Category Archives: Writing

Qwertyman No. 65: Who’s Afraid of Big Bad AI?

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Qwertyman for Monday, October 30, 2023

I NO LONGER attend writers’ conferences and festivals that often, believing that younger writers would benefit more from each other’s companionship and encouragement, but I made an exception last week for the 66th Congress of the Philippine PEN, as a gesture of solidarity with that organization which has bravely fought to defend freedom of speech where it is threatened all over the world.

I was richly rewarded for my effort by listening to one of the most enlightening discussions of artificial intelligence (AI) that I’ve come across—not that there have been that many, considering that ChatGPT—widely regarded today as either God’s gift to humanity or the destroyer of civilizations—has been around for just a year. 

Of course, AI has been around for much longer than that. In pop culture, which has a deep memory for these things, we can’t help but think of HAL, the insubordinate computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey (which actually came out in 1968), said to be a clever play on “IBM,” just one letter to the right. Indeed the fear of technology—what some would call unbridled knowledge—has been around since Faust made his pact with Mephistopheles, reiterated in literature, film, and pop culture all the way to Dr. Strangelove and Spiderman’s Doc Ock. 

Not surprisingly, the panel on “The Filipino Writer and AI”—composed of Dominic Ligot, Clarissa Militante, Joselito D. Delos Reyes, and Aimee Morales, and moderated by Jenny Ortuoste—expressed many of the anxieties brought on by the entry of AI into the classroom, the workplace, and everyday life: plagiarism and the loss of originality, the loss of jobs, indeterminate authorship, and the lack of liability for AI-produced work. With Filipinos being the world’s top users of social media, AI’s centrality in our digital future can only be assured, like it or not, and for better or for worse.

So new has AI been to most people—and so rapidly pervasive—that most institutions from governments to universities have yet to formulate policies and regulations covering its use and abuse (the University of the Philippines has adopted an AI policy, mandating among others that all members of the academic community should be AI-literate, but it has yet to provide concrete guidelines on, say, evaluating and grading AI-assisted work).

Most revealing and thought-provoking were the remarks of Dominic Ligot, a data analyst, software developer, and data ethicist who brought up talking points that many of us miss in our usually dread-driven discussions of AI. I didn’t tape the session, but so sharp were Dominic’s observations that I can recall and share some of them here (employing an endangered resource in this human, memory).

Let’s not forget, Ligot said, that all AI works with (in the literary, journalistic, and academic sphere) is words. It may have a scary ability to amass, analyze, and re-integrate these words, but it lacks the other elements that contribute vitally to creativity: emotion, inspiration, insight (and, may I add, the power of abstraction, the kind of conceptual leap that, say, stimulated modernism in art and literature from the rubble of the First World War). 

Also, the more AI amasses, the more mediocre it tends to be, because it works with averages, and averaging averages degrades the quality of the end-product. Since the products AI spews out from the prompts it receives are plowed back into the system, this spitback reduces the originality of material even further. If it keeps feeding on itself, AI gets even dumber.

Ligot also reminded us that the suspicion and denigration with which AI has been met in the creative community is understandable, given our earlier responses to technology. When photography was invented, he said, painters didn’t see it as a potential competitor; it wasn’t art. 

What separates human creation from AI, he emphasized, could be summed up in three things: agency, inspiration, and liability. Humans make sense of their experience and act on their thoughts and feelings accordingly; they draw on their experience to imagine new possibilities. And lastly, we are liable for what we make, do, and say, for which we have both legal and moral responsibility, while an AI-driven car does not, even if kills someone on the road.

Dominic also noted the inevitable tensions between disciplines and industries that consider AI a helpful if not indispensable tool in, say, achieving more efficiency and economy, and those, like the creative arts, that may feel threatened by the options AI offers.

Overall, the discussion could offer no assurances either way that AI would leave us better or worse, but what it left me with was a desire to continue writing the way I do, while I can, before the algorithms take over everything.

And just out of curiosity, to see what AI can do now for and to the Filipino writer, I gave ChatGPT this prompt: “Write me a sentence in the style of Nick Joaquin about a man grieving over the loss of the woman he loved.” This is what the program came up with:

“In the solemn silence that engulfed his weary soul, he encountered the bitter truth that bereavement lingered like an everlasting shadow, forever haunting his heart with memories of a love that once bloomed in the garden of his existence, now reduced to a withered rose, its petals scattered across the desolate landscape of his grief-stricken days.”

“Solemn silence?” “Weary soul?” “Desolate landscape?” Maybe not bad for a freshman yet to learn about unlearning clichés, but definitely not Nick Joaquin. Of course, out of vanity, I had to ask ChatGPT to do the same thing “in the style of Jose Dalisay,” and it offered this:

“In the depths of his longing, his heart bled like fragmented brushstrokes on a forlorn canvas, for she was the vibrant palette that infused life into his desolate existence, now forever vanished like whispers carried away by a tormented wind.”

Just slightly better than Mang Nick’s AI ghost but still so not me. (Boy, does AI love adjectives!) All this says is that AI’s big mouth and stomach haven’t found and digested us yet, probably because we are not worthy. Cold comfort, but I’ll take it.

Qwertyman No. 64: The Death of a Crony

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Qwertyman for Monday, October 23, 2023

WHEN A friend asked me, about 15 years ago, if I would meet with another friend of his who wanted me to write his biography, I almost fell off my chair when I learned who my prospective subject was.

“It’s Rudy Cuenca,” I was told. 

I knew who he was, of course—a “Marcos crony,” which had become an almost generic term at one point, there being so many. I had actually met the man once before, on a bus trip to the Pahiyas festival in Lucban arranged by the late Adrian Cristobal. My first impression had been a surprisingly positive one: he was polite, urbane, funny, hardly the obnoxious and domineering person I had imagined a crony might be.

Still, he was who he was, and I didn’t know that writing a book about his life was the right or smart thing to do. I has already written Wash SyCip’s biography, and that man was almost saintly, or sainted by the acclaim of his peers and juniors. A Marcos crony was something else.

“How can I work with someone whose boss put me in prison?” I told my friend. As a student activist, I had spent seven months in Bicutan under martial law.

“Just meet with him, listen to what he has to say,” he said. “No commitments, no promises.”

And so I did. “I have a story to tell,” Cuenca told me over coffee. I knew what he was saying: he had been privy to the Marcos regime’s internal workings, and had been one of the President’s closest golfing buddies, but, at one point, had found himself fallen from favor, eased out of the inner circle by a more unctuous lieutenant. As stories went, it was irresistible. 

I took a deep breath and told him in so many words what I’ve said to many other clients since: “I’ll help you tell your story, but I won’t lie or lawyer for you; your story will speak for itself. What I leave within quotation marks will be you speaking, not me. I’m under no illusion that you will tell me everything you know, but to the extent possible, I’d appreciate your being honest with me, so I can tell your story the best way I can.” He agreed. What followed was Builder of Bridges: The Rudy Cuenca Story, co-authored by a former student of mine, Antonette Reyes. It was published by Anvil Publishing in 2010 and became a finalist for the National Book Award the following year.

