World Englishes, Vol. 5 , No. 113, pp. 163-176, 1986. 0883-2919/86 $3.00+0.

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Printed in Great Britain. 0 1987 Pergamon Journals Ltd.

English and Tagalog in Philippine literature: a study of literary

bilingualism
ISAGANI R. CRUZ*

ABSTRACT:Attacks on Philippine literature in English have come from left-wing intellectuals, who
see the English language as a tool of American neo-colonialism, and literary historians, who see
the 80-year-old literature as insignificant in the context of five centuries of Philippine writing in
various vernacular languages. Despite these attacks, Filipino creative writers have continued to write
in the English language, even during the last 20 years when the nationalist campaign against English
was at its height. Irbnically, even those who strongly advocate the sole use of Tagalog (or Tagalog-
based Pilipino) and, therefore, the rejection of a foreign language, as a medium of creative expression
have written extensively in English. Several major Filipino writers today write in both English and
Tagalog. Some write in both English and other vernacular languages. These bilingual writers belong
to a long line of Filipinos who wrote in both their first and their second languages. Because of
the large number of individual literary pieces that can be said to shed light on the phenomenon
of bilingualism in creative writing, it is not possible at this time to do a comprehensive survey of
writing done by bilingual or multilingual writers. It is more manageable to focus on the poetry
of representative writers. Three modern Filipino writers who have published books of poetry in
both English and Tagalog can be taken as representative: Cirilo F. Bautista, Edgar B. Maranan
and Epifanio San Juan, Jr. Established methods of literary criticism reveal that Filipino writers
use English for two main reasons: to capture certain realities not within the lexical capabilities of
Tagalog, and to exploit the musical qualities of the foreign language. On the other hand, they use
Tagalog primarily to capture nationalist realities. In broad terms, it may be said that English is
used primarily to enhance form and Tagalog to enhance content. Because of the international
character of English, poetry in English tends to import not only the words of the language, but
also literary trends identified with the language. In a sense, then, poetry in English is more ‘Western’
than poetry in Tagalog. On the other hand, because of the ability of Tagalog to express nuances
of meaning, especially in the areas of Filipino philosophy, psychology and sociology, poetry in
Tagalog tends to be more homologous to Philippine society.

INTRODUCTION
The English language came to the Philippines with the invasion of the islands by American
imperialists in 1898. Philippine writing in English is, thus, hardly 80 years old, its first
recognizable literary texts having been Justo Juliano’s poem ‘Sursum Corda’ (1907) and
Zoilo M. Galang’s novel A Chifd of Sorrow (1921). The first critically acknowledged
successful Philippine literary text in English, Paz Marquez Benitez’s short story ‘Dead Stars’
(1925), came even later.
Nevertheless, although it is still young by the standards of literary history, Philippine
literature in English has come under heavy attack for being too old. Not willing to allow
this literature to survive the way minority literary traditions (such as the darangen in classical
Maranao) survive even after the language dies outside the literature, or to die a natural
death in the same manner that the earlier colonial tradition of Philippine literature in Spanish
slowly disappeared when Spain was ousted as the colonial power in the islands, detractors
of Philippine writing in English have been calling for a conscious campaign to kill the English
language as a medium of literary expression in the country. Pointing to the renewed vigor

;Department of Language and Literature, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines.

163
164 Isagani R. Cruz

of writing in the vernacular languages, particulady Tagalog-based Pilipino, these critics

urge Filipino writers deliberately to abandon English as a medium of creative expression.
The dean of Philippine critics, Bienvenido Lumbera, for example, in his highly influential
‘Towards a revised history of Philippine literature’ (1976), identifies the choice of language
as one of the distinguishing characteristics of the nationalist movement in Philippine
literature. He says (Lumbera, 1984: 88):
..
During the period between 1946 and 1975, . since the thrust of the nationalist resurgence in literature
was towards greater communicativeness, fewer and fewer new writers were opting for English when they
had a choice between English and Tagalog. Tagalog was the medium that allowed writers to reach the
masses with the message of nationalism.
Lumbera repeats this view more clearly and more prescriptively in the bestselling anthology
he edited with his wife Cynthia Nograles Lumbera:
Among new writers, fewer and fewer were opting for English when they could afford to choose between
English and Tagalog. Pilipino today is no longer a sentimental choice; it is a necessary choice because
it is the language that allows writers to communicatewith the masses who, at the close of the 1970’s, were
the audience for whom nationalist writers were writing (Lumbera, 1982: 252).
The theory behind the critical belief that the choice of language of expression manifests
a writer’s social consciousness or lack of it derives from Renato Constantino’s widely-quoted
essay ‘The miseducation of the Filipino’ (1966). In that essay, historian and philosopher
Constantino accuses the early American teachers-popularly known as Thomasites, from
Thomas, the name of the ship that carried them to the Philippines-of using English as
a way to disorient the minds of young Filipinos, to make them subservient to American
interests. By implication, the use of English in Philippine literature can be seen as a means
of inflicting an inferiority complex on Filipino writers who are, after all, unlike American
writers, not native speakers of the language. Because American writers are better in the
language than Filipino writers, the reasoning goes, American writers are thus perceived
as being better as writers. As better writers, American writers are then deemed worthy of
adulation by Filipino writers. In this sense, then, the English language is seen as a tool
of American neocolonialism in the field of literature.
A recent anthology by a senior Filipino critic, Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, a staunch
defender of writing in English, shows that even its champions are now on the defensive:
There exist in the country today two groups of literary critics and writers. One group insists on encouraging
more cultural interaction among Asian countries for the purpose of gradually shedding off all ‘isms’ of
Western provenance. It upholds the irrelevance of English as a literary medium since it is not generally
understood by the majority but only by a small Westernized elite who are alienated from the masses. This
alien literature, it insists, cannot serve the purpose of the New Society since it cannot instill traditional
values and beliefs. It is elitist literature written by a select group for a select audience, usually from the
universities (1986: 264-265).
Dimalanta’s subsequent defense of English writing accepts the premises of the detractors:
The other group believes that Philippine literature will continue to seek fulfilment within a Western
framework. They, therefore, do not mind writing in English (1986: 265).
The most direct rejection of Philippine writing in English can be found among the traditional
or ‘vulgar’Marxist critics. The key Marxist document in Philippine literary criticism is Jose
Ma. Sison’s ‘Message to PAKSA on the tasks of cadres in the cultural field’ (1971). Quoting
liberally from Mao Zedong’s ‘Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art’ (1942), Sison
draws the conclusion that Filipino writers must exclusively use vernacular languages:
There should be no more debate concerning what national language to use. We are all committed to using
the language of the masses, the language that can be understood throughout the country. It is Pilipino.
Enrich this developing language with proletarian revolutionary literature. We must recognize at the same
time that the local languages are also the languages of the masses and these must also be enriched with
proletarian revolutionary literature rather than put aside in our thinking (Cruz, 1985: 274).
 English and Tagalog in Philippine literature 165

