MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History

21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

 Scaffolds for Learning

Warm-up:
Analyze the statements below and express whether you agree or not. Write KOREK if the statement is correct
and WIT if otherwise.

1. Ancient settlers in the islands of the Philippines had their own form of literature
even before the coming of the Spaniards. ___________
2. Ancient Philippineliterature was generally in oral tradition. ___________
3. Most of the ancient literary forms were in oral tradition since there was no system
of writing that existed during the pre-colonial period. ___________
4. Literature contains historical and cultural pieces of information that were used to
reveal the way of life of our forebears. ___________
5. It was only during the Spanish occupation that literature was introduced to the
Philippines. ___________
6. Literature is a way used by our forebears communicated their stories to future
generations. ___________
7. Primitive literary forms revealed the way of life of our forebears including their
traditions, beliefs, customs and mores. ___________
8. Legends are stories popular in the country which highlights the assumed origin of a
thing, place or of anything. ___________
9. Various foreign occupations in the Philippines affected and influenced the features
and themes of its literature. ___________
10. Philippine literary texts are only those written in the native or local language. ___________
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

 Learning Explorations

By: CHRISTINE F. GODINEZ-ORTEGA

The diversity and richness of Philippine literature evolved side by side with the country’s history. This
can best be appreciated in the context of the country’s pre-colonial cultural traditions and the socio-political
histories of its colonial and contemporary traditions.
The average Filipino’s unfamiliarity with his indigenous literature was largely due to what has been
impressed upon him: that his country was “discovered” and, hence, Philippine “history” started only in 1521.
So successful were the efforts of colonialists to blot out the memory of the country’s largely oral past
that present-day Filipino writers, artists and journalists are trying to correct this inequity by recognizing the
country’s wealth of ethnic traditions and disseminating them in schools and in the mass media.
The rousings of nationalistic pride in the 1960s and 1970s also helped bring about this change of
attitude among a new breed of Filipinos concerned about the “Filipino identity.”

Pre-Colonial Times

Owing to the works of our own archaeologists, ethnologists and anthropologists, we are able to know more and
better judge information about our pre-colonial times set against a bulk of material about early Filipinos as
recorded by Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and other chroniclers of the past.

Pre-colonial inhabitants of our islands showcase a rich past through their folk speeches, folk songs, folk
narratives and indigenous rituals and mimetic dances that affirm our ties with our Southeast Asian neighbors.

The most seminal of these folk speeches is the riddle which is tigmo in Cebuano, bugtong in Tagalog,paktakonin
Ilongo and patototdon in Bicol. Central to the riddle is the talinghaga or metaphor because it “reveals subtle
resemblances between two unlike objects” and one’s power of observation and wit are put to the test. While
some riddles are ingenious, others verge on the obscene or are sex-related:

Gaddang:

Gongonan nu usin y amam If you pull your daddy’s penis

Maggirawa pay sila y inam. Your mommy’s vagina, too,

(Campana) screams. (Bell)

The proverbs or aphorisms express norms or codes of behavior, community beliefs or they instill values by
offering nuggets of wisdom in short, rhyming verse.

The extended form, tanaga, a mono-riming heptasyllabic quatrain expressing insights and lessons on life is
“more emotionally charged than the terse proverb and thus has affinities with the folk lyric.” Some examples are
the basahanon or extended didactic sayings from Bukidnon and the daraida and daragilon from Panay.

The folk song, a form of folk lyric which expresses the hopes and aspirations, the people’s lifestyles as well as
their loves. These are often repetitive and sonorous, didactic and naive as in the children’s songs or Ida-ida
(Maguindanao), tulang pambata (Tagalog) or cansiones para abbing (Ibanag).

A few examples are the lullabyes or Ili-ili (Ilongo); love songs like the panawagon and balitao (Ilongo);harana or
serenade (Cebuano); the bayok (Maranao); the seven-syllable per line poem, ambahan of the Mangyans that are
about human relationships, social entertainment and also serve as a tool for teaching the young; work songs
that depict the livelihood of the people often sung to go with the movement of workers such as
the kalusan (Ivatan), soliranin (Tagalog rowing song) or the mambayu, a Kalinga rice-pounding song; the verbal
jousts/games like the duplo popular during wakes.

Other folk songs are the drinking songs sung during carousals like the tagay (Cebuano and Waray); dirges and
lamentations extolling the deeds of the dead like the kanogon (Cebuano) or the Annako (Bontoc).
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

A type of narrative song or kissa among the Tausug of Mindanao, the parang sabil, uses for its subject matter
the exploits of historical and legendary heroes. It tells of a Muslim hero who seeks death at the hands of non-
Muslims.

The folk narratives, i.e. epics and folk tales are varied, exotic and magical. They explain how the world was
created, how certain animals possess certain characteristics, why some places have waterfalls, volcanoes,
mountains, flora or fauna and, in the case of legends, an explanation of the origins of things. Fables are about
animals and these teach moral lessons.

Our country’s epics are considered ethno-epics because unlike, say, Germany’s Niebelunginlied, our epics are
not national for they are “histories” of varied groups that consider themselves “nations.”

The epics come in various names: Guman (Subanon); Darangen (Maranao); Hudhud (Ifugao);
andUlahingan(Manobo). These epics revolve around supernatural events or heroic deeds and they embody or
validate the beliefs and customs and ideals of a community. These are sung or chanted to the accompaniment of
indigenous musical instruments and dancing performed during harvests, weddings or funerals by chanters. The
chanters who were taught by their ancestors are considered “treasures” and/or repositories of wisdom in their
communities.

Examples of these epics are the Lam-ang (Ilocano); Hinilawod (Sulod); Kudaman (Palawan); Darangen
(Maranao); Ulahingan (Livunganen-Arumanen Manobo); Mangovayt Buhong na Langit (The Maiden of the
Buhong Sky from Tuwaang–Manobo); Ag Tobig neg Keboklagan (Subanon); and Tudbulol (T’boli).

The Spanish Colonial Tradition

While it is true that Spain subjugated the Philippines for more mundane reasons, this former European power
contributed much in the shaping and recording of our literature. Religion and institutions that represented
European civilization enriched the languages in the lowlands, introduced theater which we would come to know
as komedya, the sinakulo, the sarswela, the playlets and the drama. Spain also brought to the country, though at
a much later time, liberal ideas and an internationalism that influenced our own Filipino intellectuals and
writers for them to understand the meanings of “liberty and freedom.”

Literature in this period may be classified as religious prose and poetry and secular prose and poetry.

Religious lyrics written by ladino poets or those versed in both Spanish and Tagalog were included in early
catechism and were used to teach Filipinos the Spanish language. Fernando Bagonbanta’s “Salamat nang
walang hanga/gracias de sin sempiternas” (Unending thanks) is a fine example that is found in the Memorial de
la vida cristiana en lengua tagala (Guidelines for the Christian life in the Tagalog language) published in 1605.

Another form of religious lyrics are the meditative verses like the dalit appended to novenas and catechisms. It
has no fixed meter nor rime scheme although a number are written in octosyllabic quatrains and have a solemn
tone and spiritual subject matter.

But among the religious poetry of the day, it is the pasyon in octosyllabic quintillas that became entrenched in
the Filipino’s commemoration of Christ’s agony and resurrection at Calvary. Gaspar Aquino de Belen’s “Ang
Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Panginoon natin na tola” (Holy Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Verse) put
out in 1704 is the country’s earliest known pasyon.