A college dropout, Cuenca taught himself the basics of business and civil engineering, and went on from small public-works contracts to some of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects such as the North Luzon Expressway and the San Juanico bridge. It was widely believed that Cuenca’s Construction Development Corporation of the Philippines (CDCP), then the region’s largest construction company, benefited from his closeness to Marcos, whom he had supported since his first presidential campaign.

Most interesting were Rudy’s stories of Palace life. Herewith, some excerpts from the book:

“I was a member of Wack Wack and Valley Golf for a number of years before I joined Manila Golf’s ‘Mafia’ group in 1973 with Charlie Palanca as the head man. Golf helped me gain some ground in business. I became a Marcos golfing crony around 1969. Marcos ended the afternoons at the nine-hole Malacañang course. Typically, a call came from the Study Room—either golf at 4:30 in the afternoon or party organized by the First Lady. The afternoon golf was meant to be the President’s peaceful time, but this was taken advantage of by those who wanted to get his undivided attention. The HIS and HERS were with their folders and envelopes for endorsement or approval. The HERS usually could not get to see him, so they were inserted as part of the regular golfing group.

“The Study Room was operated by Presidential Security Command personnel. Blue Ladies and cronies alike waited for this office to call them to major Palace functions. If no such call came, they would run around like headless chickens in search of that awaited invitation. One crony got the message that the President no longer wanted his company through the Study Room, obviously on Imelda’s instructions. As Marcos was the sole source of dispensation, those seeking approval tried to find parings or sponsors. Sometimes, those projects were so absurd that they were rejected outright.”

Rudy remembers that “Every morning, Marcos got a written report from Fabian Ver about what was going on in the country. But Marcos also got two more reports, one from Alex Melchor, and one more I think from Johnny Ponce Enrile. Marcos read these three reports at breakfast, so he knew what was going on everywhere. These reports contained lots of information—who was the boss of who, who went where, and even who was fooling around with who. He knew everything.”

Rudy doesn’t deny the systemic—but relatively small—pay-offs that got projects approved and claims processed and released in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. But he also says that they were amateurs compared to today’s pros, and that the scale of greed has grown exponentially. “In the old days, nobody asked you to give,” he says. “If you did, you gave them dinner. Today, people are told outright and up front what they’re expected to pay, and those amounts are outrageous. No advance payment, no contract.” 

When asked why, for example, Philippine roads seem visibly inferior to those of even other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, he says: “It’s simply a matter of greed. In Malaysia there’s also corruption—I’ve lived there, I should know—but the thieves there make their money by overpricing the materials. Here in the Philippines people are extraordinarily greedy. Not only do they overprice, they also steal the materials. The cement’s deficient, the gravel’s deficient. So the thing crumbles that easily.”

Rodolfo Magsaysay Cuenca’s passing last week at the age of 95 reminded me of how many stories about Ferdinand Marcos and martial law remain to be told. Fifteen years ago, it might have been considered safe for the members of that generation to spill their secrets (or justify their choices—no one will deny that these biographies are essentially self-serving), but the present dispensation will likely make people think twice about being so candid. 

I will leave it to more qualified scholars and more intrepid journalists to sift through the material and annotate the margins of my Cuenca biography, but I feel privileged to have listened to the man and to put him on the record. By any measure, it was a remarkable life. (In an even stranger twist, another crony approached me after I had done the Cuenca book, wanting me to do the same for him—the late Herminio Disini, of Westinghouse fame. I completed a draft but had to walk away, and the book never came out—but that’s another story.)

(Photo from riles.upd.edu.ph)

Qwertyman No. 58: A Long Grace Note

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Qwertyman for Monday, September 11, 2023

AT ABOUT this time fifty years ago, I was newly released from martial-law prison after seven months of what everyone euphemistically called “detention,” and wondering what to do with the rest of my life. I was just nineteen, so I suppose you could say that I had a lot of living ahead of me, but I felt very differently then. More than a dozen of my friends—all of them in their twenties or even younger—had died horrible deaths fighting the regime. We exalted them as the martyrs that they were, but grimly realized and acknowledged that given how things were going, we ourselves would be fortunate to see the ripe old age of thirty.

I had been arrested at home on a cold January morning in 1973, just past midnight. Like many student activists, I had dropped out of college during the First Quarter Storm of the early 1970s. But instead of joining “the movement” full-time, I improbably found a job with a newspaper as a general-assignments reporter. It was heady stuff at age eighteen, covering three-alarm fires, floodwater rescues, and the very same demonstrations I had joined on the other side of the police barricades. And then martial law was declared—I was actually covering a rally in UP, and thought I had a scoop when a radio station nearby came under fire from the Metrocom, only to be told by my night editor when I tried to phone the story in that we no longer had a newspaper to publish, because soldiers had taken over the office. 

Over the next few months I shuttled between part-time jobs and clandestine meetings with the anti-martial law underground, moving around the city. I wasn’t doing much, given how green I was, but I thought it was important to take part in the resistance in whatever way. And then when Christmas came, like a good boy, I went home to my parents and foolishly had a chat with a neighbor who turned out to be a military asset. Not long after, a posse of soldiers appeared at our door, and when my father nudged me awake, I had a gun pointed at my face. I was being arrested under a catch-all “Arrest, Search, and Seizure Order” or ASSO issued by the Defense Minister, Juan Ponce Enrile, for whom I would ironically be writing some speeches during his post-EDSA reincarnation (he won’t remember that, as I was a tiny mouse in the office).

My release in August 1973 came right out of a Kafka story. I was taking a shower one morning in our prison—which, by the way, is roughly where St. Luke’s BGC is today—when I heard my name being called over the PA system. “Dalisay, report to the guardhouse immediately!” The last time I had done that, after one Sunday dinner, I had been beaten up by some drunken guards just for the heck of it, so I groaned when I heard the announcement. Not again, and so early? As it happened, I was received by an Army officer with a stack of papers. He pulled mine out, squinted at it, and said, “Dalisay, you’re still here? Pack your things. We have nothing on you.” The first place I visited after I went home was the AS Steps in UP, where we had gathered for many a raucous rally; it was vacant and deathly silent, and I knew that I wasn’t going back to school just then. Only after a long detour—working as a printmaker, a writer, an economist, and meeting Beng and fathering Demi—did I return to UP and graduate with my degree at age thirty.

I’ve written about my activism and incarceration in my first novel, Killing Time in a Warm Place (Anvil Publishing, 1992), and it isn’t what this column is really about. Rather, it’s about the aftermath, about having a life after martial law, and an unexpectedly long one at that. 

For any activist from my generation who’s still alive, every breath we’ve taken after our 30th birthday is a grace note—what the dictionary describes as “an extra note added as an embellishment and not essential to the harmony or melody”—in other words, a bonus. Considering that we could have been gunned down like dogs or buried alive like some of our comrades were, you can understand why we feel that way. It’s almost absurd to contemplate, but education, marriage, career, success, fame, fortune—and all the downsides and flipsides that come with them—all these were a long string of surprises, any one of which might never have happened, but for a twist of fate or a stroke of luck (clichés, like life’s very milestones, but ones we appreciate).

