THE DOG-EATERS by Leoncio P.

Deriada:
Of dogmas and doggedness
JONELL SEGADOR GREGORIO
DALC Student
 About the Author

• Leoncio P. Deriada was born in in Iloilo but spent

most of his life in Davao. He went to school at the
Davao City High School and graduated in 1955.
• BA English degree at the Ateneo de Davao
University where he graduated cum laude in 1959.
• MA in English from Xavier University in 1970
• His PhD in English and Literature with a
specialization in creative writing from Silliman
University in 1981 where he later on served as
professor and chairperson of the English Department.
• He is a multi-lingual writer with works in English,
Filipino, Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a and Cebuano.
• He received 13 Palanca awards include works in English, Filipino
and Hiligaynon.
• Five are first-prize winners, and these include "The Day of the
Locusts" (Short Story, 1975), "Mutya ng Saging" (Dulaang May
Isang Yugto, 1987), "The Man Who Hated Birds" (Short Story for
Children, 1993), "Medea of Siquijor" (One-Act Play, 1999), and
"Maragtas: How Kapinangan Tricked Sumakwel Twice" (Full-
Length Play, 2001).
• He became a Palanca Hall of Famer on September 1, 2001. He
has also garnered other awards such as the Gawad
Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas, Asiaweek, Gawad CCP,
Graphic, Focus, Yuhum (Iloilo), and Blue Knight Award from
Ateneo de Davao for Outstanding Achievement in Literature. In
2002, he was one of Metrobank's Outstanding Teachers.
• He was a professor at the University of the Philippines in the
Visayas - Iloilo. Dr. Deriada heads the Sentro ng Wikang Filipino
at the U.P. Visayas. He is also an associate of the U.P. Institute
of Creative
Photo Op with the Great Leoncio Deriada
 SUMMARY

• Victor who is a former body builder and club bouncer

married Mariana who is an undergraduate college student
because she gets pregnant. Victor and his friends (The Dog
eaters of Artiaga Street) are always drinking tuba early in
the morning at Sergio's store with dog dishes as their
pulutan.
• Mariana is upset because it is not the life she expected to
have. She takes care of their eight-month-old baby and now
she's bearing another one in her womb. She decided to
have the fetus aborted so she bought an abortifacient
herbal liquid from ALing Elpidia for 40 pesos.
 SUMMARY

• She and Victor had a quarrel because he wanted the child.

So he threw the bottle of herbal liquid out of the window.
Mariana was furious. The dog, Ramir, barked and barked.
Mariana thought of killing the dog to infuriate Victor, and get
even with him for throwing the bottle out.
• She took the knife but the dog bared its fangs to her, and
tried to attack her. Mariana slipped the end of the chain
under the makeshift railing of the stairway and pulled the
leash with all her might. The dog dangled below her and
died, witnessed by a crowd of people. Mariana was
oblivious to this crowd.
 SUMMARY

• Mariana laughed deliriously. She watches the hanging

animal and addressed it in triumph.

• “I’ll slit your throat and drink your blood and cut you to
pieces and stew you and eat you! Damn you Victor. Damn
this child. Damn everything. I’ll cook you, Ramir. I’ll cook
you and eat you and eat you and eat you!”

• And for the first in all her life on the Artiaga Street, Mariana
cried.
 Dogmas

• The official teachings of the Catholic Church oppose all

forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to
destroy a zygote, blastocyst, embryo or fetus, since it
holds that "human life must be respected and protected
absolutely from the moment of conception.
• Mariana wants to abort the fetus, she bought an abortifacient,
and was intent to take it. She even had to wrestle with Victor
to get ahold of the bottle but Victor threw it away.
Dogmas

• "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman

establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of
life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses
and the procreation and education of offspring; this
covenant between baptized persons has been raised by
Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.”(Catechism of
the Catholic Church, Part II, Section Two, Chapter 3)
• Victor married Mariana because she got pregnant. Mariana
was young and still in college when she eloped with Victor.
 Dogmas

• The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are

always violations of divine and natural law.
• Victor lost his membership at the Gregory Body Building
Club owned by Big Boss Gregory because Victor was
dating Fely, the manicurist. Boss Gregory likes Victor, the
macho.
 Dogmas

• Scholastic theologians condemn the infliction of needless

suffering on animals, chiefly because of the injurious
effects on the character of the perpetrator.
• Victor and his friends eat dog meat for pulutan while
drinking tuba.
• Interestingly, Victor has a pet dog. Victor loves his pet
Ramir and wouldn’t want him to be hurt by Mariana.
• But Mariana killed the dog Ramir, if only to spite Victor.
Dogmas

• Although the Catholic Catechism does not directly ban

alcohol consumption, it does advocate temperance,
advising Catholics to “avoid every kind of excess: the
abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine.”
• Victor drinks tuba almost everyday with his buddies along
Artiaga Street. His friend Sergio’s idea of brotherhood is
downing a gallon of tuba at 10AM
Dogmas

• “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For

the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the
head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should
submit in everything to their husbands.”
• Mariana has been submissive to her husband. She keeps
the house, takes care of the baby, does her wife duties.
But she got feed up and exploded, climaxing at her killing
of the pet of her husband.
 Doggedness

• Mariana was decisive about aborting the fetus in her womb

so she bought an abortifacient. She doesn’t want another
baby.
• Victor’s unabated desire to drink tuba and eat dog meat
with his friends, despite the violent reaction and begging of
his wife to stop.
• Victor’s tendency to lose jobs and favors from people
because he is easily agitated or distracted
• The dog-eaters’ predilection for tuba and dog meat
• Aling Elpidia’s selling of abortifacients
• The dog’s barking at strangers
 Thank you!
(from a tuba and dog lover)