Alessandra Rose F. Miguel is a third-year journalism student at the University of Sto. Tomas. She’s a member of the Thomasian Writers Guild and a writer for the college publications The Flame and The Journalese. She’s a Caviteña and a sisig junkie who loves to read and write poetry.
When I was a college freshman, I didn’t pay much attention to Filipino literature. I was enthralled mostly by British and American poets and fictionists like Sylvia Plath, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Woolf. However, when I became a member of the writers’ guild at UST during my sophomore year, I felt that I was being left out. Though I knew some of the Filipino writers they mentioned in our workshops, I was oblivious to the rest. I then decided to read the book Philippine Contemporary Literature in English to gain a better understanding of Filipino poetry and fiction, as well as the geniuses that created them. I expected the learning experience to be boring and dull because it’s a textbook. I thought wrong. It did offer me a lot of help, more than I expected.
Compiled by high-profile writers Ophelia A. Dimalanta and Virginia M. Mata, Philippine Contemporary Literature in English: Tradition and Change (From the ‘20s to the Present) – with its bleak periwinkle color, fuzzy artwork, size and thickness – is merely a textbook at first glance. Nonetheless, when I started rummaging through the pages of what seemed to be a tedious book, I proved myself wrong again. The book encompasses significant information regarding the early stages of Philippine Literature and its metamorphosis; and the tradition and change Philippine Literature in English endured as told in section one and two respectively.
Section three boasts the resplendent poetry of our finest writers. Divided into three parts (pre-war, post-war and more recent), it contains the essential works of writers that changed the landscape of Filipino poetry throughout the years. The pre-war part offers the poems of Luis Dato, Angela Manalang Gloria, Aurelio Alvero, Alfredo Litiatco, Amador T. Daguio, Trinidad T. Subido and Rafael Zulueta de Costa. It is De Costa’s poem, "Like The Molave," which is my favorite from the pre-war section. This and Manalang-Gloria’s "I have Begrudged the Years" engenders nationalistic feelings.
The post-war part consists of poems by Jose Garcia-Villa, Carlos Angeles, Emmanuel Torres, Edith Tiempo, Virginia R. Moreno and literary matriarch Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta. Without being sexist, I must say it’s the women’s works that impressed me irrevocably. Tiempo’s "Bonsai," Moreno’s "Order For Masks" and Dimalanta’s "Montage" show the use of rich imagery, texture and emotiveness in a subtle way.
However, it was the "more recent" part of section three that introduced me to two of my all-time favorite Filipino poets and influences, Marjorie Evasco and Eric Gamalinda. The following lines from Evasco’s "Elemental" always give me that strange and overpowering sensation every time I read it:
Over Siquijor, your body
an entire land I could initiate
black moons from, taste of earth,
rush of river songs, smell of air
before rain, spray of flowers
with strange names. The reason
For this ripening: You are
goldened by my tongue.
Other "more recent" writers in the book include Alfredo Salanga, Cirilo Bautista, Merlie A. Alunan, Ricardo M. de Ungria and Alfred Yuson. These writers show mastery of the language with their clever use of imagery and focus on sound.
Section four of the book swerves to the path of short fiction. Also divided into the same three parts, it offers short stories by renowned fictionists in the Philippines. The pre-war part includes stories by Paz Latorena, Loreto Paras-Sulit, Paz Marquez-Benitez, Arturo B. Rotor, Carlos Bulosan, Manuel Arguilla and Amador T. Daguio. Paras-Sulit’s "The Bolo" and Arguilla’s "How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife" are two stories that are widely published in high school textbooks.
The stories that I like profoundly are found in the post-war section: Nick Joaquin’s "May Day Eve" and Gregorio C. Brilliantes’s "Faith, Love, Time and Dr. Lazaro." The latter tells the story of a doctor who reunites himself with religion through a night of bonding briefly with his son. Such lessons are opulent in our stock of short fiction. Other stories that are equally palatable are by Francisco Arcellana, Bienvenido N. Santos, Estrella D. Alfon, Kerima Polotan Tuvera, N.V.M. Gonzales, Gilda Cordero-Fernando and Juan T. Gatbonton.
The "more recent" part includes works by Amadis Ma. Guerrero, Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., Paulino Lim Jr., and Christina Hidalgo, whose "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" chiefly amused me as the story narrates the lead character’s queer experience while taking a vacation at her aunt’s house.
The fifth and last section tackles the Drama and Novel of two of our national artists. It is composed of extracts from Nick Joaquin’s play A Portrait of the Artist as a Filipino (An Elegy in Three Scenes), and Dusk, written by F. Sionil Jose, the most translated Filipino author in the world. Dusk narrates the saga of a family in exile who moves to the small town of Rosales, and plunged into history’s chaos, while Joaquin’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Filipino revolves around a self-portrait wherein the artist was painted as a young man carrying his old self with the burning city of Troy as its background. I was so engrossed in reading the play that I was somewhat disappointed that only the first scene was included in the book.
Overall, this book influenced me in such a tremendous way that I started to write fiction. I usually write poetry but wanted to give fiction a try after reading Nick Joaquin’s "May Day Eve." I had no plans of venturing into fiction until I read that story. It made me swallow my cowardice and now I am not afraid of dabbling in other literary types and forms.
Aside from realizing that Filipino writers should be acknowledged throughout the world, the book also provoked me to strive harder in terms of writing. The book also reminds me of that Batibot saying "Kung kaya nila, kaya mo rin." The book inspired me, so that someday I will achieve what those that came before me did.
Nowadays, writers in schools don’t even know the history of our literature. I feel bad that most of my batchmates took our Philippine Contemporary Literature subject for granted. If only we thought that focusing on the subject was for our own good, we could have learned more. The book is highly educational, and at the same time, engaging.
I still read a couple of its pages before I go to sleep.