essay about philippine literature

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23 English-language literature of the Philippines

Lily Rose Tope is Professorial Lecturer at the Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines, Diliman. She has a PhD from the National University of Singapore. She is the author of (Un)Framing Southeast Asia: Nationalism and the Post Colonial Text in English in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines (1998), and co-editor of An Anthology of English Writing from Southeast Asia (2012). She has written various articles on Southeast Asian literature in English, Asian literature in translation, Philippine Chinese literature, and Philippine literature in English.

• Published: 21 March 2024
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Philippine literature in English began with the American colonization of the Philippines, which brought with it public education and the English language. Filipino writers adapted to the English language readily and produced works in English within two decades. A period of imitation followed as American literary models were adopted through public schools. The 1950s was a golden age of literary production as writers became more confident in the use of English. During the 1960s and 1970s, English was regarded as a tool of colonialism and imperialism. The Martial Law years, which suppressed writing, did not deter writing in English. By the turn of the millennium, writing in English responded to global trends and writers became more experimental, crossing over to non-literary genres as well as exploring local literary traditions.

23.1 Introduction

Filipino writers have been writing in English for more than a century. In fact, Philippine literature in English has the longest English writing tradition in Southeast Asia, and consequently has the highest number of literary productions, which presumably is also the most varied. This study will trace its beginnings and development up to its current state. Likewise, it will discuss the historical and sociopolitical factors that shaped Philippine writing in English, highlighting the achievements and challenges of each period and its respective writers.

23.2 The American period and the first fruits

The Spanish–American war in 1898 saw the defeat of the Spanish forces in the Philippines and the cessation of the Philippines to America after more than 300 years of Spanish colonial rule (1565–1899). The Filipinos, who had just fought a revolution against Spain, resisted American occupation, but they were pacified with superior arms and the promise of public education. With public education came the English language and American culture, which became the hallmarks of American colonialism (1899–1946) in the Philippines.

The American colonial classroom became the wellspring of a new literary faith. The textbooks were full of the democratic thoughts of George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson, ‘not the universal application of these concepts but the heroic quality of the Americans defending their rights’ ( Hosillos 1969 : 47). Literary textbooks created a generation who read ‘from the works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Romantic poets’ ( Martin 2008 : 246).

The University of the Philippines was largely responsible for spawning the early readers of literature in English and, consequently, the first harvest of writers in English. The guidance of Dean and Harriet Fansler, both American educators, encouraged writing in simple and readable English. The University of the Philippines especially served as the nursery of serious literary efforts and the shaper of new canons. Consequently, the writers found in the American textbooks became influential in the development of the early Filipino writers’ development of style and technique.

‘The early generation of Filipinos appeared to have entertained neither skepticism nor scruples about using a foreign language as a literary medium’ ( Manlapaz 2000 : 188–9). The first three decades, less than 30 years after English was introduced, record initial milestones in the first works written in English: the first poem, ‘The Flood’ (1905) by Ponciano Reyes; the first short story of solid artistry, ‘Dead Stars’ (1925) by Paz Marquez Benitez; and the first novel, A Child of Sorrow (1921) by Zoilo Galang. This attests to the speed with which English occupied the Filipino literary imagination.

The period from 1900 to 1930 was described as the period of apprenticeship, during which writers grappled with a new language whose intricacies and cultural baggage were different from those of Spanish or the local languages. This is also the period of imitation, when local writers made their first baby steps in writing in English by following the example of the American and British writers they read.

The use of the language was initially tentative and awkward. Some writers wrote English with the floridness of Spanish, others lacked the idiomatic ease that comes with confident usage. Literary historians such as Resil Mojares (1983) remind us that Philippine literature already had a body of traditions in Philippine languages that informed Filipino sensibility. Moreover, there are the Spanish literary traditions honed during the Spanish colonial period. Because the Philippines already had writers in Spanish and in the local languages, the Filipino poet and critic Gemino Abad refuses to see this period as one of apprenticeship. He clarifies that if ever there was an apprenticeship, ‘it was linguistic and cultural, but not in the literary or poetic art’ ( Abad 1998 : 6).

The 1920s and 1930s saw the founding of the first newspapers and magazines in English which published the first fruits. The first short story, ‘Dead Stars’ by Paz Marquez Benitez, is considered a momentous literary achievement because it was neither imitative nor simplistic and showed a successful use of form.

