Note to the student

(Must Read)
This module is a semi-detailed guide of the content to be learned in the
subject. The use of other resources such as books and credible online sources
are encouraged. Sources are indicated within this module for your reference.
There are sets of questions and tasks to be completed at the end of each
lesson and unit. The quality of your answers and outputs will have a bearing on
your grades for this subject. May you use this resource to the best of your
advantage.

You can find the activities at the end part of the module. Write your activity
answers in a small notebook (color orange). Submit your notebook together
with your fourth preliminary examination.

Should you have any questions, please message me on this

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there is a delay in responding to you, please bear with me because I am
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Please be updated with our page for more announcements. Thank you
and God Bless!

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Topics Page

 Essence and Significance of Literature
1  Functions of Literature 4-10
 Two Main Divisions of Literature
The Four Literary Genres
a. Short story
2 b. Poetry 11-12
c. Essay
d. Drama
Oral Lore from Pre-Colonial Times (--1564)
a. Riddles
3 b. Proverbs 13-18
c. Myths and Legends
d. Epics
Literature Under the U.S Colonialism (1898-
1945)
a. Footnote to Youth by Jose Garcia Villa
4 (short story) 19-28
b. To a Lost One by Angela Manalang-Gloria
(poetry)
c. What is an Educated Filipino by Francisco
Benitez (essay)
Literature Under the Republic (1946-1985)
a. May Day Eve by Nick Joaquin (short story)
5 b. You Ask me How much I Love You by
Benito Reyes (poetry) 29-46
c. Scent of Apples by Bienvenido Santos
(short story)
Literature after EDSA (1986-present)
a. Dog Eaters by Leoncio P. Deriada (play)
6 b. The Will of the River by Alfredo Q.
Gonzales 47-61
c. The Way We Live (1987) by Kathleen
Jamie

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 Coverage for
Examinations

FIRST PRELIM EXAM - Page 4-12

SECOND PRELIM EXAM - Page 13-18

THIRD PRELIM EXAM - Page 19-46

FINAL EXAMINATION - Page 47-61

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 INTRODUCTION
This course is designed to develop among students an awareness and
appreciation of the depth and breadth of our country’s literatures in order to
foster among them the desire for truth, love for country and nature, which will
eventually constitute a competent, compassionate and committed
Augustinians.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
a. Read and Analyze literary selections that exemplify the multivalent
Filipino experiences and their multivocal articulations.
b. Understand how the Filipino is constituted in Philippine literary text.
c. Appreciate the different types and forms of Filipino literatures.
d. Value cultural differences and similarities embodied in Philippine Literary
outpourings.
e. Write a critique paper on a Filipino novel, epic or drama.
f. Transform and extend creatively Philippine Literary materials to other
artistic expression.

CHAPTER 1
Essence and Significance of Literature

WHAT IS LITERATURE

The term literature originates from the Latin “litera” meaning alphabetic
letter, and “literatura” meaning writing with letters.

What is literature? Why do we read it? Why is literature important?

Literature is a term used to describe written or spoken material. Broadly
speaking, ―literature‖ is used to describe anything from creative writing to
more technical or scientific works, but the term is most commonly used to
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refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama,
fiction, and nonfiction. Why do we read literature? Literature represents a
language or a people: culture and tradition.

But, literature is more important than just a historical or cultural artifact.

Literature introduces us to new worlds of experience. We learn about books
and literature; we enjoy the comedies and the tragedies of poems, stories,
and plays; and we may even grow and evolve through our literary journey
with books.

Ultimately, we may discover meaning in literature by looking at what

the author says and how he/she says it. We may interpret the author’s
message. In academic circles, this decoding of the text is often carried out
through the use of literary theory, using a mythological, sociological,
psychological, historical, or other approach.

Whatever critical paradigm we use to discuss and analyze literature,

there is still an artistic quality to the works. Literature is important to us because
it speaks to us, it is universal, and it affects us.

Functions of Literature

Literature reflects the various experiences, ideas, passions of human

beings in their daily life that express on several forms and styles of literary
works. Since literature directly derives from human life, it can increase our
knowledge and experiences about human problems included values, morals,
cultures, and human interests. After reading a literary work, the readers may
get a certain impression of what he/she has read.

Literature as a product of human culture has its own functions. Literature

has two functions. The first is literature of power. Literature of power means
that the function of literature as power is to move the heart and mind of the
readers. The second is literature of knowledge. Literature of knowledge has
function to teach. It means that literature gives particular values, messages,
and themes to the readers.

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 Literature has great function in developing human’s feelings, ideas, and
interests. Generally, the functions of literature are as follows: the first function is
literature gives knowledge of those particularities with which science and
philosophy are not concerned. The second function is that literature makes
the human perceive what human see, imagine what human already know
conceptually or practically. The final function of literature is that literature
relieve human—either writers or readers—from the pressure of emotions.

Literature also functions to contribute values of human lives. In education

program, literature may give significant contribution for students’
development and knowledge. The contribution of literature in education
covers intrinsic values and extrinsic values. The intrinsic values are the reward
of a lifetime of wide reading recognizable in the truly literate person while the
intrinsic values facilitate the development of language skills and knowledge.

Many literary texts such as poem, song lyric, and short story are used in
language teaching. Finally, literature provides affect and emotion. When the
students interact with a literary text, it usually involves a deeper level of mental
processing, a greater personal involvement and response. In this case,
students also learnt a lot about reading critically, emphatically, and
creatively.

Therefore, because of its functions and contributions of literature in language

teaching, literature is used as an innovative technique of teaching and even
some institutions of education design a literature program and put the
literature as compulsory subject.

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 Two main Divisions of Literature

1. Prose

And

2. Poetry

Prose and poetry largely differ in regard to the styles of their respective

linguistic rhythms. Poetic forms often maintain structural elements and devices

that emphasize the cadence of a particular language when spoken aloud,

with examples including the lyrics of a song, the rhyme scheme of a sonnet, or

the meter of a limerick. Poetry written in free verse remains more amorphous in

structure, as it does not insist upon a poem's adherence to traditional rhythmic

formats.

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 Prose, by contrast, can withhold of harmonic verse patterns in order to

narrate stories through grammatical traditions of spoken language. Prose

narratives identify more closely with the audience's natural processes of

thought and speech through direct perspectives in first-, second- or third-

person points of view.

Prose poetry blends the two literary divisions in works that feature the

illustrative poetic devices of verse while retaining the compositional format of

linear prose, and may additionally emphasize creative wordplay through

metaphors, puns and repetitive phrases. It is not generally regarded as a third

category separate from the two main divisions.

TYPES OF PROSE

1. Prose Drama – a drama in prose form. It consists entirely dialogues in

prose, and is meant to be act on stage.

2. Essay – a short literary composition which is expository in nature. The

author shares his thoughts feelings, experiences, or observations on
some aspects of life that has interested him.

3. Prose Fiction – something invented, imagined, or feigned to be true)

1. Novel – a long fiction narrative with a complicated plot. It may

have one main plot and one or more sub plots that develop with
the main plot. It is made up of chapters.

2. Short Story – a fictitious narrative compressed into one unit of

time, place and action. It deals with single character interest, a
single emotion or series of emotions called forth by a single. It is
distinguished from the novel by its compression.

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 4. Biography and Autobiography

1. Biography – a story of a certain person’s life written by another

who knows the subject well.

2. Autobiography – a written account of man’s life written by

himself.

5. Letter – a written message which displays aspects of an author’s

physiological make-up not immediately apparent in his more public
writings. It is a prose form which by the force of its style and the
importance of its statements becomes an object of interest in its own
right.

6. Diary – a daily written record of account of the writer’s own

experiences, thoughts, activities or observations.

7. Journal – a magazine or periodical especially of serious or learned

nature. It is the reflection, opinion of a read material.

TYPES OF POETRY

 Narrative Poetry – a poem that tells a story.

1. Epic – a long narrative poem of the largest proportions. Epic is a

tale mainly about a hero concerning the beginning,
continuance, and the end of events of great significance on
tribal or national significance.
2. Metrical Poem – a narrative poem that tells a story of adventure,
love and chivalry. The Typical hero is a knight on a quest.

3. Metrical Tale – a narrative poem consisting usually a single series

connective events that are simple, and generally do not form a
plot. Examples of these are simple idylls or home tales, love tales,
tales of the supernatural or tales written for a strong moral
purpose in verse form.

4. Ballad – the simplest type of narrative poetry. It is s short narrative

poem telling a single incident in simple meter and stanzas. It is
meant to be sung.

5. Popular ballad – a ballad of wide workman ship telling some

simple incidents of adventure, cruelty, passion, or superstition, an
incident that shows the primary instincts of man influenced by the
restraint of modern civilization.
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 6. Modern or artistic – created by poet in imitation of the folk ballad,
makes use of many of its devices and conventions.

7. Metrical Allegory – an extended narrative that carries a second

meaning along worth the surface story.

 Lyric Poetry – a poem that is very personal in nature. It expresses the

author’s own thoughts, feelings, moods and reflections in musical
language. It derived its name from the musical instrument, the lyre.

1. Ode – a lyric poem of some length, serious in subject and

dignified in style. It is most majestic of the lyric poems. It is written
in a spirit of praise of some persons or things.

2. Elegy – a poem written on the death of a friend of the poet. The

ostensible purpose is to praise the friend. But in the end of the
poem, however, we can expect that poet will have come to
terms with his grief.

3. Song – a lyric poem in a regular metrical pattern set to music.

These have twelve syllables and slowly sung to the
accompaniment of a guitar or banduria.

4. Sonnet – a lyric poem containing four iambic pentameter lines,

and a complicated rhyme.

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 CHAPTER 2
The Four Literary Genres

SHORT STORY

A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one
sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents,
with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the
oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of legends, mythic
tales, folk tales, fairy tales, fables and anecdotes in various ancient
communities across the world. The modern short story developed in the early
19th century.
In terms of length, word count is typically anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000
for short stories, however some have 15,000 words and are still classed as short
stories. Stories of fewer than 1,000 words are sometimes referred to as "short
short stories", or "flash fiction". Short stories have no set length.

POETRY
Poetry (derived from the Greek poiesis, "making") is a form
of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language—
such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in
addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning. It is a writing that
formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language
chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through
meaning, sound, and rhythm
Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretations
of words, or to evoke emotive responses. Devices such
as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhythm may
convey musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony,
and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to
multiple interpretations. Similarly, figures of speech such as metaphor, simile,
and metonymy establish a resonance between otherwise disparate images—
a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived.
Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their
patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

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ESSAY
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's
own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter,
a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have traditionally
been sub-classified as formal and informal. Formal essays are characterized
by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal
essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual
tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling
structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc.
Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos,
learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of
the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works
in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's An Essay on
Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay,
voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of
Population are counterexamples.

DRAMA
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance:
a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or
on radio or television. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the
dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever
since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory.
The term "drama" comes from a Greek word meaning "action"), which is
derived from "I do". The two masks associated with drama represent the
traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy.
In English (as was the analogous case in many other European
languages), the word play or game was the standard term for dramas
until William Shakespeare's time—just as its creator was a play-maker rather
than a dramatist and the building was a play-house rather than a theatre.
The use of "drama" in a more narrow sense to designate a
specific type of play dates from the modern era. "Drama" in this sense refers to
a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example, Zola's Thérèse
Raquin (1873) or Chekhov's Ivanov (1887). It is this narrower sense that
the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe
"drama" as a genre within their respective media. The term ―radio‖ has been
used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live performance. May also
refer to the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio.

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 The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on
a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production
and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike
other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production
and collective reception.

CHAPTER 3
Oral Lore from Pre-Colonial Times (--1564)

What is oral lore?

Oral lore or ―oral tradition‖ is a form of human communictaion whefrein

knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and
transmitted orally from one generation to another.

The transmission is through speech or song or may include folktales,

ballads, chants, prose or verses. In this way, it is possible for a society to
transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other oral knowledge across
genetations without writing system, or I parallel to a writing system.

Filipinos often lose sight of the fact that the first period of the Philippine
literary history is the longest. Certain events from the nation's history had
forced lowland Filipinos to begin counting the years of history from 1521, the
first time written records by Westerners referred to the archipelago later to be
called "Las islas Filipinas". However, the discovery of the "Tabon Man" in a cave
in Palawan in 1962, has allowed us to stretch our prehistory as far as 50,000
years back.

