Chapter 5

Literature After EDSA

(1986 – 1995)
The year 1986 demarcates the beginning of a new scene in the unfolding narrative of
contemporary Philippine Literature. It saw the fall of the dictatorship the President Ferdinand
Marcos set up on September 21, 1972, when he placed the Philippines under martial rule,
initiating a regime that did not only suppress the writer’s right to free expression but also created
conditions that made collaboration and cooperation convenient choices for artists struggling for
recognition and survival. Constraints imposed by the dictatorship also created fertile ground for
the growth of underground writing, both in the urban centers and in the countryside where
guerillas of the Communist Party of the Philippines were waging a protracted people’s war.

“EDSA” (the name of the highway in Metro Manila that runs north to south from Caloocan to
Baclaran) has become the popular designation of the revolt which began as a military mutiny on
February 21 and developed into a popular uprising in Manila that culminated in the flight of the
dictator and his family to Hawaii, USA on February 24, 1986. The revolt established the
presidency of Corazon Aquino which was marked by the “restoration” of pre-Martial Law
society. The years that followed “EDSA” saw several attempts at a coup d’etat that caused
considerable turbulence and instability. The unease of the times was abetted by natural disaster –
a powerful earthquake in Baguio City, a volcanic eruption in Zambales wreaking havoc in
Central Luzon, and a catastrophic flood in Ormoc City – that left the government’s economic
development plans in shambles.

The Mount Pinatubo eruption eased the fulfilment of a political event that had been set in motion
in 1991 by a stalwart band of patriotic senators who defeated every attempt of the Aquino
Administration to have the Military Bases Agreement between the U.S and Philippines renewed.
When volcanic ash blanketed the U.S. Naval Base in Subic Bay in Zambales and Clark Airbase
in Pampanga, the closing down of these bases was seen by nationalists as another form of
“restoration,” and this time it was the recovery of political dignity by the Filipino people.

Writing under the Martial Law regime was characterized by militancy and belligerence, even
when it showed up in the legal press. Especially after the assassination of Marcos’ political
opponent Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983, the temper of poetry and theater derived much of its heat
and direction from the political culture of the underground national democratic movement. With
the overthrow of the visible enemy in 1986, however, literary activity showed a certain
disorientation manifesting itself in a proliferation of concerns taken up by individual writers and
groups.

The post EDSA centers for creative writing may be grouped into two. To the first group belong
to the academic institutions where Creative Writing is a part of the curricular offerings, and
students majoring in Literature are able to come in contactr with elder creative
writers/critics/professors whose views have exerted much influence on the writing of young
people. Such schools as Siliman University, where a writing program and summer writers
workshop together have turned out many writers in English; the University of the Philippines,
which has a Creative Writing Center giving writing grants to selected literary figures and runs
workshops in three regions where the University has campuses; the Ateneo de Manila
University, which has a post for a writer in residence and employs established writers and critics
as faculty; the University of Santo Tomas, which offers a journalism program that has graduated
writers who have established themselves in eminent positions in newspapers and creative writing
circles; and last but not the least, San Carlos University, where the Cebuano Studies Center has
served as a focal point for bilingual creative writers.

The second group consists of writers’ organizations that periodically sponsor symposia on
writing and/or set up workshops for its members and other interested parties. Among these are
UMPIL (Unyon ng mga Manunulat na Pilipino or Filipino Writers Union), PANULAT
(Pambansang Unyon ng mga Manunulat or National Union of Writers), Panday Lipi (Smithy of
the Race), GAT (Galian sa Arte at Tula or Celebration of Art and Poetry), KATHA (Creative
Work), LIRA (Linangan sa Imahe, Retorika at Anyo or Creative Center of Imagery, Rhetoric and
Form), GUMIL (Gunglo,Dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano or Organization of Ilocano Writers),
LUDABI (Lubas sa Dagang Bisaya or Core of Cebuano Writing) and PEN (Pen, Essay and
Novel).

It through these twin centers that writers get to hear about new developments in writing, and
derive enthusiasm for their craft. The two “unyon”(“unions”) function as umbrellas under which
writers belonging to a diversity of organizations socialize with fellow writers. UMPIL began as
Writer’s Union of the Philippines under Marcos dictatorship and has since 1986 moved away
from its image as a favored coterie enjoying government patronage, to become an organization
working with educators and giving recognition to vernacular writers who have yet to receive
national exposure. PANULAT, on the other hand, is a post EDSA organization aiming to bring
under its aegis writers politicized by the 1986 uprising, which has since oriented itself to the
development of grassroots writing among peasants, workers and the urban poor. GAT started
during the Martial Law period as a workshop for young poets, but has since evolved into a club
that cultivates both fiction and drama as well. LIRA is a post EDSA group offering poetry
workshops to its members. KATHA is also composed of young writers; interested in writing of
fiction with social consciousness.

