest. It’s just that we were afraid to protest then, because
we might be sent away. But now I am ready to fight. They are doing this now in
order to push their claim to our land.
TANDANG SELO: Tales, remember what I said about the clay pot.
TALES:
the iron Ivessel—and
am fed up, Tatang, really fed
let whatever mayup. This clay
happen. pot is ready
Anyway, to lunge
we can against
only end up
in dust.
Rizal’s poetry as well left lasting imprints on the emerging national consciousness and on suc-
ceeding writers. The achievement of his best poems (“A Las Flores de Heidelberg” [To the Flowers of
Heidelberg], “Ultimo Adios” [Last Farewell], “Mi Retiro” [My Retreat]) lies in the quality of the writing,
in the graceful and sonorous use of the Spanish language and especially in the shaping of both by the
motive emotion of love of country. In them we have “a poet’s personal sacrifice for the country dovetail-
ing with his art” (Lumbera and Lumbera: 1982).
Marcelo H. del Pilar’s essays in Spanish (e.g. “La Soberania Monacal en Filipinas” [Monastic
Supremacy in the Philippines] and articles in La Solidaridad) and poetry in Tagalog (e.g. “Sagot ng
España sa Hibik ng Pilipinas” [Spain’s Reply to the Complaints of the Filipinos], a complementary piece
to Hermenegildo Flores’ “Hibik ng Pilipinas sa Inang Espanya” [Complaints of the Filipinos to Mother
Spain]) were significant contributions to the literature of reform. It was his parodies of “sacred” forms
like the catechism and popular forms like the pasyon and the duplo that most effectively brought home to
the people his protests against colonial and friar rule. His writing and his editorship of La Solidaridad
(Feb. 15, 1889) made “Plaridel” a major force in the Propaganda Movement.
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MOST CELEBRATED NOVELS. National hero Dr. Jose P.
Rizal wrote the country’s most celebrated novels, Noli Me
Tangere and El Filibusterismo whose themes, characters,
and subplots have inspired the creation of other literary
and artistic works of succeeding generations. More than
execellent fiction, Rizal’s novels are veritable social and
political documents of the Spanish colonial era.
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Hail Money, filler of banks, the friars are with you, blessed are you and better
than all and blessed is the treasure box that you choose to fill. Holy Money,
Mother of Rights, pray for us against those who would shave us and keep us
from getting killed. Amen.
As the 19th century drew to a close, it became clear that the Propaganda Movement was not
bringing about changes in colonial policy. Reformism was abandoned; the Revolution began.
The use of Tagalog by the members of the Katipunan linked the language with nationalism, and
the literature written in it in the succeeding years became a major factor in the formation of a revolution-
ary consciousness and in the Revolution. This literature of Revolution includes such works as Andres
Bonifacio’s “Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa” (Love for the Native Land) and the Katipunan manifesto
“Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Tagalog” (What the Tagalog Should Know), Apolinario Mabini’s La
Revolucion Filipina (The Philippine Revolution), 1902, as well as Emilio Jacinto’s short essays known
collectively as Liwanag at Dilim (Light and Darkness).
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
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Aling pag-ibig pa ang hihigit kaya
sa pagkadalisay at pagkadakila
gaya ng pag-ibig sa tinubuang lupa?
Aling pag-ibig pa? Wala na nga, wala.
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who in honoring you reveals his honor in turn.
Human freedom is the innate right of all human beings, the freedom to think
and act as one wishes without hurting the rights of others.
Upon one’s coming to maturity, it is this right that distinguishes the
human being from all other creatures. An animal is tied up and domesticated
because it cannot tell right from wrong and does not aspire to greatness nor to
do great deeds. Only a human being can say l love this or do not love that; and
so judge, by the nature of what one loves or does not love, that it be good or
bad, whatever be the punishment, whatever the pain.
The need to awaken awareness, nationalist fervor and action, and certainly the urgency of revo-
lution brought to the fore the essay as literary form—in the pages of revolutionary papers like La Solidaridad
and the Katipunan newspaper Kalayaan, 1899, and later nationalist publications like Lipang Kalabaw,
1907-1909, and Muling Pagsilang, 1901.