The stages of that prehistory show how the early Filipinos grew in control
over their environment. Through the researches and writings about Philippine
history, much can be reliably inferred about Pre-colonial Philippine literature
from an analysis of collected oral lore of Filipinos whose ancestors were able
to preserve their indigenous culture by living beyond the reach of Spanish
colonial administrators.

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 The oral literature of the Pre-colonial Filipinos bore the marks of the
community. The subject was invariably the common experience of the
people constituting the village-food-gathering, creature and objects of
nature, work in the home, field, forest or sea, caring for children, etc. This is
evident in the most common forms of oral literature like the riddle, the
proverbs and the song, which always seem to assume that the audience is
familiar with the situations, activities and objects mentioned in the course of
expressing a thought or emotion.

RIDDLE

Riddle is usually to deceive the listener about its meaning. A description

is given and then the answer is demanded as to what has been meant.

Examples:

Riddle: I’m tall when I’m young, and I’m short when I’m old. What am I?
Answer: A candle

Riddle: What is full of holes but still holds water?

Answer: A sponge

Riddle: A man who was outside in the rain without an umbrella or hat didn’t
get a single hair on his head wet.
Answer: bald man

PROVERBS

A proverb (from Latin: proverbium) is a simple, concrete,

traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense
or experience.

A proverb is a brief, simple, and popular saying, or a phrase that gives

advice and effectively embodies a commonplace truth based on practical
experience or common sense. A proverb may have an allegorical message
behind its odd appearance. The reason of popularity is due to its usage in
spoken language, as well as in folk literature.

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 Examples:

 ―Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and
wise.‖
Meaning: Taking care of yourself leads to success and productivity.
 ―It's no use locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.‖
Meaning: Fixing a mistake won’t help after the consequences have
happened.
 ―Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.‖
Meaning: People prefer sharing good news over bad news.
 ―'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.‖
Meaning: The experience of having loved someone is more valuable
than being alone.

 ―People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.‖

Meaning: Don’t criticize others for something you also do.

 ―The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.‖

Meaning: Children often resemble their parents in both appearance
and behavior.
 ―The poor carpenter blames his tools.‖
Meaning: Take ownership of your mistakes instead of finding blame
elsewhere.
 ―When you want to make an omelet, you need to break a few eggs.”
Meaning: Reaching a goal requires sacrifice.

MYTHS AND LEGENDS

MYTH is a sacred narrative explaining how world and man came to be

in their present form. It is derived from Philippine folk literature, which is the
traditional oral literature of the Filipino people.

Examples:

BATHALA: The Story of Creation

In the beginning of time there were three powerful gods who lived in the
universe. Bathala was the caretaker of the earth, Ulilang Kaluluwa (lit.
Orphaned Spirit), a huge serpent who lived in the clouds, and Galang
Kaluluwa (lit. Wandering spirit), the winged god who loves to travel. These
three gods did not know each other.

15
Bathala often dreamt of creating mortals but the empty earth stops him from
doing so. Ulilang Kaluluwa who was equally lonely as Bathala, liked to visit
places and the earth was his favorite. One day the two gods met. Ulilang
Kaluluwa, seeing another god rivalling him, was not pleased. He challenged
Bathala to a fight to decide who would be the ruler of the universe. After
three days and three nights, Ulilang Kaluluwa was slain by Bathala. Instead of
giving him a proper burial, Bathala burned the snake’s remains. A few years
later the third god, Galang Kaluluwa, wandered into Bathala’s home. He
welcomed the winged god with much kindness and even invited him to live in
his kingdom. They became true friends and were very happy for many years.

Galang Kaluluwa became very ill. Before he died he instructed Bathala to

bury him on the spot where Ulilang Kaluluwa’s body was burned. Bathala did
exactly as he was told. Out of the grave of the two dead gods grew a tall tree
with a big round nut, which is the coconut tree. Bathala took the nut and
husked it. He noticed that the inner skin was hard. The nut itself reminded him
of Galang Kaluluwa’s head. It had two eyes, a nose, and a round mouth. Its
leaves looked so much like the wings of his dear winged friend. But the trunk
was hard and ugly, like the body of his enemy, the snake Ulilang Kaluluwa.

Bathala realized that he was ready to create the creatures he wanted with
him on earth. He created the vegetation, animals, and the first man and
woman. Bathala built a house for them out of the trunk and leaves of the
coconut’ trees. For food, they drank the coconut juice and ate its delicious
white meat. Its leaves, they discovered, were great for making mats, hats, and
brooms. Its fiber could be used for rope and many other things.

Mariang Makiling
Mt. Makiling,Laguna, Philippines

Long ago,in Mount Makiling, there lived a beautiful goddess name Mariang
Makiling. She is beautiful, kindhearted and loving. She had a long shiny black
hair and she often wear black pearls and gold jewelry. She often shows off
herself to people living at the foot of the mountain as a human. Many times,
people would climb up to the mountain and pick some fruits but when they
came down, fruits changed into gold. People thanked her for it.

But one day, some people robbed her jewelry. Some hunters climb up the
mountain and hunted for wild animals, cut down trees and left the forest at
the top of the mountain denuded. At that time, one of those hunters is a
mortal which Mariang Makiling fell in love with. She discovered that that
hunter already have a mortal as his wife. After those things happened,
Mariang Makiling was very angry that it thundered and rained hard that night
and her voice was heard by all people leaving at the foot of the mountain

16
saying "I have provided you food, treasures and shelter but it wasn't enough
for you!I have given you everything you want but still you aren't contented. I
loved you more than myself but still you searched for mortal love. Now, feel
my anger! And wait for my revenge! From now on,you shall stand on your own
feet and you will never see me again. I swear!" And she laughed so hard that
it brought an earthquake

After her large voice was heard, she never showed herself again to those
mortals who abused her kindness. Today,it is still believed that MAriang
Makiling is still living there.

LEGEND is a story explaining how various objects, flowers, plants, and even
places have come to be. They’re entertaining since they coyuld amuse,
inspire and sometimes scare; but mainly, they impart lessons on how to live
well with each other people.

Example:

Legend of the Guava

A long time ago, there's a king who ruled a rich, prosperous island. He had all
the things a king could ever ask for: the power, the wealth, and all the
delicious foods one could only imagine.The king's name was King Barabas.
King Barabas is a rude king and overweight, indulging himself to all the foods
available, hesitant to share to anyone. And his castle is starting to become
filthy. He would spend most of his time sitting and eating with his bare hands.
As he eats, he drips food on the floor and smile mockingly at the people
around him, specially his servants.
People in the kingdom would approach with requests for his help, but he
would always refuse. As he neglected his kingdom, people started to
complain and starve.
After some time, an old hunched-back woman showed up at the castle
begging for food while the king was eating. The old lady asked for food as she
was starving.
"Go away! I don't have anything to give. Can't you see I'm eating?" said the
irritated king.
"Please, my king," begged the old woman. "I'm asking for anything, anything
you could give me as I am so hungry. Even a little piece of bread or fruit
would do."
"Get out at once! You disgust me," the king belittled the old beggar.
The old woman stood up straight, casting aside her stooped posture. "I've
heard much about you and how your kingdom is suffering." The tone of her
17
voice had changed. It was no longer the voice of a weak, old woman. "I
asked for help, and you shoved me away. You have a lot for yourself, but
when I only asked for a little food, you belittled me. You are selfish. No one
loves you and no one will remember you when you are gone!"
And the beggar disappeared.
After a few more days, the king slowly weakened and became sick. No one
knows what's wrong with him. He got weaker and weaker and lost much
weight. He looked older than his age. Soon after that, the king died. As
unfortunate and unexpected as it was, no one cried and nobody showed up
at the king's burial. He died alone.
And where the king was buried, his people noticed a strange plant growing, a
plant they had never seen before. The plant soon grew into a tree, which
bore rounded fruits that turned yellowish when ripe.
People also noticed that the fruit seemed to have a crown as it develops,
which reminded them of their selfish, arrogant king. The flesh of the fruit tasted
a bit sour, just like the sour personality of the king towards them.
The people learned to eat the fruit, which helped them with starvation. And
because the tree was from the grave of their King Barabas and it has crown
just like their king, they named the tree after him: barabas, which in time they
called bayabas.
The fruit is still called, as to this day, bayabas.
And although the guava may have came from the rude, selfish King Barabas,
guava fruit is one of the fruits that offers many health benefits when
consumed, the fruit is a good source of vitamin C. The leaves are made into
tea and treats many diseases as well from a simple toothache, to treating
diarrhea, lowering blood sugar, and many more. And it is used amongst
young boys after their circumcision in the Philippines.
Or maybe it's the way of the late king to make up for the wrongdoings he
did?

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 CHAPTER 4
Literature under U.S Colonialism (1898-1945)

Philippine literature during U.S colonialism, the American providing free

education, many were given the chance to study and English was used as
the language instruction. Free education served as the stepping stone for
others to improve their social status.

Philippine literary production during the American Period in the

Philippines was spurred by two significant developments in education and
culture. One is the introduction of free public instruction for all children of
school age and two, the use of English as medium of instruction in all levels of
education in public schools.

Free public education made knowledge and information accessible to

a greater number of Filipinos. Those who availed of this education through
college were able to improve their social status and joined a good number of
educated masses who became part of the country’s middle class.

The use of English as medium of instruction introduced Filipinos to Anglo-

American modes of thought, culture and life ways that would be embedded
not only in the literature produced but also in the psyche of the country’s
educated class. It was this educated class that would be the wellspring of a
vibrant Philippine Literature in English.

EXAMPLE # 1.

“FOOTNOTE TO YOUTH” BY: Jose Garcia Villa

The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he
would tell his father about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched
the carabao from the plow, and let it to its shed and fed it. He was hesitant
about saying it, but he wanted his father to know. What he had to say was of
serious import as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided
to tell it, at a thought came to him his father might refuse to consider it. His
father was silent hard-working farmer who chewed areca nut, which he had
learned to do from his mother, Dodong’s grandmother.
I will tell it to him. I will tell it to him.

19
The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a
sweetish earthy smell. Many slender soft worms emerged from the furrows and
then burrowed again deeper into the soil. A short colorless worm marched
blindly to Dodong’s foot and crawled calmly over it. Dodong go tickled and
jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to look
where it fell, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was
not young any more.
Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and gave it a healthy tap on the
hip. The beast turned its head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong
gave it a slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. He
placed bundles of grass before it land the carabao began to eat. Dodong
looked at it without interests.
Dodong started homeward, thinking how he would break his news to his
father. He wanted to marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples
on his face, the down on his upper lip already was dark–these meant he was
no longer a boy. He was growing into a man–he was a man. Dodong felt
insolent and big at the thought of it although he was by nature low in statue.
Thinking himself a man grown, Dodong felt he could do anything.
He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone
bled his foot, but he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the
hurt toe and then went on walking. In the cool sundown he thought wild you
dreams of himself and Teang. Teang, his girl. She had a small brown face and
small black eyes and straight glossy hair. How desirable she was to him. She
made him dream even during the day.
Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscles of his arms. Dirty. This
field
work was healthy, invigorating but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He
turned back the way he had come, then he marched obliquely to a creek.
Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray undershirt and red
kundiman shorts, on the grass. The he went into the water, wet his body over,
and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not long in bathing, then he marched
homeward again. The bath made him feel cool.
It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling
already was lighted and the low unvarnished square table was set for supper.
His parents and he sat down on the floor around the table to eat. They had
fried fresh-water fish, rice, bananas, and caked sugar.
Dodong ate fish and rice, but did not partake of the fruit. The bananas were
overripe and when one held them they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong
broke off a piece of the cakes sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it.
He got another piece and wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the
remainder for his parents.

