KASIGLAHAN VILLAGE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

2022-2023

Midterm Period
(Week 4, Session 15)
Lesson 7A: REGIONAL WRITER FOCUS (PAMPANGA) – JOHN JACK G. WIGLEY
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
Content Standard: The learner will be able to understand and appreciate the elements and context of 21st
Century Philippine literature from the regions (with focus on Regions 3, 4A and 4B)
Competencies: EN12Lit-Id-24
- Identify representative texts and authors from each region (engage in oral history with focus
on key personalities from the students’ region/province/town) – Regions 3, 4A and 4B
EN12Lit-Ie-28
- Discuss how different contexts enhance the text’s meaning and enrich reader’s
understanding
EN12Lit-Ie-29
- Situate the text in the context of the region and the nation
EN12Lit-Ie-30
- Explain the relationship of context with the text’s meaning

FAST FACTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR - JOHN JACK G. WIGLEY

- Director of the University

of Sto. Tomas (UST)
Publishing House and is also
a full-time professor of the
same university.
- Was born and raised in
Angeles City, Pampanga
- Struggled in his Filipino
identity for being a “G.I.” or
an American serviceman
baby. Today, it is commonly
referred to as Amerasian.
- Father was a US soldier at
Clark Airbase and Mother
was a bar girl in Angeles.
- Proud LGBTQ+ community
member

HIS KNOWN WORKS

The memoir, “Falling Into the Manhole,” a humorous examination of his

experiences as someone who was always ‘different.’ As he himself says in his
explanation of his poetics in the University of he Philippines Writer’s Workshop of
2013:

KASIGLAHAN VILLAGE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

kasiglahanvillageshs342562@deped.gov.ph OR 342562@deped.gov.ph / (02) 8296-1534
https://facebook.com/KasiglahanVillageSHS
Phase 1K2, Kasiglahan Village, Brgy. San Jose, Rodriguez, Rizal
COMPILED AND PREPARED BY:
MARLON M. DELA ROSA, KVSHS HUMSS TEACHER - v. 2022
 KASIGLAHAN VILLAGE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL
21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World
2022-2023

“Looking back, I realize now that these hurdles were blessings in disguise. They have
become the rich material needed for writing. I have analyzed the interrelationship of
race (because I am half-white), class (because I was born poor), and gender (because
I am gay), how these structures have shaped my experiences and how they have
provided me with the ‘voice’ I am using in telling my stories.”

STYLE OR SUBSTANCE

While the expression “style over 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 is whether the style lends anything to the “substance,” or material, being
styled.

A direct narration of the events in Wigley’s essay would have led us too have a very different
reading experience from the one we actually had. Wigley’s “stylistic” interventions – the
lighter tone, the use of local dialogue, the presentation of his mother as this unperturbed
individual in the light of overwhelming disaster – all contribute to a unique reading
experience.

Looking at it another way, Wigley uses humor here 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 events in a different, and slightly more distant, light. Humor does not
necessarily mean that the object of the humor is being ridiculed. In this case, humor as a
writing style enables reader to examine other issues that the author presents with a
considered distance.

KASIGLAHAN VILLAGE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

kasiglahanvillageshs342562@deped.gov.ph OR 342562@deped.gov.ph / (02) 8296-1534
https://facebook.com/KasiglahanVillageSHS
Phase 1K2, Kasiglahan Village, Brgy. San Jose, Rodriguez, Rizal
COMPILED AND PREPARED BY:
MARLON M. DELA ROSA, KVSHS HUMSS TEACHER - v. 2022