3 | Philippine Popular Culture 1

Chapter 7: GREAT BOOKS IN THE PHILIPPINES

4.0 Intended Learning Outcomes

a. Discuss the implications and significance of the books towards the culture
of the Filipinos,
b. Briefly introduce the authors and the books,
c. Present the summary of the story of the book.

4.1 Introduction
Popular Culture in the Philippines is a concern of recent awareness, recent
exploration, and even more recent definition. Mass media-generated culture in the
Philippines is what can be properly called popular culture, and this is of recent
vintage.
The electronic media-film, radio, television, the large circulation press-were
established in the Philippine scene early in the twentieth century, but because of
economics their sweep is still largely and exclusively urban (not all rural areas have
cinemas nor they reached by newspapers and magazines; it is only since the transistor
radio that the hinterlands are touched by electronic media; and to date only relatively
few households are reached by television).

 
Pre-Assessment

Good day! Class before we proceed to our next discussion; let us answer first
the following questions. Write it in a separate bond paper.
1. Why do we need to study Great Books in the Philippines?
2. What are the examples of Great books in the Philippines?

4.2 Great Books in the Philippines

4.2.1 Noli Me Tangere by Dr. Jose Rizal
 Written in Spanish and published in 1887, José
Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere played a crucial role in
the political history of the Philippines.
Drawing from experience, the conventions of
the nineteenth-century novel, and the ideals of
European liberalism, Rizal offered up a
devastating critique of a society under Spanish
colonial rule.

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 The plot revolves around Crisostomo Ibarra, mixed-race heir of a wealthy clan,
returning home after seven years in Europe and filled with ideas on how to better
the lot of his countrymen.
 Striving for reforms, he is confronted by an abusive ecclesiastical hierarchy and a
Spanish civil administration by turns indifferent and cruel. The novel suggests,
through plot developments, that meaningful change in this context is exceedingly
difficult, if not impossible.
 The death of Ibarra’s father, Don Rafael, prior to his homecoming, and the refusal of
a Catholic burial by Padre Damaso, the parish priest, provokes Ibarra into hitting the
priest, for which Ibarra is excommunicated.
 The decree is rescinded, however, when the governor general intervenes. The friar
and his successor, Padre Salvi, embody the rotten state of the clergy.
 Their tangled feelings—one paternal, the other carnal—for Maria Clara, Ibarra’s
sweetheart and rich Capitan Tiago’s beautiful daughter, steel their determination to
spoil Ibarra’s plans for a school.
 The town philosopher Tasio wryly notes similar past attempts have failed, and his
sage commentary makes clear that all colonial masters fear that an enlightened
people will throw off the yoke of oppression.
 Precisely how to accomplish this is the novel’s central question, and one which
Ibarra debates with the mysterious Elias, with whose life his is intertwined.
 The privileged Ibarra favors peaceful means, while Elias, who has suffered injustice
at the hands of the authorities, believes violence is the only option.
 Ibarra’s enemies, particularly Salvi, implicate him in a fake insurrection, though the
evidence against him is weak.
 Then Maria Clara betrays him to protect a dark family secret, public exposure of
which would be ruinous. Ibarra escapes from prison with Elias’s help and confronts
her.
 She explains why, Ibarra forgives her, and he and Elias flee to the lake. But chased
by the Guardia Civil, one dies while the other survives. Convinced Ibarra’s dead,
Maria Clara enters the nunnery, refusing a marriage arranged by Padre Damaso.
 Her unhappy fate and that of the more memorable Sisa, driven mad by the fate of
her sons, symbolize the country’s condition, at once beautiful and miserable.
 Using satire brilliantly, Rizal creates other memorable characters whose lives
manifest the poisonous effects of religious and colonial oppression.
 Capitan Tiago; the social climber Doña Victorina de Espadaña and her toothless
Spanish husband; the Guardia Civil head and his harridan of a wife; the sorority of
devout women; the disaffected peasants forced to become outlaws: in sum, a
microcosm of Philippine society. In the afflictions that plague them, Rizal paints a
harrowing picture of his beloved but suffering country in a work that speaks
eloquently not just to Filipinos but to all who have endured or witnessed oppression.