20
Dodong’s mother removed the dishes when they were through and went out
to the batalan to wash them. She walked with slow careful steps and Dodong
wanted to help her carry the dishes out, but he was tired and now felt lazy. He
wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in
the housework. He pitied her, doing all the housework alone.
His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him
again, Dodong knew. Dodong had told him often and again to let the town
dentist pull it out, but he was afraid, his father was. He did not tell that to
Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward Dodong himself thought that if he
had a decayed tooth he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would not
be any bolder than his father.
Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang.
There it was out, what he had to say, and over which he had done so much
thinking. He had said it without any effort at all and without self-consciousness.
Dodong felt relieved and looked at his father expectantly. A decrescent
moon outside shed its feeble light into the window, graying the still black
temples of his father. His father looked old now.
―I am going to marry Teang,‖ Dodong said.
His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth. The
silence became intense and cruel, and Dodong wished his father would suck
that troublous tooth again. Dodong was uncomfortable and then became
angry because his father kept looking at him without uttering anything.
―I will marry Teang,‖ Dodong repeated. ―I will marry Teang.‖
His father kept gazing at him in inflexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his
seat.
―I asked her last night to marry me and she said…yes. I want your permission.
I… want… it….‖ There was impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest
at this coldness, this indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He
cracked his knuckles one by one, and the little sounds it made broke dully the
night stillness.
―Must you marry, Dodong?‖
Dodong resented his father’s questions; his father himself had married.
Dodong made a quick impassioned easy in his mind about selfishness, but
later he got confused.
―You are very young, Dodong.‖
―I’m… seventeen.‖
―That’s very young to get married at.‖
―I… I want to marry…Teang’s a good girl.‖
21
―Tell your mother,‖ his father said.
―You tell her, tatay.‖
―Dodong, you tell your inay.‖
―You tell her.‖
―All right, Dodong.‖
―You will let me marry Teang?‖
―Son, if that is your wish… of course…‖ There was a strange helpless light in his
father’s eyes. Dodong did not read it, so absorbed was he in himself.
Dodong was immensely glad he had asserted himself. He lost his resentment
for his father. For a while he even felt sorry for him about the diseased tooth.
Then he confined his mind to dreaming of Teang and himself. Sweet young
dream….
——————————————-
Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely, so that his
camiseta was damp. He was still as a tree and his thoughts were confused. His
mother had told him not to leave the house, but he had left. He had wanted
to get out of it without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt. Afraid of the
house. It had seemed to cage him, to compares his thoughts with severe
tyranny. Afraid also of Teang. Teang was giving birth in the house; she gave
screams that chilled his blood. He did not want her to scream like that, he
seemed to be rebuking him. He began to wonder madly if the process of
childbirth was really painful. Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry.
In a few moments he would be a father. ―Father, father,‖ he whispered the
word with awe, with strangeness. He was young, he realized now,
contradicting himself of nine months comfortable… ―Your son,‖ people would
soon be telling him. ―Your son, Dodong.‖
Dodong felt tired standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close
together. He looked at his callused toes. Suppose he had ten children… What
made him think that? What was the matter with him? God!
He heard his mother’s voice from the house:
―Come up, Dodong. It is over.‖
Suddenly he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow he was
ashamed to his mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he
had taken something no properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to
dust dirt off his kundiman shorts.
―Dodong,‖ his mother called again. ―Dodong.‖

22
He turned to look again and this time saw his father beside his mother.
―It is a boy,‖ his father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.
Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. What a moment for him.
His parents’ eyes seemed to pierce him through and he felt limp.
He wanted to hide from them, to run away.
―Dodong, you come up. You come up,‖ he mother said.
Dodong did not want to come up and stayed in the sun.
―Dodong. Dodong.‖
―I’ll… come up.‖
Dodong traced tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the
bamboo steps slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided
his parents eyes. He walked ahead of them so that they should not see his
face. He felt guilty and untrue. He felt like crying. His eyes smarted and his
chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard. He
wanted somebody to punish him.
His father thrust his hand in his and gripped it gently.
―Son,‖ his father said.
And his mother: ―Dodong…‖
How kind were their voices. They flowed into him, making him strong.
―Teang?‖ Dodong said.
―She’s sleeping. But you go on…‖
His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his girl-wife,
asleep on the papag with her black hair soft around her face. He did not
want her to look that pale.
Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that
touched her lips, but again that feeling of embarrassment came over him and
before his parents he did not want to be demonstrative.
The hilot was wrapping the child, Dodong heard it cry. The thin voice pierced
him queerly. He could not control the swelling of happiness in him.
―You give him to me. You give him to me,‖ Dodong said.
——————————————-
Blas was not Dodong’s only child. Many more children came. For six
successive years a new child came along. Dodong did not want any more

23
children, but they came. It seemed the coming of children could not be
helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes.
Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children told on her. She was
shapeless and thin now, even if she was young. There was interminable work
to be done. Cooking. Laundering. The house. The children. She cried
sometimes, wishing she had not married. She did not tell Dodong this, not
wishing him to dislike her. Yet she wished she had not married. Not even
Dodong, whom she loved. There has been another suitor, Lucio, older than
Dodong by nine years, and that was why she had chosen Dodong. Young
Dodong. Seventeen. Lucio had married another after her marriage to
Dodong, but he was childless until now. She wondered if she had married
Lucio, would she have borne him children. Maybe not, either. That was a
better lot. But she loved Dodong…
Dodong whom life had made ugly.
One night, as he lay beside his wife, he rose and went out of the house. He
stood in the moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted to ask questions and
somebody to answer him. He w anted to be wise about many things.
One of them was why life did not fulfill all of Youth’s dreams. Why it must be so.
Why one was forsaken… after Love.
Dodong would not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be
answered. It must be so to make youth Youth. Youth must be dreamfully
sweet. Dreamfully sweet. Dodong returned to the house humiliated by himself.
He had wanted to know a little wisdom but was denied it.
When Blas was eighteen he came home one night very flustered and happy.
It was late at night and Teang and the other children were asleep. Dodong
heard Blas’s steps, for he could not sleep well of nights. He watched Blas
undress in the dark and lie down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and could
not sleep. Dodong called him name and asked why he did not sleep. Blas
said he could not sleep.
―You better go to sleep. It is late,‖ Dodong said.
Blas raised himself on his elbow and muttered something in a low fluttering
voice.
Dodong did not answer and tried to sleep.
―Itay …,‖ Blas called softly.
Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.
―I am going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight.‖
Dodong lay on the red pillow without moving.

24
―Itay, you think it over.‖
Dodong lay silent.
―I love Tona and… I want her.‖
Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the
yard, where everything was still and quiet. The moonlight was cold and white.
―You want to marry Tona,‖ Dodong said. He did not want Blas to marry yet.
Blas was very young. The life that would follow marriage would be hard…
―Yes.‖
―Must you marry?‖
Blas’s voice stilled with resentment. ―I will marry Tona.‖
Dodong kept silent, hurt.
―You have objections, Itay?‖ Blas asked acridly.
―Son… n-none…‖ (But truly, God, I don’t want Blas to marry yet… not yet. I
don’t want Blas to marry yet….)
But he was helpless. He could not do anything. Youth must triumph… now.
Love must triumph… now. Afterwards… it will be life.
As long ago Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong… and then Life.
Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely
sad and sorry for him.

EXAMPLE # 2.

To A Lost One
BY: Angela Manalang-Gloria

I shall haunt you, O my lost one, as the twilight

Haunts a grieving bamboo trail,
And your dreams will linger strangely with the music
Of a phantom lover’s tale

You shall not forget, for I am past forgetting

I shall come to you again
With the starlight, and the scent of wild champakas,
And the melody of rain.

You shall not forget. Dusk will peer into your

Window, tragic-eyed and still,
And unbidden startle you into remembrance
With its hand upon the sill.
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EXAMPLE # 3.

What is an Educated Filipino? -Francisco Benitez

What is an educated Filipino and what qualities should distinguish him

today? The conception of education and of what an educated man is varied
in response to fundamental changes in the details and aims of society. In our
country and during this transition stage in our national life, what are the
qualities which an educated man should possess?

Alterations in Our Social Life

Great changes have taken place in the nature of our social life during the last
forty years. The contact with Americans and their civilization has modified
many of our own social customs, traditions, and practices, some for the worse
and many for the better. The means of communication have improved and
therefore better understanding exists among the different sections of our
country. Religious freedom has developed religious tolerance in our people.
The growth of public schools and the establishment of democratic institutions
have developed our national consciousness both in strength and in solidarity.

Education Has Changed in Meaning

With this growth in national consciousness and national spirit among our
people, we witness the corresponding rise of a new conception of education
– the training of the individual for the duties and privileges of citizenship, not
only for his own happiness and efficiency but also for national service and
welfare. In the old days, education was a matter of private concern; now it is
a public function, and the state not only has the duty but it has the right as
well to educate every member of the community – the old as well as the
young, women as well as men – not only for the good of the individual but
also for the self-preservation and protection of the State itself. Our modern

26
public school system has been established as a safeguard against the
shortcomings and dangers of a democratic government and democratic
institutions.

1. Practical Activity
In the light of social changes, we come again to the question: What qualities
should distinguish the educated Filipino of today? I venture to suggest that the
educated Filipino should first be distinguished by the power to do. The Oriental
excels in reflective thinking; he is a philosopher. The Occidental is the doer; he
manages things, men and affairs. The Filipino of today needs more of his
power to translate reflection into action. I believe that we are coming more
and more to the conviction that no Filipino has the right to be considered
educated unless he is prepared and ready to take an active and useful part
in the work, life, and progress of our country as well as in the progress of the
world.

The power to do embraces the ability to produce enough to support oneself

and to contribute to the economic development of the Philippines.
Undoubtedly, a man may be, and often is, an efficient producer of economic
goods and at the same time he may not be educated. But should we
consider a man who is utterly unable to support himself and is an economic
burden to the society in which he lives as educated merely because he
possesses the superficial graces of culture? I hope that no one will understand
me as saying that, the only sign of economic efficiency is the ability to
produce material goods, for useful social participation may take the form of
any of any of the valuable services rendered to society trough such institutions
as the home, the school, the church and the government. The mother, for
example, who prepares wholesome meals, takes good care of her children
and trains them in morals and right conduct at home, renders efficient service
to the country as well as the statesman or the captain of industry. I would not

27
make the power to do the final and only test of the educated Filipino; but I
believe that in our present situation, it is fundamental and basic.

2. Acquaintance with Native History and Culture

The educated Filipino, in the second place, should be distinguished not only
by his knowledge of the past and of current events in the world’s progress but
more especially by his knowledge of his race, hi people, and his country, and
his love of the truths and ideals that our people have learned to cherish. Our
character, our culture, and our national history are the core of national life
and consequently, of our education. I would not have the educated Filipino
ignore the culture and history of other lands, but can he afford to be ignorant
of the history and culture of his own country and yet call himself educated?

3. Refinement in Speech and Conduct

The educated Filipino, in the third place, must have ingrained in his speech
and conduct those elements that are everywhere recognized as
accompaniments of culture and morality; so that, possessing the capacity for
self – entertainment and study, he may not be at the mercy of the pleasure of
the senses only or a burden to himself when alone.

There are, then, at least three characteristics which I believe to be the

evidence of the educated Filipino – the power to do, to support himself and
contribute to the wealth of our people; acquaintance with the world’s
progress, especially with that of his race, people, and the community,
together with love of our best ideals and traditions; and refined manners and
moral conduct as well as the power of growth.

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 CHAPTER 5

Literature under the Republic (1946-1985)

Literature under the Republic (1946-1985) The Japanese occupation leaves

the Philippine economy in ruins and it seemed that massive foreign aid could
rebuild it. With the life of the Filipinos hanging because of hunger, insecurity
and terror. Many Filipinos resorted to collaborating with the Japanese for
reasons such as politics, survival and opportunity

After the Pacific War ended, collaborators were given amnesty by President
Manuel Roxas. The amnesty was a result This in turn put the Filipino ruling elite’s
credibility at stake because ambiguities and irregularities that was not
resolved. The US colonialist also linked the issue of collaboration not as a
political will but as a means of survival (expediency).

EXAMPLE # 1.

May Day Eve

By Nick Joaquin

The old people had ordered that the dancing should stop at ten
o’clock but it was almost midnight before the carriages came filing up the
departing guests, while the girls who were staying were promptly herded
upstairs to the bedrooms, the young men gathering around to wish them a
good night and lamenting their ascent with mock signs and moaning,
proclaiming themselves disconsolate but straightway going off to finish the
punch and the brandy though they were quite drunk already and simply
bursting with wild spirits, merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were
young bucks newly arrived from Europe; the ball had been in their honor; and
they had waltzed and polka-ed and bragged and swaggered and flirted all
night and where in no mood to sleep yet--no, caramba, not on this moist
tropic eve! not on this mystic May eve! --with the night still young and so
seductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth---and serenade
29
the neighbors! cried one; and swim in the Pasid! cried another; and gather
fireflies! cried a third—whereupon there arose a great clamor for coats and
capes, for hats and canes, and they were a couple of street-lamps flickered
and a last carriage rattled away upon the cobbles while the blind black
houses muttered hush-hush, their tile roofs looming like sinister chessboards
against a wile sky murky with clouds, save where an evil young moon prowled
about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining,
smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting
unbearable childhood fragrances or ripe guavas to the young men trooping
so uproariously down the street that the girls who were desiring upstairs in the
bedrooms catered screaming to the windows, crowded giggling at the
windows, but were soon sighing amorously over those young men bawling
below; over those wicked young men and their handsome apparel, their
proud flashing eyes, and their elegant mustaches so black and vivid in the
moonlight that the girls were quite ravished with love, and began crying to
one another how carefree were men but how awful to be a girl and what a
horrid, horrid world it was, till old Anastasia plucked them off by the ear or the
pigtail and chases them off to bed---while from up the street came the
clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobble and the clang-clang
of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his great voice booming
through the night, "Guardia serno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o.