Not all those who attack Philippine literature in English, however, see it in neo-
colonial terms, Literary historians who trace literary writing in the country back to the
pre-Islamic tenth century realize that the 80-year-old literature in English is insignificant
in the context of 11 centuries of indigenous literature. Even if only the few heavily studied
vernacular literatures are taken into consideration, Philippine literature can be said to be
at least five centuries old, still extremely long for the young literature in English to make
any kind of major difference in themes, movements or traditions.
In his history of the Philippine novel, for instance, R e d B. Mojares explicitly
repeats the familiar charge that the English language alienates the writer from his
people:
There is however a weak side to the English writer’s favored position. His language and education put
him in intimate contact with modern literatures but they also had a distancing effect insofar as his relations
with native realities and the native audience were concerned (1983: 353).
But Mojares’ real attack on writing in English is more subtle. By showing that the
Philippine novel derives from a tradition traceable to precolonial folk epics in various
regions, and by discussing many more novels written in Tagalog, Cebuano, Spanish, Ilocano
and Hiligaynon than novels written in English, Mojares proves in practice, if not in
theory, that the mainstream of Philippine literature is written in languages other than
English. Thus, although Mojares believes that writing in English is ‘a significant branch
of Philippine literature, one even more productive than native writing in Spanish’ (1983:
337), his placing the better known English novels outside the scope of his work-which
covers only the periods before 1940-effectively betrays his attitude and belittles writing
in English.
Despite these attacks, however, Filipino creative writers have continued to write
in the English language, even during the last 20 years when the nationalist campaign against
English was at its height. Lumbera and Mojares both use English not only to write criticism,
but to write creative texts. Lumbera is a poet in English and Mojares writes English short
stories. Even Constantino himself, not a creative writer, writes his essays in English. Perhaps
most dramatic of the contrasts between what critics preach and what they practice is
Sison’s use of English not only for the PAKSA essay, but for his own creative work. All
of the poems in his recent anthology Prison and Beyond: Selected Poems, 1958-1983 (1984)
are in English.
Whether or not there was indeed a drop in the 1960s in the number of writers
writing in English because of the nationalist movement, the observation is indisputable
that, since the 1960s, writing in English has become much more vigorous than in the 1950s
or earlier. We need only to point to the continuing existence of a poetry magazine in English
named Caracoa, the recent trend among Sunday supplements of daily newspapers to feature
short stories and poems in English, and the large number of books in English published
by New Day Publishers to be convinced that, indeed, writing in English is far from dead.
At the same time, however, the critical attacks on English as a medium of creative
expression have left their mark on the consciousness of writers. Although there are
still major writers who write exclusively in English, it is rare to find any of them denying
that writing in the vernacular languages would be much more ‘relevant’ or less ‘alienated’.
Nick Joaquin, F. Sionil Jose and Mig Alvarez Enriquez-writers well known for their
advocacy of English-have all been heard in public to remark that, if only they could,
they would write in vernacular languages. Writing in English today is seen as a matter of
competence in the language, rather than as an ideological choice. In other words, the
166 Isagani R. Cruz

standard defense for writing in English is that theThoice is made for the writer, rather
than by the writer.