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ABOUT JOSÉ RIZAL

 Born on June 19, 1861, José Rizal was from an upper-class Filipino family. His
mother, Teodora Alonso, a highly educated woman, exerted a powerful influence on
his intellectual development. He would grow up to be a brilliant polymath, doctor,
fencer, essayist, and novelist, among other things.
 By the late nineteenth century, the Spanish empire was in irreversible decline. Spain
had ruled the islands since 1565, except for a brief hiatus when the British occupied
the islands in 1762.
 The colonial government was unresponsive and often cruel, with the religious
establishment wielding as much power as the state. Clerical abuses, European ideas
of liberalism, and growing international trade fueled a burgeoning national
consciousness.
 For Rizal and his generation, the 1872 Cavite Mutiny, in which three native priests
were accused of treason and publicly executed, provided both inspiration and a
cautionary tale.
 Educated at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila and the Dominican University of Santo
Tomas in Manila, Rizal left for Spain in 1882, where he studied medicine and the
liberal arts, with further studies in Paris and Heidelberg.
 The charismatic Rizal quickly became a leading light of the Propaganda Movement
—Filipino expatriates advocating, through its newspaper, La Solidaridad, various
reforms such as the integration of the Philippines as a province of Spain,
representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament), the Filipinization of the clergy,
and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law.
 To Rizal, the main impediment to reform lay not so much with the civil government
but with the reactionary and powerful Franciscan, Augustinian, and Dominican
friars, who constituted a state within a state.
 In 1887, he published his first novel, Noli Me Tangere, written in Spanish, a searing
indictment of clerical abuse as well as of colonial rule’s shortcomings.
 That same year, he returned to Manila, where the Noli had been banned and its
author now hated intensely by the friars.
 In 1888, he went to Europe once more, and there wrote the sequel, El Filibusterismo
(The Subversive), published in 1891.
 In addition, he annotated an edition of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas,
showing that the Philippines had had a long history before the advent of the
Spaniards. Rizal returned to Manila in 1892 and founded a reform society, La Liga
Filipina, before being exiled to Dapitan, in Mindanao, Southern Philippines.

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 There he devoted himself to scientific research and public works. Well-known as an

ophthalmologist, he was visited by an English patient, accompanied by his ward,
Josephine Bracken, who would be his last and most serious romantic involvement.
 In August of 1896, the Katipunan, a nationalist secret society, launched the
revolution against Spain.
 Its leaders venerated Rizal and tried to persuade him to their cause. He refused,
convinced that the time was not yet ripe for armed struggle.
 In the meantime he volunteered to serve as a doctor with the Spanish forces fighting
against Cuban revolutionaries. En route, Rizal was arrested and subjected to a mock
trial in Manila by the authorities although he had nothing to do with the revolution.
 Found guilty, he was shot at dawn on December 30, 1896. On the eve of his
execution, Rizal penned “Mi último adiós” (My Last Farewell), considered a
masterpiece of nineteenth-century Spanish verse. He was thirty-five.
 Rizal’s martyrdom only intensified the ultimately successful fight for independence
from Spain.
 Because of his role in shaping his country’s destiny, José Rizal is often described as
the “First Filipino” and has since served as an inspiration to countless nationalists
and intellectuals.

ABOUT LUIS H. FRANCIA

 Luis H. Francia, the author of this guide, was born and grew up in Manila,
Philippines, where he obtained his B.A. in humanities from the Ateneo de Manila
University—the same alma mater as that of José Rizal, author of Noli Me Tangere.
 He teaches Filipino language and culture at the Asian/Pacific/American Studies
program of New York University. He has taught Asian-American literature at Sarah
Lawrence College and at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
 He has written several books, the most recent ones being Museum of Absences, a
collection of poems, and the semiautobiographical Eye of the Fish: A Personal
Archipelago, winner of both the 2002 PEN Open Book and the Asian American
Writers Workshop Literary awards. He is the editor of Brown River, White Ocean, an
anthology of Philippine literature in English, and coeditor of Flippin’: Filipinos on
America, also a literary anthology, and of Vestiges of War, an anthology of creative
and scholarly works dealing with the 1899 Philippine-American War.
 He and his wife, art historian and curator Midori Yamamura, live in New York City.

