Imagining Ourselves: When Filipino

Writers Address Filipino Audiences

on Filipino Concerns

Bienven do L. Lumbera
From Thought the Harder, Heart the Keener: A Festschrift for Soledad S. Reyes.
Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz, Jonathan Chua, Rofel G. Brion, editors. Quezon City: Office
of Research and Publications, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University, 2008.

o ne of the first ilings I Ieamed as an aspiring \,eriter in the 1950s was that a
writer claiming he is all aftist does not write for a-ny speciffc audience-he
writes because he has to arrd he wiil ffnd his proper audience if his work is
afly good, that is, il it is able to touch ille huma.dtl in any man, regardless of
nationali5,, period or clime. I do not remember any more how I came upon
..he formulation as I had set it dolrTr iI1 $rriting, or how many years it took to
jell as some kind of lal, that subdy asseris itself in discussions of literature that
is suppos€d to be "greaC'or "enduring." I do kno\,r, however, that as poet and
critic, I labored under ils lreight for mary years, until it was a.lmost too late for
me to cha"1ge. I kro(-, too, that d1e assumptions imbedded in th€ formulatiol
have sunk such deep roots in my consciousn€ss tlat all I need to do is sii
still alld focus, ald the ideas would crawl out of my skin and insist on being
attended to or, al the very least, acknowledged, even as ihey elude quotation
maxks a,1d loohotes ard {iscy bibliographical amenities.
"Unive$a.lism" in hterahue may be descnbed as the urge of a creative
writer to trarscend the boundaries oftime ard clime to reach oui i,o a genemlized,
abshact audieDce in thc belief that one is ihus able to produce drt that will have
pemanert va]ue- Such a.n r:rge has been implanted in the minds of many a
*nter by iiiera.ry education that equated "modemit_v" in art and literatur€ \\,iilr
tle ulfeu:edng of i}}e artist fiom his soci€ty. In shorl, "universalism" would have
us believe ihai Philippine a , to be modem, needs to forgo its natiqtality.
The poehy of.Jose Garcia Villa epitomizes rrth6 modem'J in our
literature-the poems are not "about" anlthing at all, illey a.re "verbal consh.ncts'
that may hint at ideas but rever qldte articulate Lhem; they ar-e musical
composiiions rather than ideationa.l or emolional expressions. Villa brought
relief to a litera.ry scene dominated by the polemical novels ofJose Rizal and by
the pahiotic verse of Fjzal (once again), del Pilaf,, Bonifacio, andJacinto. The

Ranan Magsatsat Auatu1 ll.tnte, 3 Stlientut 993.

1
wr:iters mentioned were from ar embatded past, and while iheir works could
still agitate, the images of the Filipino that they summoned were associated \,yith
defeat and ignominy the Propagandists }vere dispened by the hopelessnex
and personal interesis, the Revolutionaries by captiviqr and combat fatigue.
Young writers brardishing a new language ard theh own illusions of mobiiiry
and change had a sense ofnew horizons opening up to them.Jose Garcia Villa
had appropdated the English language to himself and he could make it pe orm
tricks that impressed even the colonizen who brought the language over. In
the ianguage of the Americans ihat thev had mastered, the young $,nters from
the Universif, of tlle Philippines found the ground on which they could stand
in demonstrating $,hat they were capable of doing. Given ihis language, they
could paxiicipate in the d):namism of a ne$. world porver which could brag of
liierary ffgures commanding atteniion ihe world over. The poetry and liction of
the nelv htelligentsia of the hr.entieth centuy Philippines projected a lilipino
capable of striding towards the fuhrre, shoulder to shoulder with &e likes of
Sherwood Anderson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edith Sihvell, and even Emest
Heminguay.
This rlas the spfit I imbibed ftom reading the weekend magazines of
The Manila Times attd Th? Manila Chrori.l, and savoring the literary offe ngs
of such distinguished contributors as N.V.M. Gonzalez. Francisco Arcellalla,
Estrella Alfon, Oscar de Zuniga, and othe$ rvhile I was still in high school in
the ffnal yeals of the 19'10s. It was inevitable, therefore, that when I began to
r,fl:ite mv first poems and stories as a studert at the University oI Santo Tomas,
I had nothing i,o sa]. to a,1y speciffc reader-I was writing simply because I had
\rords at mlr command aJld pichres remember€d from other better known
rriters, preferably foreign. Brt because I rvas tsing English, I had hoped
then, that a non-Iilipino reader would chance upon my poem and actually
read it. Therefore, it rvas impo ant that I did not burden my chance reader
unnecessarily with details that might bafiie hin+er. Of course, since the flon
Filipino reader might come from the United Shtes or other English+peaking
countries, it was essential ihat my poem demonstxate acceptable awareness of
trends and techniques curent in those countries,
I did not knou at that time. of couse. that under the illusioD of not
cate ng to ary audience,I rvas, duough the agency of the lalrguage that rvas my
medium, unknowingly tailoring my work to suit the culture of my iheoretical
chance reader. I was aware, holvever, that I wanled to make a good impression
on whoevo might read me and I was courting hls synpatly.
Years later, I would be teachiflg fiction, poelry, and drama to freshmen
and sophomores al the Aleneo de Manila Universit). Ifl keeping with the
Iiterary iheory I picked up at the Arnedcan universitl where I did m,v graduate
study, I generally prescinded from matlers of culture and history in ta.lking
aboui Literaxy works. Insiead, I txained my students to focus on techniquc and