Less visible than the above literature proceeding from and directed to leaders of the Revolution
were the prayers, songs, awit and poems that circulated among the masses and, the Ileto study points
out, prepared their spirit and consciousness for “revolt of the masses.” Scholars are finding out that
there was a literature to support the “Little Tradition,” as well as the “Great Tradition” that jointly
resulted in the Philippine Revolution of 1896. An example is a kundiman expressing the revolution in
folk images:
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Our defenders
the eldest fellthe
Burgos, intoyoungest
grief Rizal
sons without a stain of guilt
were treacherously killed by the envious, fearful friars
(Ileto: 1979)
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By the end of the Spanish colonial period, Philippine literature had grown from its community
matrix, through colonial influences, to the national and nationalist purposes. In its development is seen
the emergence of the Filipino people and of a truly Filipino literature.
The early years of the American colonial regime saw the continuance of the literature of protest, now
directed at the new colonizers. In the drama, such writers as Tomas Remigio, Juan Matapang Cruz,
Juan Abad and Aurelio Tolentino were arrested on charges of sedition because of their anti-American
plays— Malaya (Free), 1898, Hindi Aco Patay (I Am Not Dead), 1903, Tanikalang Guinto (Golden Chain),
1902 and Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow), 1903, respectively.
The first decade also saw the continuation and eventual decline of Philippine literature in Spanish.
The poems of Fernando Ma. Guerrero ( Crisalidas [Chrysales], 1914), Cecilio Apostol (Pentelicas [from
Pentelicus, a mountain near Athens, Greece.), 1941), Jesus Balmori ( Mi Casa de Nipa [My Nipa Hut],
1938), Manuel Bernabe (Cantos del Tropico [Songs of the Tropics], 1929; Perfil de Cresta [Profile of the
Crest], 1957) and Claro M. Recto ( Bajo los cocoteros [Under the Coconut Trees], 1911); the novels of Balmori
(Se deshojo la flor , [literally, The Unleafing of the Flower], 1915; Bancarrota de almas [Bankruptcy of Souls],
1911) and Antonio M. Abad ( El Ultimo Romantico [The Last Romantic], 1927; El Campeon [The Cham-
pion], 1939) melded Spanish literary tradition to commentary on Philippine society and, eventually, to
the patriotic sentiments of reform and revolution, often showing a poetic lineage traceable to Rizal and
other writers of the Propaganda Movement and the 1896 Revolution.
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The establishment by the American insular government of the public educational system in
1901 had profound effects on Philippine literature. English became the medium of instruction and the
language of schooled literature. American values and images filled textbooks and thus, the minds and
aspirations of Filipino students. From the schools came the first Filipino writers in English who sought
to capture Philippine experience in the borrowed alien language.
The short story showcased the skill and art of such writers as Manuel Arguilla who captured
the gentleness of rural life (“Morning in Nagrebcan”; “A Son is Born”); Bienvenido Santos, chronicler of
the lives and pain of Filipinos exiled abroad or trapped at home (“Scent of Apples”; “End to Laughter”);
Arturo Rotor, whose stories about doctors and convicts explored the inner life of the city and institu-
tions (“At Last This Fragrance”; “Deny the Mockery”); Carlos Bulosan who wrote and lived the injustice
suffered by migrant Filipino laborers (“As Long as the Grass Shall Grow”; “The Story of a Letter”); and
N.V.M. Gonzales, whose settings for his Filipino stories range from Mindoro to the city and foreign
lands (“Bread of Salt”; “A Warm Hand”).
The first decades saw the growth of poetry in English, with Jose Garcia Villa’s poetry published
in the United States and considered alongside those of his American contemporaries.
Go through the history of literature, and you will find that the greatest writers
are ever those whose feet were planted solidly on the earth regardless of how
high up in the clouds their heads might have been. This is not to say, however,
that great writing must pertain to some department of propaganda. Propa-
ganda is written with the definite object of influencing people to believe or to
do something. While there are a few books which have survived the immediate
motive of propaganda that inspired them, yet one can say truly that the bulk of
literary works of permanent value consists of those that are neither pure pro-
paganda nor pure art but which are in some way deeply rooted in the earth of
human experience....
In the end, what really interests the writer, granting that he recognizes
the value of social content in literature, is some sort of assurance that his writ-
ing will result in something that he can lay his hands on as good and useful. For
certainly he has a right to expect that, having acceded to the demands of soci-
ety upon his talent, certain measurable benefits will flow from his work wholly
distinct, from the purely subjective satisfaction that is his birthright as an artist
and which comes naturally with the act of creative expression.