THE BILINGUAL WRITERS

Writers in English who have the ability to write in one or more vernacular languages
inevitably do so. Several major Filipino writers today, for example, write in both English
and Tagalog. Probably the most accomplished are Cirilo F. Bautista, Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr,
Jose F. Lacaba, Marra PI. Lanot, Edgar B. Maranan, Soledad S. Reyes, Alfrredo Navarro
Salanga, Epifanio San Juan, Jr, Rolando S . Tinio and Nicanor G. Tiongson. We
can add to the list the late Emmanuel Lacaba and critic Bienvenido Lumbera.’ Some
writers in English, such as Albert Casuga, Leoncio Deriada, Simeon Dumdum, Jr, Federico
Licsi Espino, Melanie Diaz Firmalino, Alejandrino Hufana and Lina Espina Moore, write
in other vernacular languages.z
These bilingual writers belong to a long line of Filipinos who wrote in both their
first and their second languages. The first known Filipino ‘authors’ in the modern sense
of the word, in fact, if by that sense we mean persons who allowed themselves to be identified
as creators of a work, were bilingual writers. Fernando Bagongbanta is said to have written
and published works in both Spanish and Tagalog as early as 1606; he was soon followed
by Tomas Pinpin in 1610 with works in the same two languages.
Francisco Baltazar (1788-1862), Jose Rizal (1861-1892), and Aurelio Tolentino
(1869-1915) are the best-known of the Filipino bilingual writers. Baltazar, better known
by his penname, Balagtas, wrote a play in Spanish, a play in Tagalog, and an epic poem
in Tagalog. Rizal, reputed to have spoken over 20 languages, wrote and published works
in Tagalog, Spanish, French and English. His best-known works are the Spanish novels
Noii me tangere (1887) and El Filibusterismo (1891). Tolentino wrote plays and novels
in Spanish, Tagalog and Kampampangan. His best-known play, Kahupon, Nguyon at
Bukus (1903), was in Tagalog, although Kampampangan was his native language, and his
novel derived from the play Kuhupon, Ngayon at Bukas, had two texts, one in Tagalog
(1913), the other in Kapampangan (1914). Balagtas, Rizal and Tolentino were extremely
influential among writers. Balagtas and Rizal, in particular, are credited with having started
the Balagtas tradition and the Rizal tradition, respectively, the only two traditions in
Philippine literary history [see Lumbera (1984: 20)].
Today, the examples of Balagtas, Rizal and Tolentino are still followed by Filipino writers.
There are, of course, several major writers who write in only one language, usually their
native language, and in the case of bilinguals, in the language in which they are more
comfortable (their dominant language). But many of the major Filipino writers today clearly
follow Balagtas and Rizal not only in terms of literary themes and techniques, but in terms
of the use of more than one literary language. Because of the large number of individual
literary pieces, however, that can be said to shed light on the phenomenon of bilingualism
in creative writing, it is not possible at this time to do an adequate survey of writing done
by bilingual or multilingual writers. There is still a lack of standard bibliographies in the
study of Philippine literature. That lack is set to be remedied by the project called ‘A Literary
History of the Philippines’ or LIHIP, planned and currently being implemented by the
Department of Literature of De La Salle University. For purposes of this discussion,
therefore, I shall restrict myself to relatively recent works and to clearly important writers.
 English and Tagalog in Philippine literature 167

Three modern Filipino writers who have published books of poetry in both English and
Tagalog can be taken as representative.
Edgar B. Maranan published two books sirnultanemsly, one in English, Agon: Poems (1983),
the other in Tagalog, Alub: Mgu Tulu (1983). A winner of several Palanca and Cultural Center
of the Philippines (CCP) awards for poetry, short story, and drama, he belongs to the group
of young writers who were imprisoned for their writings by the Marcos government during
martial law.
Epifanio San Juan, Jr has published two books in Tagalog, 1 Muyo 1971, at ibupang
tulu (1972) and Kung Zkuw uy Znaupi, Bakit Hindi Ka Mugbulikwas? Kung Zkuw uy
Inaalipin, Bumangon Ku at Lumubun! (1984), and several books in English, among which
are Godkissing Carrion: Selected Poems, 1954- 1964 (1964) and The Ashes of Pedro A bad
Suntos and otherpoems (1985). He belongs to the group of Filipino writers who have decided
to live outside, but Who, at the same time, have continued to publish books within the
Philippines.
Cirilo F. Bautista has published two books of his projected epic trilogy in English, The
Archipelago (1970) and Telex Moon (1981), two other books in English, The Cave and
Other Poems (1968) and Charts (1973), and a book in Tagalog, Suguf ng Sulitu (1986).
He was cited as the third top poet in the Philippines in a recent reputation study (Gruenberg,
1985: 86). As writer-in-residence at De La Salle University and panelist in various writers’
workshops, he has mentored a generation of young writers in both English and Pilipino.
As a founding member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council which publishes Curucou,
he helps set trends in the writing of poetry.

WHY ENGLISH?
If we apply established methods of literary criticism, such as New Critical or formalistic
close reading, to the poems in the books of Maranan, San Juan and Bautista, we will
discover that Filipino writers use English for two main reasons: to capture certain realities
not within the lexical (taken as poetic diction) capabilities of Tagalog, and to exploit the
musical qualities of the foreign language.
Take, for instance, the English poems of Maranan. The English book Agon deals with
such non-Filipino realities as the plague, the humpback whale, black holes, the New York
subway, and an American hippie. The poems tend to be set outside the Philippines and
to reflect the poet’s experience of travelling abroad. The titles show the poet’s desire to
capture realities outside the domain of Tagalog, for example, ‘From A Kwangju Diary’,
‘Greyhound Days: Recollections Of An Atlantic Countryside In Winterspring 62/63’, and
‘View From the Crown of the Statue of Liberty’.
More than the settings and the subject-matter, however, is the need for words that express
realities not within the common experience of Tagalog speakers. Even when the poet
describes something happening in the Philippines, for example, the nuance he finds is
English-based. Take ‘Paco Park’:
Something, I imagine, can be said about parks
Or the geometry of vaults and cloistered benches:
On wings of hymns, most private flairs (1983a: 68).
Cloistered in ‘cloistered benches’ is an idea not found in Tagalog. Geometry is also a
Western branch of science and the word has no equivalent in Tagalog. The poet, searching
168 Isagani R. Cruz