GAT, LIRA and KATHA each have a membership writing mainly in Filipino, although some of
their members write also in English or any of the vernaculars, GUMIL and LUDABI are made
up of regional language writers; the first, of writers in Iluko, the other, writers in Cebuano.
Another literary group, PLAC (Philippine Literary Arts Council), draws its membership from the
ranks of established writers in English, who sometimes also write in Filipino or any of the
regional languages. GAT, LIRA and KATHA have been coming out with compilations of
members’ works. PLAC regularly puts out Caracoa, a journal of poetry in English.

Award giving bodies, annual competitions and publications provide the incentives for writers to
keep producing. Together they may be designated as patrons of the literary arts in the
Philippines, the institutions that perform the important service of keeping the writers in public
consciousness, making it possible for commentators and audiences to identify significant
established writers and give attention to emerging new talents.
La Tondeña, sponsors of the venerable Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards in Literature, has made
the name “Palanca” a synonym for quality literary works in both English and Filipino. When the
Komisyon ng Wikang Pambansa (Commission on the National Language) was still “Surian” (an
institute), it was already awarding recognition to poets and essayists who compete annually for
the title Makata ng Taon (Poet of the Year), and the cash awards of the Gawad Collantes
(Collantes Award), for the essay. Under the Marcos dictatorship, the Cultural Center of the
Philippines (CCP) held literary competitions and awarded writing grants. Today, its
Coordinating Center for Literature has discontinued the contests and, pleading lack of funds, has
even folded up its writing grants program. The CCP literary journal Ani (Harvest) has had issues
exclusively for writing from the regions: Ilocos, West Visayas, Cordillera, Mindanao, Leyte
Samar and Cebu, making accessible to audiences in the center those works that would normally
not find a national outlet. A small group of Manila based reviewers has organized the Manila
Critic’s Circle and, since 1981, has cited outstanding published creative writing and literary
studies, awarding their authors with distinctive trophies designed by distinguished sculptors.

A post EDSA state sponsored institution, the national Commission for Culture and the Arts
(NCCA) was created by law in 1992, superceding the Presidential Commission which was
established in 1987. The NCCA has a Committee on Literary Arts which funds workshops,
conferences, publications and a variety of projects geared towards the production of a “national
literature.” The said committee has institutionalized the presence of regional representatives in
the composition of its executive board, a promise of things to come in the development of
writing that is multi lingual, multi cultural and truly national.

Joining institutions in giving recognition to writers from specific sectors in society are non
government organizations. The Amado V. Hernandez Foundation sponsors an annual writing
contest for workers and their advocates. GAPAS (Reap) Foundation has a similar contest open to
peasants and writers sympathetic to their cause. KAIBIGAN (Friend), a support group for
overseas contract workers (OCWs) opened a writing contest for OCWs in 1989.

Publications that regularly put out creative works are of two categories depending on their base
or audience reach. The national magazines that publish literary contributions during the post
EDSA period have been Midweek (poetry and fiction in either English or Filipino, but now
defunct); Philippine Graphic Weekly Magazine (poetry and fiction in either English or Filipino);
Philippine Free Press (poetry and fiction only in English); The Sunday Inquirer Magazine
(poetry and fiction in either English or Filipino); Liwayway ([Sunrise] poetry and fiction only in
Filipino) and its counterparts in Iluko, Sugboanon, Bannawag and Bisaya; and Filmag (poetry
and fiction only in Filipino). The Solidaridad Publishing House puts out the quarterly Solidarity
which publishes discussion in addition to poems and fiction in English.

The other group of outlets is of importance as a source of non-traditional experimental writing.

These are campus publications that may either be weekly student newspapers, quarterly
magazines, or annual literary journals. U.P. has the Philippine Collegian which occasionally
comes out with a literary folio in addition to pages devoted to student poems, stories and essays;
The Diliman Review, an opinion magazine which is open both to students and faculty; and The
Literary Apprentice, which has enjoyed the status of a landmark in the literary scene since the
1920s. Siliman University’s Sands and Coral has also had a long history as a key literary organ
associated with the celebrated writer’s workshop in Dumaguete City. Ateneo de Manila
University issues Heights, which is open to both students and faculty, and Pantas (Master), a
discussion magazine for the faculty, which prints poems occasionally. Philippine Studies, a
learned journal also based in Ateneo, is open to literary studies and book reviews and
occasionally puts out a literary issue. De La Salle University has a literary magazine, Malate
(named after a bar and restaurant row which used to be frequented by artists), and a journal
devoted to articles on literature and general culture named Likha (Creation). In addition, De La
Salle publishes Malay (Consciousness), a journal of ideas that also includes literary studies. The
University of Santo Tomas publishes The Varsitarian, which has a regular literary section. The
Polytechnic Uiversity of the Philippines (PUP) is the home of Bisig (Arm), which is devoted to
both creative writing and literary comment.