When my fellow FQSers and I—all college editors who were part of the SERVE book that I wrote about last week and that we launched last Saturday—gathered around a table before the launch to pre-sign some copies, we noted with much chuckling how surprisingly old we had become. We were beset by diabetes and hypertension, which were lethal enough but easier to bear than the four bullets one of us took to his face and body; he was with us that day, laughing, his spirits buoyed by his fervent Christian faith. 

We had become university presidents and professors, Cabinet secretaries, CEOs, magazine editors, pastors, and opinion-makers. I don’t think there was anyone in that room who believed any longer in the necessity nor the efficacy of violence, but neither did anyone imagine that our youthful goals had been met, that the country had become a kinder place, and that our work for justice and freedom was done. We had come to terms with our past, were busily in the present, and were hoping to enjoy what little we had left of our extended lives. But like those shaken passengers who stagger away from a crashed plane, leaving the uncounted dead behind, I’m sure that we felt driven by survivor’s guilt to make the most meaning of our gifted years, to do well and to do good, and to serve our people in any way we could. 

We learned that everything may be political, but also that politics is not everything, and that the road to happiness and deliverance may be wider than we had thought. I myself have resolved that even as I fight on for truth and beauty, I will not allow my happiness to be determined by our political vicissitudes, if I can help it. That will be my sweet revenge on my jailers. I will survive you, live a fuller life, and meet my Maker with a clear conscience and a smile.

Qwertyman No. 57: An Invitation to SERVE

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Qwertyman for Monday, September 4, 2023

AT 5 PM next Saturday, the 9th of September, a new book will be launched at Fully Booked in BGC. Published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press and simply titled SERVE, the book has 19 authors—yes, I’m one of them—and one editor, the much-respected Jo-Ann Maglipon. What connects all is that they were college editors during the first Quarter Storm of the early 1970s, and survived to go on to distinguished careers in media, education, business, and public service. The book dwells much less on martial law—a previous volume titled Not on Our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened, We Were There that came out in 2012 dealt with that—than with its aftermath, and the afterlife that the activists of our generation were fortunate to have, given how many of our comrades gave up their lives to the cause of justice and freedom.

What did these activists do after martial law? What are they thinking now? Some of the names in this book will be familiar to the contemporary reader, who may not even have known of their activist background (reg-taggers, pay close attention).

Some of us—like Jimi FlorCruz, Sol Juvida, and Thelma Sioson San Juan—remained journalists all their working lives, stationed in very different places and capacities but bound by a commonality of interest in the truth. Others like Sonny Coloma, Manolet Dayrit, Ed Gonzalez, Diwa Guinigundo, the late Chito Sta. Romana, and Judy Taguiwalo took the path of government service, finding themselves in a position to effect real change, although sometimes under very difficult if not adversarial circumstances. Yet others including Angie Castillo, the late Jones Campos, Mercy Corrales, and Senen Glorioso found fulfillment in entrepreneurial and corporate work, applying their progressive values to management. For Elso Cabangon, Bob Corrales, and Diwa Guinigundo, their circuitous journey led to a re-encounter with their spirituality, and to embracing their faith as their personal advocacy. Like many veterans of the First Quarter Storm, Alex and Edna Aquino were able to build new and productive lives overseas, without yielding their investment in Philippine concerns. Quite a few of us—Derly Fernandez, Ed Gonzalez, Judy Taguiwalo, Rey Vea, and myself—chose to pursue our activism in academia, if only to ensure the transmission of critical inquiry to another generation. 

The authors were under no compulsion to conform to an ideological standard, except to extol the spirit of service to the people, the overarching theme of their youth and now their continuing commitment, indeed their legacy. There’s pathos in these accounts, but also humor and, inevitably, irony, perhaps the defining tone of our postmodern age: Thelma Sioson San Juan finds herself seated across Deng Xiaoping’s granddaughter at a Ferragamo show in Beijing’s Forbidden City; Manolet Dayrit learns of his appointment as Secretary of Health on a visit to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacañang; Ed Gonzalez becomes president of the Development Academy of the Philippines under President Joseph Estrada, but then joins EDSA 2; Sonny Coloma looks out the window of his Malacañang office to where students like him had demonstrated against Marcos.

With most of the writers here now in their seventies or inching close to it, we could have been chronicling the joys of grandparenting, journeys to far-off places, exotic menus, succulents and bromeliads, and homeopathic remedies for the aches of aging. Having retired from the formal workplace, we thought we had settled into a privileged and imperturbable kind of peace, earned over decades of political, economic, and spiritual struggle. 

We celebrated our seniorhood as the ultimate victory, for a generation that did not expect to live beyond thirty, and not because of some acquired disease but because of the throbbing cancer at the core of our society that claimed many of our peers in the prime of their youth. We may have thought for a while that we had defeated and expunged that cancer, only to realize that it had never left, was always there, lying cruelly in wait for a chance to ravage us again—and not only us this time, but our children and grandchildren as well.

And so—albeit no longer lean and shaggy-haired, perhaps benignly forgetful of car keys and personal anniversaries—we gather again at the barricades we put up against a fascist dictatorship fifty years ago, of which our memories remain surprisingly and painfully sharp. They say that the old remember distant things more clearly than what happened yesterday, and we offer proof of that. The experience of martial law coded itself into our DNA, and even the few among us who surrendered their souls to Mephistopheles cannot shake away that indelible past—one we bear with pride, and they with guilt and shame.

This time our barricades consist not of desks and chairs but of memory itself and, more formidably, of hope, courage, and a continuing faith in the good. Beyond memoirs, more than recollections of our youthful selves, we now present the stories of the lives we built and the paths we took after martial law, along with our reflections on how time and experience have reshaped us, clarified our values, and strengthened our resolve to serve our people in multifarious ways. 

Our view of politics inevitably evolved over time as the world itself changed over the past five decades. These essays and stories cover a wide range of themes and treatments, and demonstrate how “serve the people” has grown and evolved with its advocates, taking multifarious forms from working in civil society and practicing good governance to promoting artistic expression, academic freedom, and insightful journalism. We wish to prove that even the worst of times and the worst of leaders are not only survivable but can be changed, so that whatever lies ahead, the better Filipinos in us will prevail.

Given the number of authors and their families and friends, we expect a full house at the launch, so you might want to wait and get your copy of the book from Fully Booked or from AdMU Press’ online channels. However the book finds its way to you, it will be worth your while.

Penman No. 453: The Distance to Brillantes

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Penman for Sunday, August 6, 2023

I’VE OFTEN written about how Gregorio C. Brillantes has been the bane of my writing life, a fellow short story writer and Palanca Hall of Famer whom I never had the pleasure of seeing in second place after me (the reverse has been the natural order of things). When the Ateneo Press recently launched his Collected Stories and asked me to speak at the event, I felt like a jealous juvenile again at 69, with the 90-year-old Greg in a wheelchair in front of me, and cheekily boasted that, at last, I had one over him: his collection had 39 stories while mine (Voyager and Other Fictions, 2019) had 44. 