Other known pasyons chanted during the Lenten season are in Ilocano, Pangasinan, Ibanag, Cebuano, Bicol,
Ilongo and Waray.

Aside from religious poetry, there were various kinds of prose narratives written to prescribe proper decorum.
Like the pasyon, these prose narratives were also used for proselitization. Some forms
are: dialogo(dialogue), Manual de Urbanidad (conduct book); ejemplo (exemplum) and tratado (tratado). The
most well-known are Modesto de Castro’s “Pagsusulatan ng Dalawang Binibini na si Urbana at si Feliza”
(Correspondence between the Two Maidens Urbana and Feliza) in 1864 and Joaquin Tuason’s “Ang Bagong
Robinson” (The New Robinson) in 1879, an adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s novel.
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Secular works appeared alongside historical and economic changes, the emergence of an opulent class and the
middle class who could avail of a European education. This Filipino elite could now read printed works that used
to be the exclusive domain of the missionaries.

The most notable of the secular lyrics followed the conventions of a romantic tradition: the languishing but loyal
lover, the elusive, often heartless beloved, the rival. The leading poets were Jose Corazon de Jesus (Huseng
Sisiw) and Francisco Balagtas. Some secular poets who wrote in this same tradition were Leona Florentino,
Jacinto Kawili, Isabelo de los Reyes and Rafael Gandioco.

Another popular secular poetry is the metrical romance, the awit and korido in Tagalog. The awit is set in
dodecasyllabic quatrains while the korido is in octosyllabic quatrains. These are colorful tales of chivalry from
European sources made for singing and chanting such as Gonzalo de Cordoba (Gonzalo of Cordoba) and Ibong
Adarna (Adarna Bird). There are numerous metrical romances in Tagalog, Bicol, Ilongo, Pampango, Ilocano and
in Pangasinan. The awit as a popular poetic genre reached new heights in Balagtas’ “Florante at Laura” (ca.
1838-1861), the most famous of the country’s metrical romances.

Again, the winds of change began to blow in 19th century Philippines. Filipino intellectuals educated in Europe
called ilustrados began to write about the downside of colonization. This, coupled with the simmering calls for
reforms by the masses gathered a formidable force of writers like Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Mariano
Ponce, Emilio Jacinto and Andres Bonifacio.

This led to the formation of the Propaganda Movement where prose works such as the political essays and
Rizal’s two political novels, Noli Me Tangere and the El filibusterismo helped usher in the Philippine revolution
resulting in the downfall of the Spanish regime, and, at the same time planted the seeds of a national
consciousness among Filipinos.

But if Rizal’s novels are political, the novel Ninay (1885) by Pedro Paterno is largely cultural and is considered the
first Filipino novel. Although Paterno’s Ninay gave impetus to other novelists like Jesus Balmori and Antonio M.
Abad to continue writing in Spanish, this did not flourish.

Other Filipino writers published the essay and short fiction in Spanish in La Vanguardia, El Debate,Renacimiento
Filipino, and Nueva Era. The more notable essayists and fictionists were Claro M. Recto, Teodoro M. Kalaw,
Epifanio de los Reyes, Vicente Sotto, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, Rafael Palma, Enrique Laygo (Caretas or Masks,
1925) and Balmori who mastered the prosa romantica or romantic prose.

But the introduction of English as medium of instruction in the Philippines hastened the demise of Spanish so
that by the 1930s, English writing had overtaken Spanish writing. During the language’s death throes, however,
writing in the romantic tradition, from the awit and korido, would continue in the novels of Magdalena
Jalandoni. But patriotic writing continued under the new colonialists. These appeared in the vernacular poems
and modern adaptations of works during the Spanish period and which further maintained the Spanish tradition.

The American Colonial Period

A new set of colonizers brought about new changes in Philippine literature. New literary forms such as free
verse [in poetry], the modern short story and the critical essay were introduced. American influence was deeply
entrenched with the firm establishment of English as the medium of instruction in all schools and with literary
modernism that highlighted the writer’s individuality and cultivated consciousness of craft, sometimes at the
expense of social consciousness.

The poet, and later, National Artist for Literature, Jose Garcia Villa used free verse and espoused the dictum,
“Art for art’s sake” to the chagrin of other writers more concerned with the utilitarian aspect of literature.
Another maverick in poetry who used free verse and talked about illicit love in her poetry was Angela Manalang
Gloria, a woman poet described as ahead of her time. Despite the threat of censorship by the new dispensation,
more writers turned up “seditious works” and popular writing in the native languages bloomed through the
weekly outlets like Liwayway and Bisaya.

The Balagtas tradition persisted until the poet Alejandro G. Abadilla advocated modernism in poetry. Abadilla
later influenced young poets who wrote modern verses in the 1960s such as Virgilio S. Almario, Pedro I. Ricarte
and Rolando S. Tinio.
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

While the early Filipino poets grappled with the verities of the new language, Filipinos seemed to have taken
easily to the modern short story as published in the Philippines Free Press, the College Folio and Philippines
Herald. Paz Marquez Benitez’s “Dead Stars” published in 1925 was the first successful short story in English
written by a Filipino. Later on, Arturo B. Rotor and Manuel E. Arguilla showed exceptional skills with the short
story.

Alongside this development, writers in the vernaculars continued to write in the provinces. Others like Lope K.
Santos, Valeriano Hernandez Peña and Patricio Mariano were writing minimal narratives similar to the early
Tagalog short fiction called dali or pasingaw (sketch).

The romantic tradition was fused with American pop culture or European influences in the adaptations of Edgar
Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan by F. P. Boquecosa who also penned Ang Palad ni Pepe after Charles Dicken’sDavid
Copperfield even as the realist tradition was kept alive in the novels by Lope K. Santos and Faustino Aguilar,
among others.

It should be noted that if there was a dearth of the Filipino novel in English, the novel in the vernaculars
continued to be written and serialized in weekly magazines like Liwayway, Bisaya, Hiligaynon and Bannawag.

The essay in English became a potent medium from the 1920’s to the present. Some leading essayists were
journalists like Carlos P. Romulo, Jorge Bocobo, Pura Santillan Castrence, etc. who wrote formal to humorous to
informal essays for the delectation by Filipinos.

Among those who wrote criticism developed during the American period were Ignacio Manlapaz, Leopoldo
Yabes and I.V. Mallari. But it was Salvador P. Lopez’s criticism that grabbed attention when he won the
Commonwealth Literay Award for the essay in 1940 with his “Literature and Society.” This essay posited that art
must have substance and that Villa’s adherence to “Art for Art’s Sake” is decadent.

The last throes of American colonialism saw the flourishing of Philippine literature in English at the same time,
with the introduction of the New Critical aesthetics, made writers pay close attention to craft and “indirectly
engendered a disparaging attitude” towards vernacular writings — a tension that would recur in the
contemporary period.

The Contemporary Period

The flowering of Philippine literature in the various languages continue especially with the appearance of new
publications after the Martial Law years and the resurgence of committed literature in the 1960s and the 1970s.

Filipino writers continue to write poetry, short stories, novellas, novels and essays whether these are socially
committed, gender/ethnic related or are personal in intention or not.

Of course the Filipino writer has become more conscious of his art with the proliferation of writers workshops
here and abroad and the bulk of literature available to him via the mass media including the internet. The
various literary awards such as the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the Philippines Free
Press, Philippine Graphic, Home Life and Panorama literary awards encourage him to compete with his peers
and hope that his creative efforts will be rewarded in the long run.