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In this period, the sarsuwela, regnant drama form of the 1920s and 1930s, came to be replaced on
the city stages by drama in English by foreign authors, and later by the works of such Filipino play-
wrights as Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, Severino Montano, Alberto Florentine and Nick Joaquin.
Although writing in English came out of the universities and was understandably quite Ameri-
canized in style, form and content, at its best it captured the nuances and effects of American culture in
confrontation with Philippine reality. Its maturity is seen in contemporary poems (by Carlos Angeles,
Ricaredo Demetillo, Emmanuel Torres, Rolando Tinio, Cirilo Bautista, Edith Tiempo, Alfrredo Navarro
Salanga, Alfred Yuson, Marjorie Evasco, Ramon Sunico, Fatima Lim, Marne Kilates, Ophelia Dimalanta,
Gemino Abad, Ricardo de Ungria, etc.), stories (by Francisco Arcellana, Wilfrido Nolledo, Nick Joaquin,
Edilberto Tiempo, Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas, Jose Dalisay, etc.), novels (by F. Sionil Jose, Ninotchka
Rosca, Linda Ty Casper, Bienvenido Santos) and essays that succeed in capturing Philippine life and
reality in the English language and in grafting the language in Filipino ways, adequate for and atuned to
the native sensibility.
An experience markedly individual yet palpably Filipino is conveyed in Nick Joaquin’s “Bye
Bye Jazzbird”:
1
A death in the family. Relatives
you haven’t seen since the last
death in the family reappear
like furniture from your past
reassembled from a movie about it;
reassembling now only as props:
footlights (as it were) and backdrops,
to celebrate not a death but the family
here having one of its final stops,
here it continues where it stops.
2
No one is here as a person,
only as the correct representative
of his branch of the line. Only
the man that’s
is discussed as dead
such.is“Rather
here aslonely,
himself,
his last days.” “Well, he was on the shelf
all of these years.” “He was renting
that crummy apartment?” “No, just a part
of it, the upstairs.” “Collapsed, alone
with his cats—whom someone should be representing.
They were so dear to him.” “From the start
of the stroke, unconscious.” “Four o’clock dawn.”
“Died like his father, cerebral hemorrhage.”
The crowded wake was a lively tone.
A EULOGY OF ROACHES
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the citizens who last.
They need no police
to promulgate their peace
because they tolerate
each other’s smell or greed.
Marjorie Evasco [Pernia] is unmistakably woman and Filipina as she addresses a sampaguita
vendor in the city, while remembering provincial gardens:
SAMPAGUTTA SONG
(to a suki at Quirino Highway)
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Sampaguita, Sir!
Sampaguita. Ma’am!
Sariwa, mabango
Piso po ang tatlo.
Through all this evolution, the mainstream of Philippine literature continued to be in the native
languages, and then in Filipino, the evolving national language. A romantic strain continued in the
work of poets and novelists who explored idyllic rural life and the sentiments informing familiar and
personal relationships.
Itinutulak ng bibig,
kinakabig ng dibdib.
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Di ba ibig mo nang magkabagong tatay?...”
OATH OF A WIDOV
While Santos wrote in monorhyming dodecasyllabic lines, Magdalena Jalandoni of lloilo wrote
in sixteen-syllable lines, in the rima perfecta that llonggo poetry had adapted from Spanish verse.
ANG GUITARA
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Wala sing dili mawili sa pagpamati sa iya,
Wala sing dili bumatyag sing kasulub-on nga lakas.
Romantic love was a predominant subject in vernacular poetry explored by Amado Yuzon in
Pampango, lluminado Lucente in Waray, and Manuel Fuentebella in Bicolano.
AN HIGUGMA
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Balitaw ha adlaw-gab-i danay pag tinagisan.
Han aton kinabuhi amo ini an tuyo
Kay kon waray higugma, waray man pagmayuyo;
Ugaring an higugma kay diri maparalit....
Linupad, linupad ngan diri na mabalik.