rhouqht the Earde,, Hearr ihe (eener

 maqfin!olrseves wh€n Fil p no Wr te6 Addre$ Fi PnoAudencesonFlipnocon.erns l1

symbol by way of dmwing out "implications," even when the pieces were quite
explicit in their messages. I asked quesbons that would Iead io the corclusion
that ali men rvhatever their naiionality, siation in Life, or individua.l quirks, are
in achlalitl of ihe same mold, human beings whose aspirations and motivations
may be culled from the texts in which these are imbedded. I must have been
rather successful lnreducingthe texts into compositions affilming thai aU human
beings are the same no maiter ihe background {iom which they came. 1\4ren
a student of mine karsferred to an American universi5, and had to retake
the basic English courses he had talen at the Ateneo, lhe notes he had taken
down in my class eamed him admiration and good marks. \\nrai ii Proved. I
supposed then, was that human behavior analyzed in an Aten€o class did nol
differ much &om human behavior anallzed in Nel, York.
I look back at my studenls case, ard I
know norv that the critical
instrument I used in my class was not able to draw out {iom the works discussed
the speciffcities of cultural determination that make the analysis of literar'! works
intellectually rewarding. I also know norv ahat dre same tool brought about
congruent results in qlezon City and New York, not becatse h1lman nature is
"univemal." but because the cultural assumptions behind lhe instrument were
laid out in New York ard taken over by a professor in quezon City.
In the mid 1960s, I had begun to write m]. dissertation on Tagalog
poety. M), oiginal inteniion was to demonshate that the delayed process
ol "modemization" could be blamed on the persistence of "h'adition" as
represenied by Balagtas. Somehow. as I 1t.as moving back in iime.I was gaining
inslght into tle impact of hisiory on creative $Titers ard the inflrl\ of influences
ftom the literature of the colonizers. I realized that the "tradition" I wanted
to tag as the "culprit" keeping Tagalog poetry from "cai,ching up" with the
modems in Westem poetrv. was itselfthe source ofthat sense ofwholeness that
enabled poets to maintain their identiry even as thev assimilated the influences
of Spar sh poelry.
I had not realized how much my research had politicized me until
my professor in Modem Poeffy, sitting as panelist during my thesis defense,
commented that I was bearing down ioo hard on the distorting tendencies ard
aberatrons of colonialism on Tagalog poety. The remark at any other tlme
would have alarmed me, butl was flotpefturbed at all; as a matter oIfact,I was
secretly pleased by ii. Reconsbucting the history of Tagalog poetry rurder r}le
Spanish regime had brought me lace io face with ihe depredations of colonia.i
.ule. At the sarne tme, it allo1ved me to see how at vadous junctures in our
history, the poets succeeded in asserting the distinctness of their identity and
mad. uhar r-h.r borrosFd their vFry own.
In 1967,I retumed to the Ateneo to resume my teaching, and foufld the
campus astir1rith a new splrit. The students as well as ihe faculty were imbued
with an opemess to what was new a]ld a readiness to h_y what was as yet

A Fests.hr ft for 9o edad s Reyes

ulcertain. Outside the campus, a social movement, in $,hich students ligured
prominefltly, \ras s\'r'eeping non sectarian colleges and univenities. The national
democratic movemerlt had tarBeted the masses as the "makefi ofhistory," and
to reach this vast section ofthe populatioq the leade$ were using the Tagalog-
based National Language at meetings, ra.llies, marches and demonshations.
No longer was it recessary to smuggle Pilipino into the classroom. It
had become fashionable, as a matter of fact! to use the larguage at rvhatever
occasion. tuly, Pfipino ai the close of the 1960s had deffnitelv entrenched
iiselJ in ille campuses, even in bastions of the English language like the Ateneo
de Manila. Teachers of English had begun to rvorry about loss of siaius, &1d
this showed in the questions they asked at q.,mposia a.nd convocations: "How
soon rdll the change olmedilm of instruction take place? How does one plan
for a future rvhen English will have ceased to be the prestige la:rguage of the