Filipino romantic poetry created ripples from the poetry of Jose Garcia Villa, Angela Manalang Gloria, and Trinidad Tarrosa Subido. Villa, in particular, influenced poetic production by both his philosophy and his output. He relished the music that words make, revelling in the witchery of word and sound. His proclamation regarding the superiority of form and his audacious experimentations with poetic language ‘broke with tradition, a tradition created with Tagalog and Spanish works written from the nineteenth century to the 1920s’ ( Francia 1993 : xvii). Villa elevated Philippine poetry to the level of expert manipulation, making English an instrument of his genius. He was never enslaved by the language; in fact, he moulded it as the blacksmith melds steel. He garnered international recognition especially in the United States, which is really his cultural nexus. Interestingly, American critics considered him to be a distinctive, but minor, American poet. He was more attuned to the pronouncements of modern poets with whom he hobnobbed in the US, including e.e. cummings, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, Elisabeth Bishop, and Randall Jarell.

A literary god during his time, Villa was noted for the transgressiveness of his forms and themes. He took his poetic dictum from Archibald MacLeish’s ‘Ars Poetica’ (1952): ‘A poem should not mean / But be.’ He went to the United States and there discovered e.e. cummings, whose influence can be seen in his comma poems. Here is the first stanza of ‘I, It, Was, That, Saw’, a poem published in 1948.

I, it, was, that, saw God, dancing, on, phosphorus, toes, Among, the, strawberries. ( Villa 1948 : 26)

To Villa, every word deserves attention, thus the comma.

Villa’s rival is considered to be Angela Manalang Gloria. Deprecated by critics for poetry not English enough because it was ‘sentimental and formless’ ( Moore 1929 cited in Banzon 2011 : 176), Manalang Gloria is defended by fellow poet Isabela Banzon (2011) , who, rereading Manalang Gloria’s poetry decades later, points to her attunement to local cadences and traditions. This created a postcolonial jarring of Eurocentric poetic standards, not appreciated by her early readers.

This period is also one of literary osmosis. Filipino writers in English absorbed as much as they could, made mistakes, but also got it right without throwing away what they already had. At this point, I would like to cite some significant examples of influences from English writing from the West. One poetic form that captured the Filipino imagination is the sonnet. Salvador Lopez, writer and critic, remarked:

What poet has not, at one time or another, succumbed to the fascination of the sonnet, hewing and clipping away, with burin or with chisel, patiently, meticulously, lovingly, in order to achieve the classic perfection of this form? (‘Review of A. E. Litiatco’s With Harp and Sling ’, cited in Eugenio 1951 : 1)

The most successful among the early attempts are the sonnets of Fernando Maramag. Written in 1911, his poem ‘Sonnet’ shows indebtedness to Shakespeare. ‘When to the sessions of sweet silent thought’ (Sonnet 30) is evident in Maramag’s opening lines: ‘When mortal bosoms grieve with thee no more / And thou alone doth feel despairing care.’ Some phrases and imagery in his famous sonnet ‘Moonlight on Manila Bay’, such as ‘the deep’s bare bosom’, echo Wordsworth’s ‘the sea that bares her bosom to the moon’ from ‘The world is too much with us; late and soon’ ( Eugenio 1951 : 7). He uses both Petrarchan and Shakespearean forms with equal ease and, unlike his contemporaries who modified the sonnet pattern to suit their whims, ‘he adhered faithfully to the standard pattern, not only in rhyme scheme but also in thought and development’ ( Eugenio 1951 : 7).

Then there are Abelardo and Trinidad Tarrosa Subido, husband and wife, who wrote sonnets to each other. Trinidad Tarrosa Subido, the wife, wrote the more interesting sonnets, distinguished by writing about passionate love, not necessarily faithful love, which perhaps shocked the audiences of her generation, as one can see in her poem, ‘Love Is My Need.’

If then someday your singing fails to free Out my soul my answering surge of song Weep not you are become unloved of me, Be grateful only I have loved that long, You still are cherished when I cherish one Who bears your charms with other charms his own But of your flaws—oh, none! ( Tarrosa-Subido 1945 : 17)

She writes with ‘an intensity coupled with a frankness and boldness of expression unusual in a Filipino woman’ ( Eugenio 1951 : 14)—a tradition, according to Lopez, that ‘stretches back to Sapho through Elizabeth Barrett Browning and then to Edna St Vincent Millay’ (cited in Eugenio 1951 : 14).

