Jan Raen Carlo M.

Ledesma

3LIT

LIT 302: Philippine Literature in English

December 19, 2013

The Literary Output of the Filipinos through the Centuries: A Look at the Approaches and
Periodizations of Ten Anthologies in Philippine Literature

Numerous books had already been published about Philippine Literature with an attempt
to categorize history or divide time into named blocks or provide a survey with a different
approach to the literatures of the Philippines. The result is descriptive abstraction that provides
convenient terms for periods of time with relatively stable characteristics. Literature, being the
conglomeration of the changing voices of the people and a reflection of the conditions and
accidents of time, is continuous and cannot be generalized and such makes systems of
periodization and approaches more or less arbitrary. Named periods and varying approaches
become an essential tool because they offer a framework in making us understand and appreciate
the literary output of the Filipinos through the centuries. Philippine Literature, together with
History, would not be nothing more than scattered events with periodization though sometimes
overlapping considering the schemes of tentative named periods. This paper is to look at ten
anthologies in Philippine Literature and how each anthologies’ periodizing labels and approaches
are challenged and redefined by the other bulk of anthologies produced:

1. Philippine Literature: A Statement of Ourselves by Remedios V. Vinuya (2011)

2. Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches by Augusto Antonio A. Aguila, Joyce
L. Arriola, and John Jack G. Wigley (2008)
3. Philippine Literature: A Regional Approach by Delia B. Cariaga-Enriquez (2006)
4. Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology by Bienvenido Lumbera and Cynthia
Nograles Lumbera (1997)
5. Readings in Philippine Literature by Celedonio G. Aguilar (1994)
6. Philippine Contemporary Literature in English: Tradition and Change (From 20’s to the
Present) by Ophelia A. Dimalanta and Virginia M. Mata (1985)
7. Philippine Literature: Past and Present by Silverio Baltasar, Teresita Erastain, and Ma. Fe
S. Estanislao (1981)
 8. A Survey of Contemporary Philippine Literature in English by Visitacion R. De La Torre
(1978)
9. The Development of Philippine Literature in English by Richard V. Croghan (1975)
10. A Survey of Philippine Literature in English by Rodolfo Dula and Richard V. Croghan
(1971)

Philippine Literature: A Statement of Ourselves by Remedios V. Vinuya

The different parts of Vinuya’s anthology are divided into the major eras or times in the
life of the Filipino nation:

 Precolonial Literature
 Literature during the Spanish Era (1565 – 1898)
 Literature during the American Period (1900 – 1946)
 Literature of the New Society (1971 – 1980)
 Contemporary Literature

Vinuya makes use of historical markers in acquainting the learners with some of the
literary outputs of the Filipinos through the centuries. Selected samples of the various genres are
included. However, such selections are limited of the times and milieu in which they were
created. Vinuya’s anthology is not exhaustive as she seemed to focus only on a number of major
writers and stories for a certain period. Precolonial literature showed its limits through legends,
myths, and folk tales with stories of Malakas at Maganda, The Legend of Tagalogs, The Moon
and the Sun, and The Great Flood. The politics of exclusion is made obvious as she focused only
on the selected representative works of the writers belonging to a certain marker: Jose P. Rizal,
Marcelo H. Del Pilar, and Francisco Baltazar for Literature during the Spanish Era; Jose Garcia
Villa, and Bienvenido Santos as the only writers representative of the Literature under the
American Regime; Tita Lacambra-Ayala and Arturo M. Tolentino as representative of the
Philippine papers of the New Society, and Nick Joaquin, Amadis Ma. Guerrero, and Cirilo F.
Bautista for Contemporary Literature. Recognizing the bearing of the aforementioned statements,
it is observable that Remedios Vinuya’s anthology is not exhaustive and made a great deal of
exclusion in the selection of the literary outputs of the Philippines throughout the centuries.
Considering such great exclusion, the diversity and richness of Philippine literature was not
disclosed juxtaposed to historical named periods of the anthology.

