SAN CARLOS COLLEGE

FOUNDED 1946 (PIEAS)

Second Semester
A.Y. 2020-2021

Erica R. De Guzman BSED-2B Maj. in Social Studies

Prelim Examination

A. Preview by skimming then selections.

1. What is the subject?

Spanish legacy – Spanish, Filipino, education, language

Landscape of feelings – family, Holy Week, Oas
The Cocktail Party – party, drinks, eat

2. What is the main point in each paragraph?

The Spanish Legacy

The first decision was the use of the Philippines native languages in the Christianization
of the native (who were referred to at that time as Indios)

The second decision was to use Spanish term for certain key concepts not only because
most of these terms did not have the equivalent in the native language but in order for the
natives not to equate them with their pagan belief.

The third decision was to use of pure Spanish in the domains of higher education and in
government and law.

The lesson that experience teaches us seems to be quite clear: that the influence of a
language on the life of a people depends upon with the domain the language.

The most important lesson is the Filipino should be used for higher education, law and
courts so that it may attain the influence that Spanish (and English for the matter)has had
in Philippine life and society.
Landscape of feelings

Oas is a stranger town.

For then hours we travelled, two families cramped in a green Fiera.

When we arrive, my grandfather was already there, still tall but thinner than I
remembered him. My parents, aunt walked over and kissed his hand. They were
beginning to make small noises about the trip when suddenly, my grandfather burst into
tears.

After we had thrown our bags into the rooms and eaten the brown glutinous rice cakes
called binasusu, we threaded our way to cemetery. We visit our grandmother Lola
Socorro.

When we walked home, the sun was beginning to set, streaking blood on the sky.

Morning. The sky in the province is bluer, vaster than the one in the city.

My cousins and I roamed all around town on our bikes.

In the afternoon, my cousin and I would climb the trees in an uncle’s yard.

Holy Week in Oas revolves around the procession of the heirloom images on Good
Friday. It was my grandfather to sponsor the family’s procession.

Early in the morning on Good Friday my cousin and I would brush the cobwebs from my
grandmother’s caro (cart in Bikolano)

By four o’clock, my grandfather in his well-pressed white polo shirt would ask the
children to pull the caro out of the garage.

Only thirty heirloom imaged joined this year’s procession.

Everything ends in the plaza.

I rummaged through the rooms in my grandfather’s house and found the forst-edition of
Gilda Cordero Fernando’s The Butcher, the Baker and Candlestick Maker (Benipayo
Press, 1962).

That night, we went to the Easter dance. For the dance, the plaza bloomed with light
bulbs of many colors.

I broke away from my cousins and walked to the fringe of the plaza. I sat on a bench,
look at the flat darkness. Suddenly it was back, the amidst people I love. I had just shifted
form Business Management to a Humanities course.

After the Sunday Mass, I accompanied my grandfather to the elementary school. There
would be a reunion of Class 1937.

Lunch was grand: gabi leaves simmered in coconut milk with shreds of pork fat and
shrimp, soft, hot rice with the aroma of fragrant pandan, and pots of port and chicken
adobo.

It was four o’clock in the morning when my sister knocked on the door of the basement
room I shared with my three cousins.

After taking a breakfast and loading our bags into the Fiera, we walked to our grandfather
to say goodbye.

By the gate I stood. After promising him we would be back next year, we all boarded the
Fiera and waved at him.

We did not go home Holy Week of next year. Two years later, he would be in Manila to
stay permanently. He only stayed for three months in the city, He died on Sunday, when I
was watching.

When everything dawned on me I went to the bathroom, and dissolved into tears.

We brought him home in a rickety train and buried him in the land he loved, beside my
grandmother’s bones.

Then a cry came. It was my aunt. I shivered and felt sad, knowing she was weeping not
only for my grandmother but for all us, the living, the dying, and the dead.