The sonnet is also the object of experimentation. The most extreme rendition uses the sonnet as a statement on art, as a shocking, baffling distortion of the form, as a madman’s expression of the ludicrous, or as a postcolonial resistance to a colonially prescribed form. Nothing can be more radical than this 1948 sonnet by Jose Garcia Villa:

The Emperor’s New Sonnet ( Villa 2008 : 119)

Influenced by the fairy tale ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, this blank space is a comment on what the new sonnet should be.

23.3 Literary development in the Commonwealth years

The years from 1930 to 1944, which begins before the Philippine Commonwealth (1935–46) was established and ends with the Japanese occupation, was a period of growth and development. Writers were discovering facets of the English language that could express their sentiments with more originality and authenticity. They explored how it could articulate the local and the individual, slowly distancing itself from the Western paradigm and projecting a more Filipino sensibility, albeit in English.

The period began to reveal the many schisms that plague writing in English even today. The most contentious is the debate between art for art’s sake and art for society. The ‘art for art’s sake’ credo was articulated by Jose Garcia Villa, by then one of the most influential poets in English. Villa insisted on art’s own reason for being. Art is never a means; it is an end in itself. Villa defined poetry as an expertness in language and form, not in meaning; and the true meaning of a poem is its expressive force rather than its content.

While Villa served as a poetic guru to generations of poets in English, he was also seen as lacking in commitment to his native culture and allegedly did not contribute much to the forging of a national literature. His claim that poetry is useless, and serves only to arouse pleasure, removes poetry from any social purpose. This privileging of the aesthetic was bitterly contested by Salvador Lopez, whose Literature and Society (1940) became the ‘art for society’ bible. Lopez argued that literature must reflect and change society, and that this is the nobler goal of literature. Lopez further argued that art must disclose injustice and oppression and must be instrumental in creating a new order that is more egalitarian and inclusive. Decadent aesthetes like Villa, Lopez argued, are divorced from reality and will be read only by those of their ilk. Lopez went one step further by citing the proletariat and the class struggle they are waging as the best source of literary energy. However, he was also wary of straight propaganda and warned writers of its detrimental effects.

This great debate was the highlight of the period. It influenced the literary electorate by forcing them to examine their personal goals in writing. It provided dynamism to Philippine criticism. It will continue to engage the writers of future generations, dividing them along aesthetic and ideological lines. Most importantly, the debate underscores the two sides as the major impulses that make up Philippine literature. It would take years before the two sides negotiated with each other and found a comfortable coexistence.

Meanwhile a new genre was beginning to bud—the short story. Considered a Western import, the short story beguiled Filipino writers with its short fiction possibilities.

In Philippine fiction, the works of Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ernest Hemingway wielded considerable influence. Sherwood Anderson introduced Villa to the Andersonian character who is unable to comprehend social complexities that eventually defeat him. Edgar Allan Poe’s method of achieving a single intended effect through organic unity lies deep in the Filipino short story. Manuel Arguilla’s story ‘Midsummer’ embodies Poe’s idea that the story is an organic structure which creates a single impression or effect. The story centres on a one chance encounter between a man and a woman on a hot, barren road in rural Ilokos in the northern Philippines. The encounter suggests the wealth of feeling between the couple without much linguistic exchange.

Ernest Hemingway electrified the writing scene with a visit to the Philippines, but more lasting is his legacy of simplicity of language and the idea of native realism evolving from local colour. Filipino writers learned to use the simplest sentences to express rural, tropical sensibilities not easy to express in English. Local colour is not used to create the picturesque but is adopted as a technique to create an evocative human situation. ‘Midsummer’ details body movements understandable to rural folk, and in this excerpt, the preparation for a declaration of romantic interest and the possibility of reciprocation are performed in a physical dance of walking, stretching, looking:

More than ever, he was conscious of her person. … She carried the jar on her head without holding it. Her hands swung to her even steps. He threw back his square shoulders, lifted his chin, and sniffed the motionless air. There was a flourish in the way he flicked the rump of the bull with the rope in his hand. He felt strong. He felt very strong. He felt he could follow the slender, lithe figure ahead of him to the ends of the world. ( Arguilla 1940 , ‘Midsummer’, 23)