Of course, it was a hollow boast, because any one of Greg’s stories is easily worth two or three of mine. That’s how highly I hold this man in my esteem, and why I wrote this blurb for him: “Few writers turn me into a blushing fan. Gregorio C. Brillantes is one of them. Like his papal namesake Gregory the Great, who wrote a massive 35-volume commentary on the Book of Job, Greg Brillantes has been an untiring and unsparing chronicler of his time and place…. His fiction is infused with power and luminosity; he surprises, but never screams.” 

In an art card that Ateneo Press used to promote the book, I said further: “More than a master of language, Gregorio Brillantes is a master of our Filipino sense and sensibility, particularly those parts we find hard to put into words or to recognize as our truest selves. We see life in his stories as through a gossamer screen that filters out  the harshest light; that screen is his own sensibility, suffused with a deep and tolerant understanding of pain as pleasure’s shadow.”

(The young Greg with John Updike.)

But really—putting all the fanboy talk aside—why Brillantes? What did I and my students—and what can every young writer of fiction—learn from him?

To get right down to brass tacks, I’ll take one of his best-known stories and dissect parts of it that should show what not only good but masterful writing is all about. 

“The Distance to Andromeda” has been mistakenly described by some as a science-fiction story, but it is not, although science fiction figures prominently in it. Without going into what the story means, what Brillantes demonstrates here, technically, is his acuity of observation and grasp of relevant detail, which is basic to any writer’s armamentarium. Too many young writers fuss over the elements of what their Ultrawave Galactic Terminator Machine should contain, glossing over the seemingly inconsequential gray matter of daily living that congeals into human drama. 

In “Andromeda,” the boy Ben’s post-apocalyptic fantasies are foregrounded by domestic business. See how Brillantes constructs a scene: “He dribbles an imaginary basketball toward the kitchen, skidding on the floor, feints and jackknifes a neat shot through the door. His sister-in-law Remy is giving her baby his supper of porridge from a cup. The child gurgles a vigorous greeting at the boy, and Remy laughs at the wonder of her son’s knowing the infant-accents of his language. The kitchen is bright and intimate with its rich cooking smells: Pining bustles about the old Mayon stove, and the girl with the pigtails smiles her crooked-toothed smile from the lithographed calendar on the wall.”

It doesn’t seem much and the young reader may feel bored by the lack of “action,” but note how, in fact, the scene is full of action—physical and emotional action, of the kind absent from too many stories being written today about morose characters sipping cappuccinos at Starbucks and ruminating over their wayward romances and work-life balance. “Get your characters off their butts,” I always tell my students, and Brillantes does.

A Brillantes story is an accretion of impressions, ideas, and emotions. It’s that kind of preparation that earns Brillantes the right to orchestrate this kind of paragraph later in the story: “He catches the streak of a shooting star from the corner of his eye. Instantly his waiting becomes a sharp alertness: he holds his breath and the strangeness comes into him once more, the echo of an endless vibration. But it is no longer an abstract aching for the relief of words: it speaks within him, in a language full of silence, becoming one with his breathing, his being, and the night, and the turning of the Earth: incomprehensible, a wordless thought, an unthought-of Word: like the unseen presence of One who loves him infinitely and tenderly. The fear has gone, the lonely helpless shrinking he felt on the bridge, walking home: love surrounds him, and no evil can touch him here, in his father’s house.”

For a story written in the author’s mid- to late twenties, “The Distance to Andromeda” already lays out, in full, Brillantes’ talent and vision, his familiar themes of family and love, of doubt and faith, of Rilke’s God “who holds this falling / Gently in his hands, with endless gentleness.”

It is a story that I myself could not have written, as I inhabit a more sordid and much sadder world in my fiction, with little to draw on but my characters’ residual sense of goodness for their salvation. Brillantes celebrates—consecrates—the mundane joys of the middle class, even as he underscores their fragility and transience. I write as well about these people—doctors, teachers, boys on the verge of manhood—but they tend to be more visceral in their responses. My other literary hero and model is Bienvenido Santos, who can make music of melancholy, and I try to straddle the breach between these two gentlemen, although again my characters prefer the low life.

But young writers: read Gregorio Brillantes. Understand what truly breathtaking means by reading two of my favorite stories of his: “The Cries of Children on an April Afternoon in the Year 1957” and “The Flood in Tarlac.” If you read them and still wonder what good fiction is, then you might as well be looking up at the sky to find Andromeda, because that’s how far you have to go.

Qwertyman No. 50: Doro’s Times and Ours

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Qwertyman for Monday, July 17, 2023

THE NEWS of Amando “Doro” Doronila’s recent passing in Canberra at age 95 marked the end of an era, as Doro was the last of his generation of journalists who made newspapers and their Op-Ed pages compelling reading. Whichever side of the political fence they were on, these journalists and columnists gave it all they had; many reveled in their prominence and some shamelessly parlayed their influence into all manner of profitable enterprise, back when it seemed the sensible thing to do, before the darker complicities of martial law set in.

Doro seemed to me to be above all this. His personality was, shall we say, poorly suited for TV or even radio, which was just as well, because it drew a clear line between journalists who did nothing better than think and write deeply, and those who confused their calling with show business.

I didn’t really know Doro personally. My one memorable encounter with him was when I was 18, a freshman dropout from UP who was dying to get into the newspapers, by hook or by crook. (Like some precocious teenagers, I was convinced I had the writing talent to skip journalism school. I would later pay for that hubris in tearful rewrites in the newsroom.) 

One of the doors I knocked on was that of the Manila Chronicle, which Doro was the editor of in 1972. I remember striding into its office and walking up to Doro’s desk, sucking in my stomach. He seemed puzzled to see my pimply face, which probably belonged to a messenger boy’s, except that I came empty-handed. “Yes?” What did I want? “Sir, I want to apply for a job—as a reporter,” I must have croaked, mumbling something about my writing for the Collegian and my high school paper. “How old are you?” I said that I was “going to be nineteen soon”—“soon” being about nine months away. 

I can’t recall if he looked back at me with pity or sympathy, or if he was laughing inside. I do remember him saying something like “Why don’t we talk again in a few years?” I was disappointed but not dejected; at least he didn’t throw me out of the place, or ridicule me before a roomful of the kind of people I wanted to be—hunched over typewriters, smoking up a storm, shaping tomorrow’s news, their bylines embedded crisply and imperishably on fresh paper.

Eventually, sometime that summer, and through sheer persistence, I did land a newspaper job, as a features writer and then a general-assignments reporter with the Philippines Herald, very likely the youngest fellow working full-time for the papers then. With the Herald and later Taliba  just before martial law, I met all kinds of journalists on the job, and saw how human we all were, the creatures of our noblest ambitions and pettiest grievances. One reporter I was on the police beat with loved playing cop, interrogating suspects each one of whom he was convinced was nursing a confession. Many had an enormous capacity for alcohol and the unapologetically macho bluster that came with it. Despite their gruffness, some had marshmallow hearts; two or three even took me under their wing to spare me from the usual gauntlet that rookies had to undergo. We were the peons of the profession, entry-level Hemingways and Woodwards chasing stories down the city’s tenebrous alleyways, and we loved every minute of it.