The Cocktail Party

 The cocktail party entered the Philippines as part of the American cultural baggage.
Before Yankees, there were no such things as cocktails or mixed drinks in the country.
Towards the end of century, San Miguel beer introduced, which has since become the
champagne of Filipino masses.

Coconuts have always been around, and many centuries ago they discovered the powerful
kick of tuba, or fermented coconut water.

But since the American were in charge, it was their cocktail party that came to be rage of
society in the period between the two world wars or roughly from 1920 to 1914.

Yet cocktail partied in the Philippines never really took after American model.

What was evident from the very start was that the Filipinos went to cocktails not so much
to drink as to eat.

The cultural dichotomy holds to this very day. A cocktail is regarded as one of those
wine-and-cheese affairs that liberals other chi-chi types just to love to host to each other

Invariably, the focus is on drinking rather than eating.

Around the Manila-Makati area, people go to cocktails to gorge on free food.

Most cocktails don’t appeal to serious drinkers.

Not surprisingly, Diet Coke tends to be most popular drink in every party.

Take the fabulous cocktail party Shangri-La Manila gave itself. The Rizal ballroom was
turn into typical jungle. As full of symphony orchestra played for the presidential couple.
But the greatest sensation of all was the caviar.

3. List down three questions that you think you can answer after your reading.

 How deep is the Spanish legacy in the Philippines?

 Why people die?
 When was the cocktail party started?

B. Read each selection.

4. Is the purpose of the essay is stated? The thesis?

Spanish Legacy – to inform

Landscapes of feeling – to describe
The cocktail party – to explore/learn

5. Give each points to discuss in the subject. What supporting details in turn develop
these points?

It describe and talked about the specific idea of each essay/thesis. It contains facts,
examples-specific, which guide us to understand more the main idea. They clarify,
illuminate, explain, describe, expand and illustrate the main idea and the supporting
details.

6. Do you agree/disagree with the contention of the writer? Why?

Yes, because it is came from their own analysis and directly point the discoveries and
explanations that needed the most by the learners or readers.

C. Reread to understand development.

7. What specific function does the first paragraph serve? The last?

Spanish Legacy
First paragraph: To start the first decision in the Philippines during Spanish era. To guide
us where this essay talked about.
Last paragraph: To give lessons.

Landscapes of feelings
First paragraph: To describe the travel of family.
Last paragraph: To remember the decease one.

The cocktail party

First paragraph: The information about cocktail party first enter.
Last paragraph: Describe the party.

8. What mode of development used in the essay?

Spanish Legacy – Analysis (Division and classification)

Landscape of feelings – Narration
The cocktail party- Compare/contrast
 9. List important transition or signal words used to link ideas between paragraphs,
between sentences.

Spanish Legacy – emphasis words (important to, and, the third decision, first)
Landscapes of feeling – illustration words (such as)
The cocktail party – compare and contrast words (but, yet, than)

D. Make a topic outline showing the content and organization of the selection going up to
third level of division.

The Spanish Legacy

Purpose: To inform
Audience: High school students aged 12-17 years old
Tone: Light and educational
Point of view: Third Person Point of View
Thesis statement: In the old times, the Spanish bore such as great influence over
Philippines languages and Philippine life.

I. The Spanish used Philippine native languages to Christianize the natives.

A. The friars discovered that it was easier to preach the Good news in the native’s own
languages.
B. It was easier for priests to learn the native language and preach in it, than for the
native to learn Spanish and learn Christianity in it.

II. The Spanish mixed terms from their own language with the Philippine native languages.

A. The Spanish retained certain key concepts in their own language because these terms
did not have equivalents in the native languages. They also did this so the natives could
not equate these terms with their pagan beliefs.

1. These concepts include: God, Holy Trinity, Holy Ghost, Virgin Mary, the Pope, grace,
sin, across, hell, Holy Church, Sunday and the names of the sacraments.
2. These words can be found in the first book to be published in Tagalog name the
Doctrina Chrsitiana. The book was published 1593.
 B. This was the beginning of the marriage of Spanish and the Philippine languages that
came under the Spanish Christian influence.
C. This allowed the “common people” to start learning Spanish not only in religion but
also at home and everyday life.

