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Vol. XXXIII No. 1

INDANAO
FORUM
Official Publication of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology
Contents
ISSN 0115-7892 June 2020
1 “Every Life Has Hope”: A Case Study on the Therapeutic Community

Approach (TCA) in Drug Rehabilitation
JOEL JAN S. ALVAREZ
ESTHERLITA J. AMBOS
KAYE ANGELLIE C. NAPIGKIT
MADELAINE S. PLANIA
MARIA CECILIA M. FEROLIN
21 Conservation and Development of Community-Based Agro-
Ecotourism in Barangay Digkila-an, Iligan City
MARIA PIA M. SISON
41 The Paradox of Social Capital: Reflections on Disaster Response and
Climate Adaptation
AMABELLE A. EMBORNAS
61 Folk Beliefs, Patterns and Commonalities in the
Personal Narratives on Typhoon Washi (Sendong)
MERCEDITHA C. ALICANDO
79 Rethinking Arts Appreciation through Jacques Ranciere’s
Critical Aesthetics
ALVERT D. DALONA
93 Sining Kambayoka’s Usa Ka Damgo: Transplanting
Shakespeare into Lanao
AMADO GUINTO, JR.
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The Mindanao Forum Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 J. J. S. ALVAREZ, et al June 2020
“Every Life Has Hope”: A Case Study

on the Therapeutic Community
Approach (TCA) in Drug
Rehabilitation
JOEL JAN S. ALVAREZ

ESTHERLITA J. AMBOS
KAYE ANGELLIE C. NAPIGKIT
MADELAINE S. PLANIA
MARIA CECILIA M. FEROLIN
ABSTRACT
Drug addiction makes a person dysfunctional, hence a concern not just for the
individual, but also the family and society. This study examines the effectiveness of a
drug rehabilitation modality, the Therapeutic Community Approach (TCA), as
implemented by “Fazenda de Esperanza”, a private organization in Masbate,
Philippines with an aftercare program called the “Living Hope Group”; placing focus on
its modality that relies purely on organic detoxification and non-medicated approaches
– like value formation as part of a holistic change model. The model gives importance
to social bonds or relationships between the drug dependents and their respective
families and peers. The crucial role of these relationships is emphasized not only in the
recovery process of drug dependents but also in attaining holistic change of the
individual.
Employing mixed methods in data gathering, through in-depth interviews and focus
group discussions, challenges faced by the respondents during rehabilitation and the
role of community formed inside the center in overcoming them are explored. Findings
reveal that most respondents who finished the program have successfully remained
drug-free. All of the respondents affirmed positively the impacts of the two-tiered
Therapeutic Community
___________________
ALVAREZ, AMBOS, NAPIGKIT, and PLANIA are BA Sociology graduates of the
Department of Sociology, College of Arts and Social Science (CASS), MSU-Iligan
Institute of Technology in 2019. FEROLIN is a Professor VI at the Department of
Sociology, CASS, MSU-IIT.
11
Approach (TCA) – one year in rehabilitation followed by an aftercare program. While

the one-year rehabilitation addresses the concern of drug dependency, the latter after-
care program ensures that the graduates sustain sobriety through strengthened family
bonding and a meaningful community support system. Hence this paper recommends
the model of modified TCA - using non-medicated approaches and a responsive aftercare
program for effective rehabilitation of drug dependents.
Keywords: drug rehabilitation, aftercare program, TCA (therapeutic community

approach), organic detoxification, holistic change
INTRODUCTION
Since the early days of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's

campaign on drugs in 2016, the rehabilitation centers and prisons in the
Philippines have reported cases of experienced congestion and overcrowding
due to the massive increase of identified drug addicts and pushers—an
aftermath of Operation Tokhang where people immediately decided to join
rehabilitation centers in fear of becoming victims to menacing police raids or
vigilante groups (Maretti 2016). Even with on-going campaign against illegal
drugs, the Dangerous Drug Board (DDB) reports that there is an incline
percentage rate in terms of drug use that has been recorded from the year 2014
up to the present date (Dangerous Drugs Board 2018). In order to cope with
the rising problem of congestions in various rehabilitation centers and to
effectively address the current problem of substance abuse in the Philippines,
different modalities had been adopted by Philippine government. One of the
modalities that has been adopted by the Philippine government is a voluntary
residential program accompanied by an aftercare program centered on values
reformation and behavior modification—the Therapeutic Community
Approach (TCA).
Considering the chronicity of drug addiction, residential treatment for

substance use disorders emerged and were innovated in the late 1950s. Due to
the unpreparedness of the mainstream organized health care to respond to the
epidemic drug abuse, community-based models of rehabilitation were
developed including a drug-free residential program called Therapeutic
Community (TC) (Tims et al. 1994). As defined by Broekaert et al. (1998), “A
therapeutic community is a drug-free environment in which people with
addictive (and other) problems live together in an organized and structured
way in order to promote change and make possible a drug-free life in the
outside society.” The concept of Therapeutic Community was then used as an
22
approach in addressing substance abuse as well as social and psychological

problems of an individual, utilizing community as the most fundamental core
in the rehabilitative process and treatment (De Leon 1997). Aftercare Program
services also play a part in the modality, involving the individual and family
in counselling in order to assess and help maintain and sustain the positive
changes made by the individuals during the TC treatment (NIDA 2015).
The Fazenda de Esperanza (also known as Farm of Hope) is an

international drug and formation center, recognized by the Diocese and the
Catholic Church. The center utilizes the TCA modality and admits people of
all age, gender, and religion suffering from various kinds of addictions and
related issues such as behavioral problems, depression, and all sorts of
addiction (Malumo 2015). The center located in Masbate, Philippines, was the
first Fazenda established in Asia, inaugurated in August 13, 2003 in Barangay
Bangad, Milagros in Masbate City through the efforts of Fr. Pierino Rogliardo.
The is unique among the TCA implementers as the entire process of treatment
the drug dependent is purely natural, meaning there is no medication involved
(Dos Santos 2014). The aftercare program called Living Hope Group (LHG) are
then found in the Manila, Masbate, Naga, Cebu, and Iloilo. The (LHG)
functions as an aftercare program of Fazenda that caters the needs for
adjustments, support system, and a monitoring body to every graduate that
are endorsed to them after the completion of the one-year program inside the
Fazenda da Esperanza (Malumo 2015).
This case study examines the effectiveness of the Therapeutic

Community Approach as implemented by Fazenda de Esperanza (FdE) and its
aftercare program, the Living Hope Group (LHG), in rehabilitating and
treating drug dependents. The ways and procedures the Therapeutic
Community Approach (TCA) is implemented in the center is investigated,
placing focus on its three ground principles (work, spirituality, and
community) and the three phases of the program that the residents of the
center undergo. Anchored on the Hirschi’s (1969) Social Bond Theory, the roles
and significant effect of the social institutions, specifically the peers, the
family, the church, and the facilitators of Fazenda de Esperanza and LHG in
the rehabilitation process is also examined. The study also details the
effectiveness of the program based on the perspectives of the graduates of
FdE’s program and their respective families.
33
THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
This study uses two sociological theories – Containment theory and

Social Bond theory – which help explain why TCA can be effective modality in
rehabilitating drug dependents to attain holistic transformation and
wellbeing.
Containment Theory by Walter Reckless. Walter Reckless (1961) asserts that

the core of the theory is containment— that is, personal and social safeguards
that shield the individual from committing deviancy. He identifies two forms
of containment - the inner containment which involves the personal, social
controls over behavior which include self-control, a good self-concept, ego
strength; and the outer containment which deals with the structural buffers in
the drug dependent's proximal, social environment that served to restrain
them. In this study, outer control refers to the procedural method of controlling
the deviant tendencies of the drug dependent in Fazenda de Esperanza
through their work, community engagement and spiritual activities. These are
also the parameters by which LHG, the aftercare program, will pursue its
support and monitoring of the graduates of FdE/LHG.
Social Bond Theory. The Social Bond theory of Travis Hirschi (1969)
strengthens the connection between the outer containment to the inner
containment. According to Hirschi and followed up by Wiatrowski (1981),
conformity is achieved through socialization, the formation of social bonds
between individual and society composed of four major elements: Attachment,
Commitment, Involvement, and Belief. The stronger each element of the social
bond, less likely to have a delinquent behavior. Looking at the basic unit of the
society which is the family, it provides a certain attachment among its
members and constitutes a mutual feeling of love and respect.
44
Schematic Diagram
THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY APPROACH
Work, Community Life, Spirituality
Living
Hope Group
Fazenda de Esperanza
Facilitator
Facilitator
Church
Church
Peers
Peers
Family
Family
Self- Transformation
Value Formation
Behavioral Change
Self-Worth
Discipline
HOLISTIC CHANGE
55
METHODS OF INQUIRY
This is a case study that employs a qualitative approach utilizing in-depth

interviews (IDI), focused group discussions (FGD) and participant observation. A
total of ten (10) respondents, (10) respondents, seven are males and 3 females, of
the study were selected using snowball approach with the following criteria: (1)
must be into drugs, or a drug dependent, upon his admission in Fazenda de
Esperanza; (2) must have gone through at least six (6) months in the FdE program
and had been endorsed to LHG aftercare program; (3) must have attended at least
four weekly meetings of the LHG. T The respective families and colleagues of the
respondents were also interviewed, along with the facilitators of LHG as key
informants, and some of the drug dependents’ recognized peers. A focused group
discussion with all the graduates of Fazenda was conducted and the researchers
also attended one of the aftercare program’s monthly meeting. This study was
conducted in the aftercare program of Fazenda de Esperanza called the Living
Hope Group (LHG) in Cebu City.
For the in-depth interview, a semi-structured interview guide was used

and varied depending on the person being interviewed. The interview guide for the
drug dependents were formulated to trace out the causes of drug abuse,
relationship within the informant’s immediate family and community before and
after rehabilitated, personal experiences during and after rehabilitation and the
intensity of drug relapse, if there are any. For the respective family members of
the respondents, the questions were centered on the relationship prior, during and
after the rehabilitation of the informant. The facilitators of the program were also
interviewed on the ways and procedures inside the Fazenda De Esperanza and
their aftercare program, the monitoring and assessments method in determining
the sobriety of the informants, and their support system. For the FGD, questions
regarding their time inside the center was pursued along with their sense
community and camaraderie during and after rehabilitation.
The researchers observed ethical considerations throughout the whole

process of the study. The real identities of the graduates remain anonymous
throughout the writing process and aliases (personally picked by the respondents)
were used in lieu of their real names. The respondents were fully informed of the
study and methodology ahead of time and were provided with consent forms to
document their consented participation in the study.
66
RESULTS OF THE STUDY
A. TCA General vs TCA in Fazenda
General Structure of Therapeutic Community (TC) Approach
The fundamental distinction of the Therapeutic Community Approach

from other treatment approaches is the use of “community as method” (De Leon
1997). This means that it is the community who will teach the individuals to
change themselves and provide the context of relationship and activities for social
learning. As expanded further and defined by Ottenberg et al. (1993), Therapeutic
Communities “forms a miniature society in which residents, and staff in the role
of facilitators, fulfill distinctive roles and adhere to clear rules, all designed to
promote the transitional process of the residents” and the residents is not held in
by force but by their own will. The key components of a Therapeutic Community
are: social organization, peer and staff roles, group and individual counseling,
community enhancement meetings, community management elements, work as
therapy and education, program stages and aftercare. Each is used to transmit
knowledge and teachings to the residents, promote affiliation, and develop self-
change (De Leon 2015).
The social organization of a TC is structured to have a staff at the top level

complemented by resident peers who are at junior, intermediate, and senior levels.
This peer level-to-community structure arranges relationships of mutual
responsibility at various levels in the program. Peers and staff members of a TC,
serve as role models, demonstrate the expected behavior and reflect the values and
teachings of the community (De Leon 2015). Moreover, group and individual
counseling activities provide opportunities for the residents to vent out their
feelings and sentiments. These activities of counseling and dialogue can increase
communication and interpersonal skills which supports the process of change (De
Leon 2015).
Therapeutic Community Approach by Fazenda de Esperanza
The Fazenda de Esperanza (FdE), also known as “Farm of Hope”, is an

association of the faithful and is recognized by the Catholic Church and supported
by the Diocesan Church. FdE is unique among the TCA implementers as the entire
process of treatment - including the process in the behavior modification and value
reformation - of the drug dependent is totally drug-free or purely natural, meaning
there is no medication involved. The rehabilitation program of FdE lasts for 12
7
7
months and is divided into 3 phases; detoxification, monitoring, evaluation and

completion. The implementation of these phases is solely based on their three
ground principles: Work, Spirituality, and Community Life.
Work includes intensive physical activities and exercise that the residents
undergo for detoxification. In Fazenda, they are tasked to do some household
chores and engage in farm-work such as raising livestock, dairy production,
planting organic vegetables and rice grains, watering the plants, and harvesting.
Residents follow a rotating weekly schedule that the facilitators impose to ensure
that the residents can work in different areas. Sweating and perspiration achieved
through work and exercise is considered a big factor in the detoxification process
in Fazenda.
Spirituality at Fazenda. FdE practices Roman Catholicism and is rooted in

the spirituality of Chiara Lubich. Inside the center, religious practices such as
Prayer, Eucharist, Rosary, Bible Reading and Sharing, Meditation and Adoration
are given importance. Priests are also present within the center so that the
residents can receive sacraments. According to Fr. Dos Santos (2014), “Life in
Fazenda is based on only one rule: Live the Gospel. The characteristic way of
making spiritual reflection is to take a part of the daily scripture and meditate on
it, trying to understand—through a Gospel Phrase—what God wants to say to each
member of the community.”
Community Life. Inside the center, the residents are placed into a
community wherein one’s progress towards recovery can impact the recovery
process of others. The community in Fazenda also promotes a sense of
belongingness and builds strong relationships wherein they can share their
individual hardships and challenges with their fellow residents.
Three Phases of Fazenda de Esperanza Program
The first three months of the program focuses on what the facilitators call the
“detoxification process”. During this phase, the drug dependents are placed in a
work environment where they can sweat under the sun, this serves as their
detoxification since the institution forbids the use of medication in any form when
it comes to detoxifying the residents, aside from Paracetamol in times of fever.
After being placed in a house where they will stay, a daily routine containing
specific roles and responsibilities in terms of household chores is established and
must be observed throughout the week. Every week, all of the drug dependents’
responsibilities in both the household and the work environment is reorganized in
order to assign them in different positions. A drug dependent in the first three
8
8
months can rotate from working in planting vegetables under the harsh sun or into
dairy production. The purpose of the said reassigning is to create a sense of
collaboration and camaraderie with other residents to prevent them from isolating
themselves and/or developing a sense of authority over others.
After the detoxification process, the drug dependent is now moved into the
“formation” phase mostly during their 4th month where the workload is much
lighter than the previous phase. . In this phase, the drug dependent’s behavior is
being observed for further modification through counseling. Counselling is done
through one-on-one conversations where the administrators tend to listen to the
drug dependents’ personal difficulties currently experience. Another form of
counseling also takes place inside of chapel wherein every after the drug
dependents finish the rosary, a “sharing” will ensue where everyone reflects on the
gospel and will apply it to the present moment. At the end of the day, another
session will be conducted where drug dependents share their experiences in living
the gospel they recently encountered. These forms of counselling then continue on
all through the next phases of rehabilitation. If the drug dependent’s behavior is
recognized as exemplary by the facilitators, he/she can be then picked out to be a
“coordinator”. Coordinators are the then assigned to govern and supervise a
specific group of drug dependents in the center. These coordinators undergo
further behavioral modification through seminars and recollections that are
conducted by the missionaries of Fazenda and priests from the diocese of Masbate.
Throughout the seminars all of coordinators are taught how to handle the other
drug dependents and how to further improving their own attitudes such as
strengthening their patience towards others.
In the final phase, the facilitators tend to evaluate the progress of every
drug dependent whether they need more and intensive assistance in terms of
behavior modification. Every drug dependent differs in terms of their progress in
resocialization, some factors that might affect their delay is the length and
intensity of drug use. For those who execute fast recovery, those drug dependents
are then now given responsibilities to help manage, monitor, and assist their fellow
drug dependents in completing their program. Once they completed their own 12-
month program, the drug dependent is then released from the program and
immediately endorsed to the aftercare program, Living Hope Group, that is closest
to their locations to further monitor their recovery despite not being inside the
center anymore.
9
9
Experiences inside Fazenda de Esperanza
The residents claimed that the first few months inside the Fazenda De
Esperanza were definitely not easy. They experienced several challenges while
living in the center, one of which is what they call “boryong”. This refers to the
sudden feeling of depression, an urge to be violent, or a sudden uncontrollable need
to leave the center and go home. The residents claimed that their peers and
community inside the facility have helped them in during their experience with
“boryong”. One respondent, Tope, explained how the community inside the center
helps them when they experience “boryong”. According to “Tope”:
“Mutabang mi sa community kung naa gyoy mag boryong, naa ra

gyod imong mga brothers nga mutabang nimo. Di gyod na
malikayan. Ug siya na pod, aw ikaw napod moy mu tambag ana
niya.”
(We help the community if anyone experiences boryong, your
brothers are always there to help you. That can never be evaded.
If he experiences some troubles, well it’s your turn now to give
advice.)
The most common phenomenon that the residents experienced was the
strong longing for the family due to being separated with them. Staying in a center
several miles from home without a direct line of contact or communication proved
to be hard to most of the respondents. Tope also shared how hard it was for him to
not have any communication with his family for the first three months:
“Kanang three months gyod wa gyo’y outside world ba. Way

tawag, wa tanan. Murag three months kay nga way contact sa
imong pamilya. Mao na siya’y, mao nay pinaka lisod nga nahitabo
sa akoa didto.”
(You can’t contact your family during the first 3 months. No
communication at all. That was the hardest for me)
The residents also claimed to have experienced several symptoms of drug

withdrawal during the first months. Symptoms such as cravings, emotional
problems, and behavioral problems such as being irritable and short tempered
were found common among the drug dependents.
Despite these challenges encountered inside the facility, the residents

provided a positive response when asked about what they felt inside the center
when not using illicit drugs anymore. Answers like fulfilling, happy, freedom,
10
10
hopeful, thankful and productive were mentioned. The drug dependents also
claimed to have experienced self-reflection within the program. Through the
ground principles of Fazenda de Esperanza, which is Work, Spirituality, and
Community Life, the drug dependents admittedly stated that they learned to be
responsible and that they found a place where they belong as they are in a
community where fellow drug dependents could provide social support while they
were still inside the formation center. According to the respondent “Edward”, the
center was able to teach him patience, love, and most especially contentment with
the rule of “Live the Present Moment”. He said:
“Mudawat nalang ko na live the present moment. Kanang unsay

mahitabo, unsay naa, mao lang usa di sako mangita’g
mangambisyon ug lain.”
(I would accept to live the present moment. Wherein whatever
happens, whatever I have, I’d be content and not look or want
something else.”
Peers and the community inside the center were crucial in the process of
recovery. Through an activity they call “sharing of experiences”, they drug
dependents were able to know their peers within the center in a deeper level,
creating a bond and a “brotherhood” inside the center. The respondents were all
able to express how important their “brothers” were inside the facility in
circumstances wherein they felt depressed. “Barney” explained what the other
girls in facility would do to help the fellow drug dependents inside the center.
“Mag encourageay mi sa usa’g usa namo ba. Unya di lang mi kay

gamay, usa raman god mi ka balay. Dali ra kaayo mi makakuan
build og relationship ba. Mao ra gyod na akong buhaton didto.
Live at the present moment.”
(We encourage each other. Then we are not small in number, we
live in one house so it’s very easy to build a relationship. That’s
what I do there. I live at the present moment.)
After finishing the program, respondents attested to have a positive

outlook in life. Some respondents faced difficulties with adjusting to being outside
the farm they got used to and still face the fear of a possible relapse. According to
“Daot”:
“Paggawas nako lipay gyud kaayo ko, lipay unya na guol sad kay
kuyawan lagi ko anang relapse. Kuyawan ko kay basig akong
11
11
mga barkada, mubalik na sad mi ug “jam” ana...mao na akong

gikuyawan pag gawas nako.”
(When I got out, I was really happy at the same time I was
anxious about relapse. I’m anxious what if me and my peers will
be having a jamming session again. That is what I’m anxious
about.)
Despite such challenges that the drug dependents face after finishing the
program and returning to their own environment, through the intervention of the
aftercare program, Living Hope Group, the drug dependents and their families
continue their process of recovery.
New Life with Living Hope Group – Cebu (Aftercare Program)
After completing the rehabilitation program inside the Fazenda de

Esperanza, the drug dependent is now then endorsed to the Living Hope Group
(LHG) which functions as an aftercare program that initially caters the needs for
adjustments, support system, and a monitoring body to every graduate that are
endorsed to them after the completion of the one-year program inside the Fazenda
de Esperanza. The Living Hope Group caters not just solely to the drug dependents
but also their family. The facilitator encourages primarily the family of the drug
dependent to join every meeting to orient them of the teachings and ground
principles of Fazenda, which should be practiced in their homes, in preparation
whenever their drug dependent family member is done with his/her program in
Fazenda de Esperanza. It is crucial for the family to know the teachings and
practices of Fazenda de Esperanza in order to help their drug dependent family
member to continue the values that had been formed during their rehabilitation
process and maintain their sobriety. As explained by the facilitator Mrs. Jerenia:
“…kinahanglan ang family gyud makahibalo na na sila

iggawas…unsay dapat buhaton. Unsa ilang buhaton, unsa ilang
usbon, para inig gawas sa ilang anak i-continue ang pagkamaayo
ug pagka-sober sa ilang anak. Unya usa pud na bisag ninggawas
ang ilang anak muattend gihapon sila kay usahay nay mga
problema. Maisturyahan rapud namo.”
(…The family should already know what to do, what they need to
change, for their child to continue to be better and sober. And
he/she should still attend the meetings because they are still
problems that will come on the way, so we could still talk about it
and help each other out)
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The Living Hope Group also encourages those drug dependents that
weren’t able to finish the program to attend the monthly and weekly meetings in
order to give them constant guidance and support in maintaining their sobriety.
Even if a drug dependent did not finish the 12-month duration in Fazenda, the
program will still accept them without hesitation.
The LHG conducts monthly meeting every first Sunday of the month at
Banilad, Cebu. The facilitator will then share the “Word of Life”, a phrase from the
gospel, which shall be put into practice by all attendees of the meeting for the whole
month and then followed by sharing separated into different groups– by drug
dependents, by fathers, by mothers, by wife/partners, and by children (if there are
any). The purpose of the separation is to focus on the problems and difficulties each
group faced. Each one then will share their current experiences, troubles or
problems, that they faced throughout the past week or month and all will work
together to suggest effective solutions. After the sharing, a mass will commence
followed by all families eating together and sharing the food that they brought with
them. With their weekly meetings, it will be done by the Fazenda graduates only.
The weekly meetings are done every Saturday and the program will normally start
at 1PM. The venue will be made upon decision at any of the graduate’s house.
All of the respondents shared that the aftercare program, Living Hope
Group, is considered important to them as it also serves as a vital process to help
overcome drug addiction after the 12-month program in Fazenda de Esperanza.
The program is described as helpful in terms of being a monitoring body and
providing a community outside of the center that continues provide support in the
recovery process. All interviewed family members also attested that Fazenda de
Esperanza and Living Hope Group is proven effective and helpful due to visible,
positive changes made by each drug dependent.
B. Roles of Social Institutions
Peers
Through a series of activities mostly “sharing of experiences”, the drug
dependents were able to know their peers within the center on a deeper level,
creating a bond and a “brotherhood” inside the center. The respondents were all
able to express how important their “brothers” were inside the facility in
circumstances wherein they felt depressed. Peers and community aided the drug
dependents inside the facility whenever they experienced several challenges (e.g
boryong). And even after completing the program, peers still remain an essential
element in recovery. In the aftercare program, the peers of the drug dependent are
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there as a constant support system that the drug dependents can run for support
whenever they face challenges whether it be on their journey to recovery or other
problems faced in their homes or workplace. The drug dependents recognize the
fact that they are not alone in the process of recovery and that they have a
collective community that aims to help and be present in their journey.
Family
While in the FdE, the family are actually prohibited to visit the center
during the first trimester of the program. However, communication is maintained
through letters. The main reason for this one, according to the facilitators, is for
the drug dependents to really focus on the rehabilitation program during this
critical period; and the organization believes that when the respective family of the
drug dependents does visit them during this period, the drug dependents may
develop a sense of loneliness from home after being visited and might develop an
option in not continuing the program anymore because of homesickness. Drug
dependents that have close relationship with their families prior to rehabilitation
considered their families as their motivation to continue the program.
During the aftercare handled by the Living Hope Group, the family is
strongly encouraged to actively participate in the activities. The families are
taught and informed on the teachings and practices of Fazenda de Esperanza in
order to help their drug dependent family members to continue the values that had
been formed during their rehabilitation process and maintain their sobriety.
Facilitators
The facilitators, as a part of the drug dependents’ support system, execute