With the new requirement by the Commission on Higher Education of teaching of Philippine Literature in all
tertiary schools in the country emphasizing the teaching of the vernacular literature or literatures of the regions,
the audience for Filipino writers is virtually assured. And, perhaps, a national literature finding its niche among
the literatures of the world will not be far behind. (Christine F. Godinez-Ortega)

Christine F. Godinez-Ortega represents Central and Northern Mindanao in the National Literary Arts Committee
of the NCCA. Her poem “Legend of Maria Cristina Falls” was performed by the Integrated Performing ArtsGuild
during the Haguenau International Festival de Hoblon in France. She teaches at the College of Arts and Social
Sciences of the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology and is a correspondent of the Philippine
Daily Inquirer for Iligan City.

Source: http://ncca.gov.ph/subcommissions/subcommission-on-the-arts-sca/literary-arts/the-literary-forms-in-
philippine-literature/
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Philippine Literature in the Post-war and Contemporary Periods (FRANCISCO C. MACANSANTOS & PRISCILLA
S. MACANSANTOS)

Published in 1946, Ginto Sa Makiling – a novel by Macario Pineda, is the first work of note that appeared after
the second world war. In plot, it hews close to the mode of romantic fantasy traceable to the awits, koridos
and komedyas of the Balagtas tradition. But it is a symbolical narrative of social, moral and political import. In
this, it resembles not only Balagtas but also Rizal, but in style and plot it is closer to Balagtas in not allowing the
realistic mode to restrict the element of fantasy.

Two novels by writers in English dealt with the war experience: (Medina, p. 194) Stevan Javellana’s Without
Seeing the Dawn (1947), and Edilberto Tiempo’s Watch in the Night. Both novels hew closely to the realist
tradition. Lazaro Francisco, the eminent Tagalog novelist of the pre-war years, was to continue to produce
significant work. He revised his Bayaning Nagpatiwakal (1932), refashioning its plot and in sum honing his work
as a weapon against the policies that tended to perpetuate American economic dominance over the Philippines.
The updated novel was titled Ilaw Sa Hilaga (1948) (Lumbera, p. 67). He was to produce three more
novels.Sugat Sa Alaala (1950) reflects the horrors of the war experience as well as the human capacity for
nobility, endurance and love under the most extreme circumstances. Maganda Pa Ang Daigdig (1956) deals
with the agrarian issue, and Daluyong (1962) deals with the corruption bred by the American-style and
American-educated pseudo-reformers. Lazaro Francisco is a realist with social and moral ideals. The Rizal
influence on his work is profound.

The poet Amado Hernandez, who was also union leader and social activist, also wrote novels advocating
social change. Luha ng Buwaya (1963) (Lumbera) deals with the struggle between the oppressed peasantry and
the class of politically powerful landlords. Mga Ibong Mandaragit (1969) deals with the domination of Filipinos
by American industry (Lumbera, p. 69).

Unfortunately, the Rizalian path taken by Lazaro Francisco and Amado Hernandez with its social-realist
world-view had the effect of alienating them from the mode of the highly magical oral-epic tradition. Imported
social realism (and, in the case of Amado Hernandez, a brand of socialist empiricism), was not entirely in touch
with the folk sentiment and folk belief, which is why the Tagalog romances (e.g., Ginto Sa Makiling, serialized in
the comics), were far more popular than their work.

It was Philippine Literature in English which tapped the folk element in the Philippine unconscious to
impressive, spectacular effect. Nick Joaquin, through his neo-romantic, poetic and histrionic style, is reminiscent
of the dramas of Balagtas and de la Cruz. His dizzying flashbacks (from an idealized romantic Spanish past to a
squalid Americanized materialistic present) are cinematic in effect, ironically quite Hollywood-ish, serving always
to beguile and astonish.

Francisco Arcellana, his younger contemporary, was a master of minimalist fiction that is as native as
anything that could be written in English, possessing the potent luminosity of a sorcerer’s rune.

Wilfrido Nolledo, fictionist-playwright growing up in the aura of such masters, was the disciple who, without
conscious effort, created a school of his own. His experiments in plot and plotlessness, his creation of magical
scenes, made splendorous by a highly expressive language, easily became the rage among young writers who
quickly joined (each in his/her own highly original style) the Nolledo trend. Among these poetic fictionists of the
1960’s were Wilfredo Pasqua Sanchez, Erwin Castillo, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Resil Mojares, Leopoldo Cacnio and
Ninotchka Rosca. Of them all, only the last two did not publish verse. Their non-realistic (even anti-realistic) style
made them perhaps the most original group of writers to emerge in the post-war period. But such a movement
that slavishly used the American colonists’ language (according to the Nationalist, Socialist Tagalog writers who
were following A.V. Hernandez) were called decadent (in the manner of Lukacsian social realism).

Post-war poetry and fiction was dominated by the writers in English educated and trained in writers’
workshops in the United States or England. Among these were the novelists Edilberto and Edith Tiempo (who is
also a poet), short-fictionist Francisco Arcellana, poet-critic Ricaredo Demetillo, poet-fictionist Amador Daguio,
poet Carlos Angeles, fictionists N.V.M. Gonzales and Bienvenido N. Santos. Most of these writers returned to the
Philippines to teach. With their credentials and solid reputations, they influenced the form and direction of the
next generation mainly in accordance with the dominant tenets of the formalist New Critics of America and
England.
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Even literature in the Tagalog-based national language (now known as Filipino) could not avoid being
influenced or even (in the critical sense) assimilated. College-bred writers in Filipino like Rogelio Sikat and
Edgardo Reyes saw the need to hone their artistry according to the dominant school of literature in America of
that period, despite the fact that the neo-Aristotelian formalist school went against the grain of their socialist
orientation. Poet-critic Virgilio Almario (1944- ), a.k.a. Rio Alma, in a break-away move reminiscent of Alejandro
Abadilla, and in the formalist (New Critical) mode then fashionable, bravely opined that Florante at Laura,
Balagtas’ acknowledged masterpiece, was an artistic failure (Reyes, p. 71-72). It was only in the early 1980’s
(Reyes, p. 73) that Almario (after exposure to the anti-ethnocentrism of structuralism and Deconstruction)
revised his views.

The protest tradition of Rizal, Bonifacio and Amado Hernandez found expression in the works of Tagalog
poets from the late 1960’s to the 1980’s, as they confronted Martial Law and repression. Among these
liberationist writers were Jose Lacaba, Epifanio San Juan, Rogelio Mangahas, Lamberto Antonio, Lilia Quindoza,
and later, Jesus Manuel Santiago. The group Galian sa Arte at Tula nurtured mainly Manila writers and writing
(both in their craft and social vision) during some of the darkest periods of Martial Law.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes on the printed page, oral literature flourished in the outlying communities.
Forms of oral poetry like the Cebuano Balak, the Ilokano Bukanegan, the Tagalog Balagtasan, and the
SamalTinis-Tinis, continued to be declaimed by the rural-based bards, albeit to dwindling audiences. In the late
1960’s, Ricaredo Demetillo had, using English (and English metrics) pioneered a linkage with the oral tradition.
The result was the award-winning Barter in Panay, an epic based on the Ilonggo epic Maragtas. Inspired by the
example, other younger poets wrote epics or long poems, and they were duly acclaimed by the major award-
giving bodies. Among these poets were writers in English like Cirilo Bautista (The Archipelago, 1968), Artemio
Tadena (Northward into Noon, 1970) and Domingo de Guzman (Moses, 1977).