Overall, the character of the Philippines literary scene after “EDSA” may be pinpointed by
referring to the theories that inform literary production; to the products issuing from the
publishers; to the dominant concerns demonstrated by the writer’s output; and to the direction
towards which literary studies are tending.

1. There is in the academe an emerging critical orientation that draws its concerns and insights
from literary theorizing current in England and the United States. Although vestiges of the New
Criticism continue to surface in the approach to literature found among elder professors and
older graduate students, the theory behind it has lost considerable ground against the onslaught
of Marxism in the late 1960s and in the 1970s, and now against the inroads of post structuralism
and post-modernism. This means that the old bugaboo about a clash between art and propaganda
has been laid to rest, and the younger critics have now turned their attention to problems of
literary production and reception which are seen to pass through processes determined by power-
wielders with their respective interests and ideological positions, and which in turn determine the
content, form and orientation of the new literary works. The new theories have allowed critical
discourse to move away from the previous veneration of students of literature for “high art’” and
rendered it more open to hitherto marginalized forms and subject matter.

The critical voices announcing the advent of a developing theory register an array of political
positions ranging from militant Marxist enjoinment to commit one’s writing to the destruction of
bourgeois social structures, to the non committal deconstruction of earlier progressive critical
discourse. Gelacio Guillermo (Ang Panitikan ng Pambansang Demokrasya [The Literature of
National Democracy], 1990), Alice Guillermo (Images of Change, 1988), Elmer Ordoñez (The
Other View, 1989) and Edel Garcellano (First Person, Plural, 1987) represent criticism that
focuses on writing as a social practice in a semi feudal, semi colonial setting, Isagani R. Cruz
(Beyond Futility, 1984), Soledad S. Reyes (Kritisismo [Criticism], 1992), Virgilio S. Almario
(Kung Sino ang Kumatha Kina Bagongbanta, Ossorio, Herrera, Aquino de Belen, Balagtas,
atbp., [Of Those Who Created Bagongbanta, Ossoria, Herrera, Aquino de Belen, Balagtas,
et.al], 1992) and other critics from the academe who have not collected their studies into books,
represent a spectrum of post structuralist and post colonial approaches that have introduced new
ways of reading Philippine writing.

2. Post-EDSA publishing has been marked by adventurousness, a willingness to gamble on “non

traditional” projects. The university presses, composed principally by the University of the
Philippine Press, Ateneo de Manila seeks to remedy through the Panitikan (Literature) Series a
perceived lack in the academe of literary texts in the vernacular. A list of works to be reprinted
was initially agreed upon, and then each university press was assigned works to put out
according to a set timetable. So far the consortium has made available an epic, several novels,
short story collections, poetry and drama anthologies, all of them finding their audiences in
college classes on Philippine Literature.

A boon for both established and up-and-coming authors is the rise of commercial publishing
firms that have gone beyond textbooks in devising products to offer to Filipino readers. New Day
Publishers and Solidaridad Publishing House have been in the business of literary publishing
long before the EDSA revolt. New Day’s unfaltering faith in Filipino writing is shown by its list
of novels, poetry collections, short story anthologies and books of essays. Solidaridad entered a
new phase in its publishing services when it began, with assistance from the Toyota Foundation
of Japan, to commission and publish translations into Filipino of Japanese and Southeast Asian
writing.

Contributing to the vigor off the publishing scene is Anvil Publishing, Inc. which has so far
racked up a distinguished line-up of well-known authors, both old and new, with works that
project an interesting profile of contemporary Philippine writing. Kalikasan Press, a considerably
more modest firm than Anvil, after a very brief sally into publishing, has been able to contribute
books of poems, fiction, essays and plays that otherwise would have been shelved by more
politically-cautious editors.