control among them inside the facility. They implement the daily routine and
monitor them on a day-to-day basis. They also serve as moderators of reconciliation
when there is conflict among drug dependents. Despite having such a position
inside the facility, the drug dependents and the facilitators have a close
relationship within themselves. The Living Hope Group does not provide extension
programs but the facilitators of the program are willing to extend help to those
members who are in need by providing personal and monetary assistance for their
educational and work endeavors. They also help those who need monetary
assistance in emergencies such as accidents.
Church
The church provides a strong system of belief among the drug dependents
in which they can concede themselves whenever they experience hardships. Inside
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the center, religious practices such as the Prayer, Eucharist, Rosary, Bible Reading
and Sharing, Meditation and Adoration are given importance. Priests are also
present within the center so that the residents can receive sacraments.
According to Fr. Dos Santos (2014), “Life in Fazenda is based on only one
rule: Live the Gospel. The characteristic way of making spiritual reflection is to
take a part of the daily scripture and meditate on it, trying to understand—through
a Gospel Phrase—what God wants to say to each member of the community. ”
The drug dependents were also able to form and adopt new ideologies
during their stay inside the center taught by the church. With the drug dependents
following a set of spiritual guidelines and rules called “Word of Life”, they were
able to follow new ideologies that helped in the process of value reformation. “Gyve”
claimed that the center has taught him how to love as he followed the “Be the first
one to love” ideology inside the center. According to him:
“Ang kuan man gud sa farm kay love ba…”be the first one to
love”. Imbis imong garbo or imohang unsa ng naa dira imong
gipugong-pugong…maabri man gud. Love man gud ang
gipahinay-hinay ug kamang sa imuha.”
(“The rule inside the farm is love…”be the first one to love”.
Instead of letting your pride of whatever you keep within
yourself. It will be opened. Love is what they slowly let into you.”)
According to the respondent “Edward”, the center was able to teach him
patience, love, and most especially contentment with the rule of “Live the Present
Moment”. He said:
“Mudawat nalang ko na live the present moment. Kanang unsay

mahitabo, unsay naa, mao lang usa di sa ko mangita’g
mangambisyon ug lain.”
(“I would accept living in the present moment. Wherein whatever
happens, whatever I have, I’d be content and not look or want
something else.”)
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C. The Effectiveness of TCA
The Perspective of Drug Dependents
Value reformation was also highlighted as a significant part of the

transformation of the drug dependents. All of the respondents claimed that the
spirituality instilled by the facilitators of Fazenda de Esperanza have helped them
in terms of accepting and facing the reality of every situation faced without
resentment, giving a sense direction in their lives. In contrast to their perspective
prior to their rehabilitation, all the respondents now have a positive outlook in life.
They do not dredge into the negativity that comes along in every circumstance
arises. Changing their perspectives and addressing every problem to what they
call “trials”.
“pag naa koy na encounter na murag bug-at kayo na problema,

pero diba mu abot sa panahon na mag self-pity nako, puro negative
akong huna-huna, pero karon naay part sa ako huna-huna na mu-
fight bitaw.”
(“Whenever I encountered a depressing problem, I will always
arrive in a situation where I pity myself, I always dwell on negative
thoughts, but now, there is a part of me that always want to fight.”)
- “Kulot”
Taking into consideration that relapse is inevitable, the drug dependents

do not neglect their fellow drug dependent where they are considered and referred
to as “brother”. This intimate relationship by the drug dependents was developed
when they found a sense of belongingness through peers and community
involvement in recreational programs and in their social interaction while inside
the formation center. Also, through their activity “sharing of experiences”, it
enables the drug dependent to express their feelings, and establish a brotherly
connection that strengthens the relationship among the drug dependents inside
Fazenda de Esperanza; this thus gives birth to a brotherhood, forming a miniature
society within the community. The connection established between the drug
dependents is vital to the whole process in attaining a full recovery. They support
each other in terms of monitoring and encouraging one another not just in
sustaining sobriety but also in self-development.
The Perspective of Families
The family members expressed that they prefer Fazenda de Esperanza

Formation Center rather than other rehabilitation center because it is cost efficient
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and makes use of organic ways and procedures specifically during the
detoxification process specifically during the detoxification process such as
physical work, exercise, purely organic diet, and sweating and perspiration
achieved through intense work. All of them confirmed that the once-drug-
dependent member acquired positive changes after the rehabilitation especially in
behaviors like being hot-tempered, impatient, irresponsible and violent, which
were their most common behavior prior to the rehabilitation. Families feel relief
and sense of success as they see that the once drug-dependent family member has
acquired some sense of responsibility, gained self-control, manages anger, and
demonstrates a firm resistance whenever faced with temptations.
“gina control na niya ang iyang temper. Sige na siya ug ampo and
rosary kay lain daw iyang paminaw.” (“He’s controlling his
temper. He is always praying and praying the rosary, whenever
he is troubled.”)- Wife of “Gyve”
“Oo, dilinasiya gusto magkuyog-kuyog sa iyang barkada nga

mulakaw.” (“Yes, she does not want to go out with her old
friends”) - Mother of “Barney”
CONCLUSION
The study affirms the Hirschi’s Social Bond Theory (1969) that highlighted
the crucial roles of social institutions in the transformation of individuals towards
attaining holistic change. The Family - provides support and motivation; Peers –
encourages involvement and provides a “sense of belongingness”; Facilitator –
ensures the implementation of policies and facilitates control among the drug
dependents; Church – fosters the aspect of beliefs by providing principles that
guide the day to day lives of the drug dependents.
The Therapeutic Community Approach, as implemented by Fazenda de

Esperanza and its aftercare program, the Living Hope Group (LHG), produced a
“changed person” of the hitherto drug-dependents. The graduates are described to
have exhibited significant improvements in terms of physical, behavioral, and
value aspects. The study also reveals that the TCA implemented by FdE and LHG
strengthens and re-establishes the bonds (attachment, commitment, involvement
and belief) of the drug dependents and their families. Moreover, the Containment
Theory of Walter Reckless (1961) advocates the role of controllers; that is, personal
and social safeguards that shield the individual from committing deviancy and
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encourages the drug dependent into succumbing the process towards the holistic
change. The outer containment as the theory argues, corresponds to the policies
that is being implemented by Fazenda de Esperanza. The unwavering monitoring
and implementation of these policies through the schedules and rules and
regulations by the facilitators, provides a buffering effect to the drug dependent
proximal, social environment that served to restrain them from committing
deviant acts. The inner containment refers to the personal and social controls over
behavior which include self-control, a good self-concept, ego strength that shifts
the perception of the drug dependent which is evidently seen in value-formation,
behavioral change, self-worth, and discipline, collectively undertaken by church
and family. Hence, the TCA is once again seen as an effective modality for
rehabilitating drug dependents.
REFERENCES
Broekaert, Eric, Martien Kooyman, and Donald Ottenberg. 1998. “The “New”
Drug-Free Therapeutic Community: Challenging Encounter of Classic and
Open Therapeutic Communities.” Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
15(6):595 –597. Retrieved January 27, 2018
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3562581/#B13)
Dangerous Drugs Board. 2018. “Statistics.” Retrieved February 2, 2018

(https://www.ddb.gov.ph/research-statistics/statistics).
De Leon, George. 2015. “Therapeutic Communities.” The American Psychiatric

Textbook of Substance Abuse Treatment. 5th Ed. Washington, DC:
American Psychiatric Publishing Inc.
De Leon, George. 1997. “Community as Method. Therapeutic Communities for

Special Populations and Special Settings.” Retrieved January 27, 2018
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232514256_Community_as_Method_T
herapeutic_Communities_for_Special_Populations_and_Special_Settings)
Dos Santos, César. 2014. An Adventure of Hope. Masbate, PH: New City Press.
Hirschi, T. 1969. Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press
Malumo, Phelim. 2015. “Fazenda Da Esperança (Farm of Hope), Philippines.”

Retrieved January 30, 2018 (https://mafrsaprovince.com/2015/05/12/
fazenda-da-esperanca-farm-of-hope-philippines/).
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Maretti, Alberto. 2016. “Prisons and rehab overcrowding in the Philippines.”

Retrieved April 27, 2018 (https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/
2016/12/prisons-rehab-overcrowding-philippines-161207091046623.html)
National Institute of Drug Abuse. 2015. “Therapeutic Communities.” Retrieved

April 17, 2018 (https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-
reports/therapeutic-communities/what-are-therapeutic-communities)
Ottenberg, Donald, Eric Broekaert, and Martien Kooyman. 1993. ‘What cannot be
changed in a therapeutic community?’, in: Broekaert, E. and Van Hove, G
(eds.). Special Education Ghent 2: Therapeutic communities, vzw OOBC,
Ghent, Belgium. Retrieved January 27, 2018.
(https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wouter_Vanderplasschen/publicatio
n/261834646_Therapeutic_communities_for_the_treatment_of_addictions
_in_Europe/links/0c960535981c43253d000000.pdf)
Reckless, W.C. 1961. A New Theory on Deliquency and Crime. Federal Probation,
25, 42-46
Tims, Frank, Nancy Jainchill, and George De Leon. 1994. “Therapeutic

Communities and Treatment Research.” Retrieved January 27, 2018
(https://www.researchgate.net/profile/George_De_Leon/publication/14459
171_Therapeutic_community_research_and_practice_recommendations/li
nks/02e7e53207f021f0c4000000.pdf#page=6).
Wiatrowski, Michael, David Griswold, and Mary Roberts. 1981. “Social Control
Theory and Delinquency.” American Sociological Review, Vol. 46, No. 5.
Retrieved April 17, 2018 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094936)
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The Mindanao Forum Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 M.P. M. SISON June 2020
Conservation and Development of

Community-Based Agro-Ecotourism
in Barangay Digkila-an, Iligan City
MARIA PIA M. SISON
ABSTRACT
This paper assessed the agro-ecotourism potentials and

prospects of Barangay Digkilaan by examining some of its environmental
elements, agro-elements, market viability and community people’s skills,
capability, and social acceptability of the local community on their
cooperation for income generating activities for agro-ecotourism and
environmental protection. Environmental elements include physical
landscape, existence of natural resources such as waterfalls, agro-
forestry and indigenous farm products were also identified. Farm to
market road, potential market of agro-ecotourism products and services
were determined. Skills and capability of community residents were also
assessed for the prospect of potential income generating activities for
agro-ecotourism development of Barangay Digkilaan. Participatory
Resource Appraisal was done in gathering necessary data. Transect walk
was conducted as a technique in identifying the environmental elements
and market viability of the research area. Also, Focus Group Discussion
(FGD) with the Barangay officials and local residents were conducted to
gather information about the proposed agro-ecotourism project as well as
current issues. A total of 82 participants participated in the FGD.
Results revealed that Barangay Digkilaan has a considerable degree of
potential for agro-ecotourism development. Collaborative policy-making
in enhancing community-based agro-ecotourism is also highlighted in
this study to achieve sustainability: environmental sustainability, social
sustainability and economic sustainability.
Keywords: Agro-ecotourism, Community Based Ecotourism,

Community Participation, Ecotourism Development,
Sustainable Development
______________
SISON is an Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology, CASS, MSU-IIT.
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INTRODUCTION
Tourism industry is one among the fastest growing industry all over
the world. It has also been a significant contributor to generate investments,
foreign exchange earnings, employment and economic growth. It is already
more than two decades now that the Philippines formulated guiding
principles in tourism development. In 1991, the 20-year Philippine Tourism
Master Plan (TMP) had been created as basis for tourism development. This
blueprint on the development of the tourism industry aims to be sensitive,
contribute to livelihood, minimize impact of negative factors, maximize and
generate sustainable growth (Anasco and Lizada, 2014). One of the
classifications of tourism industry is the agro-eoctourism. It is a combination
of natured-based and farm-based tourism activities. The rural landscape,
usually a combination of wild and agro-ecosystems, is the most important
aspect for agro-ecotourism development. It is obvious that a diversified
agricultural landscape, with semi-natural habitats, has a greater aesthetic
and recreational potential over uniform, degraded and/or polluted
agricultural areas (Sima, 2018). Agro-ecosystem involves human activity of
agriculture and it is characterized to have simpler species composition and
simpler energy and nutrient flows than "natural" ecosystem (Fliert & Braun,
1999). This is often associated with elevated nutrient input and most cases it
exits the farm leading to eutrophication of connected ecosystems which are
not directly engaged in agriculture (Peden, 1998).
Agro-ecotourism is anchored to the sustainable development goals as
it fosters growth and economic development at all levels. It can also provide
income through job creation and promote incentives to invest in education
and environmental conservation. It can also play a leading role in fighting
against environmental challenges such as climate change, and may ensure
the empowerment of the community through active participation and
collaboration of public and private actors in tourism activities (Responsible
Tourism Institute, 2017). Since this form of industry is attached on natural
resources and cultures, this is considered as the only real tourism assets that
the poor communities have. Thus, this supports inclusive growth of the
community as it has offers alternative livelihoods with educational and health
benefits for the involved community members.
In 2013, the National Ecotourism Strategy and Action Plan 2013-2022
had been created, which aims to “establish an environmentally and socially
responsible ecotourism development that safeguards the integrity and
diversity of its natural resources, provides education and enjoyment to
visitors and delivers larger and more widely distributed income and
employment opportunities to the local communities and their constituents,
especially the women, youth, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable
groups”.
Also, the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017-2022 expands the
development of sustainable resource-based industry including agro-
ecotourism, agriculture, forestry, and fish, marine and genetic resource. The
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plan also promotes development of ecotourism and cultural sites as well as

mainstreaming ecosystem values through institutionalizing economic
valuation and natural resource monitoring system (National Economic
Development Authority, 2017). Aligned with the Ambisyon Natin 2040
Program and PDP 2017-2022, the National Tourism Development Plan
(NTDP) 2016-2002 envisions in “developing a globally competitive,
environmentally sustainable and socially responsible tourism industry that
promotes inclusive growth through employment generation and equitable
distribution of income thereby contributing to building a foundation for a
high-trust society”. The NDP 2016-2022 adopted cluster approach as
development strategy involving the implementation of programs such as
transport networks, infrastructure projects, accommodation and recreational
facilities, human resource development, and marketing plans, which all of
these are directed to support the development of tourism destinations
throughout the country (Department of Tourism, 2018). The Department of
Tourism (DOT) along with its partnership on Department of Agriculture
(DA), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Public Works
and Highways (DPWH), and Department of Interior and Local Government
(DILG) undertake the development of agro-ecotourism by the creation of
Farm Tourism Development Board, formulation of criteria for site selection
and design action plan for development, involving programs for accreditation
system based on standards, and creation of tour programs.
Moreover, in accordance with the 20-year Tourism Master plan of the
country, Iligan City has also pursued its ecotourism agenda. The city has
been declared as the City of Water Falls where the place has 23 majestic
waterfalls. Two famous waterfalls of the city are the Maria Cristina Falls and
Tinago Falls. Also, several ecoparks have been implemented in this city
including Maria Cristina Eco Park, Iligan Paradise Resort at Barangay
Buruun, Blue Lagoon, and Tinago Falls. Thus, this has caught the interest of
finding out the potential of developing a community-based agro-ecotourism in
Barangay Digkilaan, Iligan City, where Dodiongan Fall is also situated and
has abundant source of agricultural products such as banana. Specifically,
the study seeks: (1) to conduct a natural resource audit of Barangay Digkila-
an in terms of: (a) Environmental elements and (b) Market Viability; (2) to
determine the skills/capabilities and cooperation of the local people for an
agro-ecotourism project; (3) to identify (a) relevant activities for agro-
ecotourism development in Barangay Digkila-an and (b) current issues on the
dumpsite located in the highland barangay of Sitio Bangko in Barangay
Bonbonon that is located nearby Dodiongan Falls.
In Figure 1, the conceptual framework of this study highlights the
integration of the three pillars of sustainability: economy, environment, and
society to illustrate the important elements in developing community-based
agro-ecotourism in Barangay Digkilaan, Iligan City. In the framework, the
link of economic and environmental sustainability can be achieved by
balancing the use of environmental resources for agro-ecotourism. Creation of
livelihood and jobs from agro-ecotourism connects economic sustainability
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and social acceptability. This means that if the local community accepts the
proposed income generating activities agro-ecotourism and their cooperation
and participation to conserve the environment with the intervention of local
government or authorities, the sustainable community-based agro-ecotourism
in Barangay Digkilaan would be possible. The community may improve their
economic status. Also, the community can maintain the cleanliness in the
potential tourist spots and help conserving the environment through their
active participation and cooperation. The framework also highlights the
political intervention in which the local government unit can formulate
appropriate technical policy and give assistance through partnership on
developing agro-ecotourism in Barangay Digkilaan towards sustainable
community development.
Economic
Sustainability
Balancing the use of SUSTAINABLE

COMMUNITY- Creation of
environmental resources livelihood and jobs
BASED AGRO-
for agro-ecotourism ECOTOURISM
POLITICAL INTERVENTION
ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIAL
SUSTAINABILITY ACCEPTABILITY
Participation of the Direct Community
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework on Development

of Community-based Agro-ecotourism
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METHODOLOGY
This study aims to determine the potential of Barangay digkilaan,

Iligan City towards community-based agro-ecotourism. Participatory
Resource Appraisal (PRA) was done in gathering data on the environmental
elements of the area and its market viability. Transect Walk, Key Informant
Interviews, and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) are the tools used in collecting
the data.
In conducting a natural resource audit of Barangay Digkilaan in
terms of Environmental elements and Market Viability, a community
mapping using transect walk was done. The researcher accompanied by some
local people explored and observed the area to validate data on the
environmental elements. The data collected were recorded accordingly.
Focus group discussion (FGD) accompanied with a structured
questionnaire was done to determine the skills/capabilities and cooperation of
the community in developing agro-ecotourism project in Barangay Digkilaan.
Purposive sampling was also done in selecting the participants for the FGD.
These participants are the Barangay Officials and local residents of the
barangay. A total of 82 participants were involved in FGD of which 49 of
them were men and 33 of them were women. The FGD was conducted once
simultaneously. The participants were asked to identify feasible prospect
economic ventures and tourism activities once the agro-ecotourism in the area
will be develop. They were also asked about their skills and socio-economic
status. They also determined the current environmental challenges and social
issues that may hinder the development of agro-ecotourism in their
community.
Also, Key Informant Interview was conducted for supplemental
information. In selecting the informants, purposive sampling was done. The
selected informants are the concerned officials of the Iligan City Mayor’s
Office. The informants were asked about the current issues and future plans
for the Barangay Digkilaan and the tourism industry of Iligan City.
Moreover, the information gathered from FGD and Key Informant Interview
were recorded accordingly.
Research Ethics
Entry protocol was done with the barangay officials by requesting a

meeting with them for this purpose, involving the participation of the
Department of environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and other
concerned authorities. The researcher prepared necessary tools for data
gathering such as recorded notebook and structured questionnaire for FGD
and Key Informant Interview. The researcher also submitted letter of request
to conduct transect walk to observe the research area and FGD to the
barangay official and selected local residents. Consent letter were given to the
respondents who voluntarily participated in this study. The researcher
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ensured the confidentiality of personal information given by the participants

and interviewees. It was also ensured that the information gathered during
data collection are reported honestly and accurately.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Brief Background of Barangay Digkilaan
Physical Environment
Brgy. Digkilaan is situated at approximately 8.2486, 124.3466 in the

interior part of Iligan City. It is bounded in North by Brgy. Rogongon, South
by Brgy. Bonbonon, West by Brgy. Santa Felomina, and East by Mandulog
River. The elevation at these coordinates is estimated at 108.5 meters or
356.0 feet above mean sea level. The general characteristic of the barangay is
a rolling terrain with fractured plains. It has a distance of 17 kilometers
away from the city proper and its main transportation and the easiest way of
going to the place is through riding a motorcycle or commonly known as
habal-habal. It has a distance of 17 kilometers. The barangay is composed of
26 puroks. Dodiongan Falls is situated in this barangay as shown in Figure
2. However some parts of the falls also belong to Barangay Bonbonon and
Barangay Kabacsanan. Its narrow plain along the Mandulog River serves as
the agricultural production area of the barangay. Other areas being
characterized by rolling, hilly and or steep slopes that are fairly good lands
unsuitable for agricultural use. Therefore, cultivation on these areas requires
careful management and conservation practices. However, this area could be
utilized for pasture and forest production, mountain trekking, sightseeing
and other ecotourism activities. As to its water quality, it can be gleaned
even without undergoing tests that the surface waters in the barangay are
slowly deteriorating due to the presence of the leachate from the nearby
dumpsite. The presence of the dumpsite has created enormous impact to its
physical environment and also to its immediate community.
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Figure 2. Location Map of Brgy. Digkilaan
Environmental Elements
Agriculture
Barangay Digkilaan is one of the agricultural-based Barangay in

Iligan City. Based on the information from Focus Group Discussion (FGD),
the barangay has abundant source of banana and this has become one of the
sources of income of the local community. Some of the respondents who were
residents in Digkilaan claimed that they utilized these in making banana
chips, which this can be a potential in establishing community-based
livelihood for banana chips making or other agricultural food products. Also,
this could be one of the prospect income generating agro-ecotourism related
activities.
Aside from the abundance of banana, the barangay is also rich in
coconut, bamboo, root crops and even ferns or commonly known as “pako”. If
there is strategic management technique in implementing conservation
practices, the place has potential towards development of forestry and
agricultural production. Strategic management addressed the issues of
conservation of the natural environment and development of environment-
friendly materials (Khemesh, 2019).
During the community mapping, it was noted that the agricultural
lands were not fully cultivated for possible vegetable, cereals and agro-
forestry production. The poor agricultural development manifests the lack of
knowledge of the farmers on the new technology. Practicing traditional
agriculture and low price of agricultural products in the market discouraged
the farmers to produce more. Agricultural technology has been a significant
factor in increasing farm productivity (FAO, n.d.). In order to ensure that
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agriculture produces adequate food without compromising the environment,

farmers need the right incentives, knowledge, and technology (OECD, 2001).
Thus, it is important to implement policy on educating local farmers about
sustainable farming systems using agricultural technology. Some respondents
from the FGD claimed that they are not business-conscious and they have
limited knowledge in engaging business transactions although there are
many visitors would like to purchase their food products and other items.
Thus, this suggests that the local community who have interest in engaging
entrepreneurial livelihood should be given entrepreneurship training by the
concerned government unit or non-government organizations (NGOs). Syman
(2017) in her research highlighted the importance of formal education,
livelihood diversification and other formal employment in ecotourism areas.
Ecotourism
Barangay Digkilaan has sites that can be developed into tourist

attractions. One of them is the Dodiongan falls or also known as Abaga Falls
and Angel-Winged Falls located along Dodiongan River. As shown in Figure
3, the waterfalls is 65.60 feet high, cascading down to a concrete-like boulder.
Its tranquil, cool waters and lush vegetation make it a real haven for nature
lovers. The lagoon at the foot of the falls is very ideal for swimming. It is 14.5
kilometers away from the city proper and a 15-minute trek to the foot of the
falls. Though Dodiongan Falls is not that famous as Maria Cristina Falls, it
is also visited by local tourists. This site is good for ecotourism development.
Tourism related income generation activities such as recreational ventures,
village or area tour, souvenir shopping and other activities serve as sources of
livelihood enhancement opportunities (Manu & Kuuder, 2012) and can
generate income to the host community (Ashley, et al., 2001).
Moreover, the wide plains of the barangay as observed during the
transect walk could be converted into agricultural area. In this way, the
community could generate income from communal organic garden for crops,
vegetables, and flowers. They could also develop a garden of wild herbs for
collection and drying. While the community would be doing these, they could
at the same time build-up a compost pit, and then cover it with ornamental
plants which later can be one of the tourist spots in the area. Agro-
ecotourism in certain locations of the barangay could provide a strong
economic incentive to small farmers. During the FGD, some of the
respondents stated that in developing agro-ecotourism in the area there is a
prospect for their local community to engage in business ventures specifically
traditional food and beverage processing. Through introduction of these
income generating activities, the growth of agro-ecotourism throughout the
developing countries has served as an economic incentive for community to
protect and preserve natural resources (Yamagiwa, 2003).
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Figure 3. The angel-winged Falls (Dodiongan Falls)
Market Viability
Based on the information gathered from the participants during the