However, except for Demetillo’s modern epic, these attempts fall short of establishing a linkage with the
basic folk tradition. Indeed, most are more like long meditative poems, like Eliot’s or Neruda’s long pieces.
Interest in the epic waned as the 1980’s approached. The 1980’s became a decade of personalistic free verse
characteristic of American confessional poetry. The epic “big picture” disappeared from the scene, to be
replaced by a new breed of writers nourished by global literary sources, and critical sources in the developed
world. The literary sources were third world (often nativistic) poetry such as that of Neruda, Vallejo and Octavio
Paz. In fiction, the magic-realism of Borges, Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie, among others, influenced the
fiction of Cesar Aquino, Alfred Yuson, and poet-fictionist Mario Gamalinda.

On the other hand, the poets trained in American workshops continue to write in the lyrical-realist mode
characteristic of American writing, spawned by imagism and neo-Aristotelianism. Among these writers (whose
influence remains considerable) are the poet-critics Edith L. Tiempo, Gemino Abad, Ophelia A. Dimalanta and
Emmanuel Torres. Their influence can be felt in the short lyric and the medium-length meditative poem that are
still the Filipino poet’s preferred medium. Some contemporary poets in English such as Marjorie Evasco and
Merlie Alunan, derive their best effects from their reverence for the ineluctable image. Ricardo de Ungria’s and
Luisa Aguilar Cariño’s poems, on the other hand, are a rich confluence of imagism, surrealism and
confessionalism.

The Philippine novel, whether written in English or any of the native languages, has remained social-realist.
Edgardo Reyes’ Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (1966), for instance, is a critique of urban blight, and Edilberto K.
Tiempo’s To Be Free is a historical probe of the western idea of freedom in the context of indigenous Philippine
culture. Kerima Polotan Tuvera’s novel The Hand of the Enemy (1972), a penetratingly lucid critique of ruling-
class psychology, is entirely realistic, if Rizalian in its moments of high satire, although unlike the Rizalian model,
it falls short of a moral vision.

Only a few novelists like Gamalinda, Yuson and Antonio Enriquez, can claim a measure of success in tapping
creative power from folk sources in their venture to join the third world magic-realist mainstream.

But the poets of oral-folk charisma, such as Jose Corazon de Jesus, are waiting in the wings for a comeback
as astonishing as Lam-ang’s legendary resurrection. Modernist and post-modernist criticism, which champions
the literature of the disempowered cultures, has lately attained sufficient clout to shift the focus of academic
pursuits towards native vernacular literatures (oral and written) and on the revaluation of texts previously
ignored, such as those by women writers. Sa Ngalan Ng Ina (1997), by prize-winning poet-critic Lilia
Quindoza Santiago, is, to date, the most comprehensive compilation of feminist writing in the Philippines.
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Francis C. Macansantos is a Palanca Literary Award veteran winning first prize for poetry in 1989 with UP Press
publishing his book “The Words and Other Poems” in 1997.
Priscilla S. Macansantos has won in the 1998 Palanca Literary Awards for her poetry “Departures” and is now an
Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines.

Source: http://ncca.gov.ph/subcommissions/subcommission-on-the-arts-sca/literary-arts/philippine-literature-
in-the-post-war-and-contemporary-period/
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

VARIOUS DIMENSIONS OF PHILIPPINE LITERARY HISTORY

by: BIENVENIDO L. LUMBERA

The closing weeks of the year 2000 saw millions on weekday afternoons glued to the TV set and trying to piece
together a detective story of government and gambling, indeed a drama of criminal greed and political
culpability. The year 2000 was going, a lean Christmas season was hobbling towards the new year, and the
Filipino public was getting an education on the labyrinthine coils of due process and the mores of its political
leadership. And that was how the literary year came to an unobtrusive close, bequeathing the incoming year
with proceedings of several conferences, a surprisingly plentiful harvest of books, and wads and wads of
workshop manuscripts by young writers dreaming of going canonical before the new decade expires.

Philippine Literatures of the New Century was the title of a conference that brought together four Metro Manila
universities with creative writing centers for a three-day encounter between teachers of literature and the
writers they have been teaching to their students. The event was an affirmation of the key role of the academe
in contemporary literary production. In the past, the influential role in the formation of writers was performed
by literary outlets like the Liwayway and Philippine Magazine, but since the 1960s the universities with their
workshops, creative writing programs, and their presses had been encroaching on the turf of The Philippines
Free Press, Philippine Graphic, Liwayway, Bannawag, and Bisaya.

Literatures, instead of the customary singular noun, is an eloquent insistence of the current thrust of literary
education—the plurality of what used to be designated as “Philippine Literature,” the many bodies of literary
writing existing alongside what had hitherto been assumed by Manila to be a unified entity represented by
works in Tagalog, English, and Spanish.

Conferences, conceptualized and convoked in the academe, are an index of current thinking and concerns in the
field of literary studies.

In the year 2000, conferences pointed in the direction of mainstreaming of hitherto marginalized writing. Such
was the thrust of the Ateneo Conference on Philippine Epics organized by Nicole Revel and Localities of
Nationhood: The Nation in Philippine Literature. The Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature of the
College of Arts and Letters of UP organized a conference on oral lore titled Pagdadalumat sa Panitikang Bayan,
Pagdalumat ng Bayan sa Panitikan. The Indiana University Alumni Foundation of the Philippines organized
“Seminar-Workshop on Literature from the Regions. Early in the year, the National Committee on Literary Arts
of the NCCA convened in Tagbilaran, Bohol, a conference that brought together young writers working with
different Philippine languages. A highlight of the event was the awarding of the Gawad Emmanuel Lacaba to
three new writers in Iloko (Clesencio Rambaud), Hiligaynon (Alain Russ Dimzon), and Cebuano (Adonis G.
Durado).

In line with the bias for new and old works outside the canon, the academe of the year 2000 attended to the
continuing mainstreaming of Filipino women writers and works about women. This receptiveness to women
writing is no doubt part of the legacy of feminism as a social movement that began in the late 1960s and gained
momentum and aggressiveness in the post-EDSA years. In the year 2000, the number of books written by
women and about women is overwhelming, attesting to the breadth of the reach of the influence of the feminist
movement.

A book of special relevance to the writing community was Narita M. Gonzalez’s compilation of narratives by
wives of such well-known literary figures as Gemino Abad, Carlos Angeles, Cirilo Bautista, Leonard Casper,
Isagani Cruz, Jose Dalisay Jr., Antonio Enriquez, Alejandrino G. Hufana, Domingo Landicho, Mario Miclat, Maximo
Soliven and, of course, NVM Gonzalez. The Writers’ Wives gave the wives a venue for airing their plight as
“support force” for artist spouses and allowed lovers of literature and curious feminists a glimpse into the
residues of patriarchy in the households of creative writers.

