Women’s titles, and rights

In previous columns over the holidays, reviewed in omnibus fashion in this space, were several recently released books. Now let us add to that list by citing three other new titles that made their way to our writing desk, which means our bedroom floor. Uhh, well, make that bookshelves, eventually.

The Manila We Knew, edited by Erlinda Panlilio, with original art by Manuel D. Baldemor, published by Anvil, anthologizes 14 creative non-fiction pieces by a dozen lady writers – the editor herself who contributes two essays ("The Fireflies of Kamuning," and "UP Beloved"), same with Josefina Pedrosa Manahan ("In Search of a Memory," and "When the Wind Cooled the Houses of San Juan"), and the following:

Henrie R. Santos ("The Malate I Knew"); Laling H. Lim ("At the Edge of Manila"); Lourdes R. Montinola ("A Gentle City"); Maria Christina D. Olbes ("Memories of Christmas Past"); Milette Tañada Ocampo ("Swan Song for Broadway"); Mert J. Loinaz ("Stepping Into a New World"); Lolita Delgado Fansler ("The Trails of Fort Bonifacio"); Anna Isabel A. Pamplona ("Trick or Treat"); Gizela M. Gonzalez ("Growing up Convent"); and Wynn Wynn N. Ong ("A Sense of Manila").

As one may note from the titles of the personal essays, the book celebrates what used to make up our primate city. Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo’s foreword, "Manila on Their Mind," says: "This book is about the old home. These authors have opened the old camphor chest and sifted through the dusty faded treasures lying there. And from the rescued bits and pieces, the precious little odds and ends, they have woven this glowing tapestry of the Manila they know and love."

Iwish I could have contributed to this collection something about the Dimasalang area I grew up in, or the test of manhood in Kamuning thence San Juan, or the early domesticity in Teachers’ Village, Q.C. But I suppose my gender is suspect, so that I’ll have to wait until a male editor seeks to gather macho pieces before our MM is rediscovered centuries hence as something like the ruins of Macchu Piccu.

For now, our finest lady exponents of creative non-fiction provide the intersecting weft and woof of memory, enhancing the images and recollections previously gifted us by our city’s most stalwart celebrator, Nick Joaquin. Felicitous writing marks this gentle volume, all the way through to the last contributor, Ms. Ong, who is Burmese but regards Manila as home, inclusive of its chaos, exuberance and ennui.

Indeed, as Ms. Hidalgo, who herself trained most of the contributors here in the genre of the personal essay, writes, "These Manileñas will stand their ground. Here is their testament to the city of their affections."

Ani: The Life and Art of Hermogena Borja Lungay, Boholano Painter, by Marjorie Evasco (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House), with a preface by National Artist Napoleon Abueva, introduces us to the life and work of the excellent Boholana artist who "painted landscapes and historic buildings of the province and made them treasures of our Philippine patrimony."

The poet Evasco, herself a Boholana with a constant eye for the luminous – that which she limns with lissome grace and literary lilt – acknowledges how "the turtle-shaped island of Bohol we both call ‘home’ ... continues to be the ground of imaginative power, where dream and desire create new form."

"Nene" Borja Lungay mines this beneficent ground in the best possible way, by committing to posterity images woven out of lore and dreamtime, such as in her series of imagined portraits herein represented by "Hara sa Kinampay" or Queen of the Kinampay (the tuber known as purple yam or "ube").

Her "Queen" is but part of a Madonna and Child motif that perpetuates her fellow islanders’ devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Child Jesus. With such queens as subjects as well as chroniclers of creativity, no wonder the gentle island of our own affections can lend inspiration for ethereal art – one that is both ardent documentation and warm, glowing celebration.

10 + 2: Mga Kwento ng Ordinaryong Tao by Marra PL. Lanot, published by Women’s Action in Media (WAM) Inc. for 3RG-Phils., presents stories from "real life" – narratives by women on the subject, and experience, of abortion.

The stance is pro-abortion, or at least in favor of dissemination of complete, essential information on a controversial issue. As WAM executive director Alma S. dela Rosa wrtites in her paunang salita: "Talaga namang napakasalimuot ng paksang tinatalakay sa loob ng mga pahinang ito, ngunit damdam namin na kinakailangang ipakita ang kabilang mukha ng aborsyon."

She also argues most rationally that abortion as practiced in this country involves delicate risks only because it is still deemed illegal, and thus conducted on the sly. True enough, most progressive countries have legalized abortion, including predominantly Catholic countries like Italy and Spain, while the retrogressive ban stays in such ungainly backward states as Afghanistan, Somalia and Haiti.

Indeed, societies that allow a suspect moral authority to intervene and even dictate on what ought to be a personal medical affair, let alone a pragmatic one, can only be unburdened of a benighted state by the very citizens who are most involved and affected – in this case women.

Kudos to WAM and Ms. Lanot as author and editor of these "case studies" given a human face, by virtue of a caring attitude and fetching conversational prose in Filipino ("Komiks na komiks ang kwento ni Ani. O parang sine. Hindi kathang isip ang buhay niya, pero, wika nga sa Inggles, ‘Life is stranger than fiction.’").

More power, too, to the Reproductive Rights Group-Philippines or 3RG-Phils. for its quiet but effective pursuit of sane reflection and action on sexual and reproductive rights, so unlike the banshee militancy of other groups that scream and screech at the slightest imagined provocation.

This responsible resource group may be reached at UP PO Box No. 140, Quezon City, e-mail rrrgphil@info.com.ph, and website at www.3rg.org.