Lest one think that it is only genre, form, and technique that are borrowed from America, let me also cite the stories of Alejandro Roces as shaped by American humour. Roces, educated in the University of Arizona, wrote a story titled ‘We Filipinos Are Mild Drinkers.’ It was published by the Arizona Quarterly in 1947 and listed by Martha Foley as one of the distinctive stories of the year. It has a simple plot and uses simple English. It is about a friendly drinking bout between an American GI, whose unquenchable thirst has made him want to drink anything brewed by man, and a barefoot Filipino farm boy, who does not drink whiskey because it is too strong for him. When the GI keeps asking the boy where a drink can be had, the boy, out of traditional hospitality, accommodates him. So together, they have a few rounds of lambanog , a locally brewed liquor with a 99% alcohol content. The drinking has disastrous effects on the GI, but not on the boy. When the boy brings the plastered GI home, slung upon the carabao’s back to the barracks, the friends of the soldier, in a gesture of thanks, offer him some beer which he politely declines by saying that Filipinos are mild drinkers ( Roseburg 1958 ).

Roseburg (1958) notes that the humour is more American than Filipino. It is the humour of exaggeration, like the tall tales about Texas, although the humility of the farm boy is Filipino. Roces is well versed in American humour. He knows its nuance and characteristic, where to lay the stress:

We Filipinos are mild drinkers. We drink for three good reasons. We drink when we are happy. We drink when we are sad. And we drink for any other reason. (Cited in Roseburg 1958 : 141)

The ‘third reason’ punchline, which contains the unexpected twist but is illogical and funny, has been exhausted by American humourists and Roces is simply trying it out for himself.

It is also in the 1940s that Filipino writers in English began to see the political burden of writing in English. Not only is English a borrowed tongue, it also reflects class privileging and undermining of local languages and traditions. The use of English as a literary medium, therefore, is not just a manner of convenience or proficiency, but a matter of ideology, and carries the inevitable question of a writer’s cultural nationalism.

The issue manifested itself when local influences began to creep into the use of the language. Steeped in the dominant traditions of the late 19th century—specifically folk–Christian–European–Balagtas (a Tagalog poet) traditions—some writers in English continued to use the stylistics and literary conventions of these traditions. The lyricism of Spanish and Tagalog sounded florid in English. The episodic narratives of local literature looked disunited. This has led local and foreign critics to judge Philippine literature in English harshly and unfairly. The adolescent awkwardness of the works was misconstrued as the weakness of maturity.

The period ends with the Japanese occupation. It was bleak for literature in English because the Japanese banned the use of the language. However, they encouraged the use of Filipino and other local languages, giving literature in local languages additional exposure and leverage.

23.4 Finest harvest in the postwar period

The years immediately after the Second World War saw the proliferation of war stories. Writers lived through the harrowing years of the Japanese occupation, and the newly found freedom allowed the outpouring of emotion and reintegration of national memory. The war stories were in a way part of national rehabilitation, a painful national experience shared and, in a cathartic moment, purged.

After the war, many Filipinos went to the United States ‘to drink in the wisdom of the American literary masters’ ( Dimalanta 2004 : 19). Not only did they come back Westernized and up to date, but they also brought back a literary framework that would rule Philippine writing in English and the teaching of literature in the years to come. This was New Criticism, which emphasized form and craft.

Of great influence was the Iowa Creative Writing program and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, which became the mecca of many Filipino writers in English during the postwar decades. It was where Filipino writers learned New Criticism, the training ground of many writers in English from around the world. Its programme and workshops became the model of Philippine creative-writing degree programs and prestigious national writers’ workshops.

The early postwar period was a very productive time for Philippine literature in English. It is considered the best period of the short story in English. Leopoldo Yabes (1981) noted a marked superiority demonstrated by the writers of this period. He observed that the war years and the early days of nation-building, which brought with them sorrow, euphoria, and disenchantment, widened the horizon of the Filipino writer. He also mentioned that English had gained primacy, describing his postwar anthology of Philippine short stories as ‘more truly national than any similar anthology that could be collected of stories originally written in Filipino or any other native language or Spanish’ ( Yabes 1981 : ix).

The major short-story writers in the Philippines wrote their signature stories during this period. Francisco Arcellana cut into familial relationships and human suffering with such subtlety and lyricism that the mundane realities of the everyday acquired an unexpected sublimity. N. V. M. Gonzalez portrayed the rural scenes of Mindoro as a Filipino universe where love and humanity triumph over the vicissitudes of peasant life. Nick Joaquin—writing in an English that resonates with Spanish cadences—evoked a distant past that forcefully intrudes into the present, echoing the effects of historical disjunctions and unresolved cultural neurosis.