Assessment no.1

Please DO
the TASK

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Direction:
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

 Crisostomo Ibarra and the mysterious and powerful Elias are quite similar, even though
the former is an immensely wealthy mestizo and the latter, an impoverished fellow who
has seen better days. Both have been victimized by the colonial system, yet have
contrasting approaches to addressing the social ills that surround them. In one pivotal
scene the two debate passionately about their respective views, as though the author were
debating himself.
1. How do their experiences shape these views? What reforms does Ibarra advocate? Why
does Elias consider these futile?
 
 Through Ibarra, Rizal the social reformer makes it clear that he believed greatly in the
transformative power of secular education. To learn only by rote prevented the ordinary
Filipino from truly understanding his situation, hence Ibarra’s proposal to build a school
for the town of San Diego.
2. In contrast, what was the conventional view of education in San Diego? Why were
Padre Damaso and, later on, Padre Salvi, against such innovation? How did race figure
in their opposition?
 
 Tasio, the town sage, is elated by Ibarra’s plan for a school but immediately cautions the
young man, “The first advice I will give you is to never come to me for advice again.”
3. What makes the old man say this? What is his reputation in San Diego and what
perspective does he add to the novel?
 
 The Noli is clearly anticlerical in its depiction of the friars and of the Catholic church.
Padre Damaso and, to a lesser extent, Padre Salvi, personify clerical abuses—the main
cause, in the novel, of the population’s discontent. Rizal’s portraits, however, are not one-
dimensional; rather, they reveal the all-too-human faults of each priest.
4. How does the novelist individualize them? How do the failings of Damaso and Salvi
propel the novel’s action? The two friars have in common their feelings for Maria Clara,
yet those very feelings should divide them. Why?
 
 Maria Clara betrays Ibarra even though she loves him. Her motive is to prevent the
identity of her true, biological father from being revealed.
5. Discuss the consequences of her act, and how it leads to tragedy.
 
 The novel describes vividly life in the town of San Diego and its social and political
hierarchy.
6. If we see San Diego as a microcosm of Philippine society, what kind of portrait
emerges, overall, of life under the Spanish colonial system? In particular, how does the
planning for the town feast clearly illustrate who holds real power?
 
 Capitan Tiago and Doña Victorina de Espadaña identify completely with the colonial
mind-set. In portraying the two, Rizal pokes fun at their pretensions.

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7. What pretensions are these and how are they lampooned? Is Rizal gentler with one
than the other?
 
 The author also mocks the mindless religiosity exhibited by Tiago and some other
characters, especially the equally wealthy spinster, Doña Patrocinio, whom Tiago considers
his rival and vice versa. Each strives to make as splashy material offerings as possible to the
church, thinking thereby to ensure their spiritual future.
8. Discuss the Catholic notion of indulgences, how this ties in to lavish expenditures,
and, more broadly, how it ironically reveals the worldly nature of the church.
 
 The head of the Guardia Civil and his wife, Doña Consolacion, strike fear in the hearts of
San Diego’s ordinary inhabitants. The wife is repellent, even to her husband.
9. What do they exemplify and what purpose do these two characters serve in the novel?

 Rizal depicts a gap that exists between the Spanish civil administration and clerical rule.
10. How wide or narrow is that gap? What incidents demonstrate the differences
between the two sectors?
 
 Sisa goes mad due to her harsh treatment by the Guardia Civil, the death of one son, and
the disappearance of another. Critics have said that she is symbolic of the oppressed
mother country.
11. Do you agree with this notion? Are there parallels with Maria Clara and her fate and,
to a lesser degree, Tiago’s?

4.2.2 El Filibusterismo by Jose Rizal

 The second and last novel completed by José Rizal
(though he left behind the unfinished manuscript of a
third one), El Filibusterismo is a sequel to Noli Me
Tangere. A dark, brooding, at times satirical novel of
revenge, unfulfilled love, and tragedy, the Fili (as it is
popularly referred to) still has as its protagonist Juan
Crisóstomo Ibarra.