And it was May again, said the old Anastasia. It was the first day of May
and witches were abroad in the night, she said--for it was a night of divination,
and night of lovers, and those who cared might peer into a mirror and would
there behold the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry, said the
old Anastasia as she hobble about picking up the piled crinolines and folding
up shawls and raking slippers in corner while the girls climbing into four great
poster-beds that overwhelmed the room began shrieking with terror,
scrambling over each other and imploring the old woman not to frighten
them.

"Enough, enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!"

"Go scare the boys instead, you old witch!"

30
"She is not a witch, she is a maga. She is a maga. She was born of Christmas
Eve!"

"St. Anastasia, virgin and martyr."

"Huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin,
Anastasia?"

"No, but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!"

"Let her prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come, tell
me."

"You may learn in a mirror if you are not afraid."

"I am not afraid, I will go," cried the young cousin Agueda, jumping up in bed.

"Girls, girls---we are making too much noise! My mother will hear and will come
and pinch us all. Agueda, lie down! And you Anastasia, I command you to
shut your mouth and go away!""Your mother told me to stay here all night, my
grand lady!"

"And I will not lie down!" cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor.
"Stay, old woman. Tell me what I have to do."

"Tell her! Tell her!" chimed the other girls.

The old woman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and
fixed her eyes on the girl. "You must take a candle," she instructed, "and go
into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in
the room. Go up to the mirror and close your eyes and shy:

Mirror, mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be. If all goes right, just
above your left shoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry." A
silence. Then: "And hat if all does not go right?" asked Agueda. "Ah, then the
Lord have mercy on you!" "Why." "Because you may see--the Devil!"

The girls screamed and clutched one another, shivering. "But what nonsense!"
cried Agueda. "This is the year 1847. There are no devil anymore!" Nevertheless
31
she had turned pale. "But where could I go, hugh? Yes, I know! Down to the
sala. It has that big mirror and no one is there now." "No, Agueda, no! It is a
mortal sin! You will see the devil!" "I do not care! I am not afraid! I will go!" "Oh,
you wicked girl! Oh, you mad girl!" "If you do not come to bed, Agueda, I will
call my mother." "And if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the
convent last March. Come, old woman---give me that candle. I go." "Oh girls--
-give me that candle, I go."

But Agueda had already slipped outside; was already tiptoeing across
the hall; her feet bare and her dark hair falling down her shoulders and
streaming in the wind as she fled down the stairs, the lighted candle sputtering
in one hand while with the other she pulled up her white gown from her
ankles. She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heart failed
her. She tried to imagine the room filled again with lights, laughter, whirling
couples, and the jolly jerky music of the fiddlers. But, oh, it was a dark den, a
weird cavern for the windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up
against the walls. She crossed herself and stepped inside.

The mirror hung on the wall before her; a big antique mirror with a gold
frame carved into leaves and flowers and mysterious curlicues. She saw
herself approaching fearfully in it: a small while ghost that the darkness bodied
forth---but not willingly, not completely, for her eyes and hair were so dark that
the face approaching in the mirror seemed only a mask that floated forward;
a bright mask with two holes gaping in it, blown forward by the white cloud of
her gown. But when she stood before the mirror she lifted the candle level
with her chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.

She closed her eyes and whispered the incantation. When she had
finished such a terror took hold of her that she felt unable to move, unable to
open her eyes and thought she would stand there forever, enchanted. But
she heard a step behind her, and a smothered giggle, and instantly opened
her eyes.

"And what did you see, Mama? Oh, what was it?" But Dona Agueda had
forgotten the little girl on her lap: she was staring pass the curly head nestling
at her breast and seeing herself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was
the same room and the same mirror out the face she now saw in it was an old
32
face---a hard, bitter, vengeful face, framed in graying hair, and so sadly
altered, so sadly different from that other face like a white mask, that fresh
young face like a pure mask than she had brought before this mirror one wild
May Day midnight years and years ago.... "But what was it Mama? Oh please
go on! What did you see?" Dona Agueda looked down at her daughter but
her face did not soften though her eyes filled with tears. "I saw the devil." she
said bitterly. The child blanched. "The devil, Mama? Oh... Oh..." "Yes, my love. I
opened my eyes and there in the mirror, smiling at me over my left shoulder,
was the face of the devil." "Oh, my poor little Mama! And were you very
frightened?" "You can imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into
mirrors except when their mothers tell them. You must stop this naughty habit,
darling, of admiring yourself in every mirror you pass- or you may see
something frightful some day." "But the devil, Mama---what did he look like?"
"Well, let me see... he has curly hair and a scar on his cheek---" "Like the scar of
Papa?" "Well, yes. But this of the devil was a scar of sin, while that of your Papa
is a scar of honor. Or so he says." "Go on about the devil." "Well, he had
mustaches." "Like those of Papa?" "Oh, no. Those of your Papa are dirty and
graying and smell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black
and elegant--oh, how elegant!" "And did he speak to you, Mama?" "Yes…
Yes, he spoke to me," said Dona Agueda. And bowing her graying head; she
wept.

"Charms like yours have no need for a candle, fair one," he had said,
smiling at her in the mirror and stepping back to give her a low mocking bow.
She had whirled around and glared at him and he had burst into laughter.
"But I remember you!" he cried. "You are Agueda, whom I left a mere infant
and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and I danced a waltz with you
but you would not give me the polka." "Let me pass," she muttered fiercely, for
he was barring the way. "But I want to dance the polka with you, fair one," he
said. So they stood before the mirror; their panting breath the only sound in
the dark room; the candle shining between them and flinging their shadows
to the wall. And young Badoy Montiya (who had crept home very drunk to
pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much
awake and ready for anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face
gleamed scarlet. "Let me pass!" she cried again, in a voice of fury, but he
grasped her by the wrist. "No," he smiled. "Not until we have danced." "Go to

33
the devil!" "What a temper has my serrana!" "I am not your serrana!" "Whose,
then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you
treat me, you treat all my friends like your mortal enemies." "And why not?" she
demanded, jerking her wrist away and flashing her teeth in his face. "Oh, how
I detest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come
back elegant lords and we poor girls are too tame to please you. We have no
grace like the Parisiennes, we have no fire like the Sevillians, and we have no
salt, no salt, no salt! Aie, how you weary me, how you bore me, you fastidious
men!" "Come, come---how do you know about us?"

"I was not admiring myself, sir!" "You were admiring the moon perhaps?" "Oh!"
she gasped, and burst into tears. The candle dropped from her hand and she
covered her face and sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they
stood in darkness, and young Badoy was conscience-stricken. "Oh, do not cry,
little one!" Oh, please forgive me! Please do not cry! But what a brute I am! I
was drunk, little one, I was drunk and knew not what I said." He groped and
found her hand and touched it to his lips. She shuddered in her white gown.
"Let me go," she moaned, and tugged feebly. "No. Say you forgive me first.
Say you forgive me, Agueda." But instead she pulled his hand to her mouth
and bit it - bit so sharply in the knuckles that he cried with pain and lashed cut
with his other hand--lashed out and hit the air, for she was gone, she had fled,
and he heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiously sucked his
bleeding fingers. Cruel thoughts raced through his head: he would go and tell
his mother and make her turn the savage girl out of the house--or he would go
himself to the girl’s room and drag her out of bed and slap, slap, slap her silly
face! But at the same time he was thinking that they were all going to
Antipolo in the morning and was already planning how he would maneuver
himself into the same boat with her. Oh, he would have his revenge, he would
make her pay, that little harlot! She should suffer for this, he thought greedily,
licking his bleeding knuckles. But---Judas! He remembered her bare shoulders:
gold in her candlelight and delicately furred. He saw the mobile insolence of
her neck, and her taut breasts steady in the fluid gown. Son of a Turk, but she
was quite enchanting! How could she think she had no fire or grace? And no
salt? An arroba she had of it!

"... No lack of salt in the chrism At the moment of thy baptism!" He sang aloud
in the dark room and suddenly realized that he had fallen madly in love with
34
her. He ached intensely to see her again---at once! ---to touch her hands and
her hair; to hear her harsh voice. He ran to the window and flung open the
casements and the beauty of the night struck him back like a blow. It was
May, it was summer, and he was young---young! ---and deliriously in love.
Such a happiness welled up within him that the tears spurted from his eyes. But
he did not forgive her--no! He would still make her pay, he would still have his
revenge, he thought viciously, and kissed his wounded fingers. But what a
night it had been! "I will never forge this night! he thought aloud in an awed
voice, standing by the window in the dark room, the tears in his eyes and the
wind in his hair and his bleeding knuckles pressed to his mouth.

But, alas, the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and May time passes;
summer lends; the storms break over the rot-tipe orchards and the heart
grows old; while the hours, the days, the months, and the years pile up and
pile up, till the mind becomes too crowded, too confused: dust gathers in it;
cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay; the memory
perished...and there came a time when Don Badoy Montiya walked home
through a May Day midnight without remembering, without even caring to
remember; being merely concerned in feeling his way across the street with
his cane; his eyes having grown quite dim and his legs uncertain--for he was
old; he was over sixty; he was a very stopped and shivered old man with white
hair and mustaches coming home from a secret meeting of conspirators; his
mind still resounding with the speeches and his patriot heart still exultant as he
picked his way up the steps to the front door and inside into the slumbering
darkness of the house; wholly unconscious of the May night, till on his way
down the hall, chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped,
his blood ran cold-- for he had seen a face in the mirror there---a ghostly
candlelight face with the eyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he
suddenly felt he had been there before though it was a full minutes before the
lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, so overflooding the actual
moment and so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days and months
and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a gay young buck
again, lately came from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very
drunk; he s stepped in the doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he called
out...and the lad standing before the mirror (for it was a lad in a night go

35
jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle, but looking around and
seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and came running.

"Oh Grandpa, how you frightened me. Don Badoy had turned very pale. "So it
was you, you young bandit! And what is all this, hey? What are you doing
down here at this hour?" "Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only ..." "Yes,
you are the great Señor only and how delighted I am to make your
acquaintance, Señor Only! But if I break this cane on your head you maga
wish you were someone else, Sir!" "It was just foolishness, Grandpa. They told
me I would see my wife."

"Wife? What wife?" "Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in
a mirror tonight and said: Mirror, mirror show to me her whose lover I will be.

Don Badoy cackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along
into the room, sat down on a chair, and drew the boy between his knees.
"Now, put your cane down the floor, son, and let us talk this over. So you want
your wife already, hey? You want to see her in advance, hey? But so you
know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who play them are
in danger of seeing horrors?"

"Well, the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead."

"Exactly! A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will be witch you,
she will torture you, she will eat

your heart and drink your blood!"

"Oh, come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore."

"Oh-ho, my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a
witch.

"You? Where?

"Right in this room land right in that mirror," said the old man, and his playful
voice had turned savage.

"When, Grandpa?"
36
"Not so long ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and
though I was feeling very sick that night and merely wanted to lie down
somewhere and die I could not pass that doorway of course without stopping
to see in the mirror what I looked like when dying. But when I poked my head
in what should I see in the mirror but...but..."

"The witch?"

"Exactly!"

"And then she bewitch you, Grandpa!"

"She bewitched me and she tortured me. l She ate my heart and drank my
blood." said the old man bitterly.

"Oh, my poor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she very
horrible?

"Horrible? God, no--- she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen!
Her eyes were somewhat like yours but her hair was like black waters and her
golden shoulders were bare. My God, she was enchanting! But I should have
known---I should have known even then---the dark and fatal creature she
was!"

A silence. Then: "What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa," whispered the boy.

"What makes you slay that, hey?"

"Well, you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once
told her that Grandma once saw the devil in this mirror. Was it of the scare
that Grandma died?"