The late 1950s and early 1960s showed further diversity in the writing of the short story. Notable are the works of Francisco Sionil Jose, which locate history in the barren landscape of Pangasinan to find a cultural confluence that will lead the characters to a discovery of self and identity. Gregorio Brillantes’ stories grapple with spiritual darkness and light, illusion and reality, projecting a religious aspect to the struggle. Bienvenido Santos takes us to distant lands where lonely old men in exile reminisce about home and the endearing aspects of a past life. Estrella Alfon, Gilda Cordero-Fernando, Wilfrido Nolledo, Lina Espina Moore, Edilberto and Edith Tiempo, Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil, Linda Ty-Casper, and many others have infused the short story with a dynamic energy that can be felt even to this day. Jose Dalisay describes some of these writers as ‘exhibiting both surface luminosity and material depth, surveying the landscape with wit, irony, a sense of things passing and things lost’. He adds: ‘their stories strike me today as heavily impressionistic meditations, melodramatic in their own way, plaintive, not without charm or humour but often culturally disembodied’ ( Dalisay 1998 : 148).

By the 1950s, there were also developments in poetry in English. New Criticism focused on the formal perfection of a ‘verbal icon’. The New Critical mode, with its stress on organic unity, emotional restraint and metaphor, irony and ambiguity, shaped the Filipino poetic sensibility well into the 1990s ( Abad 2000 ). Writers such as Henry James, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Plath continued to wield influence.

Despite the strong influence of New Criticism, Gemino Abad (2000 : 329) insists that ‘the poetic transformation of both language and sensibility since the 1950s owes more to the poet’s creative toil with language in response to his circumstances than to the New Critical ideology’. He cites the poetry of Oscar de Zuniga, Manuel Viray, Alejandrino Hufana, Ophelia Dimalanta, and many others, including Edith Tiempo, a known advocate of New Criticism. Be that as it may, the concern for form and language is palpable in the poetic output of Ricaredo Demetillo, Dominador Ilio, Manuel Viray, and many others who strove to master their craft.

During this period, the Philippines was also actively producing novels in English. While this movement had an early start, the artistic countdown seemed to have begun only after the war. Without Seeing the Dawn (1947) by Stevan Javellana and A Watch in the Night (1953) by Edilberto Tiempo, both war novels, were responses to historical trauma.

As a genre, the novel has been aligned with the idea of a nation, and in the case of the Philippine novel in English the genre ‘entails an excavation of, or investigation into the nature and meaning of “Filipinoness” ’ ( Hau 2008 : 324). It is worth mentioning here that the novels of the Philippine national hero Jose Rizal, which are written in Spanish but are anti-Spanish, represent a standard and a monument in Philippine novel-writing ( Jurilla 2019 ). Inspiring many novels (and other literary forms), Noli Me Tangere (‘Touch Me Not’) (1887) and its sequel, El Filibusterismo (‘The Filibuster’) (1891), have served as cultural touchstones in Philippine literature. Among the early examples of this influence are Stevan Javellana’s Without Seeing the Dawn (1947) and Juan Laya’s His Native Soil (1941).

This period also showcased the increasing sophistication of the Filipino novelist in English. One can say that the canon in Philippine writing in English was starting to solidify with the contribution of novelists. The 1950s and 1960s ushered in some of the best writing in the Philippine novel in English. Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels (1961) demonstrates his ‘dazzling use of English and mastery of the narrative technique in rendering search for national identity’ ( Hidalgo 2000 : 333). N. V. M. Gonzalez’s A Season of Grace (1956) was published by Bookmark, one of the first local publishers to support Philippine literature in English. Gonzalez’s simple, almost laconic style is often compared to the flamboyant writing style of Nick Joaquin. The novel is a testament to the resilience of the peasants of Mindoro, rendered in simple and languid language, ‘bending English to the shape and sense of language of the Visayan peasant with admirable simplicity and economy’ ( Hidalgo 2000 : 334). Bienvenido Santos wrote novels set in the Philippines and the United States, the former exposing social ills, the latter a chronicle of the diasporic lives of ‘wounded men’ ( Hidalgo 2000 : 334) in America. Francisco Sionil Jose is a phenomenon as a publisher because he shows that self-publication has advantages and, contrary to popular notions, is not a sign of inferiority. All 13 of his novels, including the five-series Rosales saga, were published by Solidaridad Publishing, owned by him. Foreign publishers find easy access to him as author and publisher, and as a result, Jose is the most translated Filipino author to date.

