LESSON 1

 It is both to the advantage and detriment of Bikolanos that a good number of them are multilingual and are
normally proficient not only in Bikol, their regional language, but also in English and Filipino.
 Prominent Bikolano writers:
 Ricky Lee (screenwriter)
 Marne Kilates (poet)
 It is sad that there are very few Pre-Hispanic Bikol works that had been collected and published.
 There are still some proverbs, sayings, and riddles that have remained in use, such as “An matakot sa Doron/
Daing aanihon” or “Those afraid of locusts/ Will not harvest anything.”
 Tigsikan - a game of creating witty, versified (in verse) extemporaneous toasts during a round of drinking.
 Bikol writers have adopted forms of literature for their own enjoyment.
 Comedia and Zarzuela had been the main source of entertainment in the 1800s and early 1900s.
 The production of fiction and poems grew as there were Bikol-based publications.

1960
 The last Bikol magazine stopped production.
 Production of other literary forms slowed, but did not completely stopped.

Trackback: On Mayon Volcano

 Known for its nearly perfect shape
 One of the most active volcanoes in the world and it erupts regularly
 Despite the constant threat of danger, the volcano remains one of the most popular tourist destination in the
Philippines. Like many locations in the Philippines, Mt. Mayon has its fascinating legend which tells the story of
its creation.
 The Legend of Daragang Magayon is a romantic and exciting story about how the volcano came to be.

A Volcanic Poet: Kristian Sendon Corde

 Widely described as the enfant terrible of Bikol
 Enfant terrible – controversial, for being innovative and questioning
 A Palanca awardee for his poetry, fiction, and essay
 A well-anthologized poet
 Published collections of his own, such as
 Canticos: Apat na Boses (UST Publishing House, 2013)
 Labi (Ateneo de Manila Press, 2013)
 Also a filmmaker, Augustia, 2013
 Serves as an editor:
 The Naga We Know; Sagurong
 Assistant professor at the Ateneo de Naga University
 Writes a column in the Bikol Mail
 An active advocate for the growth of Bikol literature
 Not only in terms of the form flourishing in number, but also in terms of it growing beyond its current
traditions.
Achievements
 National Commission on Culture and the Arts Writer’s Prize for Bikol Poetry in 2007
 6th Madrigal Gonzales First Book Award
 Maningning Miclat Poetry Prize in Filipino in 2009
 Primeo Tomas Arejola Literary Prize
 Homelife Poetry Contest
LESSON 2
Oppression of the less privileged by the elites
Oppression of gender by the patriarchal society

PHILIPPINES: A HISTORY OF COLONIALISM AND OPPRESSION

 A formal colony of Spain until 1899
 A colony of US until the second World War.
 Suffered in a semi-colonial domination from the Japanese
 Marcos’ Dictatorship

Vocabulary
1. Oppressive - unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate group.
2. Kleptocrat - a ruler who uses political power to steal his or her country's resources.
3. Tyrant - a cruel and oppressive ruler.
4. Regime - a government, especially an authoritarian one.
5. Anthology - a published collection of poems or other pieces of writing.
Examples :
 "an oppressive dictatorship"
 "the tyrant was deposed by popular demonstrations"
 "an anthology of European poetry"

Marcos Era
 Was seen as one of the most oppressive periods in Philippine history.
 This is the best time in Philippine history.
 He ruled as dictator under martial law from 1972 until 1981.

FERDINAND EMMANUEL EDRALIN MARCOS, SR.

 a Filipino politician and kleptocrat
 who was President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986.
 While his regime started an unprecedented number of infrastructure projects and monuments (known
colloquially as an "edifice complex" and at great taxpayer cost) were constructed,
 became infamous for his corruption, extravagance and brutality.
 President Ferdinand Marcos’ declaration of Martial Law, and the arrest and imprisonment of many writers in
the country.

DRAMATIC SITUATION - Combination of setting, characters, and action in a poem which is supposed to engage the
reader.
PERSONA - Speaker, or teller of the poem; rarely the poet himself or herself.
CANON - refers to the collection of words determined by a society to have significant value and importance.
ALLEGORICAL/ALLEGORY - refers to symbolic representations of truth or generalizations about human existence.

 Jose Rizal’s Classic

 Hermenegildo Flores’ “Hibik ng Pilipinas sa Inang Bayan,”
 Marcelo H. Del Pilar’s “Sagot ng Espanya sa Habik ng Pilipinas
 Aurelio Tolentino’s “Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas”
 Jose Corazon de Jesus’s “Sa Dakong Silangan”

Dramatic Situation and the Persona

 Our poets have used the subject of oppression as a beginning, creating dramatic situations that lead us to a
greater understanding of the issue at hand and how these affect our lives. Poems present these dramatic
situations via a speaker in the poem, or a persona.
  The persona in the poem is usually not the poet but is rather a character or a mask which the poet uses his/her
“voice” in the poem.