LOVE
Translation by V. Salazar
(Luangco: 1982)
LUHANG MAPAIT
Luhang mapait
An sakuyang kaulay-ulay
Kun dai ko ika nakikita
Sa sakong kahampang,
Maski natuturog
Sa ogma nangingitorogan
Pigtitios ko man giraray
An simpil kan tionay
nin lipongaw
Madya mahamis na dahilan
kan sakong kasakilan
Uya simo naghahalat an sakong
kamogtakan.
Madyata sarong
pagkukundimanan
Sa linabyog nin duyan
An lawgon mong langitnon
ay maykabinian.
BITTER TEARS
Bitter tears
Are with whom I converse
When I do not see you
Before me.
Jn my sleep
And in joy I dream,
Yet J suffer
The pang of the pains of
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loneliness.
Come, sweet cause
Of my suffering,
Here awaiting you
Is my heart;
Come, for I shall sing
In the rocking of my hammock
Of your heavenly face
so gently sweet.
Translation by L. Realubit
(Realubit: 1983)
The reatistic mode that had begun in Rizal’s novels continued in stories, novels and poems that
were critical about society and analytical aboutFilipinocustoms and manners. In later years, this grew
into a social realism that confronted squarely the problems of society—and especially of the masses—in
fiction that refused to stop at mirroring and insisted on involvement. A landmark work was the short
story anthology, Mga Agos sa Disyerto (Waves in the Desert), 1964, in which Efren R. Abueg, Edgardo M.
Reyes, Eduardo Bautista Reyes, Rogelio L. Ordonez and Rogelio R. Sikat brought Philippine fiction into
the age of modernism.
Sila’y isang batalyon ng mga alipin, higante ang katawan ngunit ang ulo’y
katiting, kalarawan ng isang malapad na gusaling may sunong na bola. Katawan
ang puhunan nila sa pakikikalakal. Alipin sila ng pangangailangan kayat
luluhod sila sa isa pang kaalipinan upang matugunan ang hinihingi ng unang
kaalipinan. Iaalay nila ang kanilang buong puhunan kapalit ng karampot na
limos. Hindi alam ng nakararami sa kanila ang mga karapatan nila bilang mga
manggagawa, ang ilang nakakaalam ay wala ring tinig pagkat maging sa templo
ng katarungan ay salapi ang pinakikinggan.
Sila ang mga anak-pawis.
They are a batallion of slaves, with giant bodies and tiny heads, each looking
like a wide building crowned by a wrecker’s ball. Their bodies are their capital
investment. Slaves to their need, they kneel at still another slavery in order to
feed the first bondage. They offer all they own, and receive miserly alms in
return. Most of them do not know their rights as laborers; the few who know
have no voice anyway because even in the temple of truth, only money is heard.
They are the children of toil.
(“Children of Toil”)
Translation by D.G. Femandez
Sa bawat latay, kahit aso’y nag-iiba. Sa unang hagupit siya’y magtataka. Sa ikalawa,
siya’y mag-iisip. Sa ikatlo, siya’y magtatanda. At sa ikaapat, humanda ka!
(Introduction: Chapter 14, “Sa Bawat Latay”)
From Edgardo M. Reyes, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag , 1966
After each welt, even a dog changes. At the first lash, he is surprised. At the
second, he begins to think. At the third, he marks the blow. After the fourth,
beware!
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Alejandro G. Abadilla, on the other hand, fought against social and artistic conventions, insist-
ing on “sincerity” and “the real self. His experimentation with free verse (as against the traditional
rhyme and meter ofTagalog poetry) prepared the way for its acceptance and use by later poets.
ako
ang daigdig
ako
ang tula
ako
ang daigdig
ang tula
ako
ang daigdig
ng tula
ang tula
ng daigdig
ako
ang walang maliw ako
ang walang kamatayang ako
ang tula ng daigdig.
i
world
ipoem
i
world
poem
i
poem’s
world
world’s
poem
i
endless i
deathless i
world-poem
The poets who followed them learned from both the romantic and social schools, as well as
from T. S. Eliot, Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yennan Forum”, the imagists and symbolists, the Latin
Americans and other trends in literature of the East and the West. It is among those writing in Philippine
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languages that one hears especially strongly the strains of current reality, protests against poverty and
injustice, and a sensitive understanding of the waves of Philippinehistory and the strata of Philippine
society. In their mother tongues we hear the voice of conscience, concern and commitment.