for the precise word to say what he means, has no choice here but to use English. Rather
than say:
Something, I imagine, can be said about parks
in Tagalog-and that is certainly possible, since he can write a line such as:
Sa palagay ko’y may masasabi tungkol sa mga liwasan
-and then be forced to shift to English (or to use English borrowings) in the next line,
the poet decides to write the entire stanza, and the entire poem, in English.
In addition, the poet benefits from the musical quality of English words. In the lines
from ‘Paco Park’, the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, though not exactly
forming iambs, perceptively defines a rhythm. Tagalog words tend to be less regularly
stressed, because of a wide variety of syllable count per word, and it is much more difficult,
though not impossible, to maintain a regular stress-based meter in Tagalog. In fact, the
genres of Tagalog poetry are determined by syllable count, rather than stress count, a sign
that musical quality is not easy to achieve in the language.
Even in lines where Tagalog would have achieved the same effect and, perhaps, even
surpassed the musical quality of English, Maranan quickly shifts to subject-matter not
encompassed by ordinary Tagalog experience. Take the opening lines of ‘Canto 1’ of the
cycle ‘5 Cantos for a Messiah Anthology’:
I, Tamblot, babaylan of Bohol, have called
Upon these wretches thralled to saurian gods
Who sank the fruited altars of our Diwata (1983a: 26).
The first line could very well read better in Tagalog, say:
Ako, si Tamblot, babaylan ng Bohol, ay tumawag
but the next two lines would not be possible in Tagalog. The concepts behind the words
wretches, thralled and saurian are non-Tagalog. It is interesting here that the poet chooses
to use a loan word from Tagalog-diwuta-to indicate the god being invoked by the
babaylan or priestess. Used as a proper noun in English, the Tagalog word diwata becomes
a name, although in Tagalog it is the generic name for a goddess. Here is a case where
the concept of a diwata, available in Tagalog but not in English-the diwata is not the
superpowerful, supernatural being that the English word goddess connotes, but a much
more human demigod-has to be borrowed from the native language of the poet and used
in a work in a second language.
The contrast between the English poems and the Tagalog poems of San Juan is similarly
dramatic. In his English poems, San Juan concentrates on formalistic experiments, rather
than content. In ‘A Vision’, for example, he plays not only with line length, but also with
rhyming English sounds:
A sporting fly crowns a cadaver in the marketplace
Lordly lonely fly
Quick! her enduring loveliness (1964: 26).
Like Maranan, San Juan’s subjects in his English poems demand the use of the English
language. Take, for instance, ‘Anatomy of Earthquakes’ (reprinted later as ‘Epitaph to
the Author’s Unpublished Manuscript: Treatise on Earthquakes’), a short four-line poem
we can quote in full:
Seize the seismograph, and your pulse registers;
Thus you cannot divide the mirage from the fact

And any such attempt rests on the fissures that connect

Since Logos equals Zero and Infinity (1964: 36; 1985: 30).
It is unnecessary to point out that the Tagalog language does not contain words equivalent
 English and Tagalog in Philippine literature 169

to seismograph, zero and infinity. In fact, the experience being explored in the poem, that
of the interlocking of personal experience with scientific phenomenon, is more properly
Western than Filipino.
Similarly, in such poems as ‘A Bawdy Tune’ (1964: 5)’ ‘Once Upon a Time’ (1964: a),
‘The Dying Need No Medicine, Only Those Who Stay Behind’ (1964: 24)’ and ‘Observations
from a Subway Entrance’ (1964: 37), San Juan deals with subjects that are not encompassed
by Tagalog vocabulary. The necessity for using English is perhaps clearest in ‘Under the
Sign of Darwin’, with lines like these:
How can you, glorious 0 punk, save yourself
when the dragon of the bomb snarls
and tears you apart into bits of last night’s cold cuts? (1964: 58).
Punk and cold cuts are realities only outside the Philippines, and the language of the
Filipinos has had no reason to include words for these realities.
San Juan’s formalistic experiments can be exemplified by ‘Litany’, which starts this way:
I shall be dead by sixty, for Christ’s sake
(Gotta do somethin’)
I shall be dead by fifty, for Christ’s sake
(Yah know wotta’s gud for yuh) (1985: 29).
or by the short poem ‘To the White Sepulchers who Censured the Poet for Alleged Obscenity
in His Student Days’, which we can quote in full:
Ho-ho, all you who wallow in ‘excremental whitened-
Factotums who know not what tropics of anatomy

Solomon’s slang refers to. I would not give you that chance
To come even a breath of an inch
Of Helen’s (obscene, maybe, as all mater’s) bottom . . . (1985: 30).
It can easily be seen that the wordplay works only in English and would be, if at all
possible, extremely difficult to recreate in Tagalog. In fact, in another poem, ‘Hail and
Farewell’, the English language cannot be removed from the poem itself:
Mayakovsky’s suicide
Possessed us like that tailing ‘s’
Of his name (1985: 45).
The typographical sign of the possessive case is crucial to the poem.
An experimenter like San Juan is Bautista, clearly the best Filipino poet today in terms
of mastery of English sounds. From his early ‘A Treatise on the Imagination: White Girl
Under White Umbrella’:
Umbrella umbrellum umbrellus
The possibilities are infinite
What I see I do not see
My voice is only garrulous (1968: 49).
to the mature passages of TelexMoon runs an unbroken line of experimentation with rhyme
and meter:
return
the retinue the King conceals in chambers

of gold it is cold! call the cutter of canes

to cure love’s leprosy with sugar it is
sovereign! (1981: 58).
Bautista is at his best with internal rhyme, as evidenced in line after line of the second
book of his trilogy:
The Sword of the Lord shall batter the land,
but the sheen shimmers merely from His hand (1981: 13).
170 Isagani R. Cruz