 Thirteen years older, his idealism and youthful

dreams shattered, and taking advantage of the belief
that he died at the end of Noli Me Tangere, he is
disguised as Simoun, an enormously wealthy and
mysterious jeweler who has gained the confidence of
the colony’s governor-general.

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 A number of other characters from the Noli reappear, among them: Basilio, whose

mother and younger brother Crispin met tragic ends; Father Salví, the devious former
curate of San Diego responsible for Crispin’s death, and who had lusted after Ibarra’s
love, María Clara; the idealistic schoolmaster from San Diego; Captain Tiago, the
wealthy widower and legal father of María Clara; and Doña Victorina de Espadaña and
her Spanish husband, the faux doctor Tiburcio, now hiding from her with the indio
priest Father Florentino at his remote parish on the Pacific coast.

 Where Ibarra had argued eloquently against violence to reform Manila society, Simoun
is eager to foment it in order to get his revenge: against Father Salví, and against the
Spanish colonial state. He hopes to liberate the love of his life, María Clara, from her
suffocating life as a cloistered nun, and the islands from the tyranny of Spain.
 As confidant to the governor-general, he advises him in such a manner as to make the
state even more oppressive, hoping thereby to force the masses to revolt. Simoun has a
few conspirators, such as the schoolmaster and a Chinese merchant, Quiroga, who aid
him in planning terroristic acts. In sum, Simoun has become an agent provocateur on a
grand scale.
 Basilio, now a young man, has risen from poverty to become Captain Tiago’s charge.
Close to acquiring his medical degree, he is pledged to Julí, the beautiful daughter of
Cabesang Tales, a prosperous farmer whose land is taken away from him by the friars.
Tales subsequently murders his oppressors, turns to banditry, and becomes the scourge
of the countryside.
 In contrast to Simoun’s path of armed revolution, a group of university students—
among them, Isagani, Peláez, and Makaraig—push for the founding of an academy
devoted to teaching Castilian, in line with a decree from Madrid.
 Opposed even to such a benign reform, the friars manage to co-opt the plan.
Subsequently the students are accused of being behind flyers that call for rebellion
against the state.
 Most observers see the hand of the friars in this whole affair, which results in the
incarceration of the student leaders, even of Basilio, though he was not involved, and
the break-up between Isagani and the beauteous Paulita Gómez, who agrees to marry
the wealthy Peláez, much to the delight of Doña Victorina, who has favored him all
along.
 In the meantime, Tiago, addicted to opium, dies of a drug overdose while attended to
by Father Irene.
 A meager inheritance is all that is given to Basilio and all the incarcerated students are
soon released except for him. Julí approaches Father Camorra to request him to obtain
Basilio’s release.
 The friar attempts to rape her but she commits suicide rather than submit to his lustful
designs. Released from prison, with Julí dead and his prospects considerably dimmed,
Basilio, one of the few who knows who Simoun really is, reluctantly becomes a part of
the latter’s plot.
 The lavish wedding celebration is to be held at the former residence of Captain Tiago,
purchased by Don Timoteo Peláez, the bridegroom’s father.

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 Simoun has mined the residence, so it will blow up once a fancy lamp—packed with
nitroglycerin, it is Simoun’s wedding gift—has its wick lit. The resulting assassination of
the social and political elite gathered at the feast will be the signal for armed uprising.
 But Isagani, informed by Basilio of what will happen, rushes into the house, snatches
the lamp, and throws it into the river, and in the confusion is able to escape.
 The planned uprising is aborted, and Simoun’s true identity is finally revealed, partly
through a note he leaves for Father Salví at the feast. Wounded, he eludes capture and
manages to seek refuge at Father Florentino’s residence.
 There, he commits suicide but not before revealing to the priest what he has wrought.
He leaves behind his case of jewels, which the good father throws into the sea, with the
injunction that the precious stones yield themselves only when the country needs them
for a “holy, sublime reason” (p. 328).
 

Assessment no.2
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

 Simoun plans to foment civil disturbance to precipitate the fall of the Spanish colonial
government. 1. What are his reasons? Exactly how does he intend to accomplish this? What has
brought him to this point in his life? Discuss his past and its relevance to the narrative of El
Filibusterismo.