Philippine Literatures: Texts, Themes, Approaches by Augusto Antonio A. Aguila, Joyce

L. Arriola, and John Jack G. Wigley

Notable in the anthology of these three Thomasian educators is their act of breaking
traditions particularly the historical approach in the creation of anthologies as it had narrowed the
lens of our mirror to a thinking that literature is all about the dichotomy between a nativist, lost
Edenic past of pagan ethereality and colonially-mediated imaginative writings that react to the
past (Aguila et.al., 2008). Anchored on a synchronic perspective of historical events, this
textbook offers a thematic approach to Philippine Literature identifying various aspects of
Filipino identity and has chosen for each theme three to five literary works that indicate an array
of perspective, personal, and social experience. Such anthology also captures the extraordinary
diversity of Philippine society as it offers a heterogeneous selection of works by Filipino writers:
men and women, the working class, members of the third sex, ethnic and other minor verbal
artists. The themes presented in the textbook provides a rich discussion as it covers the nation,
culture, families, and even individuals, each with their own remembered histories as seen in its
fourteen thematic divisions: 1 – Imaging the Filipino Man; 2 – Imaging the Filipino Woman; 3 -
Representing the Filipino Family; 4 – Exploring Filipino Traditions; 5 – Discovering Love and
the Filipino; 6 – Exploring Filipino Humor; 7 – Interrogating Gender Relations and the Filipino;
8 – Representing Death and the Filipino; 9 – Understanding Spirituality and the Filipino; 10 –
Discovering Philippine Aesthetics; 11 – Looking at War and the Filipino; 12 – Exploring Class
Relations in the Philippines; 13 – Imaging the Filipino Migrant and 14 – Revisiting Philippine
History.

Philippine Literature: A Regional Approach by Delia B. Cariaga – Enriquez

The book is arranged into different literary periods with no historical named periods that
will enrich the discussion of each literary output. Precolonial period deals with folk literature or
the oral lores: legends, myths, folk tales, folk epics, proverbs, riddles, and songs. Spanish
colonial period focuses on the written religious and secular works of the period. The following
literary periods present poems, plays, short stories and a number of essays of representative
writers from the different regions. This anthology gives satisfactory considerations of authors
and their literary outputs outside the National Capital Region. Considering the arduous task of
securing permission from the different regional writers, the division of the book into age and
literary genre does not provide an extensive and intensive study of each age and genre. Gaining
insights from the author of the book, one consideration in the choice of the selections is that of
literature as expression of personality and inner drives as advocated by psychologists. It includes
the psychology of the author, symbols, and themes. The morality of literature is also an
influencing factor in the choice of the selections (Enriquez, 2006).

Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology by Bienvenido Lumbera and Cynthia

Nograles Lumbera

Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology by Bienvenido Lumbera is one of the

most prominent anthologies in the country. We are given an overview of Philippine literature as
it had developed in the course of the growth of the nation. With history and politics as the
categorizing agent, the anthology provides insights into the Filipino way of life. This anthology
provides the most comprehensive interpretation of the literary development of the Philippines.
Literary history following a political framework is the organizing principle behind the content of
this anthology. This anthology showed that Philippine literature is not a simple chronology of
literary masterpieces or a parade of fine writers; otherwise, the literary output of the Filipinos,
given their roots in contact with the culture of the colonial administrators, might appear as
nothing but an array of colorless reflections or indigenized importations (Lumbera, 1997).