The English language has never found a more worthy Filipino master than this poet, whose
imagination is ruled by English parts of speech:
Beyond nothing, enwrapped in nothing,
The Verb acquires the necessity
Of guilt (1973: 31).
In one of his best short poems, ‘Takanawa Prince Hotel’, incorporated into The
Archipelago, Bautista uses the English language to evoke the quietude of a Japanese geisha:
There is not much between a temple and
An hotel: the same eye that arranges
Rocks in the garden is the slender hand
Upon this table, making bright changes
With the cutlery (1973: 46; cf. 1970: 43).
These three examples from the works of three representative poets show that English
is used primarily for two purposes: to capture realities not adequately portrayed in Tagalog,
and to exploit the music of English verse.

TWO IDENTITIES, TWO LANGUAGES

In general, then, it may be surmised that Filipino poets use English to speak about realities
that can be experienced even by non-Filipinos, and Tagalog to depict realities specific to
Philippine culture. An extra advantage of the use of the English language is its musicality,
a quality sacrificed by the poets if they want to exploit the nuances of meaning available
in Tagalog but not in English. Another way of expressing this thesis is that the use of English
derives from considerations of form in poetry, while the use of Tagalog derives from
considerations of content. Expressed in this way, our observations parallel those of critics
who charge that English poems tend to be ‘formalistic’ while Tagalog poems tend to be
‘relevant’ or ‘socially conscious’.
Three particular questions can be raised about the poet’s choice of langqage. First, what
happens if the poet experiments with form while using Tagalog? Does the language, usually
used primarily to deal with socially-conscious subject matter, hamper formalistic
consciousness?
Maranan, for example, experiments with a musical structure in ‘Ako’y di Mapalagay
habang Nakikinig sa Gintong Gitara ni Andres Segovia’. He starts with a five-line, italicized
‘PreIudyo’ and ends with a two-stanza ‘Fugue’. The lines, such as the title lines, are clearly
musical:
Ako’y di mapalagay
Habang nakikinig
Sa gintong gitara
Ni Andres Segovia (1983b: 83).
But at the end of the poem, almost without the poet knowing it and certainly without
warning, the social consciousness‘that we have associated with the use of Tagalog suddenly
bursts into the scene:
Aanhin ko ang plaka
Wala pa ngang ulam
Itong aking plato? (1983b: 83).
It is almost as though the language forces the experiment to fail.
San Juan’s attempts to use Tagalog to deal with non-Tagalog realities similarly come
to naught. Take, for instance, his poem on the Golden Gate Bridge, ‘Pagninilay ni Federico
Angel sa Harap ng Golden Gate Bridge sa San Francisco tungkol sa Balita na isang NPA
Gerilya ang Napuksa sa Dipamong, Echague, Isabela’. Despite the setting of the
 English and Tagalog in Philippine literature 171

poem in the United States, everything in the poem deals with the Tagalog reality of
murder in the hills. San Juan attempts to experiment with line length, in the manner of
English poetry, but the lines are cut only because of the experiment, not because of intrinsic
reasons. In other words, the line experiment fails, because the lines could all be put together
and the poem would still stand. For instance, the broken lines:
Umaambon noon
Sandaling interogasyon
ugong ng putok (1984: 32)
could very well be written as:
Umaambon noon, sandaling interogasyon, ugong ng putok
without loss of meaning or impact. The attempt to use an English form on a Tagalog poem
does not lead anywhere, except to our general impression that Tagalog poems focus on
content, and formal experimentation is usually left to English poems.
Of the poets who write in Tagalog, Bautista is probably the most conscious of form.
Even in his Tagalog poems, he never stops experimenting with poetic forms. A good example
is ‘Patalim, a poem about marriage. Here, Bautista uses the metaphor of a knife to describe
the way words wound lovers. The concluding couplet of the poem, however, betrays the
hold that language has on content:
Ganito kaming lagi sapagkat
labis ang pag-ibig namin sa isa’t isa (1986: 10).
The triteness of the words throws attention on the content: words are knives that kill.
In his poems that deal with foreign settings, Bautista is forced to borrow a number of words
from English, but the predominant Tagalog vocabulary keeps his verse on the level of social
protest. Take, for example, the ironic ‘Kung Paano Matatamo Ang Katahimikan Sa Mundo’:
Maya-maya’y nagdaang muli ang Negrong iyon
kaakbay ang dalawang Amerikanang puti,
blonde, at sa kagandaha’y walang kaparis.
Napatigil ang dyanitor sa pagwawalis.
Naisip ko, ‘Ganito pala ang racial prejudice’ (1986; 22).
The sudden shift to English while keeping the rhyme is, of course, typical of Bautista,
who likes to attempt difficult prosodic tricks. ‘Sa Desyerto’, another poem set in the United
States, starts off as a typical American ironic poem:
Heto yong desyerto sa Utah right?
but ends with a hint of protest:
at gumuhit sa aking guniguni
ang larawan ng tatlong anghel sa hardin
ng mga bungo (1986: 65).
Perhaps clearer is the sudden political insight taken from sightseeing abroad in ‘Paris: 30
Setyembere 1983’, written after the Ninoy Aquino murder:
Malungkot ako
sa tren buhat Lucerne, siya ring
lungkot na nadama ko marami nang taong
lumilipas sa Chicago, Vancouver, Taiwan,
at Roma, ngunit ngayon ay lalong mabigat
dahil alam ko na. Alam kong kalayaan
ay isang panaginip lang, na higit
na mahalaga ang kanin at .isda kaysa
katarungan o paninindigan (1986: 68).
A second question that can be raised about the choice of language is this: what happens
when a poet uses English to speak about social or political realities?
The failure of English to deal with social or political realities is clear in a poem such
172 Isagani R. Cruz