FGD, some of the visitors resided within and outside Iligan City used to visit
Dodiongan Falls for recreational activities such as swimming, hiking, and
bonding. FGD participants claimed that some of the local residents in the
area used to be tour guides for those visitors who want to witness the
attraction of Dodiongan Falls. These visitors used to pay tips on local tour
guides. Also, some of the FGD respondents claimed that some of the visitors
tend to purchase their local products like banana chips and other food
products. These income generating activities of local residents in the area
earned from tour guiding and selling agricultural food products could actually
the community to improve their economic status. Local residents could gain
economic if and when the area is open for tourists (Tuzon, et al., 2014).
Ecotourism provides opportunities for income generation to local community
from natural resources without destroying the environment (Colvin, 1996). It
minimizes negative impact on the environment as well as represents the local
cultures and actively contributing to the economic well-being of the involved
host communities and stakeholders (Manu & Kuuder, 2012).
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Skills/capabilities and cooperation of the local people for an

agro-ecotourism project
Based on the survey of Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in 2015,

Barangay Digkilaan has a population of 5,208 which composes approximately
1,364 households. Most of the residents are into farming, with which farming
(both crops and livestock) is the main source of living (CLUP, 2015). Based
on the data gathered from FGD and Key Informant Interviews, some of the
residents are engaged in animal husbandry and livelihood projects from the
government. Few residents are engaged in scavenging, collecting recyclables
in the dumpsite. According to the key informant, some of the local residents
were hired as segregators. There are also few who are engaged in tour
guiding.
In terms of the skills of local people, most of the participants during
the FGD mentioned that were engaged into farming such as vegetable
growing, buy and sell of agricultural products and animal-raising. Based on
the information gathered from FGD, most of the residents in Digkilaan are
farmers whose average estimated household income is P4,000.00 per month.
This estimated monthly household income found to be below the poverty
threshold which is P9,000 per month for a family of 5 or more. According to
their responses from the FGD, most of them stayed in the place for an
average of 23 years and majority of them had only attained high school in
their educational attainment. Most of the respondents believed that their
economic condition is the same as before which means status quo and only
75% of them were contented. Majority of them claimed that they want to
change their livelihood from being farmers.
Social Acceptability on the proposed activities for agro-ecotourism

development
During the FGD, the respondents were asked to identify economic

activities that they would venture if the Dodiongan Falls will be developed as
agro-ecotourism. As shown in Figure 4, majority of them responded that they
will engage in micro businesses like sari-sari store, selling of agricultural
products and local souvenir items. Thirty percent of the residents claimed
that they would like to engage in tour guiding. Others said that they will
engage in vehicle driving or habal-habal driving to respond the needs of the
tourists for transportation.
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Figure 4. Social Acceptability of Local Residents on the proposed activities

for agro-ecotourism
In Table 1, it summarizes the projected monthly income from the

suggested entrance fee for Dodiongan Falls once it will be developed into an
agro-ecotourism industry based on the average weekly tourist influx.
Table 1. Projected Monthly Income from Entrance Fee for Dodiongan Falls
Proposed entrance fee (in pesos) for Dodiongan

P 15.00
Falls
Average Tourist Influx per week 80 visitors
Estimated income of local community per week: P 1,200.00
Estimated Monthly Income per month: P 4,800.00
Based on the information gathered from FGD, the residents and other
stakeholders agreed to collect an entrance fee for the maintenance of the area
specifically in Dodiongan Falls. As shown in Table 1, it is estimated that the
average entrance fee to be collected from each potential tourist will cost
P15.00. Recently, the average number of visitors per week is 80 based on the
interview from one of the key informant in the barangay. It is estimated that
the local community can earn an approximately P4,800 or more per month
from the entrance fee as illustrated in Table 1.
Based on the FGD, it is evident that the local residents are willing to
accept the agro-ecotourism development of Dodiongan Falls in Brgy.
Digkilaan. They are also willing to engage in various income generating
activities such as microbusiness, tour guiding, and vehicle driving with the
support of the local barangay officials and local government unit. They also
agreed to set a price for the entrance fee of the potential tourist spot as it will
be used for the maintenance and conservation of the area. The results are
aligned with the conceptual framework of this study as shown in Figure 1. In
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order to link economic sustainability and environmental sustainability there

is a need to balance and conserve the natural resources that will be utilized
for agro-ecotourism. This can be achieved if there is a sense of social
acceptability of the local community to render cooperation in conserving the
environment especially the Dodiongan Falls and engage on income generating
agro-ecotourism activities. Ecotourism activities using natural resource
attractions in remote rural areas provide economic diversification and
livelihood opportunities (Ashley et al., 2001) to engage in tourism related jobs
through the conservation of local ecosystems and culture (Manu & Kuuder,
2012). These activities provide better linkages, inclusive growth, create local
employments, and foster sustainable development (Khan, 1997; Belsky,
1999). Agro-ecotourism empowers the host community for them to meet their
economic needs but also to arouse and maintain their sense of pride over their
place that they can call their own. Moreover, appropriate political
intervention is also important towards development of sustainable
community-based ecotourism. The local government in partnership with the
private sectors and NGOs support the infrastructural development and farm-
to-market road that will be utilized for agro-ecotourism and also visitors could
easily access the area. They can also formulate actions through
implementation of relevant policies and management strategies. Governance
is the basis of these collective actions that are often needed to promote the
aims of sustainable tourism (Bramwell, 2011). The local government weighs
the costs or risks and benefits and risks of the transformation plan (Tuzon, et
al., 2014). According to the local community and some of the Barangay
officials in Digkilaan, they viewed a positive outlook towards the proposed
agro-ecotourism project. Also, they look forward for the job and livelihood
opportunities that may improve their economic status.
Issues of the Dumpsite near the Dodiongan Falls
Based on the information gathered from FGD, one of the issues in the
community is the dumpsite and malfunctioned Central Materials Recovery
Facility (CMRF) as illustrated in Figure 5. The dumpsite is located in
Barangay Bonbonon situated nearby Dodiongan Falls. Most of the
respondents claimed that their health is at risk because of the dumpsite
leachate located above the waterfalls. Also, they stated that this issue
negatively affects their livelihood and food security. They also claimed that
the tourist influx in Dodiongan Falls decline due to this issue. Thus, they
were requesting that the local government should take immediate action on
this matter. On this
Another issue of the research area is the production of garbage
consumed from the tourists. The respondents claimed that the presence of
garbage from tourist influx negatively affect the image of the area. Most of
them (69%) were aware that the waterfalls have a lot of garbage left by the
tourists during visits. This is possibly because there is no management team
that supervises the tourist influx and the place is not developed. By
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developing the area in becoming a tourist spot, this may improve the tourist
awareness of the need for conservation (Aweto & Fawole, 2016).
Most of the locals during the FGD with the locals claimed that they
observed black and brown liquid with foul odor being carried off during rainy
season along Dodiongan Falls and into the nearby rivers and streams located
near the dumpsite. Based on the information gathered from the respondents
of this study, there was an issue of water pollution in the area as the falls and
other bodies of water situated nearby were contaminated with the waste from
the landfill which is located 2 kilometers above the Dodiongan Falls.
According to them, this issue was already raised to the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the National Media. Also,
most of the respondents claimed that the cause of the leachate was the
practice of open dumpsite at the landfill in Barangay Bonbonon. In order to
address the problem of the dumpsite leachate, a functional wastewater
treatment is advisable to kill offending bacteria and reduce odor emissions,
oxidizing agents (Waste Advantage Magazine, 2018).
Figure 5. The dumpsite at Barangay Bonbonon
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Figure 6. The leachate treatment facility of the dumpsite
Agro-ecotourism Activities for Barangay Digkilaan as Suggested

by The Locals
Community-based activities are presented here to develop agro-

ecotourism destinations within the framework of the principles of ecotourism
and agro-ecotourism development. Since the International Ecotourism
Society (TIES) created the principles of ecotourism in 1990, ecotourism is
about uniting conservation, communities and sustainable travel. To recall
the principles highlighted by TIES: minimize physical, social, behavioral, and
psychological impacts; build environmental and cultural awareness, and
respect; provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts; produce
direct financial benefits for conservation; generate financial benefits for both
local people and private industry; deliver memorable interpretative
experiences to visitors that help raise sensitivity to host countries' political,
environmental, and social climates; design, construct and operate low-impact
facilities; and, recognize the rights and spiritual beliefs of the Indigenous
People in your community and work in partnership with them to create
empowerment. Agro-ecotourism means a combination of farm-based and
nature-based tourism. Community-based activities focuses on the residents
of the community to be developed – that the project springs out of their desire
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and motivation, that they are the principal actors (planners and
implementers) to realize the project, and the direct beneficiaries of the gains
of the project.
In relation to the physical environment of Barangay Digkilaan, most
of the residents during the FGD suggested the following to carry out their
agro-ecotourism activities: (1) to build a display center of communal produce
from their communal garden; and (2) to showcase an agro-fair activities such
as: listing of economically important trees, listing of plant species with socio-
cultural uses; listing of endemic species. Furthermore, most of the women in
the local community suggested that the Department of Agriculture (DA) shall
initiate a communal farming using the concept of One-Purok-One-Product
(OPOP) scheme of Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), such that they
would be trained as to what crops are possible to plant in their type of soil. In
the development of agro-ecotourism in the area, most of the respondents from
the FGD recommended to solve first the problem on the leachate from the
dumpsite. They also suggested that there should be a bigger catch-basin at
the bottom part of the landfill as the current catch-basin could catch all the
leachate from the landfill that is why it drips down to the Dodiongan Falls.
Also, the Barangay Officials of Digkilaan suggested that the endeavor in
making Dodiongan Falls an agro-ecotourism site of Iligan City could be
shared with Brgy. Bonbonon and Brgy. Kabacsanan as it is located within the
boundaries of the 3 barangays. In terms of activities on people resource as
support for the proposed agro-ecotourism project development for Barangay
Digkilaan, the locals put forward their desire to have a capability building
training in the following areas: appropriate farm management skills with
basics of costing and budgeting; organize cooperative tourism training (for
tourists education in preserving the natural asset of the place) and basic tour
guiding design; utilize local people’s indigenous knowledge acumen on herbal
medicine and other ethnic tourism activities; and agri-business / mixed
farming system with emphasis in marketing, financial and entrepreneurial
activities such as handicraft production, family-run backyard hog and
poultry. Also, most of the participants during the FGD claimed that they
need agricultural and entrepreneurship training which could help them in
making informed decisions of what to raise; when and where to sell based on
up-to-date data on market prices and market trends; and formulating
business plan.
In terms of the aspirations of the local community about the
development of Barangay Digkilaan into agro-ecotourism, most of the
respondents during the FGD responded that they are going to engage in
micro r small scale business such as sari-sari store, fruit and vegetable
vending. Also, some of them claimed that they are interested in tour guiding.
Hence, they need capability building training for tour guiding. They also
believed that tour guiding is as simple as accompanying the tourists to the
waterfalls area. According to Ramona (2016), visiting an ecotourism
destination is an experience every tourist that must be accompanied by
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information. Without additional information provided by authorized persons,

the purpose of the act will not be complete ecotourism.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Barangay Digkilaan has the following features:

A. Agriculture
The plains of Barangay Digkilaan are convertible to an
agricultural area for its soil feature is good, and nearby rivers
could be used to water the plants during dry seasons. With the use
of productive but more sustainable management practices through
crop rotation, crop diversity, reduction or elimination of tillage,
integrating livestocks and crops.
B. Ecotourism
It has a 65.60 feet high falls, with twin waterfalls and a
lagoon ideal for swimming and boating, a mountainous terrains,
rocky cliffs, forest and caves good for trekking, bird watching,
photography, and scientific research on flora and fauna.
C. The Barangay has its market access to attract tourists and
businessmen.
D. People’s support – actual interview with the community residents
and officials reveals the excitement and willingness of the village
folks towards the project. Their skills and interests can be tapped
for agro-ecotourism ventures.
E. On the issues of the dumpsite, given that fact that it is already
there, the three affected barangays: Brgy. Digkilaan, Brgy.
Bonbonon and Brgy. Kabacsanan, in cooperation with the Local
Government Unit and other concerned agencies can join hands in
improving its operation.
Recommendations to Carry Out Issues on the Dumpsite
Based on the current issues about the dumpsite situated near

Dodiongan Falls and the prospects of developing a community-based agro-
ecotourism in Barangay Digkilaan that will serve as basis for collaborative
policy-making, this study recommends the following:
1. The concerned barangay officials in Barangay Digkilaan in coordination

with the other officials in Barangay Bonbonon and Kabacsan can make
a request to fix or purchase a functional Material Recovery Facility and
to construct bigger catch-basin for leachate treatment facility of the
dumpsite to the local government unit of Iligan City as soon as possible.
The Local Government Unit and other concerned agencies like the City
Planning Office (CPDO), the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR), and the Department of Tourism (DOT) can also
work in partnership to address the issues on the dumpsite.
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2. Since most of the local residents in Barangay Digkilaan are willing to

engage on income generating activities for agro-ecotourism, the local
government unit of Iligan City should intervene to support these
activities by giving them assistance and appropriate training for
entrepreneurship, tour-guiding and other tourism activities. They could
also establish partnership with the academe and/or NGOs to provide
such trainings.
3. The local should community with the support of the Barangay Officials
should create a clear management board to supervise the
environmental conservation of the area, marketing and promotions of
the tourist spot and their agricultural products, and other tourism
related activities.
4. The Sustainable Development Studies Program of MSU-IIT can take
lead in proposing projects on community-based agro-ecotourism for a
better, greener and productive Brgy. Digkilaan.
5. For future researchers, they can conduct feasibility study for agro-
ecotourism in Dodiongan Falls incorporating cost and benefit analysis.
This would help the local community as well as the local government
unit in determining market viability of the proposed agro-ecotourism
project. Also, future researchers should conduct Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) for the proposed agro-ecotourism project considering
the status of Dodiongan Falls. They can also conduct water sampling to
assess the physico-chemical parameters of the waterfalls and its water
quality. This can assure the safety of the potential tourists and the local
community.
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The Mindanao Forum Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 A.A. EMBORNAS June 2020
The Paradox of Social Capital:

Reflections on Disaster Response
and Climate Adaptation
AMABELLE A. EMBORNAS
ABSTRACT
Social capital refers to social ties, norms, and networks

that facilitate group or individual access to resources. Social
capital has a collective dimension, and its benefits are generally
shared by members of a community. While social capital is
generally recognized as an important means to building
community resilience, it takes on a double-edge character when
applied to real situations. Based on literature review, this paper
elaborates how social capital plays its dual role in the process of
adapting to climate change towards making communities
resilient. Social capital simultaneously strengthens the ability of
the community to survive a disaster and recover, while being a
barrier to democratic principles and policies.
Keywords: social capital, climate change, disaster response,

climate adaptation
INTRODUCTION
Climate change and disasters are perhaps among the most critical
and complex issues modern societies face today. The Philippines is one of
the world’s most disaster-prone nations due to its location and natural
attributes. Being located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and along the typhoon
belt on the Western North Pacific Basin, its mean annual rainfall is
reported to vary from 965 mm to 4,064 mm. Thus, flooding has become a
common occurrence and the most prevalent form of disaster since 2000
(NDRRMC, 2012).
______________
EMBORNAS is currently an Assistant Professor of the Department of Sociology,
CASS, MSU – IIT.
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In addition, the nation’s high level of ecological degradation and

socio-economic vulnerability place people at risk of damage to and loss of
life and livelihood. In recent years, the character and the risk of being
affected by disasters have increased. Research has pointed that global
warming or climate change is one of the major factors responsible for the
rise in weather related disasters. Other factors include socio-economic
changes such as increased population in urban areas.
Disasters disrupt the normal flow of community life and place an
enormous stress on the systems. For developing nations like the
Philippines, disasters can be a heavy burden on development processes. A
disaster entails perceived threats, disruption of routines, and coping with
the crisis are among the challenges that a disaster entails. To mitigate for
the adverse impacts of the disasters, the United Nations declared the
International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) from 1990
to 1999 (UNISDR). During this period, there was a shift from post-disaster
to pre-disaster mitigation. Mitigation means to take actions which will
lessen a disaster’s consequence and subsequent hazards. In its effort to
cope with climate change and its attendant disasters, the State fortified
physical infrastructures and undertook other similar mitigating measures.
Due to various research developments in various disciplines, climate
change adaptation and disaster mitigation have become more community-
based. An alternative approach to pre-disaster mitigation is to strengthen
the social infrastructure, such as social capital, that affects community
resilience and adaptation (Aldrich & Meyer, 2014).
Community resilience is described as the ability of a neighborhood
or a geographically defined area to deal with stressors and to efficiently
resume daily life through cooperation following a disastrous event (Aldrich,
2011a). On the other hand, adaptation is the adjustment in natural or
human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their
effects, which moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities (RA
10121). It may also refer to actions that people and institutions make in
anticipation of, or in response to a changing climate. Research on disaster
has long recognized the role of communities working together to survive
and recover from catastrophic impacts (Quarantelli & Dynes, 1977).
Although the image of a disaster situation often calls to mind the presence
of trained professionals and formal rescue units, research has shown that
neighbors usually serve as first responders (Bracamonte, Ponce, Viloria,
Mendoza & Embornas, 2015). During the flashflood brought about by
Typhoon Sendong in 2011 for example, majority of the individuals who
were pulled to safety were saved by neighbors, not firefighters or rescue
workers (Bracamonte, et al., 2015).
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Social Capital: Definition and Types
Social capital has been defined in various ways from the different
disciplines particularly economy and sociology. However, Putnam (1993,
2000) popularized the concept by focusing on the differences between
northern and southern Italy and in his article on “Bowling Alone” where
he looked at the role of social capital in producing benefits at the
neighborhood and community level. He defined the social capital as the
features of social organizations such as networks, norms, and trust that
foster action and cooperation for mutual benefit.
There have been different opinions and definitions to understand
the meaning of the concept social capital. Some have contended for its
positive impact (Aldrich & Meyer, Nakagawa & Shaw) while others argued
on its negative impact (Putnam, Woolcock, Portes, Aldrich & Cook, and
Foley & Edwards). Many critics of the concept do not deny the existence of
trust and its importance. Until recently, human capital was not considered
as a capital good, thus there is a need for further study and analysis. There
have been many empirical studies that shape the concept and methodology.
For instance Aldrich and Crook (2008) concluded in their study of lists of
potential sites for trailer parks as a response to the dire need for housing
after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans that local citizens can join
together to balance against state plans in what they call “counterweight”.
Even after there has been a disaster, local networks bring a “double-edged”
quality simultaneously bringing the community together while mobilizing
against the threat of trailer parks in their community.
Foley and Edwards (1996) presented that social capital in civil
society is envisioned in a paradox. On one hand, social capital in civil
society has an often positive impact on associational life on civility and
good governance while another perspective focuses on civil society’s power
as counterweight to the state. These two perspectives are at odds with each
other. This paper will present that social capital plays a dual role in the
process of communities adapting to climate change and in making them
resilient. Social capital simultaneously strengthens the ability of the
community to survive a disaster and recover, while being a hindrance to
democratic principles and policies.
Research has been done on the effect of social capital on disasters
using quantitative methodology. For example, Sherrieb and colleagues
(2010) produced indices to quantify disaster resilience which includes
social capital and resilience at the community level. The study included
data on ratio of two-parent households, participation in non-profit,
religious, and civic/political organizations, number of registered voters,
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and voter participation, migration rates, and crime rates. They were
however, unable to measure certain characteristics of social capital such
as trust, reciprocity, norms and values although they did find correlation
with collective efficacy. With the many potential indicators available, more
research is needed to understand the interaction between social capital and
other forms of capital and how social capital play a role in climate change
adaptation and disaster recovery as well as at the same time, impeding
development. However, the outcomes or impacts that social capital may
bring are not always functional or advantageous; others can be
dysfunctional to the survivors of disasters. And social capital may vary in
terms of effectiveness in playing its role during disaster events.
Woolcock (2001) identifies three types of social capital: bonding,
bridging, and linking. Variation in strength of relationships and
composition of networks are different in each type:
a) “Bonding social capital, which denotes ties between

like people in similar situations, such as immediate
family, close friends and neighbors;
b) bridging social capital, which encompasses more
distant ties of like persons, such as loose friendships
and workmates; and
c) linking social capital, which reaches out to unlike
people in dissimilar situations, such as those who are
entirely outside the community, thus enabling
members to leverage a far wider ranges of resources
than are available within the community (Woolcock,
2001:19)."
The strong connection between people in the bonding social capital

makes it a good source of social support and personal assistance, especially
during disasters. In contrast, bridging social capital ties are based more on
acquaintances and display demographic diversity and provide information
and resources. Granovetter (cited in Aldrich and Meyer, 2014) provides a
classic example on weak ties, where bridging ties provided work
opportunities compared to bonding ties. Examples of bridging ties include
civic and political organizations, parent-teacher associations, sport,
educational and religious groups. The last type of social capital involves
creating a connection with people in power. This involves respect and trust
between people who are interacting in a formal, institutional or
hierarchical society. Linking social capital connects people with unequal
status, providing them with access to power. Linking social capital brings
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together community members with the decision makers and leaders who
have authority and can provide the scarce resources needed during a
disaster. The capacity to forge linkages with institutions beyond the
community enables people to access resources, ideas and information
which may be critical for climate change adaptation and disaster resilience.
The next sections of the paper will present the literature on the
advantages of social capital in disaster recovery at the individual and
community level. The downside of social capital is also presented.
Social Capital: Advantages
Mitigating disasters and adapting to climate change can be done

in two levels. At the national or local government level, various mitigating
measures can be implemented which may include improved weather
forecasting and warning systems, promoting awareness of hazards or
mapping disaster prone areas, disseminating information about disaster
preparedness and climate change adaptation, policies that responsibly
manage the environment and natural resources and laws that promote
better management of disasters, such as Republic Act 10121 in the case of
the Philippines. At the individual level, being prepared would include
having an emergency kit, planning a household evacuation plan, and
purchasing insurance protection against disasters.
Resilience and adaptation can also be cultivated by social
networks. As defined earlier, community resilience can be achieved
through cooperation in order to effectively manage the stress caused by
disastrous events. Social capital can be an element in promoting
adaptation and resilience to disaster. Research has shown that individual
and community social capital networks provide various resources during
disaster situations such as information, food, financial resources, and
emotional and psychological support (Hurlbert, Haines, & Beggs, 2000).
Social networks provide both financial and nonfinancial resources.
According to Norris and colleagues (2002) the most common
form of social network accessed by disaster survivors is the bonding social
capital. Access to an extensive bonding social capital allows a person to
receive warnings, locate shelter and food, and get immediate help and
initial recovery assistance (Bracamonte et al., 2015). In a study conducted
by Bracamonte and colleagues (2015) family members and relatives served
as first providers of assistance. When families evacuate, where do they go?
Certain studies showed that most evacuees prefer to go to relatives and
friends, not public evacuation sites. A number of survivors during the
typhoon Sendong stayed at their relatives’ houses after the disaster instead
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of taking refuge at the evacuation camps. This was more particularly seen
among the Maranao residents of Iligan City who practiced katetebanga or
family/communal reciprocity. Furthermore, when people evacuate they do
it as a group – typically as a family. However, this also resulted to
underreporting of the number of victims since the local government focused
their attention on the evacuation camps (Bracamonte et al., 2015). Indeed
as Hurlbert, Haines, and Beggs (2000) stated, bonding social capital
reduces the likelihood that individuals will seek help from formal
organizations and increase the possibility that there will be a
corresponding response to disaster survivor’s needs. Social networks
provide avenues through which the perception of risk and the taking of
preventive action can be transferred.
Although bonding social capital is the most commonly accessed
resource, research has shown that bridging social capital also enhances
recovery. Bridging social capital also provide resources that support long-
term recovery. Hurlbert, Haines, and Beggs (2000) showed that ties to
social organizations provide further connections to institutions which may
not be available through bonding social capital. Other researchers have
confirmed that bridging social capital can promote resilience. Aldrich
(2011a) found that post-disaster recovery was positively correlated with
the number of nongovernmental organizations, clubs and social groups.
With membership in an organization, people increase their social network.
They are able to establish valuable contacts with persons in authority in
the organizations. Additionally, as a member of the organization, they also
expand their contact with other community members.
In general, people who have good social networks have more
bridging and linking social capital. Consequently, people who are not
members of an organization have fewer contacts and usually most of their
contacts are within their family – which is bonding social capital. It can be
gleaned that membership in an organization predictably increase social
relations resulting in access to resources and support.
A study by Witvorapong and colleagues (2015) examined the
relationship between social capital and disaster risk reduction actions in
Thailand following the 2012 Indian Ocean earthquakes. Using a survey,
they found that disaster experience increases the likelihood of
participation in community activities which in turn can have positive
externalities in disaster mitigation. In a similar fashion, Witvorapong and
colleagues (2015) uncovered that disaster experience can also enhance
social capital. During normal situations, fulfillment of citizenship
responsibilities is unexceptional such as participating in elections or
volunteering for a cause. During disastrous situations, some life
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threatening problems that members of the community experience together