Women writers themselves get to tell about their lives and works in two books. Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo edited
Pinay: Autobiographical Narratives by Women Writers, and the list of writers gathered together by the editor is
a veritable roster of the most distinguished creative writers and journalists writing in English. Some of the
writers are Maria Luna Lopez, Estrella Alfon, Kerima Polotan, Dolores Stephens Feria, Tita Lacambra Ayala,
Jessica Hagedorn, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, and Gilda Cordero-Fernando.
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A counterpart work on women writers in Tagalog and Filipino is Rosario Torres-Yu’s Sarilaya, Tinig ng 20 Babae
sa Sariling Danas bilang Manunulat. The writers were grouped into generations, so aside from allowing a peek
over the shoulders into the writing lives of the women, the book also gives readers a glimpse at the changing
roles of women intellectuals across decades. Writers featured include elders Genoveva Edroza Matute,
Liwayway Arceo, and Amelia Lapeña Bonifacio. The middle generation includes some of the most distinguished
names in contemporary Filipino writing, such as Lualhati Bautista, Fanny Garcia, Ruth Elynia Mabanglo, Marra Pl.
Lanot, and Lilia Quindoza Santiago. The third generation is led by Joi Barrios, Benilda Santos, and Rebecca
Añonuevo.

The feminist movement’s contribution to the literary field is not confined to the presence of self-possessed
women who can write. Literary theories developed within the feminist movement abroad have introduced new
ways of reading that accord appropriate dignity to literary works that were previously stigmatized by patriarchal
literary criticism. And so it is no longer a sin for a woman writer to be identified with the subject of love and all
the “soft” emotions associated with it. For example, it is no longer an embarrassment that the author of the
phenomenally successful radio soap opera Gulong ng Palad should be honored with a collection of her works
edited by a reputable critic. Lina Flor: Collected Works, edited by Soledad S. Reyes, vindicates an author whose
literary reputation had rested on spinning tales of love and loss for the popular audience.

The audacious Joi Barrios, poet and playwright identified with socially committed writing, has put together three
of her previously published romance novels and got the imprimatur of the UP Creative Writing Center and had it
published by the UP Press. Ang Aking Prince Charming at Iba Pang Nobela bids fair notice that popular culture
has attained stature as a legitimate field of study in the academe. This means that it is no longer a liability that a
work of fiction first appeared in popular publications previously maligned as bakya. Maningning ang Pag-ibig:
Labingwalong Kuwento by Gloria Villaraza Guzman and Timbulan ng Pag-ibig at Iba Pang Kuwento by Rosario
Ladia Jose appeared under the imprint of the Ateneo de Manila University Press, and that was already a badge
of respectability. The two books together put within the reach of present-day readers the works of two skilled
Tagalog fictionists whose works did not find space in earlier anthologies presumably because they were writing
“feminine” fiction.

Paz Latorena is another feminine” writer who is being put up for a contemporary reading. Although she was
popular with literary editors during the pioneering years of writing in English, Latorena was typecast as the
author of “The Small Key” and because she did not come out with a collection of her fiction, she remained a
marginal figure remembered as the author of a “tender” story in a high school reader. Now, she has been made
available as a multi-story writer through Eva V. Kalaw’s seductively titled compilation Desire and Other Stories of
Paz Latorena.

From the US comes Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina-American Writer which brings to the
attention of readers abroad specimens of women writing. Edited by two Filipino-American creative writers,
Eileen Tabios and Nick Carbo, the collection is part of the continuing effort to imbue Filipinos in the US with a
sense of belonging to a culture of their own, at the same time that women are being projected as creative
artists.

When the Manila Critics Circle, at its annual awards ceremonies during the Philippine Book Fair in September
2000, chose to cite the best of the previous year’s fiction, three women writers emerged the winners: Cristina
Pantoja Hidalgo for Catch a Falling Star; Reine Arcache Melvin for A Normal Life and Other Stories; and Merlinda
Bobis for White Turtle: A Collection of Short Stories. The choices may be seen from the perspective of gender
that Philippine literature/literatures have ceased to be the near-exclusive domain of male writers.

The people behind the critics’ award ought to be cited by some other organization, perhaps from the
optometrical industry, for the heroic service they are rendering Filipino book readers. In their attempt to cover
such a broad field as publishing, they had had to establish every category that would enable them to encompass
the great number and variety of books that local publishers have been putting out, and sub-categories under
literature are enough to keep them reading way into the late hours of the night till their eyesight begins to wear
out. More crucial, however, is the need to expand their ranks by inviting more reviewers who read Filipino with
comfort. As the years of citing the best books pass, the Manila Critics Circle is creating more and more the
impression that English is the privileged language that gets one’s book cited by critics and, more important, gets
the writer’s art and message understood and appreciated for an award. This is the impression created when a
work in Filipino finds itself pitted against a work in English, and, fairly or not, the English work wins.
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In the year 2000, there is no mistaking the justness of its choice of A Habit of Shores: Filipino Poetry and Verse
from English, ’60s to the ’90s, edited by Gemino H. Abad. Together with the previous volumes in the series, the
present anthology is ample evidence of the variety and artistry of the ouput of our poets in English since
Filipinos began to use the English language for creative writing.

In the Filipino essay category, Rene O. Villanueva’s journey back to his boyhood was a felicitous choice as
winner. Titled Personal and told in Filipino, the slim volume would read like fiction to readers clueless about
Villanueva’s early life. The anecdotes composing the narrative thread of the book are a mix of the humorous, the
painful, and the poignant, but together they do not leave the reader depressed for one is inspired by the writer’s
grit and determination to rise above the poverty and tawdry experiences that Villanueva would later transform
into plots, characters and themes in plays, poems, film scripts, TV dramas, and children’s stories.

In 2000, Rizal found another translator, this time in the distinguished poet-critic Virgilio S. Almario. Almario’s
Filipino Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo join the plethora of translations vying for the patronage of high
schools and colleges that, by law, require the study of the novels. His varied experience as poet, critic,
translator, and scholar has given his language the fidelity and felicity demanded by Rizal’s text.

The writing workshops in Luzon (the UP National Summer Writers Workshop in Baguio City, the Ateneo Heights
Workshop, and the UST National Writers Workshop), in the Visayas (the UP workshop that the three UP
campuses sponsor in alternating years, and the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop), and in Mindanao ( the
MSU-IIT Iligan Writers Workshop) are the smithy where new writers, especially writers in English, are forged.
There are other workshops, a number of them catering to the needs of writers using local languages such as the
GUMIL workshops for Iloko writers and the Cornelio Faigao Cebuano workshop, and these are usually set up by
organizations promoting creative writing in the language of the locality. Truly, the workshop has become an
institution that looks back to the early 1950s when the Tiempos (Edilberto and Edith) brought home the concept
from their studies in the U.S., and drew writers from various parts of the country to Silliman University in
Dumaguete City.

In our time, the new names that figure as winners of awards and prizes invariably come from the ranks of those
who have spent a week or two in a writing workshop. This year the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in
Literature marked its golden anniversary, and it elevated three “winningest” writers to its Hall of Fame, each one
of them an alumnus of any one of the university writing workshops. The new “Hall of Famers” joined eight other
writers who had in the past won five first prizes in any of the categories of the annual contest. Poet-essayist
Roberto Añonuevo, poet-fictionist-essayist-playwright Edgardo Maranan, and fictionist-essayist-playwright Jose
Dalisay Jr. took their places alongside Cirilo Bautista, Gregorio Brillantes, Ma. Luisa Igloria, Elsa Coscolluela, B.S.
Medina Jr., Jesus T. Peralta, Rolando S. Tinio, and Rene O. Villanueva.

