Egbalic, Eunis Carriz A.

Written Report. March 22, 2017

Title of the Text: Ako Ang Daigdig

Year Published: 1955

Background of the Author:

Poet, essayist and fictionist Alejandro G. Abadilla (a.k.a. AGA) was born in Salinas, Rosario,
Cavite, on March 10, 1906. Finishing elementary school at Sapa Barrio School and high school
in Cavite, he went abroad where he worked in a small print shop in Seattle. There he edited the
Filipino section of the Philippine Digest , became managing editor of the Philippine-American
Review , and established the Kapisanang Balagtas which aimed "to develop the Tagalog
language." Back in the Philippines, he earned a BA in Philosophy from the University of Santo
Tomas in 1931. Until 1934, he served as municipal councilor of Salinas, after which he made a
living selling insurance for the Philippine-American Life Insurance. He had eight children with
wife Cristina Zingalava. He passed away on August 26, 1969.

Called the "father of modern Tagalog poetry" by the critic Pedro Ricarte, Abadilla challenged the
established literature's excessive romanticism and emphasis on rime and meter. He helped found
the Kapisanang Panitikan in 1935, editing a magazine called Panitikan to propagate the group's
tenets of rebelling against stagnant art and of elevating the quality of Tagalog literature.

Abadilla upheld iconoclasm and rebellion against tradition in his writing. He exploded into the
literary scene with Ako ang Daigdig at Iba Pang Tula ( 1955), and Piniling mga Tula ni
AGA (1965). In his two editions of Tanagabadilla (1964, 1965), he re-imagined the traditional
octosyllabic quatrain of the tanaga . His novels include Sing-ganda ng Buhay (1947) and the
controversial Pagkamulat ni Magdalena (1958). As critic, he edited Parnasong Tagalog, where
he collected for the first time in one book the major poems of Tagalog poets from the 1800s to
the 1940s, and Mga Kuwentong Ginto (1936), with Clodualdo del Mundo Sr., Ang Maikling
Kathang Tagalog (1954), with Federico Sebastian and A. D. G. Mariano, and Maikling Katha ng
20 Pangunahing Awtor (1957), with Ponciano B. P. Pineda, anthologies on the art of the short
story.

Summary of the text: Filipino Version

I ako
ako angdaigdig
angdaigdig angtula
ako ako
angtula angdaigdig
 ng tula ako
angtula angbuhay
ng daigdig nawalanghanggan
ako ako
angwalangmaliwnaako angdamdamin
angwalangkamatayangako anglarawan
angtula ng daigdig angbuhay
damdamin
II larawan
ako buhay
angdaigdig ng tula tula
ako ako
angtula ng daigdig
ako IV
angmalayangako ako
matapatsasarili angdaigdig
saakingdaigdig satula
ng tula ako
ako angdaigdig
angtula ng tula
sadaigdig ako
ako angdaigdig
angdaigdig ako
ng tula angtula
ako daigdig
tula
III ako
ako
angdamdaming
malaya
ako
anglarawang
buhay

English Version: the poem

I of the world
i i
am the world am the i which is unending
i the i which is undying
am the poem the poem of the world
i
am the world
the poem II
i i
am the world am the world of the poem
of the poem
 i i
am the poem of the world am the life
i without end
am the i which is free i
true to my self am the feeling
to my world the image
of the poem the life
i feeling
am the poem image
of the world life
i poem
am the poem i
in the world
i IV
am the world i
of the poem am the world
i in the poem
i
III am the poem
i in the world
am the feeling i
that is free am the world
i i
am the image am the poem
that lives world
poem
i
Analysis:
How does the text reflect the lives of the Filipinos during the time that it was published?

Alejandro Abadilla was committed to the preservation of authentic Tagalog literature within a
milieu of cultural conversion during the American Period. Re-envisioning form for the modern
age of Filipino poetry was not supposed to incite a deviation from the national language Tagalog
towards the adoption of American English. And more importantly, modernization was not
supposed to mean a metamorphosis of Filipino-Tagalog literature into Filipino-American
literature.

During the American Period, the use of English as the official language of instruction introduced
Filipinos to Anglo-American modes of thought and culture that would be embedded not only in
the literature produced but also in the psyche of the countrys educated class. As a direct result of
the American colonization of the country, there was a growth in Filipino literature written in
English and inescapably imitative of American models of writing. In response to this concerning
literary and cultural metamorphosis, Abadilla founded Kapisanang Balagtas, an organization that
sought to promote the Tagalog language and support the blossoming of Tagalog literature.