23.5 Resurgence of nationalism

I use 1965 as a benchmark year because this was the year Ferdinand Marcos was elected President of the Philippines. The event itself has nothing to do with literature, but the transformation of Philippine politics after the election of Marcos will cause a national reversal from which the Philippines still has to recover.

The 1960s saw a lot of ferment in the international scene. The civil rights movement, the protests against the Vietnam war, the cold war, the socialism of China and Russia all became important factors in the creation of a new consciousness among the writers of the period. The second half of the 1960s saw this new consciousness spread among young intellectuals, consequently directing their energies toward political engagement and commitment, which in turn would affect their attitudes toward writing. New ideologies began to shape Philippine literature. Marx, Lenin, and Mao formed the new discourses of narrative. Those who continuously adhered to New Criticism still wrote excellent pieces, but the works lost their potency in the face of the strong wind of ideology. The new anthem was social realism and the reflection of objective material realities. The new audience was the masses. The new stage was the streets. The new literary criterion was social relevance. Writers must write in the language of the people. In the light of this new nationalism and ideology, many writers in English shifted to writing in Filipino. The ones who could not had to bear the brunt of censure.

The genre that bore the brunt of the hard choice between English and Filipino as literary medium is Philippine drama in English. The Philippines has a strong drama tradition, beginning from the rituals of pre-colonial communities up to the Spanish colonial theatre of the comedia (a Spanish regular verse drama) and the zarzuela (a Spanish traditional form of musical comedy). Exposure to plays in English through educational institutions promoted the writing of plays mostly staged in schools. The most important playwright of the period is Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, who dominated the English stage with over 100 plays, 41 of which have been published. The plays used domestic realism to portray the tragic and comic aspects of Filipino daily life, especially the clash between tradition and modernity. Other important playwrights include Severino Montano, Alberto Florentino, Amelia Lapena Bonifacio, and Nick Joaquin.

The resurgence of nationalism in the later 1960s brought forth the second big issue in Philippine writing in English. English is the language of the colonizers; the use of the Filipino language means upholding Filipino identity. The audience realized a disjunct in Filipino faces speaking in English talking about hunger or dispossession. In the patriotic fervour of the period, some playwrights in English shifted to Filipino, some stopped writing altogether. Philippine drama in English went into a long hiatus or, to many, came to an end.

23.6 Repression and resistance during the martial law period (1972–1983)

On 21 September 1972, Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law. Writers were arrested, sometimes killed. Those who eluded the iron hand wrote cautiously, couching their themes with obscure allusions. It was years of literary tiptoeing and manoeuvring. Military detention was a grim spectre, but later became a badge of honour. This period produced writers who combined social commitment and art with a sophistication previously unseen, such as Jose Dalisay, Alfred Yuson, Ninotchka Rosca, Jose and Emmanuel Lacaba, Marra Llanot, and many others. Eschewing the directness and formulaic attributes of propaganda and sloganeering, these writers drew realistic depictions of Philippine conditions, but with a writerly sleight of hand which protected them from censorship and a trip to the military camp. The silencing of the writers, observed Leonard Casper, may be construed as subjugation. ‘The dilemma of the writer of conscience remained, therefore: how to stay alive with one’s integrity intact; how not to cower in silence but to use one’s talent to serve the cause of the oppressed’ ( Casper 1995 : 12). They had to rely on what Casper called ‘open concealment’, ‘a literary encoding that includes much of word play designed to deceive even the most paranoid object of one’s contempt’ ( Casper 1995 : 13).

The Martial Law period was a time of political repression, but its greatest achievement is the crop of novels written during the period, after the period, and about the period. A good example is Linda Ty-Casper, who produced four novels on the Martial Law period and its aftermath: Dread Empire (1980), published by Heinemann Asia, A Small Part in the Garden (1988), Awaiting Trespass (1989), and Wings of Stone (1990). The historical trauma continues to haunt Filipino novelists. Decades after this period, novels are still being churned out to make sense of the darkness that gripped the Philippines for almost two decades.

In 1983, the Marcos dictatorship drew to a close. Benigno Aquino’s assassination unleashed the anger repressed for 20 years, culminating in the historical People Power Revolution of 1986. The recovered freedoms generated activity that can be described as passionate, multifaceted, experimental, deconstructive, versatile, and bold. Literary output was nationalistic and yet well crafted. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the greatest flux of styles, thematic concerns, and influences. Because of globalization and the easier flow of ideas and people, new ideologies and critical theories began to inform the writing of literature in English.