This year’s Palanca contest, to mark its golden year, opened a new category both in English and Filipino—Future
Fiction, for which entries would require writers to look into the future and project into the years ahead concerns
of the past or the present. Winners in this categories are Luis J. Katigbak (“Subterrania,” first prize), Lakambini
Sitoy (“Secret Notes on a Dead Star,” second prize) and Adel Gabot (“The Field,” third prize) for stories in
English. Winners in the competition among Filipino stories are Johannes L. Chua (“Kalinangan,” first prize),
George A. de Jesus (“Cell Phone,” second prize), and Alwinn C. Aguirre (“Desaparecidos,” third prize).

Writers who were able to make it to the list of winners in any of the 21 categories are probably hard at work on
next year’s entries this early, determined to win a first prize so as to move closer to the Hall of Fame, or win any
prize just to be able to savor the sweetness of staying in the awards list. Among the top winners in selected
categories are the following: English short story, Dalisay, “The Woman in the Box,” first prize; English poetry,
Maranan, “Tabon and Other Poems,” first prize; English essay, Alexis A. L. Abola, “Many Mansions,” first prize;
Filipino short story, Placido R. Parcero Jr., “Alyas Juan de la Cruz,” first prize; Filipino poetry, Eugene Y. Evasco,
“Ang Maisisilid sa Pandama,” first prize; Filipino essay, Roberto T. Añonuevo, “Ang Resureksiyon,” first prize;
Filipino one-act play, George A. de Jesus III, “Linggo ng Palaspas,” first prize; Filipino television drama, Aurora D.
Yumul, “Selyo at Kastilyo,” first prize; screenplay, Floy Quintos, “Gabi ng Tinggirin,” first prize; Cebuano short
story, Arturo G. Peñaserada, “Saloma sa Dagat,” first prize; Iluko short story, Jimmy M. Agpalo Jr., “Tupa:
Ladawan ni Pangalatok Idi Daan a Milenio,” first prize; and Hiligaynon short story, Isabel D. Sebullen, “Aswang,”
first prize.

Another award-giving body, the NVM Gonzalez Literary Award, honored its first winner in the year 2000. Carmen
Aquino Sarmiento had originally submitted her winning story titled “Good Intentions 101: SY 72-73” at the UP
workshop in Baguio where it rated very highly among the panelists. The story was subsequently published in
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Graphic Magazine, and won first prize in the magazine’s year-end competition. When the First NVM Gonzalez
Literary Award chose Sarmiento as the recipient of the award commemorating the late National Artist, it simply
cited “her literary excellence.” In all likelihood, however, the judges must have, on the basis of “Good Intentions
101,” noted in their winner the sophisticated wit and humor of a promising satirist serenely confident of her
analytic power and insight.

Surat is a literary contest conceptualized by the NCCA Committee on Literary Arts to tap at an early stage
potential writers in secondary schools all over the Philippines. On its second year in 2000, Surat picked winners
only in the Filipino poetry category (Aries Cruz III, Pedro E. Diaz High School, first prize; and Nathaniel V.
Soberano, Las Piñas National High School, second prize), and in the English essay category (Pamela Joy Mariano,
Philippine High School for the Arts, first prize; Catherine Candano, Immaculate Conception Academy, second
prize; and Marguerite de Leon, PHSA, third prize). In what is perhaps a sign of the times, there were no winners
in the English poetry category, only recognition awards for Pamela Joy Mariano, Marguerite de Leon and Faye
Johanna Cara, all of the PHSA.

To disseminate information about its awardees for the past 42 years and propagate the vision behind the
awards, the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation sponsored an ambitious essay contest that was intended to generate
entries from as many high schools and colleges all over the country. “The Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Who
Inspires Me Most” was the theme for the essays. The national winner in the college category was Vanessa Ann
Remoquillo of Ateneo de Davao University writing about Angela Gomes. In the high school category, Enrique
Miguel S. Unson of La Salle Greenhills, writing about Sister Eva Fidela Maamo, was declared national winner.

An award-giving body that keeps literary observers updated on the community of canonical authors of the
Philippines is the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL). At its annual assembly in August 2000, UMPIL
honored seven individuals and one organization as recipients of the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas.

Prospero E. Covar, UP anthropology professor, was cited as “historical essayist,” referring perhaps to Dr. Covar’s
research and theoretical studies on Filipino culture. Leoncio P. Deriada of the UP Visayas was honored as a
fictionist in English and Hiligaynon. Ricardo A. Lee, much sought-after scriptwriter, received the award for his
contribution to Filipino film and his fiction output before he turned to filmmaking. Jaime An Lim, professor of
literature and creative writing at MSU-IIT in Iligan City, was awarded for his poetry and fiction. Feminist poet
Ruth Elynia S. Mabanglo, currently teaching at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, was honored for her
achievement in Filipino poetry.

A fictionist and poet from the Ilocos, Juan Ben Quimba, was cited for his contribution to Iloko literature. Widely
published and authoritative as critic, Soledad S. Reyes joined the company of creative writers. Winner of
numerous prizes and awards, both local and international, Rene O. Villanueva was cited for his writing for the
theater, film, and television, and his body of works as a writer of children’s stories.

Two special awards went to a retired literature professor at UP and to an organization of Ilocano writers. GUMIL
Filipinas received the Gawad Pedro Bucaneg for Outstanding Literary Organization. Prof. Nieves Benito Epistola
was awarded as Outstanding Literary Educator.

The biggest publishing event of the year, insofar as literature is concerned, is the release by the UP Press of the
top winners in the Centennial Literary Awards held in 1998. In the September book fair, the first and second
prize winners in the poetry, novel, drama, and essay categories were launched. All categories required as subject
historical figures and events being commemorated in the Centennial celebrations. The rules of the competition
had stipulated specific forms for poetry (epic) and Filipino drama (zarzuela).

Teo T. Antonio’s winning Filipino epic Piping-Dilat is on Marcelo H. del Pilar. Candon , Reynaldo Duque’s epic on
the “Cry of Candon” in Ilocos Sur, is about the revolutionary Don Isabelo Abaya.

Vim Nadera, in Mujer Indigena, depicts the revolution from the point of view of women. In Lupang Hinirang,
Pedro L. Ricarte traces the roots of the Revolution to the earliest days of the settlement of the Philippine islands.
Cirilo F. Bautista’s Sunlight on Broken Stones weaves together many voices from 1800 to the present.

In the novel category, Jose Rey Munsayac and Jun Cruz Reyes shared the first prize. In Ang Aso, ang Pulgas, ang
Bonsai, at ang Kolorum, Munsayac writes about the ordinary man as rebel who continues to persevere in the
struggle even after their leaders had allowed themselves to be coopted by those in power. Cruz Reyes’ Etsa-
Puwera deploys a variety of characters marginalized for various reasons, e.g., ethnic origins, racial roots, physical
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defect, lack of educational opportunities, etc. Winning second prize, Tari by Sergio R. Custodio Jr. is based on a
revolt in Surigao where rebels fought the enemy with only the cockspur as weapon.

Eric Gamalinda’s first prize-winning novel My Sad Republic uses the messianic faith healer Papa Isio as central
character. Charlson Ong’s An Embarrassment of Riches is about an exile who finds a very different country and a
very different people when he returns to the Philippines.

Jason Co won the English essay award for his The Spirit of 1896: A Mirror of the Philippine Past, a Mirror on the
Nation’s Future. The essay is a reflection on what the author perceives as the unique features of the Filipino
nation. Nicolas Pichay’s Almanac for a Revolution, winner of the first prize in English drama, is a “magical”
narrative based on M.H. del Pilar and his sacrifice towards the birth of a Filipino nation.