Wdtiflg in Pilipino, as earl) as the 6rst haff of ihe i960s, had been
generating renerved vigor. tsy decade's end, it rvas as though young writers had
discovered a new medium, such was rhe viirality r,lith $,hich ihey tielded tlle
language-exploring its rhlthmic poteDtials! probing its crudities for nnpac!
experimenting with the vocabulaq. of peasant speech and urban poor sla.ng.
But lr.hat was most signilicant, long standing social problems and issues of the
tim€s were discemed in mat€ als for fiction and poehy and given lyrical power
by the politicized imagination ofvouthful.wrile .
Suddenly, it was no Ionger necessarr, to apologize for propagarda in
literar] works. At this time, the assumption behind u,Titing was thaL litemture
ought to be in ihe seNice of social change, and to insist on the prior claims of
artistry was the height of in'eleva.nce. What proved to be problematic for me
then was hou to get a $ip on Lhe problem and the issues that would go into
literary norks.
Para kanino? lar \rhoml The quesbor was posed by Mao Zedong to
writers and artists gaihered iD thc caves of Yenan some years before the ffnal
victory of the Chinese Revollrtion ill 1949. The questior $.as picked up by the
natiolla.l democratic movemeni in ihe Phiiippines, and the endudng Iegacy of
the movement ofl Philippine literaD studies resis mainly on iis nising of Mao's
question to guide the development of politically committed uiting.
"For whom?" rvas a political question, bu! for the Filipino $.dte$, it
generated anslye* to a number of key problems of creative writing in a society
characterized by !\,idespread poverty, foreign donination, and elite nrle. For
the lirst time, dle writer \,\'as being asked to \r'dte for a specific audience
the peasants, r,orkers, students, and guerilla iighters r.ho were in the vast
colutJside, in crorded u].bar centers and in mourltain fasmesses. The writer
had to know his audience the belter to sene them. In ihe past, the $,riter, even
one with a populist orientation! assumed the dominant role in his relationship

rhouqht the H3rde.i

 mag ningOuEeves Wh€nF lprnoWrteuAddressF lpinoAudien.esonFilipnoConcerns 33

\diih his readers; nolr.it was clea.r that he was to sene his audi€nce, ihat his work
was supposed to advarce the cause of the oppressed. This mea.nt that the $riter
would have to adjust the accessibiliq/ of his work according to the needs ard
capabiliiy crf his audieflce. The injunciion extended to the choice of language,
the use of language a-lld lts resources, the approp ateress ard effectiveress of
the genre, the manner of distdbution, ard, of course, d1e subject maller itselJ.
The short story, in the 1950s. had become the most widely-used of t]le
literary genres. and by the 1960s it seemed to olfer itse]f as the most popular
fonn \r-hereb), Fiiipinos could imagine themseh es.
,tl$oa carne out in 1 972 as aI a:rihology of new shoft stodes writter by
auilors who nele il one wal or anolher ideniifled with ihe nationa] democratic
movement. Looking at the stories in the book now, we see holv wdter and
audience hadjoined together to creale dTough $e imagination the communiry
that uould answer their needs and aspirations. Unlike in previous rvorks ofthe
imagination where the $riter oeaied images that readers were a.sked to accept,
we have here literary works that imagine the self of the creative artist as he has
merged with the self of his intended rcaders.
When it appeared in 1972, S,gad held bet$,een iis cove$ power that
could build the sociery of the fuhfe. However, a book bI itself could not unlock
that pot-er. The push of a social movemert was needed so the components
of anv Biven secto i(.ould learn to unite on common goals and forge ahead
together wiih other sectors.
What,lzgzoa does for or1r time, as do other collectiom of actiaist riting,
is to remind us that at a given point in our recent hlstory, creative writen
responding to the times fashioned images of Filipinos awalting actua-Lization-
Rica.rdo Lee\ "Si Tatang, si Freddie, si Tandang Senyong at Iba Pang Tauhan
ng Ating Kuwento" presents us with a young llriter who leams that nriting
about the oppressed is not enough; more ugent is the need to work with lih€
minded colleagues to dis ande oppressive condiiions. In Norma Miraflor's
"Sulat mula sa Pritil" a teenager ftom the slums joins a demoDshation just lor
the heck of i! ard comes to understand that tlle condifions he rebels against
at home, in school, and in the neighborhood are part and parcel of *'hat the
movement aims io change. "Maria, ang Iyong Anak" by Wilfredo P. Vitusio is
about a woman, who acts as ,ofig (grease money) collector for the police, r.aking
up to her complicif $.idr tle forces that killed her activist son. Domingo C.
Landicho's "Dugo ang Langit sa Ba.lon" is the story of a youthful labor militallt
who takes over when the elder Ieader dies in a bloody picket line encounter
witl scabs and milita{- men, and is also about a jaded and qrfcal Vieham
veteran who finds the resolve to rejoin the strugBle against enploitation and
oppression after witnessing the violence that cuts down a labor leader.
Her€ are Filipinos ouselves imagined b,r, young writers uho made
literature out of the stem shrff of the shxggle for fteedom and democracy in the
decade before the declaxaiion of Marial Law.

A Fests.hr fi lor soledad s Reye: