PHILIPPINE

LITERATURE
Sanrio Marysze A. Gamba
OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the lesson, the students are expected to:

1. trace back the history of Philippine literature;

2. mention prominent writers contributed to Philippine literature, and;
3. realize the rich heritage of Philippines through literature.
 To learn more about a country and people, a good place to start is
their literature. Filipinos do not usually think of themselves as a
particularly literary people. The Philippines is unique for having important
works in many languages. These might be grouped into four - Philippine
literature in Spanish, Tagalog, English, and other Philippine languages.

Philippine authors made these languages their own, adding a distinct

voice to them that was unique to our archipelago.
 The most politically important body of Philippine literature is that
which was written in Spanish. The Propaganda movement, which
included Jose Rizal agitated for independence in the 1880’s and 1890’s,
writing exclusively in Spanish. Rizal’s two most important novels, Noli
Me Tangere and El Flibusterismo were written in Spanish as well.
However, during the American colonial period, Spanish was
gradually replaced over the next few decades by English. Even if Rizal
was celebrated as a national hero, his writing was almost never read in
the original Spanish. Noli and Fili have been taught to generations of
schoolchildren, but always in translation.
 Rizal was not the only major writer in Spanish. Important
contemporaries were Marcelo H. del Pilar and Graciano Lopez Jaena.

Tagalog is the oldest literary language of the archipelago and now,

the most widespread. The earliest major work in Tagalog was Francisco
Balagtas’ Florante at Laura, an epic poem published in 1838. It is still
taught in schools across the country as the epitome of literary
Tagalog.
 Thankfully, there have been many authors since Balagtas who have
continued to write in Tagalog. Andres Bonifacio, founder of the
Katipunan, also wrote in Tagalog, notably the poem Pag-ibig sa
Tinubuang Lupa, roughly translated as Love for Native Land. Since
then, Tagalog literature has continued to grow.
 Some modern authors include Ceres S.C. Alabado, writer of
Kangkong 1896, a look at the Revolution from a young boy’s
perspective, and Lualhati Bautista, author of Dekada Setenta and
Bata, Bata… Pa'no Ka Ginawa?. Dekada follows a middle class
family through the martial law years, and Bata is about the struggles of a
single mother. Both were turned into full length films starring Vilma
Santos.
 Today, the largest venue for Tagalog literature is the internet, with
many aspiring writers publishing their work online. A few of these become
successful enough to get film adaptations, among them being Diary ng
Panget and She’s Dating the Gangster, films released in 2014 that
began as online novels. While Tagalog may have changed considerably
since the days of Balagtas, it is now a truly national language that has a
large and thriving literature.
 English remains the language of the Philippine elite. Though there
was considerable resistance to English in the first part of the 20th
century, Philippine writers mastered it quickly.

The largest names in 20th century Philippine literature wrote in

English, namely, Nick Joaquin, F. Sionil Jose, Jose Garcia Villa, and
others.
 Literature in other Philippine languages may be the hardest genre to
appreciate but is often the most sentimentally or personally important.
For the roughly two thirds of Filipinos who do not speak Tagalog as their
native language, not many books are written in their languages.

But in general, most Philippine languages are in the shadow of

English and Tagalog. Still, there are some important works that can be
found in these other languages. The Bible has been translated into every
major Philippine language – whether Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano,
Pangasinense, Kapampangan, Waray, Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, and others.
REFERENCES

Internet Sources
https://www.unipronow.org/oldblog/philippine-literature