AGORILLA, Mary Andrea G.

3NUR-1

REFLECTION PAPER #3: THE GOD STEALER

We were tasked to read The God Stealer last week. Upon reading, I learened that the God
stealer was a Philippine literature written by Francisco Sionil Jose. The characters in the short
story are Philip Latak a.k.a. “Ip-pig”, who is a native Ifugao who seeked for a greener pasture in
the big city; Here are some of the characters: Sam Christie is Philip’s boss who’s from Boston;
Philip’s grandfather is the village doctor; Reverend Doone is a San Franciscan clergyman; and
Sadek Latak who is Philip’s brother who disliked him. Philip abandoned his land seeking for
greener pastures. Because of that, his relatives disowned and despised him. Despite that, he
found a job at the big city leading him to meet pathways with Sam Christie, his American boss.
After working for several years in the city, news came that his grandfather was ill and this made
him return to his hometown. Sam came together with him too and he also got the chance to mingle
with the Igorots. Sam has some fascination on traveling and keeping souvenirs, got very
interested in having a sacred relic from the Ifugao, it is a wooden-carved god. In order to pay
gratitude to the man responsible for his pay raise, Philip stole the idol from his grandfather and
gave it to Sam. The day after the god was stolen, Philip’s grandfather tragically died in his arms.
When this happened Philip was forced to stay in the mountains instead of going back to the city
with Sam.

If I was on Philip’s shoes, I would also understand his course of action of moving to the
city to survive. It was a practical decision to consider the rough way of living in the mountains. He
was young and he had dreams for himself. However, I didn’t like it when he stole the wooden god
from his grandfather. It was such an unforgivable decision to make and he did deserve to face
the consequence, he already knew he had it coming. For me, it would have been better if Philip
just offered to carve a replica of the god and sent it to Sam when it was done. Although it would
take time to finish it, at least he wouldn’t have hurt anyone and he wouldn’t have regretted his
action.