IN POETRY:

traditional, “oral,” romantic poetry

• the Cebuano Vicente Padriga and poet-president Carlos P. Garcia;

• the Ilocano Leon Pichay, dubbed the “King of Ilocano Poets,” and Godofredo Reyes;
• the Kapampangan Amado M. Yuzon and Zoilo Hilario;
• the Waray poets Francisco Alvarado, Gabriel Bañez, Cecilia de Achas, Francisco Enfectana,
Bagino Katangkatang, Iluminado Lucente, and Eduardo Makabenta;
• Bicolano Manuel Fuentebella
• Ilonggo Isidro Escare Abeto,
• Romulo Cabales,
• Ariston Em. Echevarria,
• Magdalena Jalandoni,
• Jose B. Magalona,
• Ernesto Nietes,
• Augurio Paguntalan,
• Emilio Severino,
• Joaquin Sola

FICTIONIST

• Francisco Arcellana
• N. V. M. Gonzalez
• Nick Joaquin
• Bienvenido Santos
• Kerima Polotan-Tuvera
• D. Paulo Dizon
• Estrella Alfon
• Edilberto Tiempo
• Edith L. Tiempo
• Juan Gatbonton
• Aida Rivera-Ford
• Gregorio Brillantes
• Gilda Cordero-Fernando

----------Poets like produced work that showed the facility with which Filipino writers had appropriated
the forms and language of English. -----------

Political conditions fostered the premium placed on writing in English.

The devastation in the wake of World War II ensured that the Philippines as a country would continue to
be a neo colony under the dictates of the United States.
The need to finance the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the war-torn islands would result in
lopsided treaties like the Bell Trade Act in 1946, the Military Bases Agreement in 1947, the Mutual
Defense Treaty in 1951, and the Laurel-Langley Agreement in 1954.

These treaties would ensure the continued economic and military dependence of the Philippines on the
United States and reinforce the political and economic clout of the elite of the country.

However, post-World War II Philippines was not fully dominated by American and elite interest.

The Hukbalahap movement, short for Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon, constituted an alternative force.

Originally organized during World War II to fight the Japanese, the Huks, as members of the Hukbalahap
were known, participated in mainstream politics by establishing the Pambansang Kaisahan ng
Magbubukid.

When the union was banned by the government in 1948, the Huks allied with the Partido Komunista ng
Pilipinas, the majority of whose members came from the workers’ unions in the city.

The Huks transformed from being the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon to the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng
Bayan or HMB.

The Huks were particularly influential in Pampanga and nearby provinces.

Castro Alejandrino, one of the founders of the Huks, even briefly served as governor in 1945, before the
American forces began eradicating the Huks and their sympathizers.

Huk presence—and the concerns that it represented—may be seen in short stories like “Mibalic a
Paraiso” (Paradise Regained) by Canuto D. Tolentino and the poem “Ing Pamana” (The Legacy) by Jose
M. Gallardo.

The persona of the poem is a Huk, who admonishes his family not to mourn his death because his blood
will color the Philippine flag (Hilario-Lacson 1984, 231).

On the other hand, agrarian reform, which is an alternative to the Huk’s radical solution to peasant
oppression, is the subject of the Pampango poem “Ing Ortelano” (The Peasant), 1955, by Amado M.
Yuzon.

The rise of anti-Communism brought about by the postwar rivalry between the United States and the
Soviet Union resulted in the breakout of hostilities between the HMB and the Philippine military. These
conditions informed the literature produced in the 1950s and 1960s. Amado V. Hernandez took up the
cause of the exploited workers and farmers, becoming president of the Congress of Labor Organizations
(CLO), an association of radical worker’s unions, in 1948 until 1950. With the government suspecting an
alliance between the Huks and the CLO, Hernandez was arrested and prosecuted for subversion by the
government. He was imprisoned in 1951-56 and would be acquitted by the Supreme Court of all charges
only in 1964. In the interim he wrote such works as Bayang Malaya (A Nation Free), 1955, a long
narrative poem that depicts the quest of the tenant farmers for social justice and the heroism of the
Filipino guerrillas against the Japanese, and the poems that would be published in the book Isang Dipang
Langit (A Stretch of Sky), 1961. In his attempt to weld together the social imagination of Rizal with the
resources of Tagalog poetry, Hernandez stands as an important writer.
In Iloilo, sarsuwela writer Jose Nava, who had founded the labor union Federacion Obrera Filipina even
before the Commonwealth years, was writing editorials in La Prensa Libre on behalf of laborers. In 1951,
he was arrested and imprisoned for rebellion

IN NOVELS

Social realism

imperatives of defining society and clarifying its directions.

the Social reform began to be discussed in Tagalog novels

Lazaro Francisco’s Maganda Pa ang Daigdig (The World Be Lovely Still), 1955, and Daluyong (Tidal Wave),
1962; Amado V. Hernandez’s Luha ng Buwaya (Crocodile Tears), 1962, and Mga Ibong Mandaragit (Birds
of Prey), 1959-60; Brigido Batungbakal’s Ulap sa Kabukiran (Cloud over the Field), 1946, and
Mapagpalang Lupa (Bountiful Land), 1960-61.

The Hiligaynon novel Pasunaid (Thoughtfulness), 1960, by Abe Gonzales, examines the labor problem in
Iloilo. Cebuano writers Francisco Candia and Tiburcio Baguio co-wrote Adlaw sa Panudya (Day of
Reckoning), 1950, depicts the abuses and humiliations that the rich inflict on the poor and imagines a
moral victory for the latter in the end. Also a story of comeuppance for the poor and downtrodden is
Martin Abellana’s Lilo sa Kasulogan (A Whirlpool of Dilemma), 1947, which charts the harrowing journey
of naive wage earners who are manipulated by scheming foreigners.