as Maranan’s ‘Voice from the Underpass: A Transcription Of Certain Quiapo Poets’, clearly
intended to be socially conscious. The sixth and last section of the poem attempts to paint
the hunger of beggars in Quiapo District in Manila:
Tonight, we shall battle
Our hunger pangs with sleep.
Tonight, we shall dream of
Holidays and brimming cans (1983a: 71).
Beggars, however, do not dream of holidays, and neither do the vast majority of
Manila’s lower- and middle-class residents, for whom everyday is a workday or,
for the unemployed, a job-hunting day. In fact, in Manila, where trash is thrown on the
pavements and not into cans, there are really no brimming cans. The two images are
clearly transplanted from Western culture into the slums of Quiapo, emasculating the social
message.
The protest is similarly betrayed by the language in the fourth section of the same poem:
There was, one noon, this half-naked man
With grimy phallus hung out of his pants:
A gargoyle at the foot of the bridge.
Without the honks about, he would have seemed
A monk in meditation in a distant clime.
He dangled it at passersby and a pissed-off
Policeman, unmoved by man’s decrees
On the qualifications of Human Freedom.
He was, decidedly, a nuisance, piquing out
Some old ladies, ruffling their habits.
Poverty’s two forlorn eyes, and a fiendish open fly (1983a: 70).
The Western flavor of the verse cannot be denied. The gargoyle and the ‘monk in meditation
in a distant clime’ are dead giveaways, but so are the policeman (Filipino policemen do
not bother about beggars) and the old ladies (there are no Filipino old ladies, only older
women who ply the streets as sidewalk vendors in very unlady-like fashion). The key to
the failure of the poetry, however, is in the trivialization of the social problem. The man
is disgusting only to old ladies and a policeman. The root of his poverty, namely, the political
structure of the society, is not hinted at in the poem.
Compare that poem with the Pieta of ‘Sa Tambakan, Malabon’:
Tao ba’ng nangaglisaw na katawan
Sa bihirang masilip na Baryo Tambakan?
Di ko mawari! Pinagtagning basahan ma’y
Walang maisaplot ang maamos na piislit,
Binabangaw pa’ng sugat sa galising puwit;
Buntis namang ina’y tapis na sako,
Sapin ng bunso’y kapilas na lamang
Ng kupas na sando (1938: 84).
The words, despite the end-rhymes, do not particularly form an identifiable
rhythmic pattern, but they are precise. The scene comes alive in front of our eyes, because
the language perfectly suits the emotion felt by the poet, helpless in the face of such poverty.
San Juan, whose political consciousness cannot be overestimated, ironically steps away from
his ideology when he uses English to deal with socially relevant issues. Take, for
instance, ‘On Ideology’. In this poem, he realizes that even comrades are susceptible to
temptations of the purse:
Money is reason; ergo, he who is wise
Quotes a bargained mystery.
Comrades, wolves doze and fatten
Between OUT very ribs (1964: 9).
 English and Tagalog in Philippine literature 173

Even his ‘Prospectus to a Projected Fat Volume on ‘The Achievement of Balagtas’ allows
personal and individualistic considerations to enter what, in Marxist theory, should be purely
communal or societal:
Let me cast my line in your stagnant pool,
And with one arm spawn a marine renascence (1964: 10; cf. 1985: 17).
Bautista’s forays into socially relevant subject matter in his English poems are not too
numerous. When he does attempt to become didactic, however, the result is usually below
his own poetic standards, Take, for example, the third section of ‘ThreeWays of Seeing Blood’,
entitled ‘To an Igorot Youth Dying of Starvation in a Garbage Dump in the Prosperous City
of Baguio’:
The stars won’t answer you even if you
Could speak-
They are dumb to betrayals of the bone,
The simplicity of yotu dying alone
Cannot make
Your speech assume urgency and be true (1%8: 38).
The poem, despite its title, quickly becomes non-specific as far as the issue is concerned.
As a result, the protest is lost in the desire to follow the formalistic potentials of the language.
The same tendency is found in the trilogy, clearly a major attempt by Bautista to speak
directly about historical reality. Yet, despite this intention, the triology succeeds primarily on
the level of prosody, not on the level of subject-matter. The following lines exemplify this
tendency:
& so this archipelago
Much that it has it has won
by default that is how it
lives inhabiting the lack
of sun & waterline waves
comb in their hair (1970: 51-52).
The formalistic use of the ampersand and of lower-caseletters detracts from the political mess-
age. In fact, the grandiose theme of the archipelago dissolves into romantic images of nature.
A third question that can be asked about the choice of language is this: what happens when
the same poet writes two poems about the subject-matter, one of the poems in English, the
other in Tagalog? Does the language make a difference?
Maranan has several twin poems or poems that seem to be free translations of each other
from English into Tagalog or vice versa. Take, for example, ‘To a Woman Poet Dying Immortal
(For Lorena)’ and ‘Tagulaylay kay Lorena, Makatang Yumao’y Walang Hanggan’. Both
poems start with lines establishing that Lorena Barros is a poet. The English poem quotes
lines from an English poem written by the revolutionary Lorena Barros in the mountains,
entitled ‘Yesterday I Had a Talk’ (National Democratic Front, 1982: 185); the Tagalog poem
starts with a separate verse stanza extolling the fallen poet. Both poems speak of Barros’ death
in the middle of the natural beauty that she loved so much. Both poems end with an image
of flowers as symbols of the reader’s commitment to follow her footsteps.
In the English poem, however, the month is January:
Rains poured in January:
They spirited away your blood
Into the roots of quiet bamboo, into
The headwaters of the lowland springs (1983a: 57).
In the Tagalog poem, the month is March:
Dumagsa pagkaraan ang ulan ng Marso,
Itinakas ang dagtang tumagas upang ito’y
Ilagak sa bukal na tungong kapatagan (1983b: 29).
174 Isagani R. Cruz