Cirilo F. Bautista
 A National Artist for Literature.
 Philippine’s most awarded and most respected writer.
 AB Literature Degree in UST
 MA Literature Degree in St. Louis University
 Doctor of Arts in Language and Literature from DLSU
Awards:
 Carlos Palanca Memorial awards for essay and poetry both in English and Filipino.
 Philippines Free Press Awards for fiction.
 The Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Award.
 The Gawad Balagtas from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat ng Pilipinas.
 Pablo Roman Prize

CANON AND REPRESNTATIVE WRITERS

 Canon is determined by various institutions seen as capable of deciding which works carry value or not.
 Marcos tried to skew or twist the Canon to favor him and his views by controlling these institutions and the
people in them.
 he works of writers such as Bautista are recognized as important , and thus are seen as canonical, or belonging
to a collection of works considered to be valuable to Philippine society.

COMPREHENSION CHECK
What figure of speech was utilized in the first 4 lines of the poem?
 A country without miracles sits heavy on the map, thinking of banana trees rotting in the sunlight. –
PERSONIFCATION
What has happened to hope in the poem in lines 5-10?
 The man who watches over it has commandeered all hopes, placed them in a sack, and tied its loose end. He
goes around carrying it on his back.
 All hopes were gone. People’s hopes were robbed from them.
What are the ‘feathers’ discussed in the poem supposed to be a metaphor of?
 When asked what is inside, he says, “Just a handful of feathers, just a handful of feathers.”
 The feather represents the people’s hopes and aspirations. The life that was robbed from them.
“You kneel on parched earth and pray for rice.” What does this imply about the people in the poem?
 It is like waiting for miracle to happen. Because what was said next waS “Only the wind hears your useless
words.”

LESSON 3
Mount Pinatubo
• The eruption of Mount Pinatubo was recorded as the 2nd largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century, and the
largest eruption to affect a densely populated area.
• Ash fall affected almost the entire Luzon. It even reached Malaysia and Vietnam.
• Typhoon Yunya made it worse because it brought with it heavy rains and strong winds.
• At first there were earthquakes, small explosions and emissions of steam and minor ash. The earthquakes and
emissions continued and increased. After more than 2 months of increasing activity, strong explosions
culminated in one of the largest eruptions of this century. During more than 15 hours, volcanic ash plumes went
straight up to 30 km altitude into the sky. The ash plumes spread out in the air in the days after the first
explosions. Within ten days, the cloud formed a nearly continuous band that stretched 11.000 kilometers from
Southeast Asia to Central Africa!
 • The violent explosion on the 15th of June in 1991 broke away a big part of the top of the Pinatubo*. The summit
of the volcano collapsed into the under laying magma chamber.

WHO ARE REGIONAL WRITERS? WHAT ARE REGIONAL LITERATURES?

• Basically, regional writers are very clear about their place of origin, and these origins can be easily seen in their
works. In every piece they write, they must contend with the ever more dominant national writing centered in
Manila.
• Perhaps one of the most struggling regional literature is the Pampanga Literature, since they were the first to
befriend the Spaniards, thereby merging their cultures with the Spanish which became more popular than their
own literature.
• After the Americans came, their culture was also embraced by the Kapampangan.
• But the Kampanpangan lietrature seemed to fluorish again in the early twentieth century, but would fade
because their publications never seemed to take hold.
• Wigley sought to revitalize it by writing new region literature.

Pampanga Literature
• Writers are struggling
• Kapampangan culture became heavily influenced by the Spaniards
• Created a literary landscape that used the influences of Spain and America as well as the traditional Pampango

John Jack Wigley

• Administrator and Associate Professor at the University of Santo Tomas
• Studied Ph.D. in Literature in UST
• Born in Angeles City
• Deputy Director of the UST Publishing House
• Loves poetry when he was young.
• Was inspired to write nonfiction writing by a dear friend, who told him he had “a natural gift of story telling”.
• Other works : Falling in to the Manhole, Philippine Literature: Texts, Themes, Approaches.

Essay
• Essay is a short piece of writing of a particular subject.
• The essay can be pragmatic or can be more expressive. If done in a manner that tries to elevate its form beyond
just being “a short piece of writing”, then the essay becomes literary, or something that is related to literature.
• In regional literature, there is a tension of being regional and yet be literary in the sense of being recognized.
• The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo became an inspiration for John Wigley's essay.

Style or Substance?
• The expression “style or substance” implies a shallowness or a lack of depth in whatever is being described, we
need to realize that style is always present. The question that is more important is whether the style lends
anything to the “substance,” or material, being styled.
• In Wigle's essay, he uses a lot of humor not to emphasize emotion but actually do the opposite. He uses the
tone as a way of defamiliarizing the reader, enabling the reader to see the events in a different, and slightly
more distant, light.