That was our world, but when I reported to the newsroom in the afternoon to file my story, I was ever aware that even above the copyeditors’ desk was another tier of men (as they mostly were) who perorated boisterously in a corner office on the day’s politics over scotch and cigars, the people whose opinions mattered and who made opinion matter. Never having worked with or for Doronila, I could only imagine him in that company, sitting sagely with his fingers crossed while allowing the thunder to roll above his head.

Today, half a century later, and finding myself just as old or even older than those titans of Philippine journalism then, I can savor the irony of having the privilege to write an Op-Ed column in times that mirror, in many ways, the early 1970s—with a Marcos in Malacañang, an opposition at bay, a scandal a week, and yet a people hard at work, striving for economic and moral deliverance. 

The great difference is that newspapers no longer have a monopoly of opinion-forming; that ground has been taken over by the Internet and social media (and elsewhere, by early-morning and late-afternoon AM radio, perhaps the hardiest of public platforms). Certainly, some Op-Ed stars remain—again on either side of the political divide—with faithful followers in need of sharper articulation and affirmation of their own sentiments. But even those readers tend to be aged or aging, people with the time and patience to read prose in paragraphs instead of bullets and memes, and who might even look for and appreciate that elusive quality called “style.” (Doronila’s no-frills prose, to be honest, was straight and guileless to the point of being starchy.) These 1,000-word pieces we produce now belong to what they call “long-form” writing, as if to write and read them were a test of endurance. 

But against the cheeky punchiness of Twitter and the ugly street brawls on Facebook, and above all stylistic considerations, I have to applaud this new generation of journalists (not all of them for sure) for their adherence to the truth and to fact-based reporting, and for holding themselves up to a higher standard of ethical behavior than their predecessors. Battling the bots and trolls of disinformation, they put their lives and well-being on the line, story by story, column by column; most are young, many are women, some even gay—the old gray men of the newsroom no longer dictate the headlines or the editorial slant. I think Doro himself would have been happy to see this, having mentored many of his successors.

And so as we grieve Amando Doronila’s demise at an age few of us can hope to approach, we can celebrate the continuity of upholding courage, virtue, and incorruptibility in Philippine journalism, with deepest thanks for the example the man set for us to follow.

(Photo by Pablo Tariman on FB)

Penman No. 452: A Cultural Treasure Chest

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Penman for July 9, 2023

A NEW book launched last month by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas once again brings up how unlikely—and yet in a way also how logical—it is for a nation’s central bank to be the repository and protector of the country’s cultural heritage. 

Simply titled Kaban (treasure chest), the sumptuous 340-page book offers a guided tour of the BSP’s fabled cultural collections, from pre-Hispanic gold to contemporary art, with each section curated by experts in the field. The book’s writers include Portia Placino, Victor Paz, Dino Carlo Santos, Clarissa Chikiamco, Tessa Ma. Guazon, and Patrick Flores; I contributed a preface, from which I quote some excerpts below. 

Banks represent resources, stability, and continuity, and central banks even more so, for the financial sector. They will often purchase art for décor, and perhaps even for investment; but they will not routinely spend vast amounts on the acquisition, storage, and exhibition of valuable cultural artifacts, as the BSP (and its predecessor, the Central Bank) has done.

Only inspired and visionary leadership can achieve this fusion between the seeming banality of money and the transcendence of art. The Central Bank and BSP have had the good fortune of being led at various times by men who embodied this integration—among them, the CB’s founding father Miguel Cuaderno, a lawyer with a passion for history, culture, and art.

Decades later, Cuaderno was followed at the Central Bank by Jaime Laya—a banker, accountant, writer, collector, and cultural administrator. It was under Gov. Laya that the Central Bank embarked on its most ambitious acquisitions and began to be known for minding more than the nation’s money, but its cultural heritage as well.

Cuaderno and Laya were supported by the likes of Benito Legarda, at one time the Central Bank’s head of research, who was not only an economist but also an avid numismatist and historian who initiated the Money Museum, which became the base for the bank’s later forays into other areas of culture.

The release of Kaban—following a series of other beautifully produced books about the precious objects in its collection—highlights the value accorded by the BSP to the idea of wealth: its generation, propagation, and preservation, which is, after all, the core business of banks. But this isn’t just flaunting wealth for wealth’s sake, an exercise in ostentation and in investment by the numbers. 

The BSP collection is imbued with historical and cultural value, and the objects in its catalogues—from ancient coinage and currency to contemporary art and furniture—are physical embodiments of the things and notions we hold dear, our sensibilities and aspirations as a people, the heritage and the legacy we want to pass on down the generations. It is another bank, a cultural bank, but one whose elements have been carefully chosen and curated to reflect our finest traditions and brightest memories.

It’s interesting and important to note that the BSP is not alone in this extracurricular preoccupation. Beyond the Philippines—where many other banks and financial institutions have been known for their impressive art collections and generous support for culture—banks around the world have associated themselves with art, amassing stupendous collections and employing art to project a positive and more humane image of what most people might otherwise see as cold and soulless financial corporations. Indeed, Professor Arnold Witte of the University of Amsterdam calls banks “the new Medici,” referring to the Renaissance’s most important patron of the arts, Lorenzo de Medici, not incidentally himself a banker. 

Among the world’s most important art collections held by banks, that of the Banco de España in Madrid goes back to the late 15th century and forward all the way to contemporary sculpture and photography. The Swiss UBS holds 35,000 pieces of modern art. JP Morgan Chase, the Bank of America, the Royal Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank, and the Societe Generale have also been leaders in the field. 

Central banks have also been known for their art collections, although their origins, sourcing, and contents vary. According to a report by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, “In the US, the Federal Reserve’s fine arts program was established in 1975 by Chair Arthur Burns in response to a White House directive encouraging federal partnership with the arts. Unlike other collections, the Fed relies on donations of artwork or outside funds to purchase works of art. 

“Most European central banks’ art collections consist mainly of paintings, but this is not a global trend. In Colombia, Costa Rica and the Philippines for example, the central banks are also home to museums with exhibits ranging from archaeological treasures to medieval goldwork and pottery.

“The central banks of Colombia, Austria and South Africa, among others, host catalogues of their collections on their websites. The Central Bank of Iran’s website hosts a video documentary on the Crown Jewels collection. Many other central banks including Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands and the Philippines have physical catalogues of their collections, though these have not been digitalized.” It quoted then Governor Amando Tetangco as saying that “The BSP ensures that outstanding examples of Filipino genius in its gold, art, and numismatic collections are shared with the people through exhibits, books, CDs, social media, and provincial lectures.”

This puts the BSP in the fine company of other central banks that have recognized the special relationship between monetary and cultural wealth, and the importance of preserving heritage for the future. If, as Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge yields the best interest,” then an investment in cultural heritage cannot yield any less, as it shows us at our best, for all time.