Readings in Philippine Literature by Celedonio G. Aguilar

Celedonio G. Aguilar’s anthology provides an intensive survey of Philippine Literature

with historical names periods as the framework different from Vinuya and Enriquez. It presents
literary materials in each periods which comprise of a chapter so as concepts would evolve
directing the readers to inherit the cultural values and hybridities of the Filipino past giving
inherence for deeper nationalism among the Filipinos. This anthology includes four chapters that
is so intensive that manifests the truly creative genius of the Filipino race: Chapter 1 is the Pre-
Spanish Tines dealing with myths, legends, epics, wise sayings, dirges, folk songs, and epic
plays. The expansive selection of Ancient Native Literature, as compared to Vinuya and
Enriquez, spells out the core nature of the Filipino people in their pre – Spanish ways of life,
beliefs, customs and traditions. Chapter 2 is the Spanish period which includes the following:
grammatical studies, regional linguistic works, religious literatures, revolutionary and
propaganda movements’ prose writing, poetry, essays, and novels as well as the periodicals of
the revolution. The chapter is concentrated that it shows the Spanish dominance and its cultural
inroad into Philippine culture with various writers like Cecilio Apostol, Jesus Balmori, Emeterio
Barcelon, and writers from the propaganda and revolutionary movement. Chapter 3 is the
American Regency which includes novels, essays, short stories, poetry and plays. Anchored on
literary history, this book is of a different format and content with concept internalization as the
primary focus – the concept of our nature and way of life which will be drawn out from the
literary pieces of each period in consonance with the shifting growth of political persuasion in
the country (Aguilar, 1994).

Philippine Contemporary Literature in English: Tradition and Change (From 20’s to the
Present) by Ophelia A. Dimalanta and Virginia M. Mata

Dimalanta and Mata, in their anthology, make use of a socio-cultural division which
includes looking at the pre-war and post-war years and the more recent times. The anthology
shifts from the “apprenticeship – emergence – contemporary division of literary periods” which
are not accurate and precise. Such socio-cultural division allows a greater room for a more
accurate and relaxed lumping of writing groups (Dimalanta and Mata, 1985). The anthology’s
works are divided into the works of pre-war writers who wrote before and after the war, and the
post-war writers who wrote prior to the war and were never given recognition until after the war.
The Filipino writer is seen as a product of his social environment. Philippine Contemporary
Literature in English is another book of different content as it focuses on the pre-war and post-
war writing groups of the 20th century with their conglomeration of ideas and values making
Contemporary Philippine Literature.

Philippine Literature: Past and Present by Silverio Baltasar, Teresita Erastain, and Ma. Fe
S. Estanislao

In a single volume, Baltasar, Erastain, and Estanislao give a survey of literature of the
Philippines starting from prehispanic times to the present (1981). The anthology is influenced by
four factors in determining its divisions and categorizations: chronology (named time periods),
literary types and forms, geography (space), and language (linguistic markers). With the four
aforesaid factors, the result turns out to be an expansive and comprehensive anthology in
Philippine Literature. The major divisions are based on time: Unit 1 – Pre-Hispanic Literature
and the Continuing Oral Tradition; Unit 2 – Philippine Writng during the Spanish Period; Unit 3
– Philippine Writing during the Period of Emerging National Consciousness; and Unit 4 –
Philippine Literature of the Twentieth Century. Such historical periodization overlaps at certain
points because the oral tradition continues to the present, and the 19th century blends with the
20th century with writers in the late 19th century writing well into the early 20th century (Baltasar
et.al, 1981). Genre is another influencing factor as they made use of the traditional classification
into essay, short story, novel, and drama. As seen in their divisions of the different vernaculars,
geography as well becomes an influencing factor. Language is the last factor as the book is tri-
lingual on the main with vernaculars in the original idiom.

A Survey of Contemporary Philippine Literature in English by Visitacion R. De La Torre