Jose F. Lacaba, bilingual poet, addresses political corruption with rural indirection and urban
irony:
Sa gayon ay magiging
tahimik ang buhay niya,
at sa kanyang pagtanda’y
maging senador pa.
FROM SU TUNG-P’O
Don Pagusara, Cebuano poet, singer and former political detainee recalls in poetry an experi-
ence that was more than real to many writers of the 1970s:
PAGHIWAGAS SA BILANGGOAN
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Pagbating
Kanunayng gilawgan
Sa mga kahingawa
Ug mga kalaay
Nahipugwat
Mitimbakuwas
Miiktin sa tumang kalipay
Sa dihang milanog ang sangpit
Sa ginadamgong kagawasan
Kalit natuklas
Ang ganghaan ning dughan
Ug milugwa sa baba
Ang katawang nagkadagma-dagma
Sa lumo sa dila
Don Pagusara
LEAVING PRISON
Feeling
That must always feed
On anxieties
And sameness
Starts
Gets up
Dances
When itin utterechoing
hears joy the call
Of longed-for freedorn
Translation by S. Dumdum
( Ani: December 1987)
Peter La. Julian writes in llocano and English about the children of Negros, many of whom
starved or suffered severe malnutrition when the falling of world prices displaced sugar workers.
I.
Natikag a daga ti Etiopia
Umay la ti tudo kalpasan ti siglo
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Sadiay saan ng agtubo dagiti mula
Dagiti ubbing a masaksakit ken
kannayon
A mabisinan napukawda ti timekda
Agpakpakaasi dagiti limnek.
A matada.
Naliday a lubong dagiti ubbing
Ti Etiopia.
II.
Nalangto a daga ti Negros
Gagangay ti panagbayakabakna
Natalubo sadiay dagiti mula
Adu ti makan ngem
masaksakit
Ken mabisbisinan dagiti ubbing
Tapno adda sangapinggan nga
innapuy
A matgedanda.
Limnek dagiti matada nga
agsarsarita
Maipapan kadagiti baknang iti
pagilianda.
Naliday a lubong dagiti ubbing
Ti Negros.
I.
Ethiopia is barren country
Rains fall once in a century
There food crops do not thrive
And thealways
children, diseased and
Hungry, are stony silent.
Their sunken eyes plead
For mercy.
Ethiopia is a joyless world
For children.
II.
Negros is green country
Rains fall in torrents regularly
There food crops thrive well
But the children, diseased and always
Hungry, must work hard
For a plate of rice.
Their sunken eyes speak eloquently
Of the filthy rich in their
country.
Negros is a joyless world
For children.
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Emmanuel Lacaba started as a talented university poet writing in English, bringing to a focus in
“highly complex, allusive, hermetic, obscure” poems his courses and readings in British, American and
European poetry. In 1970, like many other young writers caught up in the nationalist movement, he not
only began to write increasingly in Filipino, but also took to the hills. When he was killed in Davao del
Norte in 1976, he was 27.
PAGDIRIWANG
I
Sa Todos los Santos, Pasko’t Bagong Taon, ang mga magulang,
mga lola’t lolo,
Mga tiya’t tiyo, mga hipag, bayaw, kapatid, pamangkin, at mga anak ko,
Silang lahat, ay magkakalumpon sa harap ng puto, ginatan, at biko.
Sandaling tahimik. At may magbibiro: “Saan kaya ngayon nagtatago
ang lolo?”
II
Sa pista ng bayan kulang ang pagkain sa sobrang pagmahal ng mga
bilihin,
At sa kaarawan madaling maubos ang biniling pansit sa dahon ng saging.
Bale-wala ito sa mga bisitang dating kasamahang pangiting hihiling:
“Mas mahabang buhay sa kanilang lahat na nakikibaka sa bukirin!”
III
Dito sa bukirin: may kapistahan din sa piling ng masang naliligayahan
Sa ating pagdating, mga mandirigmang kasama sa gutom, ginaw,
karukhaan.
Dito sa bukirin: dilim tinitiis kahit magdantaon upang bawat araw
Sa kinabukasan maging pagdiriwang, kulay at liwanag, awit ng tagumpay.