23.7 New literary energy

The ouster of Marcos and the restoration of freedom of expression after the People Power Revolution saw a great leap in terms of novel production, from 37 titles in 1975–85 to 59 in 1986–95 ( Jurilla 2019 ). Martial Law as well as social inequities became a pressing matter for novelists in English. In the list are Ninotchka Rosca’s State of War (1988), Alfred Yuson’s Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe (1988), Eric Gamalinda’s Confession of a Volcano (1990), and Gina Apostol’s Bibliolepsy (1997) and Gun Dealer’s Daughter (2010), which are ruminations on Philippine historical questions, historical trauma, the re-enactment of the cruelties of military rule, and revisionings of the Filipino identity ( Tope 2019 ). Jose Dalisay’s Soledad’s Sister (2008) reveals the plight of the Filipina overseas worker, while Charlson Ong’s Banyaga Song of War (2017) narrates the complex history of Chinese migrants in the Philippines.

Short-fiction production was no less active. Jose Dalisay (1998) offers perspicacious observations about the current crop of short-story writers in English in the 1990s (and well into the 2000s), which could very well apply to other genres. First, the writers are ‘no longer revolutionaries, they are well-schooled, well-read, well-traveled’. Second, their chosen issues tend to be those of gender, sexuality, the environment, cultural identity, and individual freedom. Then they ‘possess a deftness of language’ that is ‘inflected with resonances of pop culture, the Internet, the Stock Market, and yet also of one’s local dialect’ ( Dalisay 1998 : 150).

The works derive their inspiration from writers from other cultures, e.g. Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Italo Calvino, Milan Kundera, Woody Allen, Nadine Gordimer, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Salman Rushdie, J. M. Coetzee, and Bharati Mukherjee. They also deal with a ‘bewildering variety of our unfolding experience—the Overseas Filipino workers, the Filipino diaspora, the war in the countryside, the alienation of the middle class, the Chinese and Others among us, our connection with the supernatural and to the afterlife, the tangled web of our personal relationships, including our sexuality and Artworking itself as a subject’ ( Dalisay 1998 : 151). The stories have acquired elements of magical realism, metafiction, minimalism, science fiction, parable, comic books, gothic novels, and postmodern parody. English is used unapologetically and is now hardly regarded as an enemy language. The writer has now many publishing outlets.

Who are these writers? They are a ‘motley crew of beatniks, Jesuits, hippies, ninjas, escapees from convents and monasteries, communists, feminists, machos, gays, theorists, chess players and card sharps—among others’ ( Dalisay 1998 : 148). The Filipino writer in English has come a long way. He has become both Filipino and global personality. He is the child of tradition and of a new technological culture. He has responded to the changes around him as he ought, and has become the new translator of these new ideas to his audience.

English can now be viewed as a product of a writer’s desire to leave a mark on a foreign tongue. Moreover, there is the prospect of liberating one’s language from the imposition of a standard. Writers began to use the Filipino variety of English—not much different from Standard English, but inflected with local expressions. Some go further by breaking both semantics and morphology to the extent that English is unrecognizable to the native speaker. This is the fulfilment of the nationalistic desire to decolonize colonial legacies, of manufacturing cultural products which may be colonial in structure, but local in content and spirit. It is a postcolonial way of revoking the labels attached to English by using it as a source of national empowerment, of establishing difference and freedom from the colonial cultural centres.

Using the form of a villanelle, Isabela Banzon, in her poem ‘DH Sunday, Hong Kong’, approximates the speech of a Filipina domestic helper in Hong Kong:

I’m not ashame to be pinoy; my contract’s not expire, so pity but I want a little to enjoy ( Banzon 2001 : 66)

Ungrammatical, disjointed, littered with Filipino words, the language comes close to being pidgin. This is the language of the uneducated, the English spoken by Filipino maids. It is bereft of the American accent preferred in the classrooms and call centres. But this is also the language of a community, the grammatical mistakes a badge of belonging, a cultural marker of being a Filipino overseas worker. Rendered grammatically, the persona would lose authenticity and the standardness would grate against linguistic truth ( Tope 2008 ).