provide opportunity to develop attachment to each other.
Information is very important during an emergency. Social
networks provide channels where people can develop a perception of risk
and thus take preventive action. In disaster prone areas, being regularly
exposed to risks stimulates information diffusion about preventive
measures and helps in coping with risks through collective learning. This
in turn, reinforces social trust and community participation useful during
a disaster situation. However, sometimes the public information warning
provided by officials through the media can fail. Bracamonte and
colleagues (2015) showed that social network is an important element in
responding to a warning. Other people help you hear, understand, believe
and decide on how to respond to the news report on typhoon warnings
because not everyone watches the news all the time. Fitzpatrick and Mileti
(1994) pointed out:
People respond to warnings through a social

psychological process . . . which persons in an endangered
public do and do not hear, understand, believe, personalize,
and respond to emergency warnings is not the result of
chance. (1994, p. 82)
The importance of social networks as sources of information can be

appreciated when disaster preparedness were not implemented. One
example is described by Bracamonte and colleagues (2015) where Iligan
City residents were provided warnings by PAGASA of the incoming
typhoon Sendong but was not understood and believed. As of 16 January
2012, more than 1,250 people were killed, over 6,000 were injured. The
damage assessment and loss analysis estimated infrastructure and
utilities to be P551.8M, social sector reaching P72.6M and economic sector
to be P295M or a total of P919.4M (NDRRMC, 2012).
In Northern Mindanao, located in the Southern Philippines, strong
typhoons had not been reported to visit the area. Thus, although residents
of Iligan City watched the television news report about typhoon Sendong
hitting Lanao del Norte at signal number 3 on December 16, 2011, this did
not translate as clues for an impending danger. In addition, Iligan City was
not mentioned in the news reports specifically since the city was declared
a lone district separate from Lanao del Norte. Because of this, people were
unable to provide warnings to other people which resulted in massive
destruction. Going back to Fitzpatrick and Mileti’s discussion of the
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warning process, if people do not hear, it is impossible to understand,

believe, or decide and respond.
Additionally, disaster situations facilitate the emergence of norms
of helping behavior. Disasters produce scenarios for the development of
altruistic norms. Disaster as a concept refers to ‘‘relatively sudden
occasions’’ implying social space and time (Quarantelli & Dynes, 1977).
This sudden and random damage create a condition of obligating people to
help and emphasize helping as a community norm. In this way, having
developed a community norm of helping increases the actual helping
behavior.
Aside from developing altruistic norms, the emergency situation
suggests that caring for the victims and restoring services are placed as
high priority while education, leisure and non-critical efforts are set aside
until higher priorities are achieved. For example, school buildings and
school personnel are utilized to house and care for the victims instead of
conducting classes. Aside from looking at high priority values, there seems
to be a reduction in the operation of appropriate norms for a given
workplace or institution. For example, offices and people tolerate not
wearing proper work clothes when coming to work. In addition, certain
bureaucratic procedures are temporarily repealed, for example during
typhoon Sendong, some line agencies of the government fast-tracked the
processing of supplies and equipment for rehabilitation. There is
informality and less attention to status; however, at the end of the
emergency period, there is an expectation that norms will be re-
institutionalized.
Filipinos have cultures of hazard coping. Bankoff (2003) outlined
some age-old practices of the Filipinos to adapt to natural hazards ranging
from flexible use of technology in domestic architecture, diversified
crop/farming method to formal and informal community
stakeholders/reciprocal exchanges like bayanihan. In the study of Orejas
(2003), he acknowledged the role of non-government organizations (NGOs)
in transforming at-risk communities into resilient ones through
community initiatives and people’s organizations. The NGOs are
responsible in mobilizing local resources/support while facilitating
international humanitarian assistance. The synergy created by this
relationship is responsible for the creation of disaster resilient
communities.
In the Philippines, the work of Porio (2011) on “Vulnerability,
Adaptation, and Resilience to Floods and Climate Change-Related Risks
among Marginal, Riverine Communities in Metro Manila” is a
comprehensive way of presenting how the urban poor households adapt to
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flood hazards and the role of the local government unit to ensure that these
communities become resilient to the threat. She captured the strong
interaction of environmental-ecological vulnerability of communities along
the river systems (Marikina-Pasig, Malabon-Tullahan and Napindan) and
the social vulnerability of urban poor households living in these areas
(Porio, 2011).
What are the implications of social capital in disaster response and
in promoting resilience? One implication is that social capital is deemed
important since previous mitigation efforts have been deemed lacking. Two
perspectives have been dominant in mitigation efforts. First, people are
assumed to be lacking information about threats that is why they lack
preparedness. Increasing awareness and knowledge about risks will thus
ensure appropriate mitigating behavior. Second, if people are not aware or
are not knowledgeable about the risks, it is the role of the local leaders to
decide on appropriate mitigation measures for the community.
For example, on the first perspective, Bracamonte and colleagues
(2015) show that disaster awareness is linked to disaster preparedness.
Given the low disaster awareness of the respondents, they were caught
flat-footed when typhoon Sendong hit their areas. The thousands of
families affected, along with their effects on people, properties and
environment, are a clear testament to the magnitude of destruction that
this has brought on them. With the painful experience that they went
through during Sendong, the respondents’ awareness of typhoon and its
accompanying risks has both heightened and widened during the typhoon
Pablo which hit their localities in only about one year after the occurrence
of typhoon Sendong, in which they have succeeded in achieving their goal
of “zero casualty”, although they had some properties damaged by typhoon
Pablo.
Furthermore, statistical tests have confirmed that disaster
awareness has significantly increased after respondents have suffered
from the adverse effects of typhoon Sendong, the worst typhoon that ever
struck their communities and several other barangay of Iligan City. The
trend in heightened disaster awareness was further reflected in disaster
preparedness which significantly increased both at the household and
barangay levels after the respondents went through their miserable post
Sendong conditions. Indeed, experience is a very powerful tool that can
positively change one’s awareness, perspective and attitude towards
hazards, and eventually reduce their vulnerabilities to such events
through improved mitigation measures and preparedness.
Lastly, Drabek (in Quareantelli & Dynes, 1977) also claimed that
generally, victim families fare better with respect to solidarity and
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relationships when compared with non-victim families of the same

community. Thus, the disaster strengthened the solidarity of impacted
families. Other studies also showed that at the organizational and
community level, there were sectors that gained from disasters as well.
These sectors of the society fared well in the economic and power status
before the disaster. Their improved positions could be traced to the
activities related during the disaster. Examples of these organizations may
be nongovernmental organizations which enhanced or formed new
relationships with international funding agencies. Since some local NGOs
were local partners of international NGOs (INGO) during the response and
rehabilitation period following the disaster, they were able to maintain and
renew relationships with the INGO even after the projects were completed.
Politicians and some government personnel also tended to have reaped
gains from disaster situations if they performed well. Effective decision-
making made by politicians and government personnel during a disaster
has become a test of their electability.
Social Capital: Downsides
The inherent capacity of social capital to facilitate beneficial,

productive benefits has the potential to cause negative externalities.
According to Woolcock and Narayan (2000), social capital refers to the
“norms and networks that enable people to act collectively”. Social capital
does not exist in a vacuum; it rather leads changes in the power relations
between the civil society and the state. Consequently, two key issues need
to be considered: whether social capital exists outside the state and
whether social capital is a symptom of a progressive society. The state is
an important aspect in facilitating social capital in relation to the
importance of strategic environmental planning for climate change. If the
state could create regulatory or physical infrastructure to manage the
potential impact of floods, will this infrastructure work if it does not
resonate with social norms?
From this viewpoint, social capital can be seen as a bond for
adaptive capacity, particularly when dealing with disastrous events. This
can be articulated in the different views regarding social capital and its
relation to the state. At the individual level, an individual in a social group
may benefit from the sharing of financial risk, market information, or
reciprocity during a crisis. A bonding social capital is seen in ties defined
within a socioeconomic group and may be based on family and locality or
neighborhood. In contrast, networking social capital is when an individual
has economic and other ties that are external to the group. Networking
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social capital is primarily based on weaker bonds of trust and reciprocity,

thus relying on legal and formal institutions (Woolcock & Narayan, 2000).
However, it has been written that not all social networks go well
together with good governance and societal operations. Woolcock (1998)
and Portes (1998) argued that criminal gangs and other forms of groups
have strong social capital but threaten the social capital of others in society
and are thus eventually end up as sources of “social disorganization”
(Arrow, 2000).
At the institutional level, social capital is presented as the
capability of social groups to act in order to achieve their common interest
depending on the characteristics of the formal institutions within which
they exist (Woolcock & Narayan, 2000; Evans, 1996). Building on the ideas
by Woolcock and Narayan (2000), four cases could possibly develop. First,
a well-functioning state with low levels of networking social capital means
that the state takes on a welfare system. The state provides for the
marginalized groups but at the same time exclude some other groups. In
terms of the environmental scenario, the state invests in environmental
protection on behalf of the civil society such as providing insurance for
weather related risks to property.
Second, when a well-functioning state has high levels of
networking social capital is considered by Evans (1996) as an idealized
synergy between the state and civil society, promoting social and policy
learning. The third case is when there is a dysfunctional state with low
levels of networking social capital where a coercive state practices
exclusionary politics undermining social capital. Being at odds with the
civil society, conflict occurs and the marginal sectors are more vulnerable.
In such situations, conflict arises even if there are no disasters. Lastly,
when the state is dysfunctional but there is a high level of networking
social capital, the networking social capital is forced to substitute the role
of the government. However, sometimes the outcomes are far from
achieving the desired goal.
Following Woolcock and Narayan (2000), the four cases presented
have implications for disaster and governance issues. Social capital can
play an important role in coping with environmental stresses. Networks of
reciprocity help in coping with impacts of catastrophic events. However
Dasgupta (2003) argued that social capital does not essentially facilitate
positive adaptation and enhancement of well-being. As highlighted by
Portes (1998), collective action does not necessarily benefit everyone. For
instance Putnam (2000) stated that often one person’s advantage from
social capital is at the opportunity cost of exclusion of another person. This
implies that there is a trade-off between community solidarity and
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individual freedom and suggesting that increase in social capital could also
facilitate opportunities for negative goals. Putnam (2000) suggested that
problems on social capital can be due to the imbalance of bonding and
bridging social capital. He stated that bridging social capital helps enhance
identities and reciprocity while bonding social capital intensifies our
selfish tendencies. Inequalities in resources and social hierarchies are
rarely overturned in the course of adaptation or resiliency. These are
usually reinforced during climate and other hazards (Bracamonte et al.,
2015). The two key factors regarding social capital – source of social control
and as a source of benefits through related networks - can be seen as
hindrances to effective decision making or policy formulations through
imposing obligations, implying limitations or exclusion, and thus entailing
unintended loss and uncertainty.
Thus, since the state and the community or civil society interacts
with each other, the state evolves in the process of policy learning.
Adaptation or resiliency in the political system to disturbances in the
ideologies and policy paradigms act as external shocks which become
channels for learning toward adaptation and resiliency.
Networking social capital is deemed important at the local level for
understanding the differentiation in vulnerability. Bonding social capital
at the family and household level are important assets for coping with the
impacts of disasters. However, the state can enhance resilience through
policies that enhance planned adaptation to climate change for instance
through infrastructural investments in flood defense, spatial planning as
integrated in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and management of the
watershed.
On the other hand, bonding social capital can bring negative
outcomes in disasters such as resistance to various disaster recovery needs.
Aldrich and Crook (2008) showed that after Hurricane Katrina, neighbors
with higher voter turnout before the disaster were more likely to resist
successfully the inclusion of their community as a potential for the
placement of temporary trailer housing. During an emergency period,
panic and looting are frequent and problematic situations.
Panic is described as a condition of heightened fear coupled with
flight. This usually happens when people are aware that there is a threat
to them and when they feel entrapped and isolated from other people,
although rare, feelings of social isolation also happen (Quarantelli &
Dynes, 1977). Victims feel anxiety and usually the appropriate response is
flight such as evacuation. During a disaster situation, officials urge people
through the media not to panic and that they are doing everything to
prevent looting and control the situation. However, the caution not to panic
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has little effect in guiding behavior. In addition, the warning of panic

causing further destruction is ineffective if officials do not inform people
about the potential risks.
Another problematic situation during a disaster is looting.
Research has shown that looting is a rare occurrence during a disaster.
However, looting happened in the Philippines during typhoon Yolanda in
November 2013 (Marshall & Grudgings, 2013). People panicked over
shortages of food, water and medicine. However, according to Tacloban city
administrator, looting cannot be considered a criminality but as a form of
self-preservation. Panic and looting can be thought of as an appropriate
behavior in disaster situations which are unusual circumstances.
Aldrich (2011b) presented a more nuanced view of the role of social
capital in disaster recovery, identifying it as a “Janus-faced” resource
which may have both benefits and costs. Social networks also bring out
different policy and governance outcomes for groups within the
mainstream and those in the periphery. In looking at social capital,
negative externalities as well as exclusion may be observed. Aldrich
(2011b) concluded in his study about villages in Tamil Nadu, India after
the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, that high levels of social capital
simultaneously provided benefits and negative externalities, especially for
women, Dalits, migrants and Muslims who were located along the
periphery. On the other hand, members of the uur pachayats (hamlet
councils) and parish councils speeded up their recovery and readily
established linkages with organizations in aiding them. The marginalized
groups became even more vulnerable during the recovery period due to
isolation and discrimination.
Aldrich and Crook (2008) also mentioned that during the post-
Katrina recovery in New Orleans, neighborhoods with higher bonding
social capital blocked recovery plans believing that this decision benefited
them but slowed the recovery process. It had also been pointed out that
strong bonds among members of an in-group could reinforce hatred and
xenophobia which may facilitate criminal acts directed at outsiders.
Thus, strong social capital can bring in a “paradox” (Foley &
Edwards, 1996) in which in-group members become more resilient and
better able to coordinate recovery efforts but out-group residents’ move
further away from the periphery. Aid is sometimes not extended to
strangers or people who are considered “different”. Aid usually is more
likely to happen to people who already have a relationship. Norris and
colleagues (2002) inferred that in disasters a “pattern of neglect” may
transpire that excludes blacks, older people, or less educated from help or
relief distribution.
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Ganapati (2013) in a study of the downsides of social capital for

women affected by the earthquake in Turkey, also noted in her study that
social capital has some negative effects most markedly that it portrayed
women as emotional and put them in conflict with government officials.
Due to existing gender relations, women found it difficult to enter into male
dominated networks that emerged after the disaster, such as search and
rescue teams. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the emergence of
civic networks either serves to improve the role of women in society or
given the foundation on the society’s already existing gender norms further
aggravates the disparity between gender (Ganapati, 2013).
In a similar study on the role of social capital in disaster recovery
among Haitians in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, Rahill and
colleagues (2013) showed that social capital facilitated the access to
resources in order to rebuild their homes. Conversely, social capital had
hindered access to resources for other members of the community
especially those who were not part of the formal or informal networks. A
consequence of such perceived inequality is perpetuation of acts of violence
against people who had acquired better housing materials and facilities
through their networks.
Indeed, there is empirical evidence showing that social capital is
recognized as having potential negative consequences. This contrasts with
the mainstream perspective and literature on social capital, which casts it
mainly as a public good.
CONCLUSION
Findings of the review present contradicting roles that social

capital can play in climate change and disaster response, depending on its
typology. What is presented here shows that social capital contributes both
to stability and change, just as it generates conflict. Under disaster
conditions, changes in the community and its environment occur to which
social capital may be deemed to generate functional or dysfunctional
effects.
With the potential for bonding social capital to reinforce
discrimination and exclusion, decision makers should invest in programs
and projects that would build links across the groups and communities and
with people in authority. Building up the connections within and between
families and groups can provide communities stability and opportunities
for development.
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In addition, public policy should ensure that strengthening

linkages among social networks of vulnerable groups would be built up to
increase their individual and community resilience and adaptation.
Balanced networks of bonding and bridging social capital may constitute a
determinant of a community’s adaptive capacity.
Government organizations can foster social capital by linking
mobilized community residents and organizations to public agencies to
enhance the efficacy of the government. The combined effort of a strong
public institution and organized communities can be powerful tools for
development that can be sustained and enhanced in the long run. Synergy
between the state, communities and organizations can enhance social
capital and thus build up adaptation to climate change toward achieving
resiliency.
Social capital is essential in generating the conditions to reduce
vulnerability, and consequently, the dependency of communities or
countries on external initiatives in helping mitigate disaster impacts. This
is because social capital is vital to creating the necessary social, economic
and political structures (including cooperation and inclusion in networks)
to advance adaptation and resilience. This in turn contributes to a
reduction of the level of risk communities are exposed to.
Thus, the associational sphere as the source of social capital cannot
by itself sustain a fully functioning society in the face of a disastrous event.
A supportive political and social environment is necessary. This
environment includes the state which can provide the political and
regulatory framework within which civil society can pursue its objectives
in a nonviolent manner and a society where associations have access to
funding from other social and political organizations that recognize and
support them.
At length, it is important that there should be access to
government decision-making avenues to manage disasters. A non-
representative government usually does not have channels in order to
respond to the needs communicated by its citizens. In addition, such types
of governments control the formation of civil society organizations which
are capable of helping increase resiliency through volunteering and
community organizing. Political ideologies sometimes discourage plans for
building civil society which does not originate from political systems.
Governments believe they “own” the disaster situation. Because of this
attitude, nongovernmental organizations are excluded from the planning
process. At the same time, this attitude also inhibits individual and
household plans which could lessen the impact of disasters. When a
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disaster occurs and nongovernmental and civic groups respond effectively,

resentment due to the government’s ineffectiveness is exposed.
On a final note, it is important for policy makers and researchers
to be aware of the downside and benefits of social capital in disaster
recovery. Awareness of the possible paradox of the social capital may help
in mitigating the negative impact and maximizing the positive features of
social capital that will yield long term recovery and strengthen climate
adaptation.
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The Mindanao Forum Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 M. C. ALICANDO June 2020
Folk Beliefs, Patterns and Commonalities in the

Personal Narratives on Typhoon Washi (Sendong)
MERCEDITHA C. ALICANDO
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the patterns and commonalities as well as the folk
elements in the personal narratives of some college students who are Sendong
survivors from Iligan City. It employs the narratological approach which studies
narratives’ structural components to understand how repetitive elements,
themes and patterns yield a set of universals that determine the makeup of a
story (Pradl, 1984). Ten (10) written personal narratives of students who have
had first-hand experiences of typhoon Sendong were selected based on the word
count of at least 300 words. The various terms and phrases used to refer to the
December 16, 2011 incident were identified and the presence of some folk
elements was investigated. After that, the frequently employed common nouns
and adjectives in the paragraphs discussing the events before, during, and after
the flood were identified to determine the commonalities and patterns in these
personal narratives.
Findings reveal that aside from the local term Sendong to refer to that
December 16 incident, students also frequently employ terms like typhoon,
tragedy, catastrophe and others. Most of these are accompanied with negative
descriptive adjectives such as tragic, unforgettable, horrible, and unexpected.
Out of the ten, four narratives contain folk elements, where three talk about
animals and one about ominous sky suggesting upcoming calamities. More
importantly, the topmost frequently used nouns include water (59 occurrences),
house/s (55 occurrences), time (27 occurrences), rain (26 occurrences), and father
(20 occurrences). In terms of the dominant descriptive adjectives, it is found out
that strong/er is the most dominant (17 occurrences), then high/er (8
occurrences) and heavy as well as safe/r (7 occurrences, respectively). Overall,
the common theme of the survivors’ personal narratives on typhoon Sendong is
the strong/er water or in short, the flood, which means that the stories in the
narratives dominantly revolves around the discussion about the strong water
they encountered during the typhoon.
Keywords: folk beliefs, narratives, Typhoon Washi
________________
ALICANDO is an Associate Professor of the Department of English, CASS, MSU-IIT.
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INTRODUCTION
The World Risk Index of 2016 (World Risk Report 2016) reveals that the
Philippines is in the third spot for having an extremely high disaster risk
percentage of 26.70% when it comes to natural tragedies or disasters. This is also
supported by the findings of Global Climate Risk Index of 2017 (Kreft, Eckstein, &
Melchior, 2016) which identifies the Philippines as one of the top five countries
mostly affected by extreme weather catastrophes in terms of not only fatalities but
also economic losses. These findings can be attributed to the country’s geographical
location. The Philippines is positioned along the “typhoon belt” in the Pacific region
near the Equator which makes it susceptible to tropical cyclones and storms. Aside
from that, it is situated along the “Pacific Ring of Fire” region where many of
Earth’s volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur. Thus, there is no denying that
the Philippines is one of the global hotspots very vulnerable to tragic calamities.
It was past midnight of December 16, 2011 when the typhoon Sendong, with
the international name Washi, made a landfall in Mindanao. The two badly
affected areas were Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City. People were informed
about the typhoon but they just did not bother about it since experiencing heavy
rains were normal for them. They did not think that it would bring a very painful
and catastrophic experience to them.
Several studies have been conducted already about the typhoon Sendong
after it happened. While most of these researches focused on sociological aspects
(e.g. Yucada, et al., 2013; Bracamonte, et al., 2014; Escalante, et al., 2012; Ponce,
et al., 2014; Labadisos, et al. (2014), others looked into its environmental (e.g.,
Franta, et al., 2016) and even management and economic impacts (e.g., Borja, et
al., 2014). Thus, this paper uses the linguistic, specifically the narratological lens,
in examining the Sendong tragedy as there is a dearth studies on typhoon Sendong
in the language studies perspectives.
Particularly, this paper investigates the patterns and commonalities in the
personal narratives of college students who are residents of Iligan City and who
were able to experience the said typhoon. Furthermore, this paper answers the
following questions:
1. What various words/phrases are used by the writers to refer to the

December 16, 2011 incident?
2. What are the folk elements (folk beliefs, superstitions, others) present in
the ten personal narratives?
3. What are the common nouns and descriptive adjectives found among the
ten narratives
3.1. before the flood
3.2. during the flood
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3.3. after the flood

4. What are the frequently used nouns and descriptive adjectives in each
narrative and in general?
Narratology and Narratives: Brief Review on Theoretical Frameworks
According to Pradl (1984), narratology refers to the structuralist’s study of

narrative. The structuralist seeks to understand how recurrent elements, themes,
and patterns yield a set of universals that determine the makeup of a story. The
ultimate goal of such analysis is to move from a taxonomy of elements to an
understanding of how these elements are arranged in actual narratives, fictitious
and real. The intellectual tradition out of which narratology grew began with the
linguistic work of Ferdinand de Saussure. He initiated "structuralism," the study
of systems or structures as independent from meanings, and the field of Semiotics
was born. Structuralism was further shaped by French anthropologist Claude
Levi-Strauss, who concluded that myths found in various cultures can be
interpreted in terms of their repetitive structures. Particularly, these repetitive
structures are then the focus of this study of personal narratives written by the
students who experienced the flood caused by the typhoon Sendong.
Narratology, as defined in Encyclopaedia Britannica, is the study of
narrative structure. Since narratives do not speak for themselves or have
unanalyzed merit, they require interpretation when used as data in social
research. Thus, narratology focuses on finding out the commonalities and
differences in narratives. Just like structuralism and semiotics, it is anchored on
the notion of a common literary language or a universal pattern of codes that
operates within the text of a work. Specifically in the sociolinguistics and other
related fields, the concept of narrative is restricted, referring to brief, topically
specific stories organized around characters, setting, and plot (eg. Labovian
narratives in answer to a single interview question).
Furthermore, as pointed out by Laslett (in Riessman, 2000), analysis of
personal narratives can illuminate “individual and collective action and meanings,
as well as the social processes by which social life and human relationships are
made and changed”. Langellier (as cited in Riessman, 2005) adds that embedded
in the lives of the ordinary, the marginalized, and the muted, personal narrative
responds to the disintegration of master narratives as people make sense of
experience, claim identities, and ‘get a life’ by telling and writing their stories.
Furthermore, Daniel Bertaux (in Fortune et al., 2013), believes that every life story
contains a large proportion of factual data which can be verified (e.g. with dates
and places of biographical events). Locating himself in the “realist” research
tradition, he argues that informants’ stories collected from the same milieu can
serve as documentary sources for investigating the world “out there.” Although
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acknowledging that informants do not “tell us the whole truth and nothing but the
truth“, by collecting many stories from the same milieu, Bertaux claims to uncover
“recurrent patterns concerning collective phenomena or share collective experience
in a particular milieu” (p. 2).
This study is therefore deemed significant because readers, especially
those who have just heard but are not familiar about the typhoon Sendong, would
be given insights on what these Sendong victims had went through and how they
view their experiences. This is made possible by knowing the patterns and
commonalities in the ten personal narratives written by the victims themselves.
METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY
This study employs a descriptive design. Ten (10) personal narratives of

college students who have had first-hand experiences of typhoon Sendong were
selected based on the word count of at least 300 words. This personal narrative
was part of the final term requirement in English 1 (College English 1). The
students were asked to write a narrative-descriptive composition about their
Sendong experience using MSU-IIT’s Online Learning Environment or MOLE, a
web-based portal where a teacher and the students can interact in their virtual
classroom. More specifically, they were told to write specific paragraphs
narrating/describing what happened before, during, and after the flood. Since not
all students were from Iligan City and not all had experienced the incident, others
were instructed to interview Sendong survivors and do the same procedures. The
ten chosen personal narratives were all written by students who experienced the
Sendong flood and who are residents of Iligan City.
Each of the narratives was then studied. Primarily, the different terms and
phrases used to refer to the December 16, 2011 incident were identified. Then the
presence of some folk elements such as folk beliefs and superstitions was
investigated. After that, the common nouns and adjectives used in the paragraphs
discussing the events before, during, and after the flood were identified. In
addition, the frequency of the dominant nouns and descriptive adjectives were also
noted. These were done to identify if there are commonalities and patterns in these
personal narratives. After all the tabulations, interpretation and analysis were
conducted.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The succeeding paragraphs present the results of the study and their
corresponding discussions and explanations. To avoid confusion, let us
differentiate first the term “common” and “dominant.” In this study, the term
“common” refers to a word (specifically a noun or a descriptive adjective) which is
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present in all the 10 narratives, regardless of its frequency of occurrence in each

particular narrative. On the other hand, the term “dominant” refers to a word
which is frequently occurring in the narratives.
Terms Used to Refer to the December 11, 2011 Incident
Figure 1. Illustrates that the tragic calamity experienced by the writers of

the ten (10) personal narratives during December 16, 2011 is generally referred to
as Sendong, typhoon, tragedy, storm, event, catastrophe, flood, and memory. These
are the nouns usually used by the students when they talk about that incident. In
most cases, they accompany these terms with descriptive adjectives for more
emphasis.
typhoon
typhoon
tragedy Sendong
strong Bagyong
December
storm catastrophe
16, 2011
most unforgettable
devastating
event memory
flood
unexpected
horrible
tragic
disastrous
huge
Figure 1. Terms Associated to the December 16, 2011 Incident
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Based on Figure 1. one can say that though several terms are employed by the
survivors to refer to that December 11 incident, most of them are words that denote
negative meanings. This is reflective of what they experienced and how they felt
and even feel until now despite the fact that the tragedy occurred more than a
decade already.
Some Folk Elements in the Personal Narratives
Of the ten (10) personal narratives, only four (4) contain some folk
elements. Three (3) of these are about beliefs that animals can predict
disasters/calamities while the other one (1) is about the ominous sky. Below are
excerpts from the three personal narratives illustrating folk beliefs about animals.
These beliefs are italicized in the excerpts. (Note: PN means personal narrative,
thus, PN4 means personal narrative number 4.)
“After dinner I saw that the rain started pouring again so as we always
do we stayed alert and observe our surroundings. Animals and insects
are making noise so we started to feel that something bad will really
happen that night. Around 9 in the evening we could feel and hear the
wind blowing together with the rain. The water from the “kanal” near
my grandfather’s garden started to rise. Rats climbed the trees nearby,
birds hide inside their nest, frogs making noise, cows mooing and
different animal noise can be heard. (PN4)
“Afternoon that time when the parties are gone and time to home I was
so happy and overwhelmed. When I got home I spotted some animals
that are noisy and I don’t know why but someone told me that if animals
behave like that it’s a sign that something will happen and it is all about
nature.”(PN7)
“…around 3 am, my parents woke up early because my father will be

going on a trip in Cagayan de Oro. Our dog was so noisy that my father
gets annoyed. He went to our dog to check what is wrong…he saw the
water rushing towards our house.” (PN5)
In these excerpts, the animals acted as if they knew something horrible

was coming, a belief held by many people especially in the rural areas. The
unusual behaviors of these animals are considered predictors of calamity and
other events. For instance, during New Year’s Eve, we are always told by our
parents to listen to the sound of animal that would come out when the clock
strikes 12:00 midnight. If a cow moos, it means prosperity; if a rooster crows or
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a hen clucks, it signifies famine for the whole year. In the students’ specific
experiences, the erratic behavior of the animals somehow foretold the
catastrophic flood. As pointed out by a certain researcher named Liz Von
Muggenthaler, animals can pick up the “infrasonic” sound pulses created by
storms (and earthquakes) and get a head start on fleeing to safety. She adds that
the animals learn to associate such signals with danger.
As mentioned, one personal narrative reveals the student’s observation

about the sky. He noticed that the sky looked so bizarre which implies that he
felt something bad was coming. The use of the descriptive adjectives strange and
unusual signifies that he thought that the darkness of the sky really meant
something unpleasant would come.
“…it was the time at our Christmas party, I’ve been noticing something
strange at the sky, it was dark and unusual…” (PN2)
The presence of these folk elements is somehow corroborated by the

study of Yucada, et al. (2013). The researchers were able to gather 52 stories
related to new and re-emerging myths during Sendong. Specifically,
superstitious beliefs about Maria Cacao and tambyiong were dominant in the
gathered stories.
These findings only reveal that even though Iligan City has become a
highly urbanized city, some of its people still believe in these folk and
superstitious elements, which are handed down from generations to generations.
It is important to note that these narratives are written by college students, yet
these elements are still evident.
Common and Dominant Terms in the Paragraphs Before the Flood
Based on Table 1., rain is the most common noun that appears in all the
ten (10) personal narratives of the students. It is followed by the nouns home and
Christmas (which appear in 8 out of 10 personal narratives), and then night,
party/ies and December which occur seven (7) times respectively. These results are
not surprising. It is to be noted that the rain even started on the 15 th of December,
a day prior to the big flood. And most of the people were celebrating Christmas
parties especially during night time. The noun home is also evident because when
the flood came, it was night time and everybody was in the homes/houses.
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Table 1. Common Noun Words in the Ten PN’s Before the Flood
Word PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN Freque Ran

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ncy k
rain ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 10 1st
home ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 8 2nd
Christma ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 8 2nd
s
night ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 7 3rd
party/par ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 7 3rd
ties
December ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 7 3rd
house/s ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 6 4th
sleep ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 5th
typhoon ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 5th
In all the paragraphs describing the students’ experiences before the

occurrence of the flood, the same findings are revealed. As depicted in Table 2.,
rain is the most dominant noun followed by parties, time and home. Interestingly,
as shown in both Table 1 and Table 2, many of the students prefer to use the term
home than house. The concept of home being more favored than house is probably
due to the idea that when one says home, it is a place where a happy family lives
together. Whereas when one says house, it just refers to the building and its
structure. However, if we are going to combine the frequency of occurrence of the
nouns home and house, it then becomes the most dominant noun which appears in
the paragraphs which describe the events before the flood came.
Table 2. Dominant Noun Words in the Ten PN’s Before the Flood
Noun Word Frequency Rank

rain 23 1st
party/ies 13 2nd
time 12 3rd
home 12 3rd
day 11 4th
Christmas 10 5th
Night 9 6th
School 9 6th
flood/s 9 6th
December 8 7th
typhoon 8 7th
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In terms of the adjectives, the more common terms that appear are strong/er
and heavy. They are both present in five (5) out of ten (10) personal narratives,
respectively, as shown in Table 3. Table 4 similarly reveals that the frequently
used descriptive adjectives in the paragraphs describing the events before the flood
are the terms strong/er and heavy. These findings can be attributed to the fact that
these two adjectives are commonly used to describe the rain or the wind. It is
important to note that prior to that big flood, there was a strong and heavy rain
accompanied with wind. Below are some excerpts in the personal narratives
showing the use of these adjectives:
“Around 10 pm, the rain grew stronger and stronger.”

“Because of the heavy rain, we immediately went home from church.”
“I noticed that the rain wasn’t too heavy but the wind was very strong.”
Table 3. Common Descriptive Adjective Words in the Ten PN’s Before the Flood
Word PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN Freque Ran

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ncy k
strong/e ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 1st
r
heavy ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 1st
normal ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
unexpec ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
ted
dark ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
small ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
excited ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
high ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
happy ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
rainy ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
ready ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
hard/er ∕ ∕ 2 2nd
The use of the adjectives like happy and normal in the paragraphs can
also be seen in the narrative because at that time, most of these students were
celebrating Christmas parties and were receiving gifts. Aside from that, they just
considered the rain normal the fact that they were used to having heavy rain with
some wind before. In fact, the people were even informed about the typhoon
through the news but they never bothered to worry about it.
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Table 4. Dominant Descriptive Adjectives in the Ten PN’s Before the Flood
Adjective Frequency Rank

strong/er 9 1st
Heavy 6 2nd
Happy 5 3rd
Ready 4 4th
Rainy 3 5th
So generally, in the paragraphs that describe the events before the flood
came, the most common noun rain which is present in all the 10 narratives is also
the most frequently used noun. The same is true with the most common descriptive
adjective strong/er which is likewise the most dominant adjective. Based on these
recurring patterns, we can say that the common theme in the paragraphs
describing/narrating the events before the flood came is about the strong rain.
Common and Dominant Terms in the Paragraphs During the Flood
The commonest term present in all the ten (10) personal narratives in the
specific paragraphs describing what transpired when the flood came is the noun
water (refer to Table 5). This is followed by the noun house/s (appearing in 9 out of
10 personal narratives) and family and mom/mother (present in 7 out of 10
personal narratives).
Table 5. Common Noun Words in the Ten PN’s During the Flood
Word PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN Frequen Rank

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 cy
water ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 10 1st
house/s ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 9 2nd
family ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 7 3rd
mother/mom ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 7 3rd
flood ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 6 4th
morning ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 6 4th
father/’s ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 6 4th
neighbor/s/’s/hood ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 6 4th
God/’s ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 5th
minute/s ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 5th
people ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 5th
time ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
second/s ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
clock ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
level ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
things/stuffs ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
place ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
noise ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
sleep ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 6th
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In terms of the frequency of occurrence, the noun water is still evidently

the most dominant noun, as reflected in Table 6, which occurs 42 times in the
paragraphs describing what happened when the flood came. The term
house(s)/home with a combined frequency of 33 times follow. Other dominant
nouns include mother/mom occurring 19 times, and father(‘s) and
neighbor(s/’s)/hood occurring 14 times respectively.
The results are therefore similar, i.e., water is the commonest and the most
frequently used noun in all the paragraphs discussing what happened to the
students during the flood. It is very obvious since this was during the time that
they were combating with the flood and the water was going inside their respective
homes/houses. The noun family is also noticeable since during that time, most of
them were with their family, particularly with their mother/mom and/or father.
The frequent mentioning of the noun neighbor is also understandable since while
they themselves were struggling to survive against the flood, they were also
hearing their neighbors shouting for help. Some of the students even sought help
or were saved by their neighbors. Below are excerpts in the personal narratives
showing the use of these common and frequently used nouns:
“…yet the water rose up so fast for about an inch in a couple of seconds.”
“My father brought me and my sister on our aunt’s house.”
“What frightened [sic] me the most were the voices from the neighborhood
shouting for help.”
“…mom shook us telling that the water already entered the house.”
“I have to be strong for my family.”
Table 6. Dominant Noun Words in the Ten PN’s During the Flood

Water 42 1st
house(s)/home 33 2nd
mother/mom 19 3rd
father(‘s) 14 4th
neighbor(s/’s)/hood 14 4th
brother(s) 13 5th
Time 10 6th
Flood 9 7th
Level 9 7th
Sleep 9 7th
Morning 7 8th
Family 7 8th
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For the adjectives, the more common descriptive adjective is high/er which
is present in 4 out of 10 personal narratives. Other adjectives include strong/er and
safe/r, each of which appears in 3 out of 10 personal narratives written by the
students (refer to Table 7.). Similarly, the more frequently used descriptive
adjective is high/er which occurs 6 times in the paragraph describing what took
place when the flood came to the houses of the students.
Table 7. Common Descriptive Adjectives in the Ten PN’s During the Flood
Word PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN1 Frequenc Ran

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 y k
high(er) ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 1st
strong(e ∕ ∕ ∕ 3 2nd
r)
saf(er) ∕ ∕ ∕ 3 2nd
The frequent use of the adjective high/er is expected since it was mostly
used to describe the flood or the water level at that time. And because of this
incident, the people were worried and tried to find for a safer place to survive from
the flood. The following show samples of how these descriptive adjectives are used
in the paragraphs:
“My father was planning to find a safer place in order for us to be
safe but the water goes [sic] higher and higher.”
“…the water in the Tambacan river was so high.”
“…the three of us and I became worried because I overhear her
saying her CS knit hurts.”
“…I stand myself as stronger as I can because I am the eldest in
our family.”
Table 8. Dominant Descriptive Adjectives in the Ten PN’s During the Flood
Adjective Frequency Rank

high(er) 6 1st
strong(er) 5 2nd
safe(r) 4 3rd
In general, water is the commonest as well as the most dominant noun

used while high/er is the most common and dominant descriptive adjective used in
the paragraphs during the flood. Thus, the common theme of these paragraphs is
the high/er water level caused by the flood during that time.
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Common and Dominant Terms in the Paragraphs During the Flood
In the paragraphs where students were asked to narrate what happened

after the flood, the most common nouns used are life/lives and house/home, which
appear in 7 out of 10 personal narratives respectively. Please refer to Table 9
below. These are then followed by the nouns water, place and morning (appearing
in 5 narratives, respectively) and the terms family, mud, time, and tragedy
(appearing in 4 out of 10 narratives). The following are excerpts which contain
some of these commonly used nouns:
“Our house was full of mud and all our things were soaked in water and
dirty with mud.”
“I am so thankful that my family did not get hurt but many of my
relatives lost their lives and some are still missing until now. “
“..it was 5 am in the morning, I went outside and I was shocked what
happened…”
“…our place and even the nature were destroyed.”
Table 9. Common Noun Words in the Ten PN’s After the Flood
Word PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN Freque Ra
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ncy nk
life/lives ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 7 1st
house(s)/h ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 7 1st
ome
water ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 2nd
morning ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 2nd
place(s) ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 5 2nd
family ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 3rd
time(s) ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 3rd
mud ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 3rd
tragedy ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 3rd
Likewise, the most frequently used noun is house/home with a total of 23

occurrences. This is followed by water (15 times of occurrence) and life/lives (11
times of occurrence). The noun house/home is dominantly mentioned since the
writers of the personal narratives observed many houses and homes destroyed by
the flood. Some of them even lost their homes. The frequent use of the noun
life/lives is due to the fact that just like many lost houses and properties, there
were also many dead and even missing people who lost their lives because of the
typhoon Sendong. In addition, the noun water is still present since the water did
not subside immediately that even until morning of the next day, there were still
places with streams and little bodies of water.
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Worth mentioning also is the noun mud which appears 8 times in the
paragraphs describing what happened after the flood. What remained after the
strong current of water was the mud.
“…all I saw was the mud all over the place. We went to our house but
we cannot enter because of the mud blocking the door. The depth of the
mud was just on my knee level…”
“…our yard was muddy…there was also a snake crawling in the
mud…the place was full of mud.”
Table 10. Dominant Noun Words in the Ten PN’s After the Flood

house(s)/home 23 1st
Water 15 2nd
life/lives 11 3rd
Mud 8 4th
place(s) 7 5th
mom/mother 6 6th
time(s) 6 6th
Tragedy 6 6th
In the last portion of the personal narratives, the common adjectives

present in 4 out of 10 personal narratives are the terms missing/lost, thankful/glad
and lucky/blessed. The adjective missing or lost appears several times because the
students just wrote down what they had observed after Sendong. These adjectives
do not only describe the properties and things but also the lives of those people who
are lost and missing due to the typhoon. Sample sentences having the adjectives
missing and lost are as follows:
“…some are still missing until now.”
“There were so many casualties, many missing people.”
“Many of them was still missing until today.”
“Seeing people crying to find their lost someone…”
Table 11. Common Descriptive Adjectives in the Ten PN’s After the Flood
Word P PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN PN1 Frequ Rank

N 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 ency
1
missing/lost ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 1st
thankful/glad ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 1st
lucky/blessed ∕ ∕ ∕ ∕ 4 1st
Strong ∕ ∕ ∕ 3 2nd
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Interestingly, based on Table 11, one can see that 3 of these terms
(thankful/glad, strong, lucky/blessed ) are positive terms indicating that they still
feel blessed and thankful despite the tragic experience they went through. They
are able to show how strong they are since they are able to survive that catastrophe
physically and little by little, emotionally.
Table 12. Dominant Descriptive Adjectives in the Ten PN’s After the Flood
Adjectives Frequency Rank

missing/lost 5 1st
hard/difficult 5 1st
lucky/blessed 4 2nd
thankful/glad 4 2nd
Of all these adjectives, the most frequently used are missing/lost and
hard/difficult which occur 5 times respectively in the last paragraphs of the
personal narratives. This is somewhat surprising since the adjective hard/difficult
is not included in the common adjective found in the 10 narratives. However, in
PN7, the adjective difficult is used 4 times in the last paragraph, indicating the
emotional struggle experienced by the student. Below are the lines where this
adjective is used in PN7:
“The city was so pained that day, people are finding foods to eat and it is
so difficult.”
“Seeing for the first time counting dead is so difficult, babies, children,
mother and father.”
“It was a difficult recovery that time…”
“It’s a deep recovery and difficult to move on but we did it.”
To sum it up, the term house/home which is the most commonly found noun
in many of the narratives is also the most frequently used noun. Similarly, the
most common adjective missing/lost is at the same time the most dominant
adjective in this category. It is then safe to say that the common theme of these
paragraphs discussing the events after the flood is the missing/lost houses/homes.
Dominant Terms in All Ten Personal Narratives
Findings reveal that the topmost nouns include water (59 occurrences),
house/s (55 occurrences), time (27 occurrences), rain (26 occurrences), and father
(20 occurrences). However, if the frequencies of the synonymous terms house/s and
home are summed up, it would become the most used noun in all the paragraphs
with 73 times of occurrence. Similarly, the same happens when the frequency of
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occurrence of the terms mother and mom are added; it would yield to 29
occurrences, which is bigger than the frequency of the nouns like time, rain and
father.
Undoubtedly, water is the most frequently used noun since this term has
been mentioned in the paragraphs describing what happened during and after the
flood. And since the tragedy was about typhoon and flood, it is expected to see more
of this term in the personal narratives. In the same manner, the terms house/s and
home are also very evident most especially because many houses were destroyed
during that typhoon. These were observed or even experienced by the students and
were reflected in their personal narratives. Besides, the flood occurred at around
past midnight and most of them were already sleeping in their houses/homes.
In terms of the dominant descriptive adjectives, it is found out that strong/er
is the most dominant with 17 times of occurrence. This is then followed by high/er
(with 8 occurrences) and heavy as well as safe/r (with 7 occurrences, respectively).
The frequent use of the adjective strong/er can be attributed to the fact that it is
used to describe nouns like water, wind, rain, and typhoon. It is even used to
describe one of the writers who, being the eldest, has to be strong in the family
during that tragedy.
Franzosi (1998) is indeed right when he points out that narrative analysis of
the text (or in this study, the written personal experiences of the Sendong
survivors) helps to bring not only the linguistic characteristics or properties of the
story, but also a great deal of sociology hidden behind the text. As a whole, the
dominant and recurring words/terms employed by the Sendong survivors reveal
that the common theme of the personal narratives about typhoon Sendong is the
strong/er water or in short, the flood. This means that the stories in the narratives
dominantly revolves around the discussions about the strong water the survivors
encountered during the typhoon. And this is not only about their individual but
also, more importantly, collective experience.
CONCLUSION
Language is indeed a powerful tool to express what a person feels and

thinks towards a person, a thing, an idea or an event. This paper has shown that
the students who were able to experience the flashfloods during typhoon Sendong
share common feelings about it. This is evidently reflected in their use of language,
particularly the use of nouns and descriptive adjectives. The common nouns like
rain, water, and house/home as well as the frequently used descriptive adjectives
strong/er, high/er and missing/lost all reveal what they have felt and how they feel
about the incident. They reflect what these students went through in that horrible
ordeal, not just individually but also collectively. Thus, the more common and
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frequently used a term or a word is, the more it reveals about what we think and
feel. The adage “A man’s language is an index of his thoughts” and, if I may add,
feelings or emotions, is certainly true in these personal narratives.
Additionally, it is surprising that though these students are exposed to
media and technology and are living near the city proper, still few of them know
some folk beliefs and superstitions. This only means that we cannot really erase
folk traditions because they have become part of us.
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The Mindanao Forum Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 A.D. DALONA June 2020
Rethinking Arts Appreciation through Jacques

Ranciere’s Critical Aesthetics
ALVERT D. DALONA
ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is twofold. First, it attempts to elucidate the

conceptual junctions between philosophical aesthetics and politics to
appropriate the former in the discussion about the cultural and socio-
political realities of a society. Second, it seeks to integrate, especially in
the Arts and Appreciation subject, the critical and emancipatory potential
of aesthetics in order to transform and make it relevant to society. Using
Jacques Ranciere’s critical aesthetics as hermeneutical lens, I argue in
this paper that if Philosophy were to continue to make itself relevant in
the Philippine setting it has to permeate into the General Core subject
which every Filipino college student has to take. The Art Appreciation
subject, in particular, must be infused with a reconfigured understanding
of aesthetics in order to depart from the traditional Humanities subject.
To avoid repeating the latter under a different name, the descriptions,
aims, and contents of Art Appreciation must be recalibrated by grounding
it on critical aesthetics that consequently allows it to explore its subtle
connection to politics, which will, in turn, provide a fertile ground for
analyses and discussions, which can potentially help diagnose and raise
consciousness into the socio-cultural and political issues faced by society.
Keywords: Critical Aesthetics, Arts Appreciation, Distribution of the

Sensible, Political Aesthetics
____________
DALONA is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Philosophy and
Humanities, CASS, MSU-IIT.
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INTRODUCTION
Quo vadis Filosofia? As Philosophy struggles to find its rightful place in the
new developments of our education system, the challenge to keep the discipline of
philosophizing in the academe becomes a daunting task. However, the changes
brought about by the implementation of this new academic curriculum, especially
its emphasis on multi-disciplinarity, provide a window of opportunity to still make
the contributions of Philosophy readily available to the revised General Education
subjects, especially in the field of Arts Appreciation.
However, the inclusion of philosophical perspectives, especially in Arts
Appreciation subject, seem to be confined to theories and concepts of arts that have
no relevance in the public sphere. The choice of topics also on philosophical
perspectives such as Plato’s mimesis and Aristotle’s view of art as representational
appear to be just a mere addendum to complete the course outline but does not
possess the critical potential to contribute to making society better for everyone. It
is plaintive considering that the Arts Appreciation subject can be a powerful
medium for societal transformation.
This is not, however, surprising considering the skepticism concerning the
link between aesthetics and politics. One can ask incisive questions such as “what
does art have to do with issues that are highly social and political in nature?” “How
can art be of help when a society experiences deep political conflicts?” “What can
art do to address socio-political conflicts, war, and poverty?” “Is it not ridiculous to
indulge in art when perhaps what a society practically needs are just social
institutions with just public policies?” The merits of art and theories of art seem to
become irrelevant in the domain of politics. Aesthetics, on this ground, is not
designed to explain, much less solve, political problems and conflicts.
Aesthetics, despite its seeming disconnectedness from the concrete issues
that are political in nature, possess a critical potential to offer alternative insights.
Such is a type of reflective understanding that emerges not from systematically
applying the technical skills of analysis that prevail in the Social Sciences, but
from cultivating a more open-ended level of sensibility about the political (Bleiker,
2009, 2).
Using Jacques Ranciere’s critical aesthetics as hermeneutical lens, the paper
argues that the Arts and Appreciation subject in college must be infused with the
critical and emancipatory potential of aesthetics to transform and make it relevant
to society. Philosophy can help in infusing a critical perspective into Arts
Appreciation subject so that it goes beyond mere appreciation, and becomes
politically and socially transformative in the process.
The paper is structured into four parts. The first part will discuss Jacques
Ranciere’s view on the conjunction between politics and aesthetics. The second part
will dwell on the connection between art and language. The third part is the critical
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application of Ranciere’s views on the Arts Appreciation subject and how it fills in
the normative and the critical deficit of the subject. The fourth part will offer a
brief conclusion.
Ranciere and the Aesthetic Engagement in Politics
It may be well to note that critical theorists and thinkers such as Jacques
Ranciere attempted to bridge the gap between aesthetics and politics. Ranciere
operates on a basic premise that there is an inherent aesthetic dimension in
politics and the necessary junction between the two is what he called the
“distribution of the sensible.” He takes a step back, so to speak, and points to a
rather primordial connection between the arts and politics. The distribution of the
sensible, notes Ranciere, is the “system of self-evident facts of sense perception
that simultaneously discloses the existence of something in common and the
delimitations that define the respective parts and positions within it” (Ranciere,
2004, 12).
Unlike the usual knowledge that Aesthetics functions after certain epistemic
assumptions are set to work, it already is actually at work even prior to any given
society’s common experience. Better yet, it allows the conditions for the possibility
of a common experience. In other words, it is this something in common that makes
a community possible. It does not only refer to an attribute that the members of
society possess in common but a collective experience that has led to the
establishment of the community. Moreover, the distribution of the sensible is the
system of divisions that assigns parts, supplies meanings, and defines the
relationships between things in the common world. One such part belongs to art,
with the larger distribution prescribing how the arts relate to other ways of doing
and making. As such, the distribution of the sensible defines the nature of art,
along with what it is capable of (Tanke, 2011, 75). Hence, the distribution of the
sensible, which stands between Aesthetics and Politics, is that which preconditions
human perception, which in turn makes things visible, audible, and available to
the senses.
These grounds, however, that the members of a society share as a common
heritage are not without contradictions and disparities. Even in a democratic
society, certain elements are vulnerable to different modes of misrecognition.
Though in principle, the “voice of the people” takes primacy over the voice of a few
ruling classes, it cannot insulate itself from the logic of inclusion-exclusion. Certain
members and groups always fall prey to the manipulations at work in the socio-
political arena. With this as a background, Ranciere reconfigures the nature of
Aesthetics, which, as mentioned above, determines how human sensibilities
perceive objects and self-evident facts.
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More often than not, political struggles occur when those deemed
unrecognized, marginalized - the ‘part which has no part’ - in the society takes a
legitimate action to get their voices heard and establish a sense of identity. The
task of political action, therefore, is aesthetic in that it requires a reconfiguration
of the conditions of sense perception so that the reigning configuration between
perception and meaning is disrupted by those elements, groups, or individuals in
society that demand not only to exist but indeed to be perceived (ibid. 96). The
concern of the minority seeking recognition is legitimized by a more primordial
assumed nature of human beings, that is, equality. Ranciere firmly believes in a
radical understanding of equality among humans. This equality is not rooted in
the pursuit of a consensual agreement over disputing interests but in the contest
over the perceptual preconditions that make the noise coming out of one’s mouth
an utterance rather than a "gutterance", speech rather than noise, language rather
than blabber (ibid. 102).
Hence, unlike Benjamin, Adorno (and even Lukacs), who hold the idea that
art must serve the intentions of the masses, which, in hindsight, implies that art,
in itself, is like an empty can, neutral and malleable, Ranciere, on the other hand,
brings the discussion a few steps back by positing the idea that the inherent
aesthetic nature of politics rests on the dissent of the non-recognized members of
the society whose legitimate project of emancipation stems from a presupposed
egalitarian distribution of the sensible.
Art and Language
One of the reasons why the aforementioned Philosophers believe in the

emancipatory power of Art is the operating epistemic assumption that Art
communicates; and as such, it makes use of a special language to convey meaning,
put forward implicit questions, and even challenge the status quo. Though it is
already commonplace to find artworks that aim for social awareness, and
ultimately for social emancipation, these however are not without criticisms. As
mentioned in the introduction, even among practicing artists, the idea of
politicizing art may destroy its creative independence when it becomes merely a
tool for political propaganda.
However, can we not call an Art that which is creatively made to influence
Peace and Patriotism? Can we not call an Art that which rouses courage, love, and
brotherhood? Should one be always critical towards the internal and oftentimes
inconspicuous intentions of the Artist in order to evaluate whether a piece can be
rightly deemed as a work of art or simply propaganda disguised in a melody, prose,
or a film? These questions are not new in the domain of Aesthetics and most
theories arrive at a deadlock as to what should be the primary role of the Arts. My
goal, however, is not to add to the heap of answers to the aforementioned questions
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but to focus instead on the fundamental idea that any artistic output
communicates.
There is no question that Art signifies reality. It employs a special language;
better yet, Art is language. A song, painting, poem, film, and photo aim at
representing something that possesses an objective reality. Many artworks seem
to denote purely abstract, imaginative, and fictional characters, yet the fact
remains that their basis, no matter how unnoticeable and esoteric, comes from a
reality, which possesses an ontological character. Artworks that employ human
verbal/written language are by all means communicative in nature. However, what
about those whose medium does not make use of everyday language? This may be
illustrated in non-lyrical music. This area in the Philosophy of Music has always
been a point of contention among philosophers, musicologists, and theorists.
However, the nature of aesthetic discussions and disagreements about music
indicates that we accept that music is the bearer of meaning or sense and that it
is this meaning or sense the listener comprehends when she is said to understand
a musical work (Davies, 2003, 121). In other words, the meaning or sense of a
certain piece of non-lyrical music lies in whatever that the listener grasps. In this
vein, we can infer that whatever captures the listeners aesthetically in music is
the meaning of such. In other words, the “sense” that is perceived from a particular
piece of music does not owe its source from the intentions of the composer.
Citing an example can further elucidate this point. If one listens to Mozart’s The
Marriage of Figaro, it is futile to ask about the original intentions of Mozart while
composing the piece. One (even the untrained) simply has to listen to it in order to
conclude that such musical opus “makes sense.” But to articulate what is being
understood from a musical piece is not as easy as answering a multiple-choice
question. If one were asked what he/she understood from a piano concert, cerebral
answers do not always come out right, for two reasons: first, what is perceived is
not something whose nature is linguistic; and second, natural language would fail
in fully describing what is understood.
This phenomenon has been the subject of long discussions and disputes
among philosophical pundits. The meaning of certain music is as elusive as a
succession of notes. Articulating the meaning of music is like catching water by
hand: one knows that it is nearly impossible, while also knowing that his hand is
wet in the process. It goes the same way in music. It may be difficult to express it
in detail, but one knows that “it’s there.” Nevertheless, this difficulty in expressing
the listener’s understanding of certain music - hence its meaning - is not an excuse
to dismiss it immediately.
Instrumental music, such as the works of the classical western composers,
mostly consists of several elements, namely: sound, duration, pitch, dynamics, tone
color, rhythm, melody, harmony, key, texture, form, and themes. The combination
of all these elements based on a particular piece of music results in a “finished
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product” or simply a complete musical output. Since these elements, taken as a

single unit, are the only constituents audibly perceived in music, it is these
elements, therefore, that constitute the language of non-lyrical music. In other
words, music conveys a non-natural language whose meaning is not as easily
noticeable and intelligible as the natural human language that has propositional
functions.
Such is also true when it comes to Visual Arts. Paintings, sculptures, and
installation art make use of ordinary symbols to convey complex meanings.
Consider as an example, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. The disturbing images of people
and animals in cube-like forms are not just figments of imagination without any
social relevance, for it actually depicts the reality of war, death, and violence. In
fact, it has even become one of Picasso’s monumental pieces due to its powerful
message regarding the devastating effects of war as experienced in the town of
Guernica during the Spanish Civil war.
The “message” of visual arts may not always come in handy; nevertheless,
they send a message. A spectator needs to have an inquisitive and discerning mind
to make sense of the symbols and elements present in an artwork, and most
importantly its situated-ness. This is because whatever is communicated always
stands within a context, a background. It is through such “contextuality” where
meaning is derived. This is why Representation – an idea that we can “represent”
reality as such - cannot free itself from subjective elements involved in the Art. It
will always be biased. Pure objectivity is impossible in the art world. Even
photographs that claim to be purely value-neutral are always tainted with
unbiased meaning. The subjective intentions of the artist and the subjective
interpretation of the spectators are both indicators that photographs stand in
relation to a context, either that of the photographer and that of the interpreter.
When we look at a photograph we never just look at a photograph in isolation. We
actually look at a complex relationship between a photograph and ourselves
(Berger, 1977, 9).
From Arts Appreciation to Critical Aesthetics
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has included the Arts

Appreciation subject as part of the general courses that are to be taken by college
students under the New General Education Curriculum. As part of its mandate to
promote and elevate the standards and quality of higher education in the country,
the Commission on Higher Education has itself crafted the course description,
learning outcomes, course outline, and sample time frame with contents,
methodology, resources, and even the sample assessment, albeit still giving the
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instructor or the professor the liberty and discretion on the contents in the
mentioned areas. For the course description, CHED says,
Arts Appreciation is a three-unit course that develops students’

ability to appreciate, analyze, and critique works of art. Through
interdisciplinarity and multimodal approaches, this course equips
students with a broad knowledge of the practical, historical,
philosophical, and social relevance of the arts in order to hone
student’s ability to articulate their understanding of the arts. The
course also develops students’ competency in researching and
curating art as well as conceptualizing, mounting, and evaluating
arts production. The course aims to develop students’ genuine
appreciation for Philippine arts by providing them opportunities to
explore the diversity and richness and their rootedness in Filipino
culture (ched.gov.ph).
At a cursory glance, the course description veers away with the traditional
presentation and appreciation of artworks, which usually dominate the contents
and even the methodology in teaching arts subjects in the humanities. With the
New General Education Curriculum, the Arts Appreciation subject embraces the
“multimodal” approach that includes not only appreciating and analyzing works of
art but also critiquing them. The inclusion of basic philosophical perspectives in
the course syllabus such as “art as mimesis (Plato), art as representation
(Aristotle), art for art’s sake (Kant), art as an escape, and art as functional” (Ibid),
seems to provide the subject with a critical perspective in analyzing and perhaps,
even in criticizing artworks, which elevates the discourse in the subject.
However, a closer look at the topics, contents and methodology of the
syllabus crafted by CHED reveals that the critical perspective in the subject that
must be emphasized to elevate higher learning in college is just facile, and not
given greater significance. The bulk of the contents in the Arts Appreciation
subject is still dominated by topics such as the various periods and movements in
art history, which has 32 individual topics alone in this area, such as Egyptian,
Greek, and Roman. Chinese arts, and movements such as Mannerism, Baroque,
Neo-classicism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism, Cubism, among others.
The section on Instrumental Music has also occupied a lengthy discussion, dividing
it into categories. For instance, under Baroque, there are seven individual
musicians as part of the topics, such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Ludwig Van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert. The Romantic section of
Instrumental Music in the syllabus has an even greater number of individual
musicians at 14, including notable names, such as Frederic Chopin and Richard
Wagner. The Modern section has also individual discussions on each musician of
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that period. Aside from Instrumental Music, the section on Artists and Artisans is
also relatively long with an emphasis on Production Process and Medium
Techniques, and the other topics under it such as on Managers, Curators, Buyers,
and Collectors, and Arts Dealers. Compare this to the areas on philosophical
perspectives, which was mentioned under the methodology section, has only five
topics, and which is just a mere presentation of concepts and ideas, rather than as
a tool for critical evaluation. The section on philosophical perspectives appears to
be an accessory rather than an integral and essential part of the subject matter.
Furthermore, some of the essential components of the Learning Outcomes
of Arts Appreciation as a subject matter are not achieved, especially if one takes
into account the topics and methodologies mentioned. For instance, under the
“Skills” heading of the Learning Outcomes, Arts Appreciation subject, CHED says,
must “analyze and appraise works of art based on aesthetic value, historical
context, tradition, and social relevance”, and “utilize art for self-expression and for
promoting advocacies (ched.gov.ph).” Under the Values heading of the Learning
Outcome of the subject, CHED says, Arts Appreciation subject must “Deepen their
sensitivity to self, community, and society (Ibid).” But if one considers the topics
and methodologies of the subject, and its critical deficit, despite the inclusion of
philosophical perspectives, the “analyze and appraise works of art based on social
relevance” is not achieved because there is no corresponding topic and tools in the
syllabus that would help achieve it. The lengthy discussion of western musicians,
periods, and movements could not certainly address that goal. The sensitivity
especially in the societal level under the Values heading fails as well since first,
there is no topic even in the syllabus that dwells on Philippine or Filipino work of
arts, and second, the topics have no direct relevance in the Philippine setting since
the context is western. There is no section devoted, to at least applying, the
philosophical perspectives in the Philippine setting as well. Not to say that the
topics mentioned under philosophical perspectives are not enough to help promote
social and societal relevance of arts, much more for advocacies. It needs a
discussion on critical aesthetics in order to emphasize the social and political
dimensions of art.
Jacques Ranciere’s concept of the distribution of the sensible, I argue,
possesses a critical potential as an entry point towards a discussion on aesthetic
education, especially on the critical deficit of the Arts Appreciation subject. First,
on broad strokes, education, for Ranciere, is never simply a transmission of
knowledge, information, or skills from a “master” to a “student” but an art of
driving the student’s will. Drawing from the tenets of radical equality, he posits
that education must be geared towards emancipation and that even an ignorant
person can teach something to someone provided that certain conditions are
present, namely, reason and will. In his book The Ignorant Schoolmaster Five
Lessons of Intellectual Emancipation, he shows that the usual method behind
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almost all forms of the educational system is that of Explication. What all
conscientious professors believe, he notes, is that “the important business of the
master is to transmit his knowledge to his students to bring them, by degrees, to
his level of expertise” (Ranciere, 2007, 3). However, if one were to look closely at
the effects of this method, it promotes a certain type of Stultification, whereby a
student – after being immersed in this kind of pedagogy for several years –
understands that understanding can happen only through explication. There is
stultification whenever one intelligence is subordinated to the other (ibid. 13). In
effect, this intellectual stultification perpetuates the practice of submission, rather
than emancipation.
Emancipation, in this context, should not be hastily construed under the
lens of Marxism, though it may become a contributory factor for the possibility of
the latter. Emancipation, or better yet intellectual emancipation happens when
“’ignorant’ people will be recognized as perfectly qualified schoolmasters” (Citton,
2010, 27). This goes to say that emancipation is the antithesis of the explicative
order and the hierarchical structure it engenders. It is a condition whereby people,
whose voices are often muted in the public sphere, become empowered to assert
matters on equal footing with the other social groups. It may sound absurd that a
person deemed “ignorant” is capable of teaching something to another fellow
ignorant, much less saying something significant regarding political matters. But
Ranciere’s message reminds us of the fact that the label “ignorance” is a matter of
convention forged by social categorizations. In concrete terms, the ignorant ones
are usually embodied in the image of delinquent, out-of-school problematic
individuals. Our very system of education creates class distinctions thereby
separating the educated and the non-educated, the learned and the ignorant, the
master and the slave. This goes to say that the act of transmitting knowledge
through explication tends to generate and perpetuate a structure of inequality
between the explainer and the explainee, and such structure of inequality is
reinforced each time the educator reasserts his superiority by performing as a
knowledge-provider (ibid. 28). Juxtaposed with Aesthetics, the aforementioned
ideas will shed a different light to the nature of Arts, Artists, and Art educators.
Departing from the old, pre-modernist understanding of the Art, Ranciere argues,
the artist’s emancipatory lesson, opposed on every count to the

professor’s stultifying lesson, is this: each one of us is an artist to the
extent that he carries out a double process; he is not content to be a
mere journeyman but wants to make all work a means of expression,
and he is not content to feel something but tries to impart it to others.
The artist needs equality as the explicator needs inequality. And he,
therefore, designs the model of a reasonable society where the very
thing that is outside of reason – matter, linguistic signs – is traversed
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by reasonable will: that of telling the story and making others feel
how we are similar to them (Ranciere, 2007, 70-71).
The task of articulating or expressing thoughts, sounds, and images from

the grassroots level – that is, the unheard of, unrecognized, and unappreciated -
unhampered by any elitist artistic normative standards is of prime importance. In
matters pertaining to painting, for instance, Ranciere argues that Art – or art
education for that matter - is not an endeavor to make great painters; it’s a matter
of making emancipated men: people capable of saying, “me too, I’m a
painter ”...which means: “me too, I have a soul, I have feelings to communicate to
my fellowmen” (Ranciere, 2007, 67).
What Ranciere can bring in the discourse in Arts Appreciation in relation
to social relevance, advocacy, and contribution to society, which are sorely lacking
in the course design of the Arts Appreciation subject, is to provide the voice to those
who are voiceless, muted, and powerless in the public sphere, such as in the case
of the marginalized. Those who are in the margins have the right to be heard in
the public sphere, despite their lack of education and influence, on what matters
to them, especially on how they can overcome their difficult circumstances. Art
should not just be appreciating the glossy colors, the artistic mediums, and designs,
but must also bring out the social and political issues confronting society. Art
should reveal the human condition and the various factors that hinder people from
living a decent and dignified life. Art should truthfully show what is happening in
society, and not just be used to sell for capitalist gains. If Arts Appreciation as a
subject is serious in attaining social relevance, advocacy, and contribution to
society then it must integrate a discussion on critical aesthetics, where art is seen
as a critical medium to examine society and the status quo.
In the Philippines, unfortunately, when one is asked about the Arts what
easily comes to mind perhaps are things like exhibits, galleries, entertainment
shows, band concerts, internet viral videos, cosplays, anime cartoons, flash mobs,
rap battles, fashion shows, movies and the like. Filipinos seem to have a better
knowledge of the “manifestations” of Arts, but a lesser understanding of the
nature, implications, historical context, and most importantly, social function of
Arts. It seems that nowadays Arts is hastily understood as a type of creative
activity done separately from the other non-creative ones. This activity employs a
different set of skills, which cannot be found in everybody but only among few
individuals with quite developed and refined artistic taste and practical know-how
to turn ordinary things into something unique, if not weird. Though everybody has
a voice and capable of singing, only the few who can hit the correct notes, with two
or three-octave vocal range, and who can perform vibratos naturally are separated
from the many; and of course, consequently exalted as an artist. The Arts have
been collectively understood as a human enterprise that has a very minimal
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import, if nothing at all, to the socio-political life in a given society. In other words,
Arts have been pushed to the sidelines and are deemed useless in relation to
matters pertaining to politics, democracy and nation-building.
Such is the problem that, I think, needs to be addressed through the
recalibration of the Arts Appreciation subject. It’s a good thing to note, however,
that the Commission on Higher Education recognizes several intellectual
competencies that are expected to be developed through the GE subjects, viz.
“critical, analytical and creative thinking and multiple forms of expressionism and
civic capacities demanded of membership in the community, country, and the
world” (see GPH’s Official Gazette). But again, the contents and methodology have
to be revised in order to accentuate the critical and analytical aspect of art in
relation to the community and society.
Arts Appreciation, I argue, is connected to Philosophy, not just as an
academic discipline but also as a way of thinking, and a way of living. In particular,
Art Appreciation is not only so much about “appreciating” art, or of finding
conceptual tools to analyze and criticize Art. If the subject were to create an impact
in a student’s life, it has to take an emancipating role of guiding a student to
redeem Art – and along with it himself/herself as the artist - from the banality of
academic compliance. Rebecca Torres and Lydia Goingo (2012), in their position
paper on the New General Curriculum, put it aptly when they assert and
recommend that the New Curriculum should be “guided by the philosophy of
liberal education”, in “developing among students the ability to: apply knowledge
and skills in real-world settings; conscientiously appreciate and respond to ethical
issues; recognize and give value to various cultures, and actively contribute to
society as socially responsible citizens.”
To achieve this goal, one cannot simply argue on the basis of the so-called
teacher factor. The subject has to be recalibrated to render itself useful to the
learner. Concretely, this means redefining its goals, rearticulating the content, and
enhancing its methodology. As Gadamer aptly puts it, “the work of art has its true
being in the fact that it becomes an experience that changes the person who
experiences it” (Gadamer, 2006, 103). The Arts Appreciation subject must go
beyond appreciating beauty in its many dimensions but should also teach students
the value of being responsible citizens concerned with what is going in society. Arts
should enter into the realm of the political and the social to be transformative.
One way of concretely recalibrating the subject using Ranciere’s critical
aesthetics is to use Filipino work of arts, which is not included in the course design
of Arts Appreciation, to raise awareness on various social issues that need to be
addressed. In the Philippines, we have many artists who are brilliant and
concerned with what is going on in society. Their songs, poems, paintings, and
movies reveal the deep-seated issues in our country. For instance, Lino Brocka
films have sociocultural themes that depict the struggles of ordinary Filipinos on
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various issues as revealed in the movies such as “Tinimbang ka Ngunit Kulang”,

“Bayan ko”, and “Manila in the Claws of Neon”. The realism in these movies can
help open the minds and hearts of Filipinos to contribute to making their lives
better. These movies, unlike the usual Hollywood movies, are not primarily aimed
at raising profit, but in raising awareness, and in truthfully revealing what is going
on in Philippine society. Lino Brocka films promote an advocacy to help the
marginalized overcome oppression and unjust structures in society, without
endorsing the radical communist ideology, but merely to bring social and political
issues into the public sphere. Pacita Abad’s paintings are also worth including,
especially that it depicts violence against women, sex exploitation, and the difficult
plight of OFW women in the hands of abusive employers. Arts Appreciation as a
subject will be socially and culturally relevant if it explores Filipino works of arts
that have political and social message ingrained in their masterpieces rather than
dwell simply on Western concepts, artistic techniques, and works of arts that are
simply copied by Filipinos and have no relevance and impact in the lives of
ordinary Filipinos.
CONCLUSION
There is a need to emphasize, more than anything else, the contiguity of Art
to Life and Society. This does not mean, however, that we aim to produce radical
but penniless writers, critical but impoverished visual artists, or obscure
musicians. Nor does it aim at producing the next generation of Daniel Padilla, Vice
Ganda, or Anne Curtis. These extremes, I think, should be avoided. In today’s
highly technological and oftentimes indifferent world, the importance to explore
the different contextual possibilities of “redistributing the sensible”, that is, ways
by which muted voices are recognized, listened to, and appreciated, is very much
called for. To say that through Art Appreciation we can achieve this is a
preposterous claim, but the subject can provide an avenue for its birth. As most of
the teachers can observe, the students already have enough exposure to the
realities of life in society; they do not need to be reminded of the evils of corruption,
violence, impunity, greediness, and the like. What must be done, on the other hand,
is to create an avenue to look at them from different vantage points, process them,
and make informed value judgments about them.
The Philosophy departments and their respective members of the faculty in
the country should not simply take a wait-and-see attitude. It should, on the
contrary, seize every opportunity to collaborate with the other disciplines, promote
critical and analytical thinking, uphold intellectual integrity and most
importantly, lead young minds to value their existence, in itself and in relation to
the society at large.
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REFERENCES
Adorno, Theodore, Philosophy of New Music, trans. and ed. by Robert Hullot-
Kentor (London: University of Minnesota Press, 2006)
Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,

(London: Penguin Books, 2008)
Berger, John,Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin, 1977)
Bleiker Roland, Aesthetics and World Politics, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan
2009) Penguin Books, 2008)
Citton, Yves, “The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Knowledge and Authority”, Ranciere:

Key Concepts, ed. by Deranty Jean Philippe, (UK: Acumen Press, 2010)
Commission on Higher Education. Arts Appreciation. Retrieved from

ched.gov.ph/wp-contentuploads/2017/10/ARTSAPPRECIATION
Davies, Stephen, Themes in the Philosophy of Music, (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 2003)
Deranty, Jean Philippe. ed. Ranciere: Key Concepts. Acumen Press, UK, 2010.
Gadamer, Hans Georg, Truth and Method, 2nd, Revised edition, trans. by
Weinsheimer& Marshall, (London: Continuum, 2006)
Hassa, Rose. Filipina Artists and Feminist Art. Retrieved from filipina-artists-
feminism.pdf (niu.edu).
Hemingway, Ernest, A Moveable Feast (New York: Touchstone, 1996)
Lukacs, Georg, “Realism in a Balance”, Aesthetics and Politics, (London: Verso,

1980)
Ranciere, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible.

trans. by Gabriel Rockhill. Continuum Intl Publishing Group, NY, 2004.
Ranciere, Jacques. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual

Emancipation. trans. by Kristin Ross. Stanford University Press, California,
2007.
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Staniszewski, Mary Anne. Believing is Seeing: Creating the Culture of Art, (USA,
Penguin Books, 1995)
Tanke, Joseph, Jacques Ranciere: An Introduction, (London: Continuum, 2011)
Torres, Rebecca and Goingo, Lydia. (2012). Position Paper on the General
Education Curriculum: Concerns and Proposed Remedies, Gibon Vol. 9: 81-
96.
Wendt, Alexander, Social Theory of International Politics, (NY: Cambridge

University Press, 2003)
Wessell, L. 1972. “Alexander Buamgarten’s Contribution to the Development of

Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Arts Criticism Vol. 30, No.3.
(Jstor.org)
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The Mindanao Forum Vol. XXXIII, No. 1 A. GUINTO June 2020
Sining Kambayoka’s Usa Ka Damgo:

Transplanting Shakespeare into Lanao
AMADO GUINTO, JR.
ABSTRACT
This paper explores and lays bare how the study of Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream in its translation or adaptation brings artistic
and theatrical invigoration and opens up possibilities of dialogues between
the local and western cultures. Zeroing-in on Sining Kambayoka’s Usa ka
Damgo, this study also discusses how the translated work exemplifies this
opportunity for creative invigoration in theater and the potential for
building an avenue to connect vastly distant cultures as it resituates A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, a cultural product from the west, into not one
but two Philippine cultures – Cebuano and Maranao.
This paper’s purpose is anchored on this opportunity and potential: to

investigate Sining Kambayoka’s practice of translating and adapting not
only on the linguistic level of translation, but also on the often neglected yet
more crucial aspect of translation – cultural mediation. The paper
concentrates on the cultural transformation that occurs in the transfer
between the source and the target text. Particularly, the paper examines
how culture is negotiated in the translation process to suit the cultural
context, and the target audience of the performance. By understanding how
a narrative set in a different period and distant place converses with the
local Maranao setting, it is then possible to assess this particular
translation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
_________________
GUINTO is an Assistant Professor of the Department of English, CASS, MSU–IIT, Iligan
City.
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The study reveals that the strategies employed by the translators may be
grouped into two approaches: selective suppression and re-creative
translation. Omission, reduction and implicitation are strategies that
selectively suppress the source text by stripping the source text with
elements that are no longer necessary in the target text, while expansion,
amplification and adaptation are strategies that re-create the source text
by means of adding cultural nuances that would lead to the re-location of
the translated play. Both approaches aim at domesticating the foreign text
such that the play becomes re-situated in the Lanao context.
Keywords: translation, cultural mediation, drama, Shakespeare,

Usa ka Damgo
INTRODUCTION
Usa ka Damgo is an unpublished Cebuano translation of William

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Teodoro Drilon, Roland Gohel,
Edilberto Reyes & Juanita Taladua-Riconalla through the Mindanao State
University's Sining Kambayoka Script Production Project. This translation of the
bard’s famous comedy is one of its kind: not only is it translated into Cebuano but
the whole narrative was adapted to the pre-Islamic Maranao culture. To illustrate
this adaptation, the translated work employs folk Maranao supernatural creatures
instead of the western fairies. Also, most of the names the characters have been
changed to suit the transfer of the narrative from the classic Athens, Greece to
Lanao province which is home to the Maranaos.
The first staging of Usa ka Damgo was in 1984 by Sining Kambayoka, the
official theater company of the Mindanao State University (MSU) Main Campus
in Marawi City. It must be noted that despite being nestled in Marawi City, the
Main Campus is also home to many Cebuano speakers, making Cebuano one if its
lingua francas. In an interview, former Sining Kambayoka artistic director Sunnie
C. Noel said that the translation was started in 1979 under the leadership of the
company’s then director Frank G. Rivera who happened to leave later that year.
The translation was put on hold for some time and it was only in 1983 when a pool
of translators was formed to finish the translation work. The pool of translators
then compared their work with the English version. Along the way, they removed
parts of the script which they saw were “irrelevant” to the translated work (Noel).
As to what is meant by “irrelevant”, Noel did not expound on this matter except
that some inferences can be made if one looks at how Sining Kambayoka views
itself as a theater company. As Sining Kambayoka prides itself to be the only
Filipino Muslim folk theater company in the country whose prime objective is the
conservation of the Maranao cultural heritage and its integration to the society at
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large, the resulting translation had to be in conjunction with this mandate. This
means that certain details in the source text are deemed no longer needed or are
not applicable in the target culture, thereby demanding translation processes that
investigate cultural differences. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
became a Maranao play in Cebuano that narrates the events surrounding the
marriage of Sultan Pata Kumintang of a fictional sultanate in Lanao, to Potre
Lawambae. These events include the hilarious adventures of the four young
Maranaos and a band of six Maranao workmen-slash-actors who are controlled by
the playful tonongs (folk spirit among the Maranaos) living in the forest. Hence,
the “transplanting” of Shakespeare into Lanao.
William Shakespeare remains relevant around the world today as his
works have been interpreted by theater groups in more ways than one. This
relevance stems from his works that present themes and human conditions that
are still relatable even until today. Themes such as avarice, love, jealousy,
vengeance, and duty to name a few continue to thrill and entertain the
contemporary audiences as much as they did way back in Shakespeare’s day. This
interest in Shakespeare’s work bore festivals and congresses across the globe to
further the study of the bard’s life and work. One of the many congresses is the
World Shakespeare Congress which is held every five years and organized by the
International Shakespeare Association in partnership with universities
(http://www.wsc2021.org/index.html). Because of this relatability, his dramas have
also been reconfigured by many translators to suit socio-cultural requirements. For
example, some of Shakespeare’s puns may not work in a certain society. Hence,
translations must open the source text to other different perspectives to bridge
gaps, to adapt. However, the bard’s popularity is not without criticism as many
postcolonial critics opine that the great English writer has been vital in the
propagation of colonialism. According to these critics, the American colonial
education, which employed the teaching of Shakespeare to perpetuate the spread
of colonial regimes more particularly the English language, is one of the root causes
of an overwhelming estrangement of indigenous peoples from their own cultures
and histories (Ick 2018). Judy Celine Ick mentions in her essay “The Undiscovered
Country: Shakespeare in Philippine Literatures” (2014) that while Shakespeare
may have “arrived in the Philippines divorced from his original language (6),”
Shakespeare still did play a crucial role in the colonial education as his some of his
dramas were among the required studies in Courses of Instruction for the Public
Schools in the Philippine Islands during the American colonial period for the
Philippine subjects to be trained in English (Ick 2014: 6). But on the other hand,
many scholars and academics also firmly believe that the study of the bard’s works
and other western dramas in their translation or adaptation brings artistic and
theatrical invigoration and opens possibilities of dialogues between the local and
western cultures (Luk 2006: 6). As a work of translation, Sining Kambayoka’s Usa
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ka Damgo exemplifies this opportunity for creative invigoration in theater and the
potential for building an avenue to connect vastly distant cultures as it resituates
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a cultural product from the west, into not one but
two Philippine cultures – Cebuano and Maranao.
This paper’s purpose is anchored on this opportunity and potential: to
investigate Sining Kambayoka’s practice of translating and adapting not only on
the linguistic level of translation, but also on the often neglected yet more crucial
aspect of translation – cultural mediation. I shall concentrate on the cultural
transformation that occurs in the transfer between the source and the target text.
Particularly, I shall examine how culture is negotiated in the translation process
to suit the cultural context, and the target audience of the performance. By
understanding how a narrative set in a different period and distant place converses
with the local Maranao setting, it is then possible to assess this particular
translation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This leads me to ask the following
questions: What translation strategies and techniques did Sining Kambayoka use
to resituate a foreign culture? How did the translated work engage cultural non-
equivalences? How did the group translate the cultural nuances in their Maranao-
inspired Usa ka Damgo?
Translating, Rewriting, and Transplanting
Lingui Yang (2005), in his article “Cultural Transformation and Linguistic

Transfer: Chinese ‘Transplant” of Shakespeare,” provides a backgrounder on
looking at translated works as transplantation. In his study of the complete works
and some interpretive translations of Hamlet, he showed how Chinese translators
configure the relationships between form and content and in between the literal
and the literary in their specific socio-cultural context. He began with the
rendering of Shakespeare’s name into Chinese:
Among the many of Shakespeare’s Chinese names

before he was officially an unanimously addressed
as Sha-shi-bi-ya, which sounds to the Chinese ear
more Western and erudite than other names, these
show a transformation of his image in the Chinese
mind: from she-ke-si-bi with a second tone on she
(incomparable tongue), she-ke-si-bi with third tone
on she (unbeatable pen), to hui-ge-shi (spear-
shaker), and to sha-wong, of which wong is usually
given to the few most venerated classic Chinese
poets. (38)
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This shows that rendering Shakespeare from one language into another
cannot avoid the cultures of both the source and the target languages, of both the
author and the translator’s times. Yang explains that in post-structural terms,
Shakespeare’s “creation” of texts was the result of a negotiation of linguistic,
cultural, and spatial boundaries. As translation proceeds from negotiating two
cultures and languages in an interface between them, it is thence another kind of
“creation” or a “rewriting” of the original in and by a new cultural context and for
an audience in this context, says Yang (38).
This recalls the work of Andre Lefevere (1992) in his book Translation,
Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame where he discusses how a
translation is a rewriting and how the process of rewriting literary works is as
matter of fact a manipulation of literature to the ideological and artistic purposes
of the translator so that the translated text can be given a new, sometimes
subversive, historical or literary status (vii). He argues that old works of literature
are not forgotten because of the act of rewriting which he believes to be “the motor
force behind literary evolution” (2). Translation, says Lefevere, is the most
recognizable form of rewriting and is the most influential because it is able to
project the image of an author and/or works in another culture, lifting that author
and/or those works beyond the boundaries of their culture of origin (8).
Similar thoughts on translation as a rewriting is also discussed by
Philippine historian and literary luminary Resil Mojares (2015) in his essay “From
Cebuano/To Cebuano: The Politics of Literary Translation.” In his explanation
about the industry of translation in the Cebuano-speaking community, he purports
that translation is “(an) act of quarrying” which he expounds as the enterprise of
appropriating texts, taking them apart, and mining them for what is ‘usable.’ He
writes:
At best, this may mean reconstructing the text,

producing a new text, to fit a new context in time
or space (the practice called ‘adaptation’). Yet, it
may also mean a simple, indifferent raiding of the
text for what is usable or marketable. The latter
appears to be a common motive in the early
translation of Western novels to Cebuano. (71)
In other words, the act of translation is a business of reworking, revising,

and resituating a given literary text such that the new text emanating from the
process of translation becomes suitable, timely, and relevant in the target culture.
This means that meanings made available in the source text are laid bare for the
receiving community.
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This purpose of having to lay bare the meaning of the text pertains exactly
to the Cebuano word for translation hubad which literally means to unravel.
Hubad is also used to refer to the act of explaining a mystery or to the untying of
a knot. It also signifies undressing which connects the term to the Tagalog hubad,
meaning naked or bare. Thus, in Cebuano, to translate means to reveal and make
manifest knowledge by means of exposure or baring (Mojares 2015: 71). Supporting
Mojares is Cebuano studies scholar Erlinda K. Alburo (2011) in her article
“Riddling-Riddling of the Ghost Crab: Translating Literature in Cebuano.” Alburo
also discusses hubad among other Cebuano translation terminologies to mean “to
solve, unravel, as riddle; translate, interpret, construct, be translated; untie, as
knot, to unfasten, undo, to take off garment, disrobe” (2011: 146).
In sum, the notion of translation as a rewriting is also congruent to the act
of transplanting the source text to negotiate not only physical frontiers but
linguistic and cultural boundaries as well. Translation as a transplanting is a
process of cultural formation determined by the socio-cultural forces in the
translator’s time and personal intellectual circumstances. The translator is
thereby tasked to handle the cultural differences behind the source language and
the target language to ultimately unravel and lay bare (my emphasis) the
meanings of the text (Yang 2005: 40).
Sining Kambayoka’s Usa ka Damgo has been staged by the said theater
group a number of times since its maiden performance in 1984. Also, the
translation, being the only extant one in Cebuano, has been borrowed and staged
by other theater groups as well. Just recently, Xavier University’s The Xavier
Stage under the direction of Mr. Hobart Savior staged its own version of Usa ka
Damgo before its Cagayan de Oro audience. However, the translation remains
unpublished and the copy that this analysis is based on is Savior’s director’s script
complete with artistic and technical annotations for the performance. Unlike the
published translation works of the National Artist Rolando Tinio, Sining
Kambayoka’s Usa ka Damgo lacks a preface nor does it come with a translators’
notes that would supposedly help interested academics and researchers in the
study of the translation process. This absence of translation supports, which is
important for the reader to be able to retrace the path the translators took and the
negotiations they had to make in order to perform their task (Connor, 2014), makes
this study rather challenging.
Given this tough circumstance, this paper follows Thomas David Chaves’s
assumptions in his work on analyzing Tinio’s translation of politeness markers in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (2017) where he cites Tinio’s preface of Ang Trahedya ni
Hamlet, Prinsipe ng Dinamarka:
“Sa saling ito, naging mas payak ang lengguwahe

kaysa orihinal dahil isinalin ang kahulugan ng
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Isabelino at barokong Ingles ni Shakespeare na

wala nang nakauunawa nang hindi tinutulungan
ng mga tala (vii).” (2)
By virtue of Tinio’s pronouncements as cited by Chaves, this paper would also like
to take an assumptive stance that Sining Kambayoka’s Usa ka Damgo is “meant
to be a functional or practical translation, not an academic or scholarly one”
(Chaves 2017: 2). One can presumably say that it is intended for the immediate
use of the group hence the presence of a number of non-equivalences in the
translation. For example, in the script, there are instances that certain changes
have not been put in place despite the claim that this translation is a
transplantation of Shakespeare. Some headings of the play’s acts still indicate
Athens instead of Lanao. In another instance, the names of the characters which
have already been changed into Maranao names in the beginning of the play are
reverted to the original names. These untranslated details may be attributed to
the fact that, despite their apparent interest in the work of Shakespeare, the people
who made the translation are not necessarily translators by profession and that
the translated script is assumed to be for the group’s consumption only.
Nevertheless, the translators’ commitment to literariness is exhibited in
their translational choices. They incorporated balak which is a Cebuano brand of
poetry characterized by its song-like quality, repetitive and simple rhyme scheme,
and its accommodation for humor. Also, the translated text still evinces fair
attempts at approximating equivalence for culturally-encoded idiomatic
expressions, vocabulary, values, beliefs, and practices in the Elizabethan age
which are not only distant but may actually be inexistent in the target Maranao
culture. With the assistance of No Fear Shakespeare by online academic review
publisher sparknotes.com with which a translation studies researcher can see the
original Elizabethan English text placed side by side the “modern” English
translation, it is now possible to determine the translation strategies employed by
Sining Kambayoka in Usa ka Damgo.
From Athens to Lanao: The Strategies of Transplantation in Usa ka Damgo

In Sining Kambayoka’s Usa ka Damgo, the cultural exchange is clearly
seen in the manners Shakespeare is transplanted into the Maranao culture. For
example, in order to relocate Shakespeare’s comedy from Athens to Lanao, the
translators opted to baptize some major characters with Maranao names. The table
below shows the creative re-naming of the characters:
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Table 1. The Re-naming of the Characters in Sining Kambayoka’s Usa ka Damgo
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Usa ka Damgo Characters

Characters
Theseus Sultan Pata Kumilang
Hyppolita Potre Lawambae
Lysander Datu Samanodin
Demetrius Datu Masnar
Egeus Datu Samporna
Hermia Dayang
Helena Sohra
Philostrate Cadar
Peter Quince Disomnong
Nick Bottom Manabilang
Francis Flute Dikasaran
Snug Batuan
Tom Snout Pakaserang
Robin Starveling Masiding
Oberon Oberon
Titania Titania
Puck/Robin Goodfellow Puck
Peasblossom Ubas sa Katuray
Cobweb Ayoga Lalawa
Moth (untranslated)
Mustardseed Ud
Recalling Yang’s argument on the Shakespeare’s name adaptation into

Chinese (2005: 37), the rendering of a name such that the name would assume the
characteristics of the target culture is not as value-free at all. Rendering a name
from one language into another is a form of negotiating cultures that results in re-
creating the source text in and by a new cultural circumstance and for an audience
in this circumstance (38). In the case of Usa ka Damgo, the characters’ new names
are chosen so because the names are familiarly Maranao.
Besides the change to Maranao names, the characters are also given
honorific titles apt for the change of setting. From Theseus’ feudal title of Duke of
Athens, Pata Kumilang is Sultan in the Sining Kambayoka play; Queen Hyppolita
of the Amazons is now Bai-a-labi Potre Lawambae. The same honorific titles are
given to the king and queen of the fairies (in this case, the tonongs) Oberon and
Titania whose names are retained together with Puck. This retention of the foreign
names is the translators’ attempt to emphasize the separation of the real
dimension of the mortal characters from the fantasy dimension of the immortal
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tonongs. To name the characters from the fantasy dimension with names from the
target culture would not help retain the “foreign-ness” of the king and queen of the
fairies. Nevertheless, the names of the rest of the fairies are domesticated to suit
the tonong indigeneity: Peasblossom is Ubas sa Katuray, Cobweb is Ayoga Lalawa,
Mustardseed is Ud. Whether this mixture of foreign and indigenized names of the
supernatural creatures is done by the translators intentionally or not is not clear.
But this may have a logic: the combination, which somehow go against the notion
of the separation of dimensions, may be reflective of the Maranao belief that the
tonongs are spirits who love to meddle with the affairs of the mortals. Hence, the
indigenized names of some of the tonongs bridges the supernatural world to the
world of the humans.
The workmen-slash-actors are also reworked such that their jobs are those
that are common and identifiable in the target culture. Nick Bottom, who is a
weaver, is now Manabilang who is a pananasil sa galang or brassmaker. The
bellows-mender Francis Flute is now Dikasaran who is a panday sa insi or flute-
maker. Snug who is a joiner or a cabinet-maker is now Batuan whose job is a sastre
or tailor. The tinker or handyman Tom Snout is Pakaserang, a panday sa bulawan
or goldsmith. Robin Starveling, who is a tailor, becomes Masiring who works as a
pangunguker or a carver or painter of ukir. Peter Quince, who is a carpenter, is
now Disomnong who is a panday. Interestingly, which almost literally means
carpenter. While carpenter and panday almost means the same, the latter word
carries a more localized meaning. In Pyramus and Thisbe which is the play within
the play, the roles of the workmen-slash-actors is also modified. Pyramus as played
by Nick Bottom is now Mamayamban played by Manabilang, and This be played
by Francis Flute is now Sameyarah played by Dikasaran. Batuan is assigned the
role Sameyarah’s mother while Pakaserang gets the role of Mamayamban’s father.
The above changes in the translated work prepare the audience to receive
the translation, that the narrative is no longer set in Athens but in another place
called Lanao. With the localized names and occupations, the audience is made to
imagine a more familiar setting. By transforming the space, the audience is made
to invoke their own schema of the Lanao together with the cultures belonging to
that place. This goes to show that translation as a cultural exchange is not merely
a linguistic transfer but a spatial transformation as well. Hence, a maneuvering.
Being able to maneuver the source text to serve the target culture presupposes a
postcolonial stance that the translator or, in the case of Sining Kambayoka’s Usa
ka Damgo, pool of translators is not beholden and bound to the Western source.
This translation is not an accurate rendering of Shakespeare in the local language.
To borrow the words of Ick, it is rather a participation in “the afterlife of
Shakespearean texts where Shakespeare is only one among many points of origin”
(2014: 4).
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Omission
THESEUS SULTAN PATA KUMILANG

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Maputli nga Potre Lawambae,
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Immaculate Potre Lawambae,
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how nagkadool na ang atong kaminyoon,
slow coming nearer is our marriage,
This old moon wanes! she lingers my Unta, ang bulan sa kagabhion nawagtang
desires, na karon,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager Hopefully, the moon in the night would
Long withering out a young man revenue. vanish now
Aron ang atong kaminyoon moabot dayon
So our marriage would arrive soon
The quote above shows that while the source text gracefully plays with
figures of speech such as personification and simile (the moon is given a human
trait and is compared to an old widow), the Sining Kambayoka translation makes
up for its brevity with rhyme that lends musicality to the verses. There are losses
such as the information about the number of days waiting for the moon to wane
(four happy days bring in | Another moon). But these stylistics problems in
translating Shakespeare in any language are not inherently insurmountable, says
Chaves (2017: 4). These issues should not be considered as a deterrence in
translation. Rather, it is an instance of the translator aiming at different
interpretation because after all, the translation of canonical literature is
practically an interpretive art (Malone 1988: 45).
In connection to this, Yang (2005) sees these instances of losses and
omissions as a form of “new understanding” of Shakespeare by a playwright
translating a text rather than by a poet. In this sense, the translated text should
be seen at another if not new perspective – that the translated text is for the stage
rather than for scrutiny as a translated literary piece, that the translated text is
meant to be performed and heard than to be seen on the page (44). Hence, Sining
Kambayoka’s pool of translators cannot be totally faulted for the mistranslations.
In fact, the translators breathed a new life into the source text by pruning what is
unnecessary for the target audience of the play.
The translators also have to rework the text such that cultural sensibilities
of the target culture are not offended. The following quote is omitted in the
translated text.
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THESEUS
Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
Exit PHILOSTRATE
Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph and with reveling.
In the first five lines of the citation above, the Duke of Athens who is so
excited of his upcoming wedding to the Queen of the Amazons commands his
master of merrymakings Philostrate to enjoin the young people of Athens in the
celebrations. While this can be an acceptable behavior for a Maranao Sultan in
anticipating a kawing (a term for Maranao wedding), the following lines that segue
from the first set of Theseus’s lines will not work for Sultan Pata Kumilang. These
lines tell the backstory of how Theseus conquered the Amazons in a violent battle
that resulted to Hippolyta marrying Theseus (Crowther 2005). Despite its organic
importance in the source text, these lines from Theseus would not be fitting for
Sultan Pata Kumilang because brides taken from conquest does not sit well in the
Maranao context. This would entail a different layer in the cultural re-situation of
the source text which would convolute the transmission.
Thus, the translators had to prune this particular juncture of Act 1, Scene
1 in order to domesticate the foreign text at the outset. Lawrence Venuti (2000)
defines domestication as a strategy in which fluency of style is espoused in order
to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text. As exhibited in Sining
Kambayoka’s Usa ka Damgo, this strategy includes the removal of strange or non-
existent aspects of material culture or realia and the general harmonization of
target language preconceptions and preferences.
Implicitation and Reduction

The following quotation exhibits two other forms of line pruning. Here, the
translator purposefully cuts lines from the source text.
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Fairy Tonong
Either I mistake your shape and Ang kinatibuk-an sa imung pagkatawo
making quite, Everything about your identity
Or else you are that shrewd and Ayaw ilimud kanako
knavish sprite Do not deny to me
Call'd Robin Goodfellow: are not you Dili ba ikaw kadto ang bastos ug
he panuway
That frights the maidens of the Are you not the pervert and devil
villagery; Wala kay laing gihimo
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in You do nothing else
the quern Kungdi ang pagpanghilabot sa mga
And bootless make the breathless lumulupyo
housewife churn; But to disturb the residents
And sometime make the drink to bear Dili ba Puck ang imung ngalan
no barm; Is it not Puck your name
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at Sa katonto dili ka lupigan
their harm? In naughtiness unrivaled
Those that Hobgoblin call you and
sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall
have good luck: PUCK
Are not you he? Walay kapin, walay kulang
No more, no less
PUCK Tinood kanang tanan
Thou speak'st aright; All of that is true
I am that merry wanderer of the
night. Apan hulat!
I jest to Oberon and make him smile But wait!
When I a fat and bean-fed horse Mga mata mo ibudlat
beguile, Dilate your eyes wide
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: Ang mahal nga Sultan wala nagpalibak
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's The beloved Sultan is not to be
bowl, gossiped
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her
lips I bob
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the
ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest
tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool
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mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down
topples she,
And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a
cough;
And then the whole quire hold their
hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze
and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted
there.
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
These lines are from the first scene of the second act where the mischievous
Puck is seen conversing with another tonong. In the original, the fairy’s lines
describe in details Puck’s mischievous deeds such as scaring the maidens in the
village, stealing the cream from the top of the milk, screwing up the flour mills,
frustrating housewives by keeping their milk from turning into butter, keeping the
beer from foaming, and causing people to get lost at night, among others (Crowther
2005). In the translation, the tonong declares Puck’s mischief by calling him names
“bastos ug panuway” which literally means “pervert and devil.” It does not detail
the mischiefs done by Puck but tacitly mentions that the latter disturbs the
residents with his antics in the lines “Wala kay laing gihimo | Kungdi ang
pagpanghilabot sa mga lululupyo” (gloss: You do nothing else | But to disturb the
residents). The details of Puck’s mischiefs are no longer needed in the translation
because these are material cultures that are not necessarily existent in the target
culture. Realia such as cream from the top of the milk, flour mills, milk turning
into butter, and beer are foreign objects (Crowther 2005) which the play’s target
audience may find as a disjuncture to the play’s new setting because these are
objects and materials that are not regularly found in the target culture. The
translators could have opted for equivalent realia in the target culture. However,
this would no longer be necessary as the tonong’s lines have readily inferred the
situation by providing the context.
In this instance, the translation process employed by the Sining
Kambayoka translators is implicitation. This process is achieved by not explicitly
rendering elements of information from the source text and is deliberately done for
the purpose of thrift in the target text. Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (1995)
define this process as a stylistic translation technique which consists of making
what is explicit in the source language implicit in the target language, relying on
the context or the situation for conveying the meaning (344). Vinay and Darbelnet
make an encompassing remark on this choice of translation process. They say that:
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Translators lengthen their texts out of prudence

but also out of ignorance which suggests that
explicitation is not necessarily regarded as a
positive phenomenon: sometimes it means that
translators fail to perform necessary implicitation.
(193)
Hence, while the translators’ choice for economy of words in translating

the play may be initially viewed as a disservice to the graceful poetic language of
the bard, the intentional use of implicitation is nonetheless a success in re-locating
the narrative setting. The process is necessary as it prunes what is otherwise
extraneous and disjunctive in the target text.
The next form of line-pruning is sampled in Puck’s reply to the other
tonong. In the source text, Puck admits to everything the other fairy said about
him being notoriously mischievous. He even adds to the fantastic details of his
mischief mentioned by the other fairy. He mentions how he tells jokes to Oberon
and makes him smile, how he tricks a fat, well-fed horse into thinking that he is a
young female horse, and how he hides at the bottom of an old woman’s drink
disguised as an apple and when she takes a sip, he bobs up against her lips and
make her spill the drink all over her withered old neck. He also added that at one
point, a wise old woman with a sad story to tell tried to sit down on him, thinking
he was a three-legged stool, but he slipped from underneath her and she fell down
(Crowther 2005). These details provide a comic relief in the play by magnifying
Puck’s foolhardiness. In the translated text, Puck’s lines are reduced into five lines.
The translators did away with the details of Puck’s crazy antics.
However, the comic relief is still retained in the translated text despite the
reduction of lines. The reduced text is compensated by re-inventing the humor into
the kind that would appeal to the target audience. From the lengthy details of
Puck’s mischievous clowning, the translator employed yaga-yaga which is a
Cebuano form of humor. Among the Cebuanos, yaga-yaga is verbally poking fun
on another person by pointing to the person’s physical flaws. In the translated text,
the employment of the Cebuano humor is demonstrated in Puck’s line “ Mga mata
mo ibudlat” (gloss: Dilate your eyes wide) where he commands the other tonong to
prepare for the arrival of Sultan Oberon not by telling the other tonong directly to
do so but by asking the other tonong to dilate his eyes. In Cebuano, the word budlat
means the eyes that are too enlarged in such a way that they are comically not
proportionate to the rest of the face.
The process used by the translators here is reduction. In this process, the
translators render the source text into concentrated and concise lines to create a
theatrical impact. It is by concentrating the lines that the translators were able to
pave the way for the introduction of a specific cultural nuance that is the Cebuano
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yaga-yaga humor into the translated text. This would have not been made possible
had the translators opted to force transfer the dated Shakespearean humor which
is most unnatural to the target culture. Reduction, just like implicitation, is used
in this case to avoid misleading information and lack of naturalness in terms of
theatrical effect. According to Joseph Malone (1988) in his book The Science of
Linguistics in the Art of Translation: Some Tools from Linguistics for the Analysis
and Practice of Translation, reduction bridges gaps of knowledge between a
relatively knowledgeable source audience and a relatively ignorant target
audience. This is done
…by omitting source text information

interpretable as both circumstantial or tangential
to the story and unlikely to make much sense, at
least without inordinate glossing to the average
(American) reader. (47)
Hence, we can say that reduction is almost similar to implication in the

way it also omits material cultures that are not necessarily existent in the target
culture. However, the difference between the two lies on the treatment of the
losses. While implicitation relies on the inferred context presented in the
translated text to account for the losses, reduction accommodates the removal of
elements in the source text by means of compensation which is achieved by
introducing an element from the target culture that would fill the in the losses
(Guerra 2012: 9). In the case of Usa ka Damgo, cultural nuances from the target
culture are employed to compensate for the reduction.
Expansion and Amplification

The Sining Kamabayoka translators did not only use omissions to
transplant Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Lanao. In the following
quotation, the translators added into the target text certain cultural elements
which are not necessarily in the source text. This scene from Act 1 shows Datu
Samporna, the father of Dayang, making an appeal to Sultan Pata Kumilang to
deter his daughter from marrying Datu Samanoding because she has been
betrothed to Datu Masnar. This mirrors the source text when Egeus went to seek
the assistance of Theseus to convince his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius
instead of Lysander.
EGEUS DATU SAMPORNA

Full of vexation come I, with complaint Sultan Pata Kumilang, akong agalon,
Against my child, my daughter Hermia. Sultan Pata Kumilang, my master,
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, Ako adunay dakong problema
This man hath my consent to marry her. I have a big problem
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Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious Mahitungod sa anak kong dalaga,

duke, Concerning my maiden child,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my Dayang ang ngalan niya.
child; Dayang is her name.
Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her Palihog tindog, Datu Masnar.
rhymes, Please stand, Datu Masnar.
And interchanged love-tokens with my Halangdon nga Sultan, mao kining
child: tawhana
Thou hast by moonlight at her window Precious Sultan, this is the man
sung, Akong gitugutan nga kang Dayang
With feigning voice verses of feigning love, mangasawa
And stolen the impression of her fantasy I am permitting to marry Dayang
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, Palihog tindog, Datu Samanoding.
conceits, Please stand, Datu Samanoding.
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, Mahal nga sultan, unsa kahang
messengers panghitaboa
Of strong prevailment in unharden'd Beloved Sultan, whatever has happened
youth: Nga kini man hinuong tawhana
With cunning hast thou filch'd my That rather this man
daughter's heart, Ang nakaangkon sa tim-os nga gugma sa
Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, akong dalaga
To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious Would have owned the pure love of my
duke, maiden daughter
Be it so she; will not here before your Wa ko kamatikod
grace I was not aware
Consent to marry with Demetrius, Mga sulat nila gilimud ug wala ako
I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, masayod.
As she is mine, I may dispose of her: They deny their love letters and I did not
Which shall be either to this gentleman know.
Or to her death, according to our law Matinahuron ug buotan kong anak
Immediately provided in that case. My respectful and well-behaved child
Kanako nakaako ug pamakak
Has dared to lie to me
Nadani ug nadala niining tawhana
Tempted and ensnared by this man
Sa iyang mga balak ug gasang mga bulak
With his poetry and his gift of flowers
Sultan Pata Kumilang, mangayo ko’g
panabang,
Sultan Pata Kumilang, I ask for
assistance,
Si Dayang kang Datu Masnar lamang
makig-uyon.
That Dayang to Datu Masnar only
would agree
Kinahanglan dili kini niya supakon.
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She must not oppose this.

Ang duha ka pamilya nagkasabot na.
The two families have come to an
agreement.
Gahum, bahandi, ug dungug
Power, wealth, and honor
Pagahiusahon. Mao kini ang tradisyon!
Will be united. This is tradition!
While the narrative of the translated text mirrors that of the source text,
the translators rewrote the scene by expanding the narrative to lodge a Maranao
cultural nuance of piyakanggaraya (more commonly known as buya among the
Christian settlers) or parentally arranged marriage. In the source text, Egeus
demands that Hermia marry Demetrius instead of Lysander, but it is not inferred
that it was a culturally sanctioned arranged marriage. Rather, Egeus’s petition for
Hermia to marry Demetrius is predicated more on the father’s requirement of
obedience from his daughter than a family’s obligation to observe folk customs and
mores. In the translated text, Datu Samporna mentions “Kinahanglan dili kini
niya supakon. | Ang duha ka pamilya nagkasabot na.| Gahum, bahandi, ug
dungug | Pagahiusahon. Mao kini ang tradisyon!” (gloss: She must not oppose this.
| The two families have come to an agreement. | Power, wealth, and honor | Will
be united. This is tradition!). This means the marriage of Dayang to Datu Masnar
have been pre-arranged by their families under the auspices of the culturally
sanctioned piyakanggaraya. Among the traditional Maranao families, parents
enter into an agreement to wed each other’s children, often a young age, for
political reasons. Piyangkanggaraya join families together such that power,
wealth, and influence are consolidated. On certain occasions, these arranged
marriages are also entered in order to end long time enmities between clans called
rido (Matuan 2014: 84).
Hence, this expansion of the narrative to accommodate the cultural nuance
of piyakanggaraya rewrites the storyline of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and
relocates Shakespeare’s comedy in the Maranao culture. The concept of
piyakanggaraya anchors the plot of the translated play to the Maranao culture and
makes the conflict of the play’s narrative more elucidated and compelling as it
revolves around the issue of arranged marriage that is culturally sanctioned. Datu
Samporna’s plea as father to Dayang to stick to her engagement to Datu Masnar
becomes more grounded and urgent to the characters and is made identifiable to
the target audience who is fully aware of these realities.
In the next quotation, another form of content addition is employed by the
Sining Kambayoka translators. This can be observed in a portion of Scene One of
Act 2 where Titania and Oberon meet in the woods near Theseus’s place and accuse
each other of having affairs with mortals. In the Shakespearian original, Titania
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charges Oberon for having special feelings for Hyppolita the Amazon Queen and
she suspects the reason of his presence in woods is to bless her marriage to
Theseus. Vice versa, Oberon also accuses Titania of harboring amorous emotions
for Theseus. This is mirrored in Usa ka Damgo, with Titania accusing Oberon of
fancying Potre Lawambae and Oberon charging Titania of having fallen in love
with Sultan Pata Kumilang. But in their first encounter in this scene, they have
already established their rancor against each other. In the translated text,
Titania’s reply to Oberon’s irritating greeting is lengthier than the one in the
original. The quotation below shows the difference.
TITANIA TITANIA
What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip Unsa, bughuang Oberon?
hence: What, jealous Oberon?
I have forsworn his bed and company. Kanimo wala biya ako manghilabot
I have not bothered you
Hala, Malay-ikat, lukso una
Go on, Spirits, jump ahead
Kay wala akoy panahong gitagana alang
nianang tawahana
Because I have no time to spare for that
man
Kay bisan hangin lang nagagikan sa iyang
nahimutangan
Because even just the air coming from
his spot
Akong gikasilagan
I despise
Unsa na lang kaha kanang iyang dagway
nga murag panuway
How much more his face that is like the
devil
In the translated text, Titania’s lines do not stop at merely expressing her
scorn for Oberon. Rather, the translators expanded the lines to amplify Titania’s
disgust for her spouse. Titania expounds her loathing by saying “Kanimo wala biya
ako manghilabot” which translates to “I have not bothered you” to clarify that it
was not she who started their misunderstanding. Her rejection of her spouse’s
company is also intensified in the added lines “Kay wala ako’y panahong gitagana
alang nianang tawhana | Kay bisan hangin lang nagagikan sa iyang
nahimutangan | Akong gikasilagan | Unsa na lang kaha kanang iyang dagaway
nga murag panuway” (gloss: Because I have no time to spare for that man |
Because even just the air coming from his spot | I despise | How much more his
face that is like the devil). These extended lines also increase the comedic effect
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and campiness of the translated play as it banks on the “nagging wife” archetype
which is ubiquitously present in the Philippine brand of comedy.
Adaptation
Other departures made by the Sining Kambayoka translators include

adjusting the source text by modifying realia and material artifacts that are
enmeshed in the source text into content words that are specific to the target
culture. The content and rhetorical features of the source text are then altered
using the target culture’s specific objects, concepts and phenomena characteristic
of the geographical surroundings, culture, everyday realities, or socio-historical
context (Vlakhov and Florin in Chaves 2017: 20). In the previous quotation, Sining
Kambayoka’s version of Titania uses the word “Malay-ikat” to refer to her
entourage of tonongs. The word “malay-ikat” in Maranao means sprit which the
translators used as the other cultural equivalent for the word “fairies” besides the
word “tonong.” The translators also opted for the use of the Maranao interjection
“aido” for dramatic effect. These cultural adjustments are employed in order to
assist in the re-location of the play. In the part where Oberon relays to Puck how
he learned about the magical flower that would make a person fall in love with the
first thing he/she will see after waking up from sleep, Oberon extols Puck by telling
him “My gentle Puck.” In the translation, “gentle” becomes more filial in “ buotan”
(good natured, obedient, or well-mannered). In the same lines of Oberon, “dolphin”
becomes “kabayong dagat” (horse of the sea which is different from the less
mythical seahorse) and the effect of the magical flower’s juice that would make
men and women to “madly dote” becomes more vicious in “maulipon” (enslaved)
which is a nod to the Cebuano idiomatic expression “Ulipon sa gugmang gi-atay”
that translates to “slave to stupid love.” Also, Demetrius’s line where he expressed
his contempt to Helena is translated to Datu Masnar’s line as such:
DEMETRIUS MASNAR
Tempt not too much the hatred of my Musorok gayod kining dugo ko
spirit; My blood would really boil
For I am sick when I do look on thee. Kon makakita sa dagway mo!
Whenever I see your face!
Here, Demetrius’s expression of dislike to Helena is transferred into the

target culture through an idiomatic expression “musorok ang dugo” which literally
means blood would sizzle or boil. Among the Cebuano speaking people, the image
of blood sizzling against someone signifies despicability beyond compare. In the
case of the translated text, the said idiomatic expression intensifies the hatred of
Datu Masnar to Sohra. But more significantly, it conveys at the same time the
culture of the translated text.
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The repertoire of translation strategies employed by the translators of Usa

ka Damgo include omission, reduction, implicitation, expansion, amplification, and
adaptation. These translation strategies do not only transfer languages but also
impose necessary infidelities on the side of the translated text in order to re-
imagine and re-locate a story set in a different time, distant place and culture.
Coda: Necessary Infidelities

In the previous sections, I have discussed how the translation strategies
contributed in the transplanting of the western play to the Mindanao soil. The
strategies employed by the translators may be grouped into two approaches:
selective suppression and re-creative translation. Omission, reduction and
implication are strategies that selectively suppress the source text by stripping the
source text with elements that are no longer necessary in the target text, while
expansion, amplification and adaptation are strategies that re-create the source
text by means of adding cultural nuances that would lead to the re-location of the
translated play. Both approaches aim at domesticating the foreign text such that
the play becomes re-situated in the Lanao context.
It must be noted that although the translators do not aim to pass the
translated text as a Maranao text (as proven by the cover page of the extant copy
of this translation where their acknowledgment of Shakespeare as the originator
of the play is specified), they have nevertheless imposed the Maranao cultural
identity on the source text by means of the changes brought about by the
domestication which entail drastic modifications on the source text. However,
these drastic changes are necessary infidelities applied in order for the translators
to finally succeed in their objective of re-locating Shakespeare.
Re-rendering the names of the characters in the play has negotiated
cultures that resulted in re-creating the source text in and by the Maranao cultural
context and for an audience in this context. The adjustments set the audience to
receive the new narrative and invoke their own schema of the target culture.
Omissions of strange or non-existent aspects of material culture or realia
minimized the strangeness of the foreign text and harmonized it with the Cebuano
and Maranao cultural preconceptions and preferences. Expansion, amplification,
and adaptation of the narrative accommodated the Maranao cultural nuances in
order to make the issues presented in the narrative more grounded and urgent to
the characters and more recognizable to the target audience.
All these occurrences according to Lawrence Venuti (1995) emanate from
the nature of the act of domestication which provides readers (or theater-goers in
the case of Usa ka Damgo) with a narcissistic experience of recognizing their own
culture in the cultural other. The effect of domestication is that it allows the
translators to stimulate reader recognition, familiarity, or even intimacy to serve
the dramatic purpose of the play as the translators adjust and manipulate the
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strange, distant, or unfamiliar source culture (Chaves 2017: 20). In this sense, the
translated play is a product of several stages of distillation – the process of
extracting the essential meaning of a literary product - that allowed for
transformations and transmutations of the original in order to arrive at its present
form. This distillation recalls the hubad nature of translation where the foreign
text A Midsummer Night’s Dream is unrobed of its foreignness such that its
essence is laid bare, hence permitting its transplantation into the worldview of
those who live in Lanao.
A new question now arises: As the play has already been translated into
Cebuano, why did the translators have to resituate it in a Muslim Filipino
community for an adaptation? Of course, there is no question about the
translatability of Shakespeare. But as there are difficulties in translating
literature, so as in adaptations, too. Dr. Erlinda Alburo (2015) of the University of
San Carlos discusses issues of translating Shakespeare:
There is another meaning of culture, though, one

that makes translation sometimes difficult, for
translation of literature is really a translation of
culture. There is not much of a problem to the
Christianized Filipinos who are familiar with the
Western conventions as they have been taught or
adopted on radio or cinema. (102)
On the merit of her argument, it can be deduced that translating

Shakespeare to Filipino culture other than the Christianized Filipino may prove
challenging. As a matter of fact, she maintains that it is difficult to translate
Shakespeare faithfully in the Muslim culture for religious reasons (Alburo 2015:
103).
But for the Sining Kambayoka, its attempt to re-create a western play and
transplant it in Maranao and Cebuano cultures demanded for a viable hubad of
the western text. This process of hubad, like distillation where heat violently forces
the separation of the components to arrive at a desired substance, is as violent
towards the source such that the target culture of the adaptation comes to the fore
and the essential meaning is extracted. To address the difficulty posed by the issue
of religion, the translators’ recourse is to peel the translated play with any Islamic
undertones which means to have the play re-situated in a culture that existed
before the arrival of Islam. Hence, for Usa ka Damgo, the necessary infidelities
must be committed. This is where the strength of the translated text lies as it no
longer pretends to be a mirror of the original but rather a re-telling/re-writing.
Although it was translated into the Cebuano language, the necessary
infidelities were actually the ones that transplanted the play. At this juncture, we
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ought to recall the mandate of Sining Kambayoka: the conservation of the Maranao
cultural heritage and its integration to the society at large. We also need to
consider that the Mindanao State University where the theater group is based is
actually also home to many other ethnolinguistic groups who also happen to speak
Cebuano which makes the said language one of the University’s lingua francas. By
this provision, it can be resolved that the necessary infidelities forwarded the
Maranao cultural heritage, and the use of Cebuano language in the translation
helped, at the very least, the Sining Kambayoka in achieving its mission.
Finally, Usa ka Damgo has transplanted Shakespeare into Lanao.
Bibliography
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in Cebuano.” In Translation in Asia: Theories, Practices, Histories. Eds.
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University of San Carlos Press, 2015.
Chaves, Thomas David F. “Hamlet and His Problems of Politeness: Rolando Tinio
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Translation Studies. Eds. Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter. United
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from
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_____________. “The undiscovered country: Shakespeare in Philippine literatures.”

In Kritika Kultura: a refereed electronic journal of literary/cultural and
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Patajo-Hidalgo. Quezon City: UP Press, 2004.
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cultural Study of Hong Kong Repertory Company’s Past Practices.” In
LEWI Working Paper Series no. 50. Eds. Chan Kwok-bun and Emilie
Yueh-yu Yeh. Hong Kong: David C. Liam Institute for East-West Studies
(LEWI) Hong Kong Baptist University, 2006.
Malone, Joseph L. The Science of Linguistics in the Art of Translation: Some Tools
from Linguistics for the Analysis and Practice or Translation . New York:
State University of New York, 1988.
Matuan, Moctar I. “Inventory of Existing Rido in Lanao del Sur (1994-2004).” In

Rido: Clan Feuding and Conflict Management in Mindanao. Ed. Torres,
Wilfredo Magno III. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
2014.
Mojares, Resil. “From Cebuano/To Cebuano: The Politics of Literary Translation.”

In The Resil Mojares Reader. Ed. Hope S. Yu. Cebu City: University of San
Carlos Press, 2015.
Venuti, Lawrence. The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2000.
Vinay, Jean Paul & Darbelnet, J. Comparative Stylistics of French and English. A
Methodology for Translation. Translated by J. C. Sager and M. J. Hamel.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1995.
Yang, Lingui. “Cultural Transformation and Linguistic Transfer: Chinese

‘Transplant’ of Shakespeare.” In Multicultural Shakespeare. Translation,
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http://dspace.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11089/1484/05
yang.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Date of access: April 27, 2018.
Web Resources
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Retrieved from

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/full.html. Date of access: April
30, 2018.
Crowther, John. Ed. “No Fear A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” SparkNotes LLC.
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30, 2018.
World Shakespeare Congress. Retrieved from http://www.wsc2021.org/index.html.

Date of access: June 14, 2021.
Unpublished Material
Drillon, Teodoro, Roland Gohel, Edilberto Reyes & Juanita Taladua-Riconalla. Usa
ka Damgo: Translation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream. Marawi City: Kambayoka Center, undated.
Interviews
Sunnie Noel. Former Artistic Director of MSU Marawi’s Sining Kambayoka. Iligan
City.
Hobart Savior. Artistic Director of Xavier University’s The Xavier Stage. Cagayan
de Oro City
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Copyright © 2020 by MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology. All rights reserved.

Vol. XXXIII No. 1

1 “Every Life Has Hope”: A Case Study on the Therapeutic Community

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“Every Life Has Hope”: A Case Study

JOEL JAN S. ALVAREZ

Approach (TCA) – one year in rehabilitation followed by an aftercare program. While

Keywords: drug rehabilitation, aftercare program, TCA (therapeutic community

Since the early days of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's

Considering the chronicity of drug addiction, residential treatment for

approach in addressing substance abuse as well as social and psychological

The Fazenda de Esperanza (also known as Farm of Hope) is an

This case study examines the effectiveness of the Therapeutic

THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This study uses two sociological theories – Containment theory and

Containment Theory by Walter Reckless. Walter Reckless (1961) asserts that

THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY APPROACH

Work, Community Life, Spirituality

This is a case study that employs a qualitative approach utilizing in-depth

For the in-depth interview, a semi-structured interview guide was used

The researchers observed ethical considerations throughout the whole

RESULTS OF THE STUDY

A. TCA General vs TCA in Fazenda

General Structure of Therapeutic Community (TC) Approach

The fundamental distinction of the Therapeutic Community Approach

The social organization of a TC is structured to have a staff at the top level

Therapeutic Community Approach by Fazenda de Esperanza

The Fazenda de Esperanza (FdE), also known as “Farm of Hope”, is an

months and is divided into 3 phases; detoxification, monitoring, evaluation and

Spirituality at Fazenda. FdE practices Roman Catholicism and is rooted in

Three Phases of Fazenda de Esperanza Program

Experiences inside Fazenda de Esperanza

“Mutabang mi sa community kung naa gyoy mag boryong, naa ra

“Kanang three months gyod wa gyo’y outside world ba. Way

The residents also claimed to have experienced several symptoms of drug

Despite these challenges encountered inside the facility, the residents

“Mudawat nalang ko na live the present moment. Kanang unsay

“Mag encourageay mi sa usa’g usa namo ba. Unya di lang mi kay

After finishing the program, respondents attested to have a positive

mga barkada, mubalik na sad mi ug “jam” ana...mao na akong

New Life with Living Hope Group – Cebu (Aftercare Program)

After completing the rehabilitation program inside the Fazenda de

“…kinahanglan ang family gyud makahibalo na na sila

B. Roles of Social Institutions

The facilitators, as a part of the drug dependents’ support system, execute

“Mudawat nalang ko na live the present moment. Kanang unsay