Don Badoy started. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that
she had perished---the poor Agueda; that they were at peace at last, the two
of them, her tired body at rest; her broken body set free at last from the brutal
pranks of the earth---from the trap of a May night; from the snare of summer;
from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been a mere heap of white
hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashing out

37
with her cruel tongue; her eye like live coals; her face like ashes... Now,
nothing--- nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard---
nothing! was left of the young girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one
wild May Day midnight, long, long ago.

And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she
had bitten his hand and fled and how he had sung aloud in the dark room
and surprised his heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his
throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away;
stood up and looked out----looked out upon the medieval shadows of the foul
street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling
away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush,
their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with
clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a
murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and
now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable the window; the
bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down
his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his mouth---while
from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the
cobbles, and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty
roll of his voice booming through the night:

"Guardia sereno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!"

38
EXAMPLE # 2.

You asked me How Much I Love you

BY: Benito Reyes

You ask me how much I love you

Ah, lovely inquisitive lips!
You would want to fathom the ocean
And scale the infinite blue sky above us.

Shall I count the sands on the seashore,

Or pick the numberless stars of heaven
Like some sweet woodland blossoms?

Ask then the bold eagle of the air

If he could soar the ends of the distance,
Or the worm of the ground if it could crawl
Down to the very core of earth.

And you ask me how much I love you,

Ah, lovely inquisitive lips!
You would want to fathom the ocean
And scale the infinite blue sky above us.

Read! Read the answer in my eyes

And in the quiverless muteness of my lips...
For there are things that are voiceless
And would be told only in the silence!

EXAMPLE # 3.

Scent of Apples
Bienvenido N. Santos

When I arrived in Kalamazoo it was October and the war was still on. Gold
and silver stars hung on pennants above silent windows of white and brick-
red cottages. In a backyard an old man burned leaves and twigs while a
gray-haired woman sat on the porch, her red hands quiet on her lap,
watching the smoke rising above the elms, both of them thinking the same
thought perhaps, about a tall, grinning boy with his blue eyes and flying hair,
who went out to war: where could he be now this month when leaves were
turning into gold and the fragrance of gathered apples was in the wind?
39
It was a cold night when I left my room at the hotel for a usual speaking
engagement. I walked but a little way. A heavy wind coming up from Lake
Michigan was icy on the face. If felt like winter straying early in the northern
woodlands. Under the lampposts the leaves shone like bronze. And they rolled
on the pavements like the ghost feet of a thousand autumns long dead, long
before the boys left for faraway lands without great icy winds and promise of
winter early in the air, lands without apple trees, the singing and the gold!
It was the same night I met Celestino Fabia, "just a Filipino farmer" as he called
himself, who had a farm about thirty miles east of Kalamazoo.
"You came all that way on a night like this just to hear me talk?"
"I've seen no Filipino for so many years now," he answered quickly. "So when I
saw your name in the papers where it says you come from the Islands and
that you're going to talk, I come right away."

Earlier that night I had addressed a college crowd, mostly women. It

appeared they wanted me to talk about my country, they wanted me to tell
them things about it because my country had become a lost country.
Everywhere in the land the enemy stalked. Over it a great silence hung, and
their boys were there, unheard from, or they were on their way to some little
known island on the Pacific, young boys all, hardly men, thinking of harvest
moons and the smell of forest fire.

It was not hard talking about our own people. I knew them well and I loved
them. And they seemed so far away during those terrible years that I must
have spoken of them with a little fervor, a little nostalgia.
In the open forum that followed, the audience wanted to know whether there
was much difference between our women and the American women. I tried
to answer the question as best I could, saying, among other things, that I did
not know that much about American women, except that they looked
friendly, but differences or similarities in inner qualities such as naturally
belonged to the heart or to the mind, I could only speak about with
vagueness.

While I was trying to explain away the fact that it was not easy to make
comparisons, a man rose from the rear of the hall, wanting to say something.
In the distance, he looked slight and old and very brown. Even before he
spoke, I knew that he was, like me, a Filipino.

"I'm a Filipino," he began, loud and clear, in a voice that seemed used to wide
open spaces, "I'm just a Filipino farmer out in the country." He waved his hand
toward the door. "I left the Philippines more than twenty years ago and have
never been back. Never will perhaps. I want to find out, sir, are our Filipino
women the same like they were twenty years ago?"

40
As he sat down, the hall filled with voices, hushed and intrigued. I weighed my
answer carefully. I did not want to tell a lie yet I did not want to say anything
that would seem platitudinous, insincere. But more important than these
considerations, it seemed to me that moment as I looked towards my
countryman, I must give him an answer that would not make him so unhappy.
Surely, all these years, he must have held on to certain ideals, certain beliefs,
even illusions peculiar to the exile.

"First," I said as the voices gradually died down and every eye seemed upon
me, "First, tell me what our women were like twenty years ago."
The man stood to answer. "Yes," he said, "you're too young . . . Twenty years
ago our women were nice, they were modest, they wore their hair long, they
dressed proper and went for no monkey business. They were natural, they
went to church regular, and they were faithful." He had spoken slowly, and
now in what seemed like an afterthought, added, "It's the men who ain't."
Now I knew what I was going to say.

"Well," I began, "it will interest you to know that our women have changed--
but definitely! The change, however, has been on the outside only. Inside,
here," pointing to the heart, "they are the same as they were twenty years
ago. God-fearing, faithful, modest, and nice."

The man was visibly moved. "I'm very happy, sir," he said, in the manner of one
who, having stakes on the land, had found no cause to regret one's
sentimental investment. After this, everything that was said and done in that
hall that night seemed like an anti-climax, and later, as we walked outside, he
gave me his name and told me of his farm thirty miles east of the city.
We had stopped at the main entrance to the hotel lobby. We had not talked
very much on the way. As a matter of fact, we were never alone. Kindly
American friends talked to us, asked us questions, said goodnight. So now I
asked him whether he cared to step into the lobby with me and talk.
"No, thank you," he said, "you are tired. And I don't want to stay out too late."

"Yes, you live very far."

"I got a car," he said, "besides . . .‖

Now he smiled, he truly smiled. All night I had been watching his face and I
wondered when he was going to smile. "Will you do me a favor, please," he
continued smiling almost sweetly. "I want you to have dinner with my family
out in the country. I'd call for you tomorrow afternoon, then drive you back.
Will that be alright?"

41
"Of course," I said. "I'd love to meet your family." I was leaving Kalamazoo for
Muncie, Indiana, in two days. There was plenty of time.

"You will make my wife very happy," he said.

"You flatter me."

"Honest. She'll be very happy. Ruth is a country girl and hasn't met many
Filipinos. I mean Filipinos younger than I, cleaner looking. We're just poor
farmer folk, you know, and we don't get to town very often. Roger, that's my
boy, he goes to school in town. A bus takes him early in the morning and he's
back in the afternoon. He's nice boy."

"I bet he is," I agreed. "I've seen the children of some of the boys by their
American wives and the boys are tall, taller than their father, and very good
looking."
"Roger, he'd be tall. You'll like him."

Then he said goodbye and I waved to him as he disappeared in the darkness.

The next day he came, at about three in the afternoon. There was a mild,
ineffectual sun shining, and it was not too cold. He was wearing an old brown
tweed jacket and worsted trousers to match. His shoes were polished, and
although the green of his tie seemed faded, a colored shirt hardly
accentuated it. He looked younger than he appeared the night before now
that he was clean shaven and seemed ready to go to a party. He was
grinning as we met.

"Oh, Ruth can't believe it," he kept repeating as he led me to his car--a
nondescript thing in faded black that had known better days and many
hands. "I says to her, I'm bringing you a first class Filipino, and she says, aw, go
away, quit kidding, there's no such thing as first class Filipino. But Roger, that's
my boy, he believed me immediately. What's he like, daddy, he asks. Oh, you
will see, I says, he's first class. Like you daddy? No, no, I laugh at him, your
daddy ain't first class. Aw, but you are, daddy, he says. So you can see what a
nice boy he is, so innocent. Then Ruth starts griping about the house, but the
house is a mess, she says. True it's a mess, it's always a mess, but you don't
mind, do you? We're poor folks, you know.

The trip seemed interminable. We passed through narrow lanes and

disappeared into thickets, and came out on barren land overgrown with
weeds in places. All around were dead leaves and dry earth. In the distance
were apple trees.

42
"Aren't those apple trees?" I asked wanting to be sure.
"Yes, those are apple trees," he replied. "Do you like apples? I got lots of 'em. I
got an apple orchard, I'll show you." All the beauty of the afternoon seemed
in the distance, on the hills, in the dull soft sky.

"Those trees are beautiful on the hills," I said.

"Autumn's a lovely season. The trees are getting ready to die, and they show
their colors, proud-like."

"No such thing in our own country," I said.

That remark seemed unkind, I realized later. It touched him off on a long
deserted tangent, but ever there perhaps. How many times did lonely mind
take unpleasant detours away from the familiar winding lanes towards home
for fear of this, the remembered hurt, the long lost youth, the grim shadows of
the years; how many times indeed, only the exile knows.

It was a rugged road we were traveling and the car made so much noise that
I could not hear everything he said, but I understood him. He was telling his
story for the first time in many years. He was remembering his own youth. He
was thinking of home. In these odd moments there seemed no cause for fear
no cause at all, no pain. That would come later. In the night perhaps. Or
lonely on the farm under the apple trees.

In this old Visayan town, the streets are narrow and dirty and strewn with coral
shells. You have been there? You could not have missed our house, it was the
biggest in town, one of the oldest, ours was a big family. The house stood right
on the edge of the street. A door opened heavily and you enter a dark hall
leading to the stairs. There is the smell of chickens roosting on the low-topped
walls, there is the familiar sound they make and you grope your way up a
massive staircase, the bannisters smooth upon the trembling hand. Such
nights, they are no better than the days, windows are closed against the sun;
they close heavily.

Mother sits in her corner looking very white and sick. This was her world, her
domain. In all these years, I cannot remember the sound of her voice. Father
was different. He moved about. He shouted. He ranted. He lived in the past
and talked of honor as though it were the only thing. I was born in that house.
I grew up there into a pampered brat. I was mean. One day I broke their
hearts. I saw mother cry wordlessly as father heaped his curses upon me and
drove me out of the house, the gate closing heavily after me. And my
brothers and sisters took up my father's hate for me and multiplied it
numberless times in their own broken hearts. I was no good. But sometimes,
you know, I miss that house, the roosting chickens on the low-topped walls. I
43
miss my brothers and sisters, Mother sitting in her chair, looking like a pale
ghost in a corner of the room. I would remember the great live posts, massive
tree trunks from the forests. Leafy plants grew on the sides, buds pointing
downwards, wilted and died before they could become flowers. As they fell
on the floor, father bent to pick them and throw them out into the coral
streets. His hands were strong. I have kissed these hands . . . many times, many
times.

Finally we rounded a deep curve and suddenly came upon a shanty, all but
ready to crumble in a heap on the ground, its plastered walls were rotting
away, the floor was hardly a foot from the ground. I thought of the cottages
of the poor colored folk in the south, the hovels of the poor everywhere in the
land. This one stood all by itself as though by common consent all the folk that
used to live here had decided to say away, despising it, ashamed of it. Even
the lovely season could not color it with beauty.

A dog barked loudly as we approached. A fat blonde woman stood at the

door with a little boy by her side. Roger seemed newly scrubbed. He hardly
took his eyes off me. Ruth had a clean apron around her shapeless waist. Now
as she shook my hands in sincere delight I noticed shamefacedly (that I should
notice) how rough her hands were, how coarse and red with labor, how ugly!
She was no longer young and her smile was pathetic.
As we stepped inside and the door closed behind us, immediately I was
aware of the familiar scent of apples. The room was bare except for a few
ancient pieces of second-hand furniture.

In the middle of the room stood a stove to keep the family warm in winter. The
walls were bare. Over the dining table hung a lamp yet unlighted.
Ruth got busy with the drinks. She kept coming in and out of a rear room that
must have been the kitchen and soon the table was heavy with food, fried
chicken legs and rice, and green peas and corn on the ear. Even as we ate,
Ruth kept standing, and going to the kitchen for more food. Roger ate like a
little gentleman.

"Isn't he nice looking?" his father asked.

"You are a handsome boy, Roger," I said.

The boy smiled at me. You look like Daddy," he said.

Afterwards I noticed an old picture leaning on the top of a dresser and stood
to pick it up. It was yellow and soiled with much fingering. The faded figure of
a woman in Philippine dress could yet be distinguished although the face had
become a blur.
44
"Your . . . " I began.