An example of radical experimentation would be Paolo Manalo’s iconic ‘Jolography’, which ups the ante by using an English spoken by young but poor Filipinos. It is really mangled English: Manalo bends the language as far as he can, using transliterations from the Filipino language to convey expressions impossible to convey in English because his articulators are not at home in English:

Beautifuling as we speak—in Cubao There is that same look: Your Crossing Ibabaw Your Nepa Cute, Wednesdays Baclaran, Please pass. Kindly ride on ( Manalo 2003 : 5)

The immediate effect of Manalo’s poem is shock and incomprehension. Only when one realizes that this is not Standard English will one begin to comprehend and appreciate the dexterous play of words and the intrusion of street language into poetic construction. ‘Jolography’ reminds one of Gabriel Okara’s work, which was described as handling ‘English not just as a new language but almost as an extension of his own vernacular’ ( Izevbaye 1974 : 140, quoted in Talib 2002 : 151). Transgressively used, the grammar and syntax of English in the poem evoke pedestrian life in the crowded streets, it is the language one hears above the din ( Tope 2008 ).

One of the most noteworthy developments in the 1990s which continued its surge in the 2000s is the renewed interest in the essay, especially the informal type, now called ‘creative non-fiction’. The essay did not seem to have received the same kind of critical attention given to the other genres.

The essay has always been a kind of outsider. When it records personal impressions, reminiscences or reflections in a light, whimsical, humorous tone, it is grudgingly accepted as a kind of stepsister. When it deals with serious subjects in a sober, analytical, formal tone, it is declared philosophy, history, sociology, or political science, and banished altogether. ( Hidalgo 1998 : 379)

Essay-writing was already developed even before the Second World War, but gained more variety and texture after the war. As in the other genres, the early postwar period saw the essay form blossoming. Most of them were columns in newspapers and magazines. The print media gave the writers a platform for free and creative expression. Hidalgo cites Carmen Guerrero Nakpil as one of the best practitioners in essay-writing. Her collection of essays entitled Women Enough and Other Essays (1963), compiled from the Manila Chronicle , ‘are unequalled in their clear, tight structure, clear eyed analysis of social foibles, urbane wit, cool irony and subtly disguised erudition’ ( Hidalgo 1998 : 384). Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo herself would produce travel writing, renewing an old form with her insightful depiction of people and places.

In the 1990s, a type of writing by women labelled ‘confessional writing’ emerged ( Hidalgo 1998 : 389). The topics ranged from broken hearts, a woman’s private world, sex, and midwifing to other previously hidden aspects of a woman’s life. A pastiche of subjects and objects, writing by women generated both shock and delight for readers, especially when written by a humorous out-of-the-box writer like Jessica Zafra ( Hidalgo 1998 ).

Memorializing seems to be an urgent task to the current generation, as they take pictures of their activities and exhibit these online. Creative non-fiction has become an erudite version of a tweet, an IG (Instagram), or a Facebook post. In the 2000s, it entered the world of blogs, vlogs, and YouTube channels. Recently, it has become the genre of choice to narrate experiences and express ruminations on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic ( Tolentino 2020 ).

In the last decade, the shift to non-conventional genres which began in the 1990s, has accelerated. While realism remains a strong mode of expression, an increasing number of writers have turned to fantasy and non-realistic modes. Some are mining the rich folklore tradition of Philippine culture. There is also considerable interest in popular cultural forms such as comics, leading to graphic novels, animation, games, and fandom writing. Children’s literature and literature for young adults have also gained considerable traction among younger writers. Postmodern histories such as that shown in Ilustrado (2008) by Miguel Syjuco are also inspiring many writers. Metonymic writing such as travel for political reflection, historical rereadings, and memory writing increased creative non-fiction production ( Cleto 2017 ; Dalisay, Hidalgo, and Reyes 2018 ). Eco literature is also developing. The drug war and the extrajudicial killings of the Duterte administration, as well as the deleterious effects of Covid-19 ( Gonzales 2019 ), animated Philippine writing. This period will most likely serve as one of the pillars in Philippine writing in English.

Philippine literature in English has come a long way. While it has maintained its connections to its colonial and metropolitan centres, it has also nurtured its own traditions and marked what it borrowed from other cultures. At present it has reached a level of maturity that has straddled adaptation, appropriation, and resistance. While not yet global because of its geopolitical position, it begs to be discovered by world readers of literatures in English. Filipino writers and readers have claimed English and have made it their own.

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The Literary Forms in Philippine Literature

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, paktakon in 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).

       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); and Ulahingan (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.

       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.

       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's David 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.