Ermita

F. Sionil Jose

After the Japanese surrendered their occupation intents for the Philippines to the
Americans, the Filipino people suffered postwar effects from the World War II. They are in the
form of hypocrisy, immorality, greed for money, and so much more that the country still suffers
today. A novel by F. Sionil Jose, Ermita, accurately displayed the holistically unhealthy lifestyle
during the 1940’s, just before the Martial Law. It happens in a place called Ermita which used to
be a luxurious neighborhood of the filthy rich Filipinos that was built by the Spaniards, now
abandoned and infamous for indecent transactions, day and night.

The main character is also called Ermita, a self made prostitute who seeks revenge to the
family that abandoned her right from her infancy. She is a product of a nonconsensual sex by a
Japanese soldier to a Filipino socialite, Conchita Rojo. Given birth, she is left in a convent as an
orphan, but eventually, she finds out that she has a family, afterall. The nuns decided to give her
back to her Aunt Felicitas at the Rojo mansion after threatening them to run away and seek her
mother who is in the United States, married to a U.S. army lieutenant. However, Ermita does not
experience a lavish lifestyle as a Rojo instead she is forced to live in the quarters for servants
with the family who accepted her as their own.

Her Aunt Felicitas did not want anything to do with the child conceived from the
brutality of a Japanese soldier. So, when Ermita confronted her about Conchita, her mother, she
was thrown outside the house together with her foster family. This triggers the hatred inside her
heart that she did not mind resorting to prostitution, hoping to give a wonderful life to herself and
her new found family, and bring the Rojo Family down.

Worthy of applause, it is incredible for a novel to depict a long-term societal struggle

which is hard to address without being criticized for being highly immoral or too inappropriate to
be read in public. F. Sionil Jose has done a wonderful job in portraying different types of people
with different social statuses who are open to sexuality for their own benefit and satisfaction. He
also showed through the novel that although prostitution is considered an indecent work that is
destructive to the community, it is in reality, a career choice for women who want an easy to find
yet high paying job. For some even, prostitution is their way out of poverty.

F. Sionil Jose, in addition, successfully showed that working as a prostitute is not the only
‘indecent’ job the society should focus on, but as well as the voluntary sacrifice of oneself to the
rich neighboring countries to be able to fit in. Rolando Cruz is one of his characters who ended
up selling his principles to both the Japanese and Americans. He was an idealist back in college
and part of the guerilla during the Japanese occupation, but when he became a public relation
consultant, it seemed he had forgotten everything he used to fight for. He had become a politico-
cultural prostitute, as what F. Sionil Jose had written.

However, the message that should be highlighted is how prostitution is unaccepted by

many, yet very much alive. The reason it exists and still exists is not because of the involuntary
or voluntary participation of women, but the strong need of men to release their lust. Prostitution
is proof of oppression and men objectifying women to satisfy their desires.

In the novel, Ermita was told to work for sex because her body is so gorgeous and
alluring; men would go crazy over her. She was even drugged one time by a Senator Bravo who
admitted on the act and asserting she was conscious the whole time, loving what he did. It was
clearly rape and she could not do anything about it.

The funny thing is how in the novel, it was prostitutes that were despised and not the men
who pay for their time. It is ridiculous too that nowadays it is women who are told to wrap
themselves with thick conservative clothes and to be careful at night or with strangers. The
timeline of the novel is 1940’s, but men are still the same up to this date.

To speak more realistically, prostitution has grown bigger, and prostitutes have become
younger in age, which means men objectifying women and wanting to manipulate them into
sexual acts have grown in number. Think of supply and demand. For whatever the demand is, the
supply will follow.

We were never freed from the Japanese occupation. As Cruz stated, “They are now back
in full force, with their transistors, their lusts.” And hypocrisy remained, possibly even greater,
because many Filipinos are in denial, especially the elders, when it comes to handling social
issues such as rape. They think that when women are open to their sexuality, they are already
giving consent to every sexual innuendos or harassment.

Women, also, tend to blame the ‘oppressors’. Like how Ermita blamed the men and the
Rojo Family for her becoming a prostitute, when in fact, it was her own choice. She could have
waited for other career opportunities or other part-time jobs that does not pay that much, just so
she can save the last bit of respect she has for herself.

She should have re-evaluated herself the same way she wanted Rolando Cruz to re-
evaluate himself, by character and morality. It is disappointing that at the end of the novel, she
did not find happiness within herself, although she did give love a chance. And it was a good
twist to show character development for the men who were into prostitution. They eventually
realized that what they have done is outright immoral and a waste of life.

The novel, in general, revolves around the different types of people, their openness
towards sexuality, how they handle it for their own desire, and growing up into people who
knows respect. Pointing out that prostitution is a career and that it is a high paid career helped in
defining the greatest undying problem we have in this country which is poverty. And for as long
as prostitution exists, men will remain to be tolerated in objectifying women as slaves and
pleasure-giver.