The difference in months may be attributed to the rhyme scene (Marso rhymes with ito) or
to the meter (January has two unstressed syllables more than March), but the prosodic
consideration is only part of the explanation. The images, while apparently similar, are not
exactly the same. The English lines speak directly of Lorena’s blood being carried by the rain
to the lowlands; the Tagalog lines describe the blood indirectly through a metaphor: the blood
is like a tree’s sap, alive and lifegiving. The difference in months is only a symptom, then,
of the real difference, which is a difference in conception: the Tagalog poem is much more
connotative than the English poem.
The key lines in both poems bear out this observation. The English poem says:
The earth must have felt wonder:
This warm body was slumped so nobly,
Clutching the clay of grass, a prophecy of reunion (1983a: 57).
The Tagalog poem similarly says:
Lupa kaya’y nagtaka? Kay-init ng katawan mo
Anong payapang nahandusay, yumakap sa damo,
Sa tinik at luwad ng pinithayang larangan (1983b: 29).
In English, the fallen poet merely clutches the grass, but, in Tagalog, she embraces it
(yurnakap). In fact, the description of the grass is fuller in Tagalog, reflecting the more
central place of grass in Tagalog culture than in American culture.
Similar observations can be made of Maranan’s other twin poems, such as ‘Tasaday’
(1983a: 9-10) and ‘Tasaday sa Gubat-Ulan’ (1983b: 55-57), ‘Otto Rene Castillo’ (1983a:
54-55) and ‘Otto Rene Castillo’ (1983b: 30-31), ‘Elegy for Stephen Biko’ (1983a: 56) and
‘Stephen Biko’ (1983b: 32-33), and ‘Early Lines for Poet Kim Chi Ha’ (1983a: 98) and
‘Ang Gutom, ayon sa Tatlong Makatang Asyano: 1. Ang Apdong Kataga’ (1983b: 58-59).
The twin poems ‘To a Woman Held Prisoner in Chile’ and ‘Mga Aso ng Chile’ are
particularly instructive. The English poem ends with these lines:
Brave flower of Santiago! The petals fall,
The bloodied sap courses into thistle arms:
Tomorrow, let the earth spring new flowers! 1983a: 37).
The Tagalog poem, on the other hand, ends:
0 bulaklak ng Santiago!
Pinigtal-pigtal ka man sa pangil ng berdugo,
Hayaan na munang dugo mo’y tumagos, dumilig,
Sa lupang magsisilang ng bulaklak na may tinik! (1983b: 63).
In the English poem, the new flowers are thistled only by accident; in the Tagalog poem
it is the thorns that define the flowers. These thorns, in the Tagalog poem, will do violence
to the state, unlike the flowers in the English poem which have a much more benign
connotation. The English poem, then, fails to correspond to the violent message of the
situation depicted, which is a most inhuman rape.
We have seen, then, that the English poems generally have a difficult time overcoming
the formalistic bias of the language when the poet is trying to say something directly
political. In effect, instead of the reality being uppermost in the poet’s mind, his
consciousness is filled with the centuries-old tradition of poetry in English. Because of the
international character of English, poetry in English tends to import not only the words
of the language, but also literary trends identified with the language. In a sense, then, poetry
in English is more ‘Western’ than poetry in Tagalog.
On the other hand, because of the ability of Tagalog to express nuances of meaning,
especially in the areas of Filipino philosophy, psychology and sociology, poetry in Tagalog
tends to be more homologous (or more ‘faithful’) to Philippine society. There is thus, less
 English and Tagalog in Philippine literature I75

of a direct influence by Tagalog literary movements on the work of bilingual poets and
more of spontaneous response to contemporary situations. In fact, it should not be hard
to prove, in another paper, that writers who write only in Tagalog (such as Virgilio S.
Almario) tend to exploit the musical characteristics of the language much more than bilingual
poets, while writers who write only in English (such as F. Sionil Jose) tend to have more
nationalistic content in their works.

CONCLUSION
Our exploratory study of bilingualism in literature reveals the need for similar and broader
studies. Similar studies should be made, for example, of Filipino writers who write in foreign
languages other than English and in vernacular languages other than Tagalog. Once the
LIHIP project of De La Salle University is finished, it should be possible to use the
computerized database to prepare a full bibliography of works written by bilingual writers.
A canon of such works can then be established. Such works can then be compared to works
by writers who write in only one literary language. The full extent and implications of literary
bilingualism in the Philippines may then be recognized and perhaps finally understood.

NOTES
1. Dalisay has received several Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature (the annual literary awards)
for both English and Tagalog works. He writes short stories and essays in English, plays and screenplays
in Tagalog. His Oldtimer and Other Stories (1984) shows that his command of English as a literary medium
leaves nothing to be desired.
Jose Lacaba’s two books, a book of poems in Tagalog, Mga kagila-gilalas na pakiki-pagsapalaran:
Mga tulang nahalungkat sa bukbuking baul (1979), and a book of essays in English, Days of Disquiet,
Nights of Rage: The First Quarter Storm & Related Events (1982), were both quickly sold out, attesting
to the popularity of this young writer. Also a screenwriter in Tagalog, Lacaba has won awards for his
writings in both languages.
Reyes is one of the leading Filipino critics today. Her Nobelang Tagalog, 1905-1975: Tradisyon at
Modernismo (1982), written in Tagalog, is the definitive study of Tagalog novels. Her Criticism as
Containment: ?,?bays on Popular Literature (1980), written in English, and published in portions in scholarly
journals, won a national award for criticism. Whether in Tagalog or in English, Reyes advocates a critical
theory derived from Pierre Macherey and other modern Marxist critics.
Salanga writes in several genres. His The Aglipay Question: Literary and Historicaf Studies on the Life
and Times of GregorioAglipay (1982) contains a prize-winning play in Tagalog and several essays in English.
His The Birthing on Hannibal Valdez (1984) is a novel in English. His latest book, Commentaries,
Meditations, Messages, A Parable, Cycles: Poems 1969-1979 (1985) is in English, but he has published
a number of short poems in Tagalog in magazines.
Tinio is widely acclaimed as one of the leading poets in both English and Tagalog. In literary magazines,
he sometimes publishes poems in two versions, one in English and another in Tagalog, and it is often
impossible to tell which one is the original and which one is the translation. Two of his best-known poems,
‘Postscript’ and Valediction sa Hillcrest’, use Taglish, the code-switchingvariety of Tagalog. He also writes
plays in both English and Tagalog.
Tiongson writes in Tagalog and criticism in both English and Tagalog. His first book, Kasaysayan at
Estetika ng Sinakulo at Ibang Dulang Panrelihiyon sa Malolos (1975), in Tagalog, is the definitive study
of the religious drama genre known as the sinakulo or passion play. His second book, also in Tagalog,
Kmaysyun ng Komedyasa Pilipinas, 1766-1982 (1982), is the first section of his definitive study of another
dramatic genre, the komedya or romantic drama. His play in Tagalog, Pilipinas Circa 1907 (1985), has
been published by the theater company that produced it, the Philippine Educational Theater Association
(PETA). He has published a number of essays in English, and has edited such texts (in English and Tagalog)
as The URIANAnthology 1970-1979 (1983) and The Politics of Culture: The Philippine Experience (1984).
In either Tagalog or English, his essays are widely quoted.
2. Casuga, for example, writes poems in both English and Ilocano, His Summer Suns (1963) contains fiction
in English. His Narra Poems and Others (1968) and Still Points (1972) contain poems in English. His
short poem ‘Barbershop/La Union’ in Ilocano is anthologized in Kutibeng: Philippine Poetry in Iloko,
176 Isagani R. Cruz

1621-1971 (1976), the definitive anthology of Ilocano poems edited by Marcelino A. Foronda, Jr. He
also has a book in literary theory, The Aesthetics of Literature (1972), in English.
Deriada writes fiction, poetry and drama in Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon and English. His Road to
Mawab and Other Stories (1984) features his Asiaweek-award-winningshort story in English. He astounded
literary circles in Manila in 1982 by winning a Palanca prize for his play in Tagalog, despite his not being
a native speaker of the language.
Dumdum is acknowledged as one of the leading poets in Cebuano, as well as in English. His Gift of
Sleep (1982) in English won a National Book Award.
Espino is the most prolific Filipino writer alive. He has reputedly already published almost a hundred
books, though a bibliography of these books still has to be compiled. We can cite a few of his books:
In Three Tongues: A Folio of Poems in Tagalog, English and Spanish (1963), In Three Tongues, Volume
Two: A Folio of Poems in Tagalog, English and Spanish (1964), The Shuddering Clavier (1965) containing
poems in English and Tagalog, AIak nu Buhay, Hinog nu Abo, Phoenix nu Papel (1968) in English and
Tagalog, Carasy CaretasdelAmor: Versos (1970) in Spanish, Aveen Jaula Lirica (1970) containing Spanish
and English poems, Letters and Nocturnes: Poems, 1972-1973 (1973) in English and Tagalog, Latigazos
de Luz: Poesias (1974) in Spanish, Dalitan at Tuksuhan:Mga Tula (1979) in Tagalog, The Woman Who
Had Many Birthdays and Other Works: Fiction, Poetry, Drama (1983) in English and Tagalog, Dulaan
at Tudyuhan: Tatlong Dula (1983) which includes a play which mixes Tagalog and English, Stories of
Love and Lust (1984) in English, Opus Almost Posthumous: Plays and Poems in English, Spanish and
Ilokano (1984), and Lumpen (1985), a novel in English.
Firmalino's Pebble, Particle And Stone: A Collection of Poems (1983) and Ripples in Solitude: A
Collection of Poems (1985) are in English, but she has also written in Hiligaynon and Tagalog.
Hufana, also anthologized in the Ilocano Kutibeng, is best known for his English Poro Point: An
Anthology of Lives (Poems, 1955-1960) (1961), although he has also published other books such as
Obligations: Cheers of Conscience (1975) in English.
Moore, known internationally for her English novels Heart of the Lotus (1970, revised 1982) and A
Lion in the House (1980), has written popular novels in Cebuano, among them Inday KO, Di-in Kutob
ang Kalipay, and Tereva. Her short stones in both English and Cebuano have won a number of literary prizes.

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