"I don't know who she is," Fabia hastened to say. "I picked that picture many
years ago in a room on La Salle street in Chicago. I have often wondered who
she is."

"The face wasn't a blur in the beginning?"

"Oh, no. It was a young face and good."

Ruth came with a plate full of apples.

"Ah," I cried, picking out a ripe one. "I've been thinking where all the scent of
apples came from. The room is full of it."

"I'll show you," said Fabia.

He showed me a backroom, not very big. It was half-full of apples.

"Every day," he explained, "I take some of them to town to sell to the
groceries. Prices have been low. I've been losing on the trips."
"These apples will spoil," I said.

"We'll feed them to the pigs."

Then he showed me around the farm. It was twilight now and the apple trees
stood bare against a glowing western sky. In apple blossom time it must be
lovely here. But what about wintertime?

One day, according to Fabia, a few years ago, before Roger was born, he
had an attack of acute appendicitis. It was deep winter. The snow lay heavy
everywhere. Ruth was pregnant and none too well herself. At first she did not
know what to do. She bundled him in warm clothing and put him on a cot
near the stove. She shoveled the snow from their front door and practically
carried the suffering man on her shoulders, dragging him through the newly
made path towards the road where they waited for the U.S. Mail car to pass.
Meanwhile snowflakes poured all over them and she kept rubbing the man's
arms and legs as she herself nearly froze to death.

"Go back to the house, Ruth!" her husband cried, "you'll freeze to death."
But she clung to him wordlessly. Even as she massaged his arms and legs, her
tears rolled down her cheeks. "I won't leave you," she repeated.
Finally the U.S. Mail car arrived. The mailman, who knew them well, helped
them board the car, and, without stopping on his usual route, took the sick
man and his wife direct to the nearest hospital.

45
Ruth stayed in the hospital with Fabia. She slept in a corridor outside the
patients' ward and in the day time helped in scrubbing the floor and washing
the dishes and cleaning the men's things. They didn't have enough money
and Ruth was willing to work like a slave.

"Ruth's a nice girl," said Fabia, "like our own Filipino women."
Before nightfall, he took me back to the hotel. Ruth and Roger stood at the
door holding hands and smiling at me. From inside the room of the shanty, a
low light flickered. I had a last glimpse of the apple trees in the orchard under
the darkened sky as Fabia backed up the car. And soon we were on our way
back to town. The dog had started barking. We could hear it for some time,
until finally, we could not hear it anymore, and all was darkness around us,
except where the headlamps revealed a stretch of road leading somewhere.
Fabia did not talk this time. I didn't seem to have anything to say myself. But
when finally we came to the hotel and I got down, Fabia said, "Well, I guess I
won't be seeing you again."

It was dimly lighted in front of the hotel and I could hardly see Fabia's face.
Without getting off the car, he moved to where I had sat, and I saw him
extend his hand. I gripped it.

"Tell Ruth and Roger," I said, "I love them."

He dropped my hand quickly. "They'll be waiting for me now," he said.

"Look," I said, not knowing why I said it, "one of these days, very soon, I hope,
I'll be going home. I could go to your town."

"No," he said softly, sounding very much defeated but brave, "Thanks a lot.

But, you see, nobody would remember me now."

Then he started the car, and as it moved away, he waved his hand.
"Goodbye," I said, waving back into the darkness. And suddenly the night was
cold like winter straying early in these northern woodlands.
I hurried inside. There was a train the next morning that left for Muncie,
Indiana, at a quarter after eight.

46
 CHAPTER 6
Literature after EDSA (1986-present)

The year 1986 marks a new beginning of a new scene for Filipino writers
and artists. It saw the downfall of late President Ferdinand Marcos when he
placed the Philippines under martial rule last September 21,1972. This action
does not only oppress the writers' right to free expression but also created
conditions that made collaboration and cooperation convenient choices for
artists' struggling for recognition and survival. Furthermore, the growth of
underground writing was created both in urban and in the countryside.

The popular "Edsa Revolution" (EDSA, a highway in Metro Manila that

runs north to south from Caloocan to Baclaran) has paved the way for the
flight of the dictator and his family to Hawaii, USA on February 24,1986. The
revolt established the presidency of Corazon Aquino, which marked the
"restoration" of a pre-Martial Law society. However, the Philippines did not
recover that easily. The years that followed "Edsa" was a wild "roller-coaster"
ride for many Filipinos. The unease times was caused by natural disasters that
left the economic plans in shambles.

Militancy and belligerence best describes writing under the Martial Law
regime. With the overthrow of the enemy in 1986, however, the literary activity
showed certain disorientation manifesting itself in a proliferation of concerns
taken up by individual writers and groups.

EXAMPLE # 1.

THE DOG EATERS

BY: Leoncio P. Deriada

Mariana looked out of the window toward the other side of Artiaga Street. A
group of men had gathered around a low table in front of Sergio's sari-sari
store. It was ten o'clock, Tuesday morning. Yet these men did not find it too
early to drink, and worse. They wanted her husband to be with them. Victor
was now reaching for his shirt hooked on the wall between Nora Aunor and
Vilma Santos. Mariana turned to him, her eyes wild in repulsion and anger.
"Those filthy men!" she snarled. "Whose dog did they slaughter today?"
47
Victor did not answer. He put on his shirt. Presently, he crawled on the floor
and searched for his slippers under the table. Mariana watched him strain his
body toward the wall, among the rattan tools. He looked like a dog tracking
the smell hidden carrion.
"My God, Victor, do you have to join them every time they stew somebody's
pet?"
Victor found his slippers. He emerged from under the table, smoothed his
pants and unbutton his shirt. He was sweating. He looked at his wife and
smiled faintly, the expression sarcastic, and in an attempt to be funny, "it's
barbecue today."
"I'm not in the mood for jokes!" Mariana raised her voice. "It's time you stop
going with those good-for-nothing scavengers."

Her words stung. For now she noted an angry glint in Victor's eyes. "They are
my friends, Mariana," he said.
"You should have married one of them!" she snapped back. Suddenly, she
straightened. She heard Sergio's raspy voice, calling from his store across the
street. It was an ugly voice, and it pronounced Victor's name in a triumphant
imitation of a dog's bark.
"Victor! Victor! Aw! Aw!" the canine growl floated across Artiaga Street.
Mariana glared at her husband as he brushed her aside on his way to the
window. She felt like clawing his face, biting his arms, ripping the smelly shirt off
his back. "I'm coming," Victor answered, leaning out of the window. Mariana
opened her mouth for harsher invectives but a sharp cry from the bedroom
arrested her. It was her baby. She rushed to the table, pick a cold bottle of
milk, and entered.
In his rattan crib that looked like a rat's nest, the baby cried louder. Mariana
shook the crib vehemently. The baby - all mouth and all legs - thrust
in awkward arms into the air, blindly searching for accustomed nipple.
The baby sucked the rubber nipple easily. But Mariana's mind was outside the
room as she watched her husband lean out of the window to answer the
invitation of the dog-eaters of Artiaga Street.
"Aren't you inviting your wife?" she spoke loud, the hostility in her voice
unchecked by the dirty plywood wall. "Perhaps your friends have reserved the
best morsel for me. Which is the most delicious part of a dog, ha, Victor? Its
heart? Its liver? Its brain? Blood? Bone? Ears? Tongue? Tail? I wish to God you'd
all die of hydrophobia!"
"Can you feed the baby and talk at the same time?" Victor said. She did not
expect him to answer and now that he had, she felt angrier. The heat from
the unceilinged roof had become terrible and it had all seeped into her
head. She was ready for a fight.
The baby had gone back to sleep. Mariana dashed out of the room, her right
hand tight around the empty bottle. She had to have a weapon. She came
upon her husband opening the door to little porch. The porch was at the top

48
of the stairs that led out into Artiaga Street.
"Why don't you do something instead of drinking their stinking tuba and eating
that filthy meat? Why don't you decent for a change?"
Victor turned her off. It seemed he was also ready for a fight. The glint in his
eyes had become sinister.
And what's so indecent about eating dog meat?" His voice sounded canine,
too, like Sergio's. "The people of Artiaga Street have been eating dog meat
for as long as I can remember."
"No wonder their manners have gone to the dogs!"
"You married one of them."
"Yes, to lead a dog's life!"
Victor stepped closer, breathing hard. Marina did not move. "What's eating
you?" he demanded.
"What's eating me?" she yelled. "Dog's! I'm ready to say aw-aw, don't you
know?"
Victor repaired his face, amused by this type of quarrel. Again, he tried to be
funny.
"Come, come, Mariana darling," he said, smiling condescendingly.
Mariana was not amused. She was all set to proceed with the fight. Now she
tried to be acidly ironic.
―Shall I slaughter Ramir for you? That pet of yours does nothing but bark at
strangers and dirty the doorstep. Perhaps you can invite your friends tonight.
Let’s celebrate.‖
―Leave Ramir alone,‖ Victor said, seriously.
―That dog is enslaving me!‖
Victor turned to the door. It was the final insult, Mariana thought. The bastard!
How dare he turn his back on her?
―Punyeta!‖ she screeched and flung the bottle at her husband. Instinctively,
Victor turned and parried the object with his arm. The bottle fell to the floor
but did not break. It rolled noisily under the table where Victor moment had
hunted for his rubber slippers.
He looked at her, but there was no reaction in his face. Perhaps he thought it
was all a joke. He opened the door and stepped out into the street.
Mariana ran to the door and banged it once, twice, thrice, all the while
shrieking, ―Go! Eat and drink until your tongue hangs like a mad dog’s. Then I’ll
call a veterinarian.‖
Loud after came across the street.
Mariana leaned out of the window and shouted to the men gathered in front
of Sergio’s store.
―Why don’t you leave my husband alone? You dogs!‖
The men laughed louder, obscenely. Their voices offended the ears just as the
stench from the garbage dump at the Artiaga-Mabini junction offended the
nostrils. There were five other men aside from the chief drinker, Sergio.
Downing a gallon of tuba at ten o’clock in the morning with of Artiaga’s idle

49
men was his idea of brotherhood. It was good for his store, he thought, though
his wife languish behind the row of glass jars and open cartons of dried fish –
the poor woman deep in notebooks of unpaid bills the neighbors had
accumulated these last two years.
Mariana closed the window. The slight darkening of the room intensified the
heat on the roof and in her head. She pulled a stool and sat beside the
sewing machine under the huge pictures of Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos,
under the altar-like alcove on the wall where a transistor radio was enshrined
like an idol.
She felt tired. Once again, her eyes surveyed the room with repulsion. She had
stayed in this rented house for two years, tried to paste pictures on the wall,
hung up classic curtains that could not completely ward off the stink from the
street. Instead of cheering up the house, they made it sadder, emphasizing
the lack of the things she had dreamed of having when she eloped with
Victor two years ago.
Victor was quite attractive. When he was teen-ager, he was a member of the
Gregory Body Building Club on Cortes Street. He dropped out of freshmen
year at Harvadian and instead developed his chest and biceps at the club.
His was to be Mr. Philippines, until one day, Gregory cancelled his
membership. Big Boss Gregory - who was not interested in girls but in club
members with the proportions of Mr. Philippines – had discovered that Victor
was dating a manicurist named Fely.
Victor found work as a bouncer at Three Diamonds, a candlelit bar at the end
of Artiaga, near Jacinto Street. All the hostesses there were Fely’s customers.
Mariana, who came from a better neighborhood, was a third year BSE
student at Rizal Memorial Colleges. They eloped during the second semester,
the very week Fey drowned in the pool behind Three Diamonds. Just as
Mariana grew heavy with a child, Victor lost his job at the bar. He quarreled
with the manager. An uncle working in a construction company found him a
new job. But he showed up only when the man did not report for work.

These last few days, not one of the carpenters got sick. So Victor had to stay
home.
Mariana felt a stirring in her womb. She felt her belly with both hands. Her tight
faded dress could not quite conceal this most unwanted pregnancy. The
baby in the crib in the other room was only eight months, and here she was -
carrying another child. She closed her eyes and pressed her belly hard. She
felt the uncomfortable swell, and in a moment, she had ridiculous thought.
What if she bore a pair or a trio of puppies? She imagined herself as a dog, a
spent bitch with hind legs spread out obscenely as her litter of three, or four, or
five, fought for her tits while the mongrel who was responsible for all this misery
flirted with the other dogs of the neighborhood.
A dog barked. Mariana was startled. It was Ramir. His chain clanked and she

50
could picture the dog going up the stairs, his lethal fangs bared in terrible
growl.
―Ay, ay, Mariana!‖ a familiar, nervous voice rose from the din. ―Your dog! He’ll
bite me. Shoo! Shoo!‖
It was Aling Elpidia, the fish and vegetable vendor.
―Stay away from the beast, Aling Elpidia!‖ Mariana shouted. She opened the
door. Aling Elpidia was in the little yard, her hands nervously holding her
basket close to her like a shield. Ramir was at the bottom of the stairs, straining
at his chain, barking at the old woman.
Mariana pulled the chain. The dog resisted. But soon he relaxed and stopped
barking. He ran upstairs, encircled Mariana once, and then sniffed her hands.
―Come on up, Aling Elpidia. Don’t be afraid. I’m holding Ramir’s leash.‖
The old woman rushed upstairs, still shielding herself with her basket of fish and
vegetables.
―Naku, Mariana. Why do you keep that crazy dog at the door? He’ll bite a kilo
off every visitor. The last time I was here I almost had a heart attack.‖
―That’s Victor’s idea of a house guard. Come, sit down.‖
Aling Elpidia dragged a stool to the window. ―Why, I’m still trembling!‖ she
said. ―Why must you close the window, Mariana?‖
Mariana opened the window. ―Those horrible men across the street, I can’t
stand their noise.‖
―Where’s Victor?‖
―There!‖ Mariana said contemptuously. ―With them.‖ The old woman looked
out of the window.
―He is one of them!‖
―One of what?‖
―The dog-eaters of Artiaga Street!‖ Mariana spat out the words, her eyes wild
in anger.
Aling Elpidia sat down again. ―What is so terrible about that?‖ she asked.
Mariana looked at the old woman. For the first time she noticed that Aling
Elpidia had been dying her hair. But the growth of hair this week had
betrayed her.
―Do you eat dog meat, Aling Elpidia?‖ Mariana asked.
―It’s better than goat’s meat: And a dog is definitely cleaner than a pig. With
the price of pork and beef as high as Mount Apo – one would rather eat dog
meat. How’s the baby?‖
―Asleep‖
Aling Elpidia picked up her basket from the floor. ―Here’s your day’s supply of
vegetables. I also brought some bangus. Cook Victor a pot of sinigang and
he’ll forget the most delicious chunk of aw-aw meat. Go, get a basket.‖
Mariana went to the kitchen to get a basket as Aling Elpidia busied herself
sorting out the vegetables.
―I hope you haven’t forgotten the green mangoes and – and that thing you
promised me,‖ Mariana said, laying her basket on the floor.

51
―I brought all of them,‖ assured the old woman. She began transferring the
vegetables and fish into Mariana’s basket. Mariana helped her.
―I haven’t told Victor anything,‖ Mariana said in a low, confidential tone.
―He does not have to know,‖ Aling Elpidia said.
The old woman produced from the bottom of the basket a tall bottle filled
with a dark liquid and some leaves and tiny, gnarled roots. She held the bottle
against the light. Mariana regarded it with interest and horror. ―I’m afraid,
Aling Elpidia,‖ she whispered.
―Nonsense. Go, take these vegetables to the kitchen.‖
Mariana sped to the kitchen. Aling Elpidia moved to the table, pushed the
dish rack that held some five or six tin plates, and set the bottle beside a
plastic tumbler that contained spoon and forks. She pulled a stool from
beneath the table and sat down. Soon Mariana was beside her.
―Is it effective?‖ Mariana asked nervously.
―Very effective. Come on let me touch you.‖
Mariana stood directly in front of the old woman, her belly her belly almost
touching the vendor’s face. Aling Elpidia felt Mariana’s belly with both hands.
―Three months did you say, Mariana?‖
―Three months and two weeks.‖
―Are you sure you don’t want this child?‖ Aling Elpidia asked one hand flat on
Mariana’s belly. ―It feels so healthy.‖
―I don’t want another child,‖ Mariana said. And to stress the finality of her
decision, she grabbed the bottle and stepped away from the old woman.
The bottle looked like atrophy in her hand.
―Well, it’s your decision,‖ Aling Elpidia said airily. ―The bottle is yours.‖
―Is it bitter?‖
―Yes.‖
Mariana squirmed. ―How shall I take this?‖
―A spoonful before you sleeps in the evening and another spoonful after
breakfast.‖
―May I take it with a glass of milk or a bottle of coke?‖
―No. You must take it pure.‖
―It’s not dangerous, is it, Aling Elpidia?‖
―Don’t you worry. It is bitter but it is harmless. It will appear as an accident. Like
falling down the stairs. Moreover, there will be less pain and blood.‖
―Please come everyday. Things might go wrong.‖
Aling Elpidia nodded and stood up. ―I think I must go now,‖ she said. Then she
lowered her voice and asked, ―Do you have the money?‖
―Yes, yes,‖ Mariana said. She went to the sewing machine and opened a
drawer. She handed Aling Epidia some crumpled bills.
The vendor counted the bills expertly, and then dropped the little bundle into
her breast. She picked up her basket and walked to the door. Suddenly she
stopped. ―Your dog, Mariana.‖ Her voice became nervous again.
Mariana held Ramir’s leash as the old woman hurried down the stairs. ―You

52
may start taking it tonight.‖ It was her last piece of medical advice. Loud
laughter rose from the store across the street. Mariana stiffened. Her anger
returned. Then her baby cried.
She hurried to the bedroom. The tall bottle looked grotesque on the table:
tiny, gnarled roots seemed to twist like worms or miniature umbilical cords.
With a shudder, she glanced at the bottle. The sharp cry became louder.
Mariana rushed inside and discovered that the baby had wetted its clothes.
She heard somebody coming up the stairs. It must be Victor. Ramir did not
bark.
―Mariana!‖ Victor called out. ―Mariana!‖
―Quiet!‖ she shouted back. ―The baby’s going back to sleep.‖
The house had become hotter. Mariana went out of the bedroom, ready to
resume the unfinished quarrel. Victor was now in the room, sweating and red-
eyed. He had taken off his shirt and his muscular body glistened wit animal
attractiveness. But now Mariana was in a different type of heat.
―I met that old witch Elpidia,‖ Victor said, ―What did she bring you today?‖
―The same things. Vegetables. Some fish.‖
―Fish! Again?‖
―You are drunk!‖
―I’m not drunk. Come Mariana dear. Let me hold you.‖
―Don’t touch me!‖ she screamed. ―You stink!‖
Victor moved back, offended. ―I don’t stink and I’m not drunk.‖
Mariana stepped closer to her husband. He smelled of cheap pomade,
onions, and vinegar.
―Do you have to be like this all the time? Quarreling every day? Why don’t
you get a steady job like any decent husband? You would be out the whole
day, and perhaps, I would miss you.‖
―You don’t have to complain,‖ Victor said roughly. ―True, my work is not
permanent but I think we have enough. We are not starving, are we?‖
―You call this enough?‖ her hands gesticulated madly. ―You call this rat’s nest,
this hell of a neighborhood – enough? You call these tin plates, this plastic
curtains – enough? This is not the type of life I expect. I should have continued
school. You fooled me!‖
―I thought you understood. I-―
―No, no I didn’t understand. And still I don’t understand why you – you –―
―Let’s not quarrel,‖ Victor said abruptly. I don’t want to quarrel with you.‖
―But I want to quarrel with you!‖ Mariana shouted.
―Be reasonable.‖
―You are not reasonable. You never tried to please me. You would rather be
with your stinking friends and drink their dirty wine and eat their dirty meat. Oh,
how I hate it, Victor!‖
―What do you want me to do – stay here and boil the baby’s milk?‖
―I wish you would!‖
―That’s your job. You’re a woman.‖

53
―Oh, how are you admire yourself for being a man,‖ Mariana sneered in utter
sarcasm. ―You miserable-―
―Don’t yell. You wake up the baby.‖
―To hell with your baby!‖
―You are mad, Mariana.‖
―And so I’m mad. I’m mad because I don’t eat dog meat. I’m mad because I
want my husband to make a man of himself, I’m mad because – ―
―Stop it!‖
―Punyeta!‖
―Relax, Mariana. You are excited. That’s not good for you. I want my second
baby healthy.‖
―There will be no second baby.‖
―What do you mean?‖
―You met Aling Elpidia on your way.‖
―And what did that witch do? Curse my baby? Is a vampire?‖
―She came to help me.‖
Mariana went to the table and snatched the bottle. She held high in Victor’s
face. ―See this, Victor?‖ she taunted him. Victor was not interested. ―You
don’t want me to drink tuba, and here you are with a bottle of sioktong.‖
―How dull you are!‖ her lips twisted in derision. ―See those leaves? See those
roots? They are very potent, Victor.‖
―I don’t understand.‖
―One spoonful in the morning and one spoonful in the evening. It’s bitter,
Victor, but I will bear it.‖
Like a retarded, Victor stared at his wife. Then the truth dawned upon him and
exclaimed in horror, ―What? What? My baby!‖
Mariana faced her husband squarely. ―Yes! And I’m not afraid!‖ she jeered.
―You won’t do it.‖
―I’m not afraid.‖
―Give me that bottle.‖
―No!‖
―What kind of woman are you?‖
―And what kind of man are you?‖
―It’s my baby!‖
―It’s mine. I have the right to dispose of it, I don’t want another child.‖
―Why, Mariana, why?‖
―Because you cannot afford it! What would you feed your another child, ha,
Victor? Tuba milk? Dog meat for rice?‖
―We shall manage, Mariana. Everything will be all right.‖
―Sure, sure, everything will be all right – for you. I don’t believe in that
anymore.‖
―Give me that bottle!‖
―No!‖
They grappled for a moment. Mariana fought like an untamed animal. At last

54
Victor took hold the bottle. He pushed his wife against the wall and ran to the
window, his right hand holding the bottle above his head.
And like a man possessed, he hurled the bottle out f the window. The crash of
the glass against the gravel on the road rendered Mariana speechless. But
she recovered. She dashed to the window and gave out almost inhuman
scream at what she saw. The bottle was broken into countless splinters and
the dark liquid stained the dry gravel street. Bits of leaves and roots stuck to
the dust. Presently, a dog came along and sniffed the wet ground
suspiciously, then left with his tail between his legs.
Mariana screamed again in horror and frustration. In the glare of the late
morning sun she had a momentary image of the men – now faceless and
voiceless – in front of the store across the street. This time they did not laugh,
but they watched her from certain blankness. She turned to her husband and
flung herself at him, raising her arms, her fingers poised like claws. She
scratched his face and pounded his chest with her fists.
―Damn you! Damn you!‖ she shrieked in fury.
Victor caught her arms and shook her. ―Stop it, Mariana!‖ he mumbled under
his breath.
―Let me go! You are hurting me!‖
―Behave you woman!‖ Victor shook her harder.
Mariana spat on his face. Then she bit on the right arm. She spat again, for she
had a quick taste of salt and dirt.
Victor released her. She moved back, her uncontrollable rage shaking her.
―You threw it away! You destroy it! I paid forty pesos for it and it’s not your
money!‖
―Forty pesos,‖ Victor murmured. ―That is a lot of milk.‖
Mariana caught her breath. She allowed dryly and said, ―What do you want
me to do now – cut children’s dresses?‖
―You are unnatural. You don’t act like a mother, you want to kill your own
child.‖
―It’s my own child.‖
―It’s murder!‖
―Nobody will know.‖
―I will know. You will know. And God – and God – will know!‖
―Ahhh!‖ Mariana sneered sontemptuously. ―Now who’s talking? When was
the last time you went to church, ha Victor? That was the time the Legion of
Mary brought us to Fatima Church to be married and you fought with the
priest in the confessional. And now here you are mentioning God’s name to
me.‖
―Please, please, Mariana,‖ Victor was begging now. ―That’s our child!‖
―I told you I didn’t want another child. You broke that bottle but I’ll look for
other means. I’ll starve myself. I’ll jump out of the window. I’ll fall down the
stairs.‖
―Mariana!‖

55
―You cannot afford to buy pills or hire a doctor.‖
―I want a child.‖
―You men can talk because you don’t have to bear the children. You
coward!‖
Victor raised his hand to strike her. Mariana offered her face, daring him to
complete his own humiliation. Victor dropped his hand. He was lost, totally
unmanned.
A bit of his male vanity stirred inside him. He raised his hand again, but
Mariana was quick with the nearest weapon. She seized a stool with both
hands, and with the strength all her arms could muster, throws the stool at him.
Victor caught the object with his strong shoulder. The stool dropped to the
floor as Mariana made ready with another weapon, a vase of plastic flowers.
―Go away from me! Get out! Get out!‖
Victor went out of the room. Mariana was left panting, giving vent to her
anger by pulling down the plastic curtains and the printed cover of the
sewing machine. She stooped to the table and with a furious sweep of her
hand, cleared it of dish rack, tin plates, spoons, and forks. Then she went to
the kitchen and tossed the basket of vegetables and fish out of the kitchen
window. A trio of dogs rushed in from nowhere and fought over the fish strewn
in the muddy space under the sink.
Then Ramir barked.
―Shut up, you miserable dog!‖
Ramir continued barking.
Mariana paused. Ramir, she taught. Victor’s dog. A cruel thought crossed her
mind and stayed there. Now she knew exactly what to do. She reached for
the big kitchen knife of a shelf above the sink. Kicking the scattered tin plates
on the floor, she crossed the main room to the porch.
Downstairs, Ramir was barking at some object in the street. Noticing Mariana’s
presence, he stopped barking. Mariana stared at the dog. The dog stared
back, and Mariana noticed the change in the animal’s eyes. They became
fiery, dangerous. My God, Mariana thought. This creature knew! Ramir’s ears
stood. The hair on the back of its neck stood, too. Then he bared his fangs
viscously and growled.
Mariana dropped the knife. She did not know how to use it at this moment.
She was beginning to be afraid.
Slowly, she climbed up the stairs. He moved softly but menacingly. Like a
hunter sizing up his quarry. His yellowing fangs dropped with saliva.
Meanwhile, Mariana was untying the chain on the top of the stairs.
And the dog rushed into the roaring attack. Quicker than she thought she
was, Mariana slipped the end of the chain under the makeshift railing of the
stairway and pulled the leash with all her might. As she had expected, the
dog hurtled into the space between the broken banisters and fell. The weight
of the animal pulled her to her knees, but she was prepared for that, too. She
braced herself against the rails of the porch, and now, the dog was dangling

56
below her. A crowd had now gathered in front of the house to witness the
unexpected execution. But Mariana neither saw their faces nor heard their
voices.
Ramir gave a final yelp and stopped kicking the air.
Mariana laughed deliriously. She watches the hanging animal and addressed
it in triumph: ―I’ll slit your throat and drink your blood and cut you to pieces
and stew you and eat you! Damn you Victor. Damn this child. Damn
everything. I’ll cook you, Ramir. I’ll cook you and eat you and eat you and eat
you!‖
She released the chain and the canine carcass dropped with a thud on the
ground below.
Mariana sat on the topmost step of the stairs; she put her hands between her
legs and stared blankly at the rusty rooftops in front of her. And for the first in
all her life on the Artiaga Street, Mariana cried.

EXAMPLE # 2.

The Will of the River -Alfredo Gonzales Jr.

BY MY WIFE’S ancestral home flows a river. For a dozen summers I have visited
it, and almost every year I make an effort to trace its course back to its source
in the neighboring hills; I do not consider my vacation there complete without
doing this. In common with other streams of its kind, our river suffers much from
the summer drought. I have seen it so shrunken that fish lay lifeless on the
parched sand and gravel of its bed. But this past summer I saw something I
had never seen before, though I know that if I had been sufficiently observant
in other abnormally dry years, I am sure I could not have failed to notice the
same thing earlier.

One morning last April, in company with a student friend and my elder son. I
started out for the hill to spend the day by the rapids and cascades at a
place called Intongasan. We followed the course of the river. After we had
walked a kilometer or more, I saw that the river had disappeared and its bed
was dry. I looked around in wonder because past our little country house
below and out toward the sea half a mile or so farther down, the river was

57
flowing clear and steady in Its usual summer volume and depth. But where we
stood at the moment there was no water to be seen. All about us the wide
river bed was hot and dry.

We pursued our way on toward the hills, however, and walking another
kilometer we saw the stream again, though it had spread itself so thin that it
was lost at the edge of the waterless stretch of burning sand and stones. And
yet, continuing our way into the hills, we found the river grow deeper and
stronger than it was as it passed by our cottage.

To most people, I suppose, there is nothing strange or significant in this.

Perhaps they have seen such a phenomenon more than once before. To me,
however, it was a new experience and it impressed me like all new
experiences. To me, it was not merely strange, it suggested a spiritual truth.

Flowing down from its cradle in the mountains just as it left the last foothills, the
river had been checked by the long, forbidding stretch of scorching sand. I
had read of other streams that upon encountering similar obstacles
irretrievably lost themselves in sand or mud. But Bacong-because that is the
name of our river-determined to reach the sea, tunneled its way, so to speak,
under its sandy bed, of course choosing the harder and lower stratum
beneath, until at last it appeared again, limpid and steady in its march to sea.

And then I thought of human life. I was reminded of many a life that stopped
short of its great end just because it lacked the power of will to push through
hindrances.

But I thought most of all of those who, like our river, met with almost
insurmountable obstacles but undismayed continued their march, buried in
obscurity perhaps but resolutely pushing their way to the sea, to their life’s

58
goal. I thought of men like Galileo, who continued his work long after his sight
had failed; of Beethoven, who composed his noblest and sublimest
symphonies when he could no longer hear a single note; of Stevenson, who
produced some of his greatest work after he was doomed to die of
tuberculosis; and of Cecil Rhodes, who was sent to Africa to die of an
incurable disease, but before he obeyed the summons carved out an Empire
in the Dark Continent. These resolute and sublime souls all reminded me of
what our river taught me-that if we cannot overcome obstacles, we can
undercome them.

Another lesson I learned from Bacong is found in the fact that the river was
not merely determined to flow just anywhere; it was determined to reach the
sea, to reach the great end. Many streams manage to surmount barriers they
meet along the way, but they come out of obstacles after much labor only to
end in a foul and stagnant marsh or lake. How like so many human lives! How
like so many people who, in the springtime of their youth and in the summer of
their early manhood, showed splendid heroism against frowning odds,
determined to overcome those hostile barriers, only in the autumn of their lives
to end in defeat, disgrace, and remorse.

On the other hand, think of other lives that, like our river, kept their way even
to the end of their course.

I believe it was on our way back from the hills that the lesson of faithfulness in
the performance of one’s duty was forcefully suggested to me. The truth
occurred to me that nature often fulfills her duty more faithfully than man
does his.

And what is the duty of a river? It is to furnish safe running water for plant and
fish and fowl and for man and beast. The river is not there just to flow on and

59
enjoy itself. The river must play its part in the processes of nature; to live, in
other words, for the rest of creation.

And so it should be with the life of man. It is not to be lived unto itself alone for
its own joy and satisfaction but for others in glad and devoted ministry. How
life and beauty and goodness, indeed, would perish from the world if man
and nature should fail in their duty! If our river had not remained faithful to its
duty, instead of a landscape picturesque with the varied green of the foliage
of shrubs and trees and gay with the voices of the birds singing and calling to
one another in the branches that April morning, there would have been
spread before us a wide expanse of desolate and lifeless land, fit only for the
wanderings of Cain.

For part of the ministering duty of a river is to flow on and on, otherwise be
foul and unfit for use. There is music in running water. Bacong, by continuing its
march to the sea, kept itself fit for the service of nature and man; and not only
it expanded its field of usefulness.

And does this not suggest that the river of man’s life should be likewise? For if
in the face of obstacles it lacks the strength of will to continue keeping itself fit
to serve and seeking new opportunities for service, it will ultimately become
useless to others.

As I marveled at the power of Bacong to push its way through such a

seemingly impassable barrier, I discerned the secret-a secret that has a
message for all of us. For Bacong was able to carry on, to continue its watery
pilgrimage and reach the immensity and sublimity of the sea, only because its
source is the vast and lofty mountains. Unless a stream draws its power from a
source of sufficient height and magnitude, it cannot do as our river did this
summer. It will not have the strength to cut its way through great obstacles

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and reach the sea at last. Here is one of the marvelous secrets of live, and
how many have missed it! Verily, if a man derives his strength and inspiration
from a low and feeble source, he will fail to ―arrive.‖ Unless a man draw his
power from some source of heavenly altitude, unless the stream of his life
issues from a never-failing source, unless, in other words, his soul is fed from
heights of infinite power, he may well fear that he will not reach the sea. But if
his spirit is impelled and nourished by an inexhaustible power he will in spite of
all obstructions, finish his course, if not in the glory of dazzling achievement, at
least in the nobility of a completed task faithfully done.

EXAMPLE # 3.

The Way We Live (1987)

Kathleen Jamie

Pass the tambourine, let me bash out praises

to the Lord God of movement, to Absolute
non-friction, flight, and the scarey side:
death by avalanche, birth by failed contraception.
Of chicken tandoori and reggae, loud, from tenements,
commitment, driving fast and unswerving
friendship. Of tee-shirts on pulleys, giros and Bombay,
barmen, dreaming waitresses with many fake-gold
bangles. Of airports, impulse, and waking to uncertainty,
to strip-lights, motorways, or that pantheon —
the mountains. To overdrafts and grafting
and the fit slow pulse of wipers as you’re
creeping over Rannoch, while the God of moorland
walks abroad with his entourage of freezing fog,
his bodyguard of snow.
Of endless gloaming in the North, of Asiatic swelter,
to launderettes, anecdotes, passions and exhaustion,
Final Demands and dead men, the skeletal grip
of government. To misery and elation; mixed,
the sod and caprice of landlords.
To the way it fits, the way it is, the way it seems
to be: let me bash out praises – pass the tambourine

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ACTIVITY NO. 1

PROSE TO POETRY. Write out your ideas for a POEM WITHOUT WORRYING
ABOUT FORMAT. Write freely about whatever emotion or topic you
would like to convey in your poem. Afterwards, follow these four steps
below to turn your prose into poetry. (Write everything in your activity
notebook) 30 POINTS

1. Decide what emotion or idea is most important for you to convey in

your poem, and keep that in mind as you make revisions.
2. Cut the word count by at least half by eliminating unneeded words
and phrases. Highlight the most important words and phrases that
you want to keep and delete the rest.
3. Highlight what you think is the most important phrase, and make it
your title.
4. Rearrange the remaining words and phrases in a way that helps you
convey your idea. Consider starting and ending all lines with a noun,
adjective, or verb.

ACTIVITY NO. 2

BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Write a biography of someone closest to

you and also make an autobiography. (30 points)

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ACTIVITY NO. 3

Search a short story that you like and create a poem out of it. You can
have any number of stanzas that you want.

CRITERIA: Relevance to the Story- 20 Diction-15

Content- 25 = 60 points

ACTIVITY NO. 4

Search a poem that you like and create a short story out of it. You can
have any form of story that you want.

CRITERIA: Relevance to the Poem- 15 Diction-10

Content- 25 Coherence- 10 = 60 points

ACTIVITY NO. 5

HONESTY. Create your own five (5) riddles and one legend story.

CRITERIA: Originality – 20 Content- 25

Diction- 15 = 60 points

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ACTIVITY NO. 6

Search one short story from the literature under U.S Colonialism. Write
the title and provide the information asked below.

Title: _______________
Moral Lesson: ________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
Reflection: ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
Application in your life: _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

ACTIVITY NO. 7

Search one short story from the literature under the Republic. Write the
title and provide the information asked below.

Title: _______________
Moral Lesson: ________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
Reflection: ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
Application in your life: _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

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ACTIVITY NO. 8

Search one short story from the literature after EDSA up to the present.
Write the title and provide the information asked below.

Title: _______________
Moral Lesson: ________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
Reflection: ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
___________________________________________
Application in your life: _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

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References:

 https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-way-we-live/
 https://pdfslide.net/education/philippine-literature-after-edsa-
55d6c77572bb4.html

 https://www.roningallery.com/education/a-closer-look-the-yugao-
chapter-from-the-tale-of-
genji/#:~:text=Genji%20called%20her%20Yugao%20(evening,grew%20ar
ound%20her%20dilapidated%20house.&text=After%20they%20consumm
ate%20their%20love,days%20following%20this%20devastating%20loss.
 https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/the-story-of-savitri-satyavan-from-the-
mahabharata
 https://allpoetry.com/Unending-Love
 http://rvwl-ahardyns.blogspot.com/2005/06/summary-of-tribal-
scars.html
 https://media-openideo-rwd.oiengine.com/attachments/38d82937-
5a7d-4f64-a3b5-182f16757632.pdf
 http://coachcenglish.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/3/7/13371658/half_a_d
ay.pdf
 http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/mansfield/garden/ball.html
 http://georama.com.au/ChasAdlard/summer.html

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