The year’s “Most Honored Canonical Writer” would be Francisco Sionil Jose on whom Far Eastern University
conferred a Doctorate in Humane Letters. On top of that Jose achieved what Filipino writers most covet—
exposure in the US. The publication of his Rosales Saga (composed of Po-on, Tree, My Brother, My Executioner,
The Pretenders and Mass) by the prestigious Random House Publishing affirms Jose’s international stature that
translations into Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and other languages had earlier endowed him.

Jose, as the rumor mills would have it, has been in the list of finalists for the Nobel Prize in Literature for the past
two years. Because a French translation of Jose’s major stories has now been completed, it is said that he has
moved closer towards what is considered the highest literary honor in the world.

Not quite Nobel but definitely an honor “devoutly to be wish’d” by any author is the SEA Write award annually
conferred by the King of Thailand on writers representing different countries in Southeast Asia. Antonio
Enriquez, fictionist with several books to his name, had previously been given a regional projection—The
Surveyors of Liguasan Marsh, a novel, and Dance a White Horse to Sleep and Other Stories, a book of stories,
were both published by the University of Queensland Press of Australia. Through his short fiction, Enriquez has
been making the national audience aware of the distinctive culture of the Christian and ethnic peoples of his
beloved Zamboanga from his home in Cagayan de Oro City.

Silvino V. Epistola was a young writer in the 1950s, and among his writing contemporaries were such formidable
figures as NVM Gonzalez, Francisco Arcellana, Nick Joaquin, Bienvenido Santos and the Tuvera couple, Juan and
Kerima. Two of his stories had won in the Palanca contest in the early years of the competition, but somehow he
never got into the ranks of the canonical figures of the 1950s. The Home We Remember: Selected Short Fiction
of the 1950s, a collection of short stories, ought to occasion a revaluation of Epistola’s achievement in our time.

In spite of publishers who are wont to insist that poetry does not sell, the year 2000 yielded a rich harvest of
poetry collections, each one of them vying for critical attention. It is unfortunate that a brief survey of the year’s
total literary production can savor only a few books that serve the purpose of establishing the profile of the total
output. The rest can only be accorded simple mention which should serve as a call to attention that critics with
greater leisure and space might heed.

In 2000, the early activist poems of Epifanio San Juan Jr. turned 40 years old. The publication of Alay sa Paglikha
ng Bukang-Liwayway, a volume of selected poems from San Juan’s books from 1960 to1998, like a bolt of
lightning from the not too long ago past, reminds readers that poetry in Filipino used to be a militant vehicle for
political protest. Sadly, today’s generation of poets, under the spell perhaps of recent literary theories from
capitalist countries, has given up the power of voices like San Juan’s for little ironies and cerebrations.

After three decades of designing for the theater, Salvador Bernal has returned to poetry and gifts us with a first
book, the most artfully crafted poetry book of 2000.The Firetrees Burn All Summer comes with drawings by R.M.
de Leon and, against competition from the exquisite book design by Brian U. Tenorio, the poems refuse to be
overwhelmed, thanks to the intelligence and fine technique of the poet.

In Ochre Tones, Poems in English and Cebuano, Marjorie M. Evasco, poet of many finely crafted pieces, tries her
hand at translating her English poems into her native Cebuano. Relating that “whenever I tried my hand in my
mother language, my ears curled like a child’s fingers around the vowels of a tongue I knew, but seemed to have
forgotten how to dream in,” Evasco lets us in on her adventure of discovering another way of writing poetry,
intimating that she is perhaps on the verge of turning into a different poet.
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Ricardo de Ungria’s Waking Ice is a very personal book of confessional poems memorializing a drug-dependent
son who ended his own life. In poems that hide nothing, the poet has stripped off the mask of art, revealing a
vulnerable parent discovering too late how in the pursuit of his art, he had tended on many occasions to miss
cues for caring and affection.

In Jose F. Lacaba’s Edad Medya, we have another book of personal poems where the poet in the city finds social
realities of urban life pressing on the consciousness of a middle-aging artist. Pitched at a key lower than we have
ever known in Lacaba’s earlier works, the poems intimate to the reader a growing distaste for a deteriorating
city and notes with irony and regret the decay of sensibility and the imminence of mortality.

A young poet writing in Filipino, English and Bikol, has quietly made his presence felt with a book, his first, of
Filipino poems. In Hunos, Allan Popa demands that his reader contemplate intently what his poems are saying.
At first glance, because they use rime and meter, the poems seem accessible enough, but once the reader
enters any one of them, he gets himself deliciously enmeshed in the poet’s experiments in the versification and
imaging of themes.

Other important poets who came out with books of their poems included: Benilda Santos, Alipato: Mga Piling
Tula; Simeon Dumdum Jr., Poems: Selected and New 1982-1997; D.M. Reyes, Promising Lights; Rebecca
Añonuevo, Pananahan; Ligaya T. Rubin, Paano Tumutula ang Isang Ina: Tula ng Buhay at Bayan;
J. Neil C. Garcia, The Sorrows of Water; Rowena T. Torrevillas, The Sea-Gypsies Stay; Roberto T. Añonuevo,
Pagsiping sa Lupain; and Teo T. Antonio, Karikatura at Iba Pang Kontra-Banda.

The output in fiction is leaner compared to the number of volumes of poetry. Aside from the awardees of the
Manila Critics Circle, other fictionists included: Ernesto Superal Yee, Ember Days and Other Tales and Stories;
Natasha Vizcarra, Notes of a Frigid Dormer and Other Stories; Jesus Q. Cruz, Games and Other Stories; Renato
Madrid, Mass for the Death of an Enemy; Erma M. Cuizon, Homecoming and Other Short Stories; and Esther
Vallado Daroy, House of Jacob.

Two young writers in 2000 joined the roster of “authors with books.” Angelo Rodriguez Lacuesta and Luis
Joaquin M. Katigbak are both products of several national workshops and have won awards in the Palanca
contest. Katigbak’s Happy Endings assembles stories that reveal a new author with a penchant for fantastication
and absurd humor. Life Before X and Other Stories by Lacuesta, on the other hand, is a collection of stories
about aloneness and a sense of impermanence.

Eric Gamalinda, author of the prizewinning My Sad Republic, is looked up to as the shining hope of the Philippine
novel in English. This, by virtue of the ease with which he has been able to break into US literary publications, is
a sign that he has the requisite linguistic artistry that makes editors take note and that he is into the temper of
the contemporary scene as this is perceived by the reading public in the US. The publication of My Sad Republic
puts the novel within the reach of the local public for fiction. So much interest is focused now on Gamalinda’s
work.

The fictionist in the local scene that claims our attention is Rolando Tolentino whose experimentalist stories are
found in two books released within the same year. Fastfood, Megamall at Iba Pang Kuwento sa Pagsasara ng
Ikalawang Milenyum is a collection of short narratives that barely resemble the tightly constructed pieces called
“short stories” before the 1990s. His second book is titled as cryptically as the first; it is called Sapin-Saping Pag-
ibig at Pagtangis: Tatlong Novella ng Pagsinta’t Paghihinagpis. Tolentino has dissolved plot as the requisite
intercalated incidents culminating in a closure. Instead, his method of laying out or suggesting a narrrative is
quite eclectic, liberally borrowing from filmic narration such devices as jumpcuts, montage and associated
techniques, with the resulting narrative giving the impression of spontaneity, aimlessness even, in presenting
character and incident.