De La Torre intended to fill the need for a survey of Filipino authors and their
contemporary works. Contemporary, in this sense, covers the writings produced from the late
1960’s to the present (1978), giving emphasis on the writings produced during the 1970’s. Same
with Dimalanta and Mata, De La Torre makes use of cultural markers as framework in providing
a survey of Philippine literature. It can be recalled that the era of 1960’s saw a big change in the
Philippine cultural landscape. Western influences made its way and affected almost every aspect
of Filipino life and affected Philippine writings as well by means of technique. Then it was in the
times of the 1970’s where the studentry gained political consciousness and became more militant
asking for reforms. Philippine writing, in this anthology, veered consequently to literature that
possesses social content. Putting into consideration the numerous representative works and
writers which characterize as well as dramatize the range of Filipino experience today, the choice
cannot be exhaustive and faultless. Considering that English is one of the effective instruments in
furthering the growth of Philippine literature and as it continues to be written in English, the
anthology is confined to works in English becoming an encounter with what has shaped the
Filipino soul.
 A Survey of Philippine Literature in English (1970) and The Development of Philippine
Literature in English (1975) by Richard V. Croghan

The anthology of Richard Croghan had developed gradually over the past five years. It
started in 1970 as mimeographed pages and underwent expansion in 1972 and mimeographed by
the Jesuit Educational Association with the title A Survey of Philippine Literature in English. In
providing a survey, Croghan makes use of linguistic – historical markers. He shows through each
periodization and its background how the Filipinos produced their outputs considering that they
were writing and trained with different tongues and they were accustomed to an altogether
different sensibility as the colonizers came. He became cognizant of the language situation
recognizing the rudiments of language as well as the creative struggle in conveying the idea of
Filipino-ness with Spanish and English and the its mainstream of British and American letters.

Philippine Literature from Ancient Times to the Present by Teofilo del Castillo and
Buenaventura Medina

Like Richard Croghan, Teofilo del Castillo and Buenaventura Medina took into
consideration the language situation in the Archipelago resulting of the manner of settling the
plentiful islands of the country in history. Anchored on linguistic markers, the authors gave
generous share to the literature of the principal native languages namely Tagalog, Cebuano,
Ilocano, Pangasinan, Pampango, Bicolano, Ilonggo, Waray, Maranao, and Tausug. The second
part deals with the literatures produced under the Spanish Regime with Spanish becoming the
language of the elite and of the “intelligentsia.” On the other hand, tagalog was seen as the
principal native language of the capital city as well as of the nearby developing provinces. Then
follows a rapidly maturing contemporary literature written in the three most essential languages
in the country: English, Tagalog, and Spanish. This anthology shows that the contemporary
literature of the Filipinos is an attestation to the assimilatory nature of the Filipino writer. No
matter what language is employed, the Filipino writer produces a resilient and rich literature.
References:

Aguila, Augusto Antonio, Joyce Arriola, and John Jack Wigley. Philippine Literature: Texts,
Themes, Approaches. Manila. UST Publishing House, 2008. Print.

Aguilar, Celedonio G. Readings in Philippine Literature. Quezon City. Rex Book Store, 1994.
Print.

Baltasar, Silverio, Teresita Erastain, and Ma. Fe S. Estanislao. Philippine Literature: Past and
Present. Quezon City. Katha Publishing Company Inc., 1981. Print.

Cariage-Enriquez, Delia B. Philippine Literature: A Regional Approach. Navotas. Navotas Press,

2006. Print.

Croghan, Richard and Rodolfo Dula. A Survey of Philippine Literature in English. Manila. Jesuit
Educational Association, 1971. Print.

Croghan, Richard V. The Development of Philippine Literature in English. Quezon City.

Phoenix Publishing House, Inc., 1975. Print.

De La Torre, Visitacion R. A Survey of Contemporary Philippine Literature in English. Quezon

City. National Book Store, Inc., 1978. Print.

Dimalanta, Ophelia A. and Virginia M. Mata. Philippine Contemporary Literature in English:

Tradition and Change (From 20’s to the Present). Manila. UST Printing Office, 1985. Print.

Lumbera, Bienvenido and Cynthia Nograles Lumbera. Philippine Literature: A History and
Anthology. Pasig City. Anvil Publishing Inc., 1997. Print.

Vinuya, Remedios. Philippine Literature: A Statement of Ourselves. Pateros. Grandbooks

Publishing Inc., 2011. Print.