III. The Spanish and a minority of Filipino, also used the Spanish language in the domains of
higher education, government and law.

A. Very few Filipinos learned Spanish well.

1. The University of Santo Tomas only conferred 2,169 degrees from 1634 to
1865.
2. Toward the end of the Spanish regime, only 2.46% of an adult population of
4.65 million spoke Spanish.

B. The few Filipinos who did learn Spanish (referred to as ilustrados) were the same
people who exerted an enduring influence in the domains of Philippine education,
government and law.

C. Spanish was an official language of the Philippines up to until 1986.

Landscapes of feelings

Purpose: To describe
Audience: For all
Tone: Emotional and story-telling
Point of view: First person point of view
Thesis statement: The beginning of visitation of one family and the death of the
grandfather.

Danton Remoto’s “Landscapes of Feelings” dwelled on this basic yet complex faculty of

human experience – feelings. This simple narration of sights and sounds during one’s
vacation presented a sort-of an abstract painting which has been left for me to interpret.
The selection was so human and so Filipino that while reading I can’t help but feel with
the speaker in the story. I felt the emotions tied with every experience presented in the
selection. But contrary on what the characters felt towards the end of the piece – wherein
the antagonist, the narrator’s grandfather, died – I felt happy and optimistic. I felt such for
it was the thing that I felt when my great-grandfather died and in my mind I shouldn’t be
sad when deep inside I know that he is we Our Father in heaven.

Each feeling has a different meaning or effect in our lives. Feelings either strengthen or
weaken a person. Feelings may lead to one’s failure or success. Nonetheless, in every
way, feelings affect one’s life and, basically, feelings are the basis of our lives that
hopefully would lead us into values. These values together with strong feeling towards
upholding it would generally be the gauge of one’s success or failure in life. Indeed
feelings rule the lives of people – rule the world.

The cocktail party

Purpose: To explore/learn
Audience: Filipino
Tone: educational
Point of view: Third person point of view.
Thesis statement: The differences of cocktail party of Filipinos and Americans.

Navarro’s concept of cocktail parties explains the Filipino version of cocktail parties
apart from the Americans. He made an illustration of the comical indulgence of Filipinos
in cocktail parties.
I agree with him that long before San Miguel Beer became the masses’ drinks, they
already have known the powerful kicks of the tuba or the fermented water and some other
potent drinks from the extracts of local fruits.

His way of laying down the concepts of Filipino cocktails depicts some harsh realities
and scenarios as how they were observed. He is playful in his illustrations and choices of
words to show the cynical settings and conveyance of disparity between the guests
wherein those right brands and vintages of liquors were kept reserved until or unless you
are among those “guest” that belongs to the class of highfalutin society as he also refer to
other guest as the parasites that can spoil the party. These other party guests could be
those gate crashers or low profiled invited guest who does not deserve those expensive
liquors. So unsurprisingly, those Dom Perignons, Blue Labels, Hennessy-Paradis, and
Perrier-Joubets are not really for the masses but or the Serious drinkers of the high
society.

Needless to say, since these expensive liquors were not known for the general guests, it is
then sane to say that the attention of the entire guest turned towards the very available
food and dishes prepared. And no wonder the foods were usually consumed first rather
than the drinks. And sometimes instead of these expensive wines, the very popular Coke
is usually served.
Although cocktail parties were brought from the “cultural baggage” of the Americans, the
Filipinos never really copied their model because unlike them, the Filipinos were fond of
eating than drinking.

The expensive wines seems to symbolize the Spanish oppression way back from history
with their imposed forced labor from their encomienda system and now it symbolizes the
luxury or the material want that furthers the disparity between the masses and the high
class society.