Creative writing from the underground Left has taken advantage of the “democratic space”
brought about by the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship to put in an appearance in some Manila
bookshops. LINANG (Kilusan sa Paglilinang ng Rebolusyonaryong Panitikan at Sining sa
Kanayunan [Movement for the Enrichment of Revolutionary Literature and Arts in the
Countryside]) and MAINSTREAM (People’s Art, Literature and Education Resource Center) are
collaborating entities that have come up with two novels (Sebyo [a nickname], 1990, by Carlos
Umberto and Gera [War], 1991, by Ruth Firmeza, about the revolution in the countryside) and a
collection of short fiction (Bukal ng Tubig at Apoy [Wellspring of Water and Fire], 1989, by
Levy balgos de la Cruz). Clearing (1987), a book of English poems by Jason Montana, appeared
under the imprint of ARMAS (Artista at Manunulat ng Sambayanan [Artists and Writers of the
People]). Kung Saan Ako Pupunta (To Where I’m Going), 1993, by Zelda Soriano, is a thin
volume of Stories and poems that does not carry a publisher’s imprint at all.

3. The declining prestige of the New Criticism, whose rigorous aesthetic norms had previously
functioned as a Procrustean bed on which Filipino authors and their works were measured, has
opened a gap in the critical evaluation of literary works. The gap has allowed the entry of the
hitherto marginalized authors of genres and themes into the mainstream of Philippine critical
discourse. Helped on by the heightened militancy of the women’s movement, women writers
long edged out of center stage by male writers privileged both by patriarchal culture and by the
artistic norms promulgated by the New Critics, now demand critical and by the artistic norms
promulgated by the New Critics, now demand critical attention and revaluation. Initially,
anthologies of women writing (Filipina I, 1984; Filipina II, 1985 and Ani [Harvest], March 1998
issue) signaled an intensified campaign to claim attention for literary output that anthologist and
critics have ignored. This was followed up by the feminist criticism on the creative works of
women writers and on writings about women by male writers (e.g., Feminist Readings of
Philippine Fiction, 1994, by Sylvia Mendez Ventura), and now the need to consider the
realignment of names and reputations on the literary pantheon has become more pressing.

By what norms are the writings of peasants, workers and guerilla cadres to be measured? The
question posed a bothersome question to Filipino Marxists from the academe who, in the 1960s,
had internalized the aesthetic requirements of bourgeois literary criticism. With the current bias
for women has become greater readiness to open up to another marginalized sector, the un/sub
lettered folk usually honored in politicized discourse as “the masses.” LINANG and
MAINSTREAM have anthologized poems, narratives and forms of reportage from the
countryside, and it is only now that is has become possible to validate them without any touch of
condescension. GAPAS has held a consultative gathering of writers, critics and teachers to
evaluate winning pieces in its annual Gantimpalang Ani (Harvest Award) contest, so the effort
has begun to do justice to writing from the grassroots.

Filipino migrant workers had appeared before in the writings of Carlos Bulosan, Bienvenido N.
Santos and other overseas Filipino authors. However, never has their presence been more
strongly felt than in the post EDSA period, both as a subject matter and authorial voice. The
reason is obvious – economic conditions at home compel the diaspora which takes Filipinos to
foreign lands where they their luck at whatever jobs pay well enough. The bitter luck of these
Filipino workers has become the tragic stuff of much poetry, fiction and drama.

Gay and lesbian writings are also beginning to merit serious comment as a result of the
emergence of literary criticism willing to frame traditional assumptions about art and non
conventional sexuality as content. Gay writers and the theme of homosexuality have been around
since the 1960s, but politicized analysis of gay writing is a recent phenomenon in Philippine
criticism. Ladlad (Coming Out), An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing (1994) is a bilingual
collection containing fiction, poetry, essays and plays, most of them authored by very new names
in literary scene.

4. The fourth and final characteristic of post EDSA writing is the developing thrust towards the
retrieval and the recuperation of writing in Philippine languages other than Tagalog. There is a
growing sense in the academe that the three literatures (Tagalog, English, and Spanish) from
which the usual anthology of Philippine Literature has been drawing its selections have never
been an accurate representation of the writing Filipinos all over the country and throughout
history have produced. Since 1986, much progress has been achieved in integrating writing from
the regions into the national literature of the Filipinos.

In this, the chief motivating centers have been the graduate programs in various universities all
over the country. M.A theses and Ph.D. dissertations on regional authors and their works have
amassed a great amount of information and cultural documentation that provide the foundation
for future regional literary histories. Such literary histories will have to be written within the
regions themselves, and then a truly national literary history may at last begin to be constructed.

***************************************End****************************************
*The Instructor claims no ownership to everything that is presented in this module. The content of this
module is sourced from Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology by Bienvenido Lumbera and
Cynthia Nograles Lumbera.