The arts, indeed, are another treasure trove of spiritual resources needing constant care and replenishment. This long, historic, and mutually beneficial partnership between our central bank and the arts sector makes that reality physically manifest, and we can only hope that it will continue even more strongly in the decades to come.

Tastefully photographed and designed by Willie de Vera and produced by Bloombooks (the publishing arm of Erehwon Arts Corporation), Kaban is a treasure on its own, and is available for sale to the public at the BSP.

Qwertyman No. 46: The Writer as Liberator

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 19, 2023

AS PART of its Independence Day celebration, the J. Amado Araneta Foundation asked me to give a talk on “The Writer as Liberator” last Saturday, and today being Jose Rizal’s birthday, I’m very happy to share that talk in full (a shorter version appeared as my Qwertyman column in the Star):

When I was first asked to talk about “The Writer as Liberator,” the first thought that went through my mind was probably the thought that’s now going through yours, which was that of the writer as political revolutionary or dissident, in the mold of Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Lorraine Hansberry, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nadine Gordimer, Wole Soyinka, and so many others of their caliber and stature.

That presumption, of course, is certainly valid and reasonable. Indeed, human history is fraught with examples of writers who fought colonialism, slavery, racial prejudice, and feudal and capitalist oppression and exploitation in India, South Africa, and the United States, particularly the American South, among many if not most other countries in the world. Wherever evil has reared its head, writers have arisen to call it out by name in all its forms—overweening pride among the ancient Greeks, blind ambition in Shakespeare’s time, lust and greed everywhere down the ages. 

The Philippines has been no exception. Decades before Rizal, Francisco Baltazar or Balagtas employed allegory in Florante at Laura to depict suffering and denounce injustice. Rizal and the whole Propaganda Movement followed, in a story of resistance and revolution that many of us already know. It’s a high climactic point that we could talk about all day but I won’t, because I’d rather talk about other things that most of us don’t know about writers and liberation. 

Again, to deal with the obvious, writers of all kinds have been at the forefront of political and social change. They included poets, playwrights, novelists, journalists, screenwriters, and today we would have to count bloggers and comic book script writers.

Our heroes and champions of freedom were poets—Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios and Bonifacio’s Pag-Ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa spring to mind, but they were also followed by the likes of Claro M. Recto, Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo, Carlos P. Garcia, and Diosdado Macapagal. These men—sadly, our political and even our cultural life was dominated then by the patriarchy—came from a generation when there was a very thin line between journalism and creative writing, when an opinion column could appear in verse, and when senators were expected to be literate and eloquent.

As I mentioned earlier, this was true of many countries around the world where people were fighting for freedom and justice. In South America, Simon Bolivar—who was known as The Liberator or El Libertador—led the fight for independence from Spain of what are now his native Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Panama, but he was also a poet, alongside the Cuban Jose Marti, among others. The Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda wrote a poem in tribute to Bolivar, titled “A Song for Bolivar,” which I will read to you:

Our Father thou art in Heaven,
in water, in air
in all our silent and broad latitude
everything bears your name, Father in our dwelling:
your name raises sweetness in sugar cane
Bolívar tin has a Bolívar gleam
the Bolívar bird flies over the Bolívar volcano
the potato, the saltpeter, the special shadows,
the brooks, the phosphorous stone veins
everything comes from your extinguished life
your legacy was rivers, plains, bell towers
your legacy is our daily bread, oh Father.

The line “everything comes from your extinguished life” might as well have applied go Neruda himself, who was murdered by the fascist Pinochet government he opposed. Many writers have died for what they have written—and again we go back to Rizal—but others fought, lived on, and even succeeded in their struggles for national liberation. Two of the most prominent were Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong, who led long and ferocious wars against both local and foreign oppressors.

Imprisoned in China during the war, Ho Chi Minh wrote this poem in 1943 upon reading a book called the Anthology of a Thousand Poets:

The ancients liked to sing about natural beauty:
Snow and flowers, moon and wind, mists, mountains and rivers.
Today we should make poems including iron and steel,
And the poet should also know how to lead an attack.

In 1950, shortly after the Communists took over in China, Mao wrote this poem in reply to another poet named Liu Yazi:

The night was long and dawn came slow to the Crimson Land.

For a century demons and monsters whirled in a wild dance,

And the five hundred million people were disunited.

Now the rooster has crowed and all under heaven is bright,

Here is music from all our peoples, even from Yutian,

And the poet is inspired as never before. 

Note how, in these two poems, Ho and Mao locate the poet at the center of a collective struggle. This idea is developed even more strongly by Jose Ma. Sison—who by the way was an English major in UP—in his poem from the 196os titled “The Guerilla is Like a Poet”:

The guerilla is like a poet 
Keen to the rustle of leaves 
The break of twigs 
The ripples of the river 
The smell of fire 
And the ashes of departure. 

The guerilla is like a poet. 
He has merged with the trees 
The bushes and the rocks 
Ambiguous but precise 
Well-versed on the law of motion 
And master of myriad images. 

The guerilla is like a poet. 
Enrhymed with nature 
The subtle rhythm of the greenery 
The inner silence, the outer innocence 
The steel tensile in-grace 
That ensnares the enemy. 

The guerilla is like a poet. 
He moves with the green brown multitude 
In bush burning with red flowers 
That crown and hearten all 
Swarming the terrain as a flood 
Marching at last against the stronghold. 

An endless movement of strength 
Behold the protracted theme: 
The people’s epic, the people’s war. 

Given the aesthetics of the Philippine Left at that time, you could actually reverse this proposition to read “The poet is like a guerilla,” which Emman Lacaba certainly was, as was Ma. Lorena Barros, whose poem “Sampaguita” follows:

This morning Little Comrade

gave me a flower’s bud

I look at it now

remembering you, Felix,

dear friend and comrade

and all the brave sons and daughters

of our suffering land

whose death

makes our blades sharper

gives our bullets

surer aim.

How like this pure white bud

are our martyrs

fiercely fragrant with love

for our country and people!

With what radiance they should still have unfolded!

But sadness should not be

their monument.  

Whipped and lashed desperately

by bombed-raised storms

has not our Asian land

continued to bloom?

Look how bravely our ranks

bloom into each gap.

With the same intense purity and fragrance

we are learning to overcome.

Decades later, her namesake Kerima Lorena Tariman would write “Pagkilos,” a poem that celebrates motion in both nature and society:

Ang lahat ng bagay ay tila kitikiti,
Palagiang kumikilos at hindi mapakali.
Ang paggalaw ay kakambal ng bawat bagay,
Likas na kaugnay at hindi maihihiwalay.

Ang mga bagay-bagay ay kay hirap isipin,
Kung walang paggalaw, kung kaya, gayundin,
Ang paggalaw mismo ay di natin matatanto,
Kung wala ang mga bagay dito sa mundo.

Sa daigdig, halimbawa, nagpapahinga man ang pagod,
Matikas man ang estatwa at patay-malisya ang tuod,
Sila’y hindi naliligtas sa paggalaw ng planeta,
Ang pag-ikid at pag-inog ang palagiang sistema.

Kung kaya ang masa na akala mo’y walang imik,
Kapag natutong lumaban ay nagiging matinik!
May mga kasama man na natitigil sa pagkilos,
Ang rebolusyon sa daigdig ay hindi natatapos!

A, lahat ng bagay ay saklaw ng ating kilusan,
Katotohanan ito na di maaaring iwasan.
Kung kaya’t habang tayo ay may lakas at talino,
Sa pagkilos natin ialay ang ating bawat segundo!

Tragically, both Lorenas—and Emman Lacaba before them—would be killed in the struggle that they took on, and be hallowed as revolutionary martyrs.

Now, all this may sound like an open invitation for our favorite red-taggers to call all poets rebels, and all rebels communists. That would be ridiculous. Most poets are still happy and perfectly within their rights to write about the moon and the stars and undying love. Some rebel-poets were proud and self-admitted communists, at a time when the word was invested with a sheen of holiness. But the abject failure of communism to set up a truly free and egalitarian society and its appropriation in both China and Russia by new and autocratic elites has shed much of that romantic mystique, and it is supremely ironic that those writers and artists now fighting for civil liberties in both countries are considered enemies of the state.

“The Writer as Liberator” was an easier concept to deal with when we had a foreign occupier like Spain, America, or Japan. Today, our oppressors are internal, lodged within our society, and within our hearts and minds. The liberation we need today is from our worst selves, which is often the hardest enemy to face. Bad leadership has enabled and encouraged that side of us that accepts extrajudicial killing and unjust imprisonment as normal. 

The minds of so many of our people remain shackled by ignorance, falsehood, prejudice, superstition, fear, and a crippling dependency on the old and familiar, however self-destructive they may be. In an increasingly polarized and intolerant world, people everywhere face racial violence and discrimination, gender inequality, economic exploitation, and political repression.

The writers who will battle this chimera have many weapons at their disposal—not just books and the traditional press but social media, a universe of communication unto itself that Rizal and his contemporaries never dreamed of. Journalists fight with the truth, creative writers fight with the truth dressed up as artistic lies. 

I have often said that the best antidote to fake news is true fiction. By this I mean that it often takes artistry and good storytelling, more than a mere recitation of facts, to show people what is true.

Long before there were newspapers, writers gave voice to their people’s hopes and fears through what today would be called fiction: through myths, legends, tales, epics. These stories transported people from the crushing routine of their everyday lives to the realm of the gods, to a romantic past cloaked in the mists of fable and fancy. Indeed, these stories came even earlier than literacy itself, transmitted orally from one generation to the next. Creation myths validated and gave meaning to a tribe’s or a people’s existence; tragic drama reminded them of the consequences of our moral choices. 

When I started my Qwertyman column in the Philippine Star and began writing what I called “editorial fiction,” a columnist in another newspaper immediately cried “Foul!”, claiming that fiction cannot possibly be taken as opinion. I responded that all fiction is opinion, if you know how to read it closely enough. Like the mirror Perseus used to kill Medusa, we employ fiction to deal with truths we cannot bear to face.


I am under no illusion that the next revolution, whatever it may be against or when, will be sparked by a novel or a poem. Very likely, it will be a viral video that will ignite that flame. I pray it will not be violent, but rather a comprehensive conversion of our people’s minds and spirits for the good. But there will always be a place for the writer in the offices, kitchens, and workshops of democracy, on the bunkbeds where we lie dreaming of justice and prosperity for all. 

Let me close with a short poem that I wrote last year, titled “Freedom Is When”:

Freedom is when 

We don’t think about it

But it’s there like air

We seek only in its absence

When we’re gasping for breath.

Freedom is when

We can choose whom to love

Or whom or what to believe 

Without any fear

Of punishment or death.

Freedom is when

We can sleep without guilt

And dream without ghosts

Waking up to the aroma

Of steaming rice and stewed fish.

Ang kalayaan ay kung

Hindi natin ito iniisip

Tulad ng hangin

Hanggat ito’y mawala

At tayo’y maghingalo.

Ang kalayaan ay kung

Malaya tayong pumili

Ng iibigin, o paniniwalaan

Nang walang katatakutang

Parusa o kamatayan.

Ang kalayaan ay kung

Mahimbing tayong makakatulog

At managinip nang di minimulto

Hanggang tayo’y pukawin ng halimuyak

Ng bagong saing na kanin at pinangat.

Qwertyman No. 45: Onward to Frankfurt?

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 12, 2023

IF YOU were at the Philippine Book Festival (PBF) that took place at the World Trade Center earlier this month, you would have been surprised to find how many Filipinos were writing, publishing, selling, buying, and reading books. A project of the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the PBF was the first such event devoted solely to locally produced books—as opposed to, say, the Manila International Book Fair (MIBF) in September, which is open to books and publications from overseas. The NBDB wisely decided to showcase our homegrown literary talents—not only from Manila, and not only from my generation of old fogeys, but from all over the country, and writers of all persuasions and ages (as young as fourteen!).

We Pinoys have become so immersed in Netflix, YouTube, and social media that many of us have forgotten about reading, and what a good book can do for one’s mind and soul. We want everything delivered to us in short sentences—even in acronyms or, if possible, in memes—because long paragraphs (and, God forbid, pages) can only mean a waste of our precious time (which is, of course, best spent posting what we last ate on Instagram, and critiquing someone’s OOTD). Whether fiction or nonfiction, books challenge us to carry ideas through to the limits of our reason and imagination. The difference between a good meme and a good book can be that between wit and wisdom—between the bubbles that rise to the top of your champagne and the notes that linger on your tongue and senses long after you’ve put your drink down.

And despite the death knells that have been tolled for publishing and reading in this country, the droves of people who flocked to the PBF and the MIBF show otherwise; as I’ve noted elsewhere, more new authors and publishers are emerging across various genres and languages than ever before, spurred by writing programs and workshops, new technologies, and more exposure for Filipino writers in international markets.

That last note—the emergence of Philippine writing in the global consciousness—has been a long time coming. We’ve had, of course, writers who’ve been published abroad, most notably Jose Rizal and the late National Artist F. Sionil Jose. In America, both expatriate and US-born writers such as Gina Apostol, Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, Eric Gamalinda, Zach Linmark, and Brian Ascalon Roley have made important inroads into publishing, some with mainstream publishers. Of course, they were preceded by the likes of Carlos Bulosan, Jose Garcia Villa, NVM Gonzalez, and Bienvenido Santos, in a time when getting published in America seemed to be the apex of a literary career. We’re way past that now, having found our own voice and our own readers right here at home. 

I’ve often remarked that I’d rather be read by 10,000 Filipinos than 100,000 Americans, but I may have spoken too soon, as even those 10,000 Pinoys willing to buy and read a serious novel can be hard to round up. Therein lies the irony: we’re happy to write and publishers seem happy to publish, and the high attendance at the PBF could be a sign that things are changing, but creating a critical mass of local readers for literature remains a struggle. 

Even in America, where we imagine that almost four million Filipinos should be able to clear out an edition of 5,000 books without any trouble, that simply doesn’t happen. I suspect that that’s because we’ve never really been a book-reading culture, unlike the Japanese and the Indians, and the easy availability of entertainment on Netflix and Tiktok just aggravates the situation. (A more disturbing possibility is that our writers still haven’t learned to write the kind of stories with the kind of treatment that Filipino readers—and there are also many kinds of them—expect, without sacrificing literary “quality,” whatever that means. In my old age, this is what I’m aiming for—to give my readers stories that they’d want to see turned into movies.) 

There’s no doubt that we’re producing materials of high literary value—in English, Filipino, and our regional languages; we saw that in the PBF and we see it in our classes and workshops all the time. These works deserve to be shared with a broad audience—not just here, but overseas, where the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Indonesians, and the Vietnamese have already made a name for themselves in the publishing world. 

But that takes a network we still have to familiarize ourselves with and learn how to navigate—a network of translators, literary agents, editors, publishers, and booksellers largely unknown and therefore closed to us. We’re not totally clueless. Through the NBDB and local publishing stalwarts such as Karina Bolasco (just recently retired from the Ateneo Press and the founder of Anvil Publishing before that) and Andrea Pasion-Flores (our very first international literary agent, now owner of Milflores Publishing and president of the Book Development Association of the Philippines), the Philippines has been represented over the past few years in such major events as the annual Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest such market of authors, publishers, and agents.

Not meaning to be immodest, thanks to my agents and publishers, I myself have benefited from this kind of exposure, having sold my second novel Soledad’s Sister in last year’s FBF into a German translation and edition, which just came out; before that, it had already been translated into and published in Italian and French, aside from an American edition. Imagine what that network could do for the rest of our writers.

This brings me to an idea whose time, I strongly believe, has come: focal representation in a forthcoming Frankfurt Book Fair as a “guest of honor,” a position reserved for a country wishing to showcase the best of its literary talent across all genres (two years ago it was Canada, followed by Slovenia). This has to be accompanied by a strong effort in translation—from the regional languages to English, and from English to other international languages like Spanish and French, perhaps even Chinese. It will take much planning and a sizeable budget, but as our recent forays into the Venice Biennale have shown on behalf of our leading artists, with the right cultural leadership and vision, it can be done.

Penman No. 451: A Harvest of Books

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Penman for Sunday, June 4, 2023

IF YOU’RE reading this on this Sunday morning, then it’s not yet too late for you to find a cab and get yourself over to the World Trade Center in Pasay City to catch the last day of the Philippine Book Festival, and have your favorite Filipino authors sign their books for you.

Organized by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) in partnership with the National Library and other agencies and organizations, the PBF will showcase the best of new Philippine writing and publishing, with the bonus of having most of the authors around for signings, chats, and the now-obligatory selfies.

Since the Internet took off thirty years ago, people have been declaring that “Books are dead!” (And even before that, “The Author is dead!”—although, of course, not quite in that almost literal sense). Well, guess what—both are very much alive, whole new generations of them, as if the Internet never happened. I don’t have the hard figures to show—I’m sure the NBDB has them—but just from what I’ve seen at the past Manila International Book Fairs (the next one of which will be held in September), there’s much more new writing and publishing happening now than there was before the Internet. 

There are many drivers for that, one of which has to be the proliferation of writing programs and workshops, whose graduates really succeed only when they come out with books. (Like I often remind Creative Writing grad students who take forever to “perfect” their thesis projects, “You’re writing for no more than five readers—your dissertation committee—and when you’re done, your thesis will be sitting on a solitary shelf. Just do what you need to pass the damned defense and focus on producing your first book out of that draft! Your real examiners will be your readers.”) 

Another factor is the growth of the publishing industry, which has become much more diversified in terms of ownership, material, and audience. The long years of martial law drove much creative output underground, so to speak, with few available venues for literary publishing and only competitions like the Palancas providing incentives for continued production. (On the other hand, the government presses kept churning out books on the First Couple’s abounding wisdom.) Post-EDSA, the pent-up dam broke, and literature flourished, but still hardly on the scale we’re seeing today.

I suspect that’s because many new players have gone into publishing, finding niche markets for everything from religious and self-help books to graphic novels and high-end coffee-table books. Among these, I’d count Milflores Publishing, founded by the late Tony Hidalgo and now in the hands of the very capable Andrea Pasion-Flores. Balangay Books, focused on local literature, has been opening doors for new young authors, and belongs to the Indie Pub Collab PH, a group of independent publishers. Down south, Savage Mind Bookshop and the Ateneo de Naga University Press have made great strides in literary publishing not just in the Bicol region but well beyond. Emerging in the wake of the Pink Revolution, San Anselmo Publications has made a name for itself as a purveyor of progressive thought. A recent visit to OMF Literature’s bookshop and office along Boni Avenue showed me how Christian literature is flourishing, attracting both new authors and readers. 

Let’s not forget self-publishing, which with such new technologies as print-on-demand and e-books has outgrown the stigma of “vanity” publishing and has produced both commercial and critical successes. While overall quality remains highly variable, the free Internet has empowered and enabled a new generation of young people to feel like they can become “writers” by posting on such sites as Wattpad—and some of them will be. (The irony here is that, as on Amazon, writers who succeed in their e-book debuts then get picked up by publishers of physical books.) Professional design and editorial outfits such as Studio 5 and Perez NuMedia also exist to help individuals and institutions turn their ideas into prizewinning books.

And then of course the long-established big-name publishers and academic publishers are still around: Anvil Publishing, UP Press, Ateneo de Manila University Press, UST Publishing House, and the University of San Carlos Press, among others. Vibal Publishing has produced impressive and sumptuously printed historical books—as has, let’s not forget, the National Historical Commission. They remain the publishers of choice for what might generally be considered prestigious but non-commercial projects, although their marketing savvy has vastly improved, from book design to distribution (much of the bookselling has moved online, to Shopee and Lazada). But since the wait at these publishing houses tends to be long, even established Filipino authors like novelist Charlson Ong (White Lady, Black Christ) have gone with such alternatives as Milflores (as did I, in its previous incarnation), which can often provide speedier results with no sacrifice of quality.

One more thing: more Filipino authors have begun to get published and noticed abroad, beyond America. Note the recent publication of Ulirát: The Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines, edited by Tilde Acuña et al., and the South Africa-based Jim Pascual Agustin’s Waking Up to the Pattern Left by a Snail Overnight, both by Gaudy Boy in Singapore. Singapore is also where Penguin Random House SEA is based, and from where it published Danton Remoto’s novel Riverrun and his book of stories The Heart of Summer(aside from his translations of our classic works in Filipino), and Maryanne Moll’s novel The Maps of Camarines. I’m also happy to report that my novel Soledad’s Sister just came out in a German hardcover edition (as Last Call Manila) from Transit Buchverlag, following earlier editions in Italy, France, and the US. A 15th-anniversary edition of the novel, along with a new edition of my Voyager collected stories, are on sale at PFB—as are almost all of the books I mentioned here, with their authors on hand to sign them.

So wait no further and grab that ride to the WTC, for your share of this bountiful harvest of Filipino books. (Did I say that entrance is free?)