CELEBRATION
I
On All Saint’s Day, Christinas and New Yenr, my parents,
grandmothers and grandfathers,
Aunts and uncles, in-laws, brothers, sisters, nieces,
nephews and my children,
All of them huddle in front of puto, ginatan, and biko.
A moment’s silence. Then someone quips: “I wonder where
grandpa is hiding now?”
II
During the town fiesta, the food runs short because of
rising prices,
And during birthdays, the pansit wrapped in banana
leaves quickly runs out.
This doesn’t matter to the guests, old friends who wish
and smile:
“Long live those who struggle in the fields!”
III
Here in the fields: there is celebration in the embrace
of the masses,
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
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happy for my arrival, warriors together in hunger, cold and poverty.
Here in the fields: Even the darkness of a hundred
years is borne
so the suns of the future become celebrations,
color and light, the song of triumph.
Ramon C. Sunico has a background in philosophy, literature, art history and book publishing.
He started to write poetry in English because that was how he had learned poetry, then in Filipino
because that was what he spoke and how he felt, and now writes (sometimes the same poem) in both,
representing the contemporary poet to whom both languages are natural, speaking equally of his self
and his surrounding reality.
Alam mo hapdi
agad ang namanatang mangyayari:
dugo, pupungaykung hindimo.
ang mata sumabog
Mauubos
ang iyong hininga.
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Tomas F. Agulto is both a fisherman from Hagonoy, Bulacan and a published and prizewinning
poet. In this poem to his wife, the traditional expression and sentiment vibrate with current reality.
Pinang,
ito’y isinlat ko isang gabing
ako’y kinukubabaw ng masidhing pangungulila.
Ngunit hindi mananaig ang panlalamig
pagkat sa katauhan ko’y nagliliyabna araw ang pananalig.
Magiting na pagbati sa iyang kaarawan, mahal.
Ang pagpupugay ko’y apoy na igatong
sa inyong pagdiriwang.
Marahil sa loob ng dambuhalang pabrika
sa piling ng ating mabubunying kasama,
maalab ang hapag ng samutsaring talakayan.
may tamis at anghang sa dulang ng katotohanan
na sa kaarawan mo ay pagpipigingan.
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nasa mulat nating kaisipan ang tagumpay.
nasa mga manggagawang tulad mo
ang karapatan ng layang mabuhay.
Itinatangi kita, Pinang.
Tanggapin mo ang nag-aalimpuyong pagpupugay
mula rito sa inaanay na bimbinan.
Pinang,
I write this on a night
weighed down by loneliness.
But the cold cannot conquer
because in me burns
the sun of hope.
I wish you courage on your birthday, my love.
Let my greeting be as kindling
for the fires of celebration.Perhaps inside that monstrous factory
among our exalted comrades
the plant floor crackles with the wealth of ideas.
One tastes both sweetness and spice at the table of truth
before which we celebrate your day of birth.
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Ruth Elynia S. Mabangio is concerned both with creative writing and the development of lan-
guage. She writes in Filipino, in the voice of a woman/citizen.
Tagalog,
Bisaya,
Bikol,
Waray,
Panggalato, Iranon,
Iloggo, lvatan,
Kapampangan, Isneg,
Ilokano, lbanag,
lgorot,
Maranaw,
Tausog,
Magindanaw,
Tiboli, Bagobo,
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Savor the sweet songs
of wings
that beat.
Tagalog,
Bisaya,
Bikol,
Waray,
Panggalato, Iranon,
Iloggo, lvatan,
Kapampangan, Isneg,
Ilokano, lbanag,
lgorot,
Maranaw,
Tausog,
Magindanaw,
Tiboli, Bagobo,
Philippine literature today continues in English and even in Spanish, but especially in the
country’s own languages. Oral forms of literature continue their social function in cultural communi-
ties. Poetry and fiction are being written in Cebuano, Tagalog, llocano, llonggo, Pampango, Waray,
Bicolano and the other vernaculars—very actively in some, in a waning mode in others where there are
no publication venues. Writing is most lively in Tagalog, Cebuano and the evolving Filipino.
Philippine literature, in all its languages, is in constant and cogent contemporary use: in class-
rooms; in handwritten, passed-on drafts and in print; on radio, television and film; in song, dance and
theater; in written and oral expression; in many forms and languages; in various settings and for a
myriad purposes—its past, present and future coexisting in the national context.
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