With the appearance of Necessary Fictions: Philippine Literature and the Nation, 1946-1980, Philippine writing
finds a new critical voice in Caroline S. Hau. The essays in Hau’s book use the works of Jose Rizal, Amado V.
Hernandez, Nick Joaquin, Edgardo M. Reyes, Ricardo Lee, Kerima Polotan, Carlos Bulosan, and Mano de
Verdades Posadas to explore issues centering on literature and the nation.

Thirty years ago, Talaang Ginto, a contest sponsored by the then Surian ng Wikang Pambansa, found itself in
trouble with activist poets when an elderly and decidedly politically conservative poet was conferred the title
“Makata ng Taon” as the winner over younger poets who saw themselves as “revolutionaries.” On the afternoon
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of the awarding of recognition plaques, the younger poets threw their plaques into a bonfire in front of The
National Library where a rally of writers was in progress.

In 2000, protest over the awarding of the title “Makata ng Taon” has been registered in print by a poet unhappy
about the change ordered by the new leadership in the Commission of the Filipino Language in the conduct of
the competition. It was decreed that from the year 2000, Talaang Ginto would be open only to poets who have
not won major prizes in any contest. The complaint is that the title “Makata ng Taon” has by the change lost its
prestigious character because the competition excludes the best poets whose best works should set the
standards for the contest. The protest did not pertain specifically to the declared winners: Eugene V. Evasco,
“Makata ng Taon,” and Daniel L. Nisperos and Bayani S. Abadilla, runners-up.

Over the years, since Lino Brocka made a movie out of Edgardo M. Reyes’ novel Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag from
the script by Clodualdo del Mundo Jr., literature has stood by as a potential source of material for movies of
substance. The producers, however, were not ready, in the mid-’70s, to follow Brocka’s example. It remained for
Bata, Bata, Paano Ka Ginawa?, Chito Rono’s version of Lualhati Bautista’s feminist novel, to generate interest in
novels as cinematic material. Then, one production company picked up Domingo Landicho’s Bulaklak ng
Maynila, and the box-office yield of the movie made producers more optimistic about the selling capacity of
literary materials. In 2000, Edgardo M. Reyes’ tale about the moral dimensions of male sexuality in Laro sa Baga
was translated by Chito Roño on film, and the movie did well at the box office. Coming up next year is the film
version of Lualhati Bautista’s Dekada ’70, a novel much admired for its sensitive and politically correct depiction
of a middle-class family growing in maturity and political consciousness during the period of the Marcos
dictatorship.

Two major scriptwriting competitions yielded a good number of scripts that indicate that writers, who in the
past would have taken up the novel or the full-length play as the vehicle for their narrative or insight, have been
turning more and more to writing for the movies or television. The Film Development Foundation of the
Philippines, Inc., turned up 15 finalists, and Jerry B. Gracio ran off with the first prize for his Santa-Santita, with
Antonio D. Sison (Nine [9] Mornings) and Jeanne T. Lim (Saling-Pusa), taking second and third places,
respectively. Star Cinema’s competition drew in more than 200 scripts, and the winners were: Edward
Trespeces, Jologs, first prize; Rogelio Ramos, Kutos, second; and Paulo Herras, “P1.00/min,” third.

The Palanca Memorial Awards has had screenplay writing as one of the categories of the contest. This year, the
winners were: Floy Quintos, Gabi ng Tinggiirin, first prize; Jose Dennis C. Teodosio, Sirena, second; and Joel V.
Almazan, Ang Bata sa Daan-Pari, third.

Two screenplays were in the running for honors in the Manila Critics Circle awards. One entry was Edgardo M.
Reyes’ screenplay based on his own novel, Laro sa Baga. The screenplay that won the award was Ang Screenplay
ng “Jose Rizal” by Ricardo Lee, Jun Lana, and Peter Ong Lim.

The year 2000 saw the telecasting of the series known as Pahina by the ABS-CBN Educational Foundation
intended to supplement the teaching of literature in high school. The series took literary works in high school
textbooks and dramatized excerpts, relating these to the fictional day-to-day lives of teenage students in a
provincial high school. The objective of the show was to interest students in poems, short stories, plays, and
even essays by showing how the imaginary life in the literary work impacts on real life. Francisco Baltazar, Jose
Rizal, Julian Balmaseda, Jose Corazon de Jesus, Efren Abueg and Genoveva Edroza-Matute were introduced in
the earlier episodes, and a new set of writers will be taken up in the new episodes in the making. Pahina, in its
present Saturday morning telecast, has yet to find a time slot that will allow it to be viewed during schooldays at
class hours. Educational television is still television, a costly medium that sells entertainment and will bend only
so much to the interests of education.

The organization of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as an institution separate from the Department
of Education, Culture, and Sports, which attends to basic education, has created an opening for Philippine
literature in the college curriculum. In 1996, CHED issued Memorandum No. 59 which provided for two required
literature courses in the General Education Curriculum of tertiary courses of study leading to a bachelor’s
degree. The two courses are “The Literatures of the Philippines” and “The Literatures of the World.” Finally, with
the first course, Filipino youth in the course of their stay in college will be exposed to oral and written works by
Filipinos. Somehow, college education will prepare for Filipino writers the audience that will spur them on,
hopefully, to greater productivity. This early, there is much optimism about the benefits the CHED memo will
bring about in the development of a culture where the creative writer will find respect and appreciation and
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

literature will cease to be regarded as a subject that must be endured so that a student could move on to the
more useful components of his program of study.

About the Author:

Bienvenido L. Lumbera Sanghaya editor-in-chief, is one of the pillars of contemporary Philippine literature and
film, having written and edited numerous books on literary history, literary criticism, and film. The professor
emeritus of the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature of UP Diliman, he has received several awards
citing his contribution to Philippine letters, most notably the 1993 Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature,
and Creative Communication Arts and the 1999 CCP Centennial Honors for the Arts. He currently teaches at De La
Salle University.

Name: ____________________________________________ Date: _____________________

Grade and Section: _________________________________

 Journeys to Meaningful Learning

MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

(see attached rubric)

 Enrichment: Keep on Learning

Shared Task 1: Complete the table below by supplying the necessary pieces of information. Use separte sheet.

Period Themes and Motifs Medium, Language Dominant Forms Representative

Writers and Sample
Texts (Titles)
Pre-Colonial

Spanish Colonial

American Colonial

Under the
Republic

After EDSA

21st Century

Shared Task 2: In class, answer the following questions:

1. What were the prevailing subjects of pre-colonial literature?

2. What types of literature were formed and produced during the primitive period?
3. How did our forebears transmit their literature?
4. Is primitive literature still enjoyed by modern people like us?
5. What ideas about our forebears were revealed by their lietarture?
6. How did changes in our history affect and influence the themes and forms of our literature?

 Class Activity

Philippine literature is mainly a conglomeration of the creativity, aspirations and experiences of numerous
writers across time. This activity enables you to remember and to celebrate the greatness of our Filipino writers
who made significant contributions that helped shaped our nation’s literary identity.
MODULE 3: Various Dimensions of Philippine Literary History
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

Choose any Filipino literary laureate and study his/her background. Like in a cosplay, the writers will be
represented by wearing appropriate and colorful costumes. In the presentation, a short background about the
writer must be provided.