 When Simoun meets Basilio in the forest, he tells him “There are no despots where there are no
slaves”.
2. Discuss what he means in the context of the colonization of the Philippines.

 From the various scenes and descriptions of the Spanish friars such as Camorra, Salví, Sibyla,
Irene et al.,
3. what can we deduce about their position in the colonial hierarchy? How do they view the
locals or indios? What can we infer about Rizal’s own views on the friars?

 In contrast, Father Florentino is a secular priest, an indio, and Rizal’s portrait of him is very
different from that of the Spanish friars.
4. Discuss some of these differences, and what might have been Rizal’s intent in positing such
differences.

 At the novel’s conclusion, after Simoun’s suicide, Father Florentino throws the jewel box into the
ocean.
5.Why?

 Not coincidentally, Rizal dedicates the Fili to the memory of Fathers Gómez, Burgos, and
Zamora, Filipino secular priests executed by the state in 1872.
6. Who were these priests, and why does Rizal dedicate the novel to them?

 Discuss the scene that transpires at the Kiapo Fair, when the disembodied head at Mr. Leeds’s
stall refers to an injustice, causing fear and trembling in Father Salví. At the climactic wedding feast

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at Captain Tiago’s former home, Salví is similarly affected by a biblical quote that he recognizes to
have been written by Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra.
7. What injustice is Juan Crisóstomo seeking to redress?

 The visit of a French theatrical troupe is an occasion that brings all of Manila’s society under one
roof.
8. How does the novelist present the scene? Discuss some of the characters, such as Don
Custodio, Ben Zayb, and the dancer Pepay, who are at the theater. How do the two chapters
devoted to it further our understanding of the narrative?

 A group of university students—among them, Isagani, Peláez, and Makaraig—propose the

establishment of an academy to teach Castilian.
9. What are the students’ arguments for it? Why are the friars so opposed to it?

 Flyers circulated in relation to this cause the students to be accused of being filibusteros.

10. What is a filibustero and how does the flyer become an occasion for the charge?

11. Discuss Cabesang Tales’s decline from successful farmer and upright town official to a
vengeful outlaw. Why does he resort to the use of arms? What can we deduce about the state of
land distribution and ownership in the islands during the Spanish colonial period?

12. How does the tragic end of the beautiful Julí, the fiancée of Basilio, come about? How
does the relationship between her and Basilio reflect that of Juan Crisóstomo and María
Clara?

4.2.3 Florante at Laura by Francisco Balagtas

Florante at Laura is written as an awit; the word in modern

Filipino means "song", but at that time referred to a
standard poetic format with the following characteristics:

1. four lines per stanza;

2. twelve syllables per line;
3. an assonantal rhyme scheme of AAAA (in the
Filipino manner of rhyming described by José
Rizal in Tagalische Verskunst);
4. a caesura or pause after the sixth syllable;
5. each stanza is usually a complete, grammatically
correct sentence;
6. each stanza has figures of speech (according to
Fernando Monleón, Balagtas used 28 types in 395 instances throughout the poem.)

Florante's tale

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 The son of a princess and a royal adviser, Florante grew up in happiness, showered
with love. He liked to play games when he was six years old, and was almost captured
by a vulture that entered in their mountain cottage, which was also followed by the
attack of a falcon. He was saved by his cousin Menalipo, an archer from Epirus.
 When he turned eleven, his parents, Duke Briseo and Princess Floresca, sent him
to Athens, Greece to study under Antenor, a renowned teacher. There, he met Adolfo, a
fellow countryman, the brightest student in their school.
 After five months of studying Astrology, Philosophy and Mathematics, Florante
surpassed Adolfo's capabilities, talents, and intelligence, gaining popularity.
 While performing during a school contest, Adolfo attempted to kill Florante because of
his jealousy towards Florante's popularity. Florante's friend, Menandro, was quick
enough to intervene.
 Adolfo headed home to Albania after his failed attempt. One year later, Florante
received a letter from his father, announcing the death of his mother. Florante fainted
for 2 hours from the grief.
 Seven months later, Florante receives a second letter from his father telling him to
return to Albania.
 Menandro, unwilling to be separated from him and allowed by his uncle Antenor, he
accompanied him on his journey.
 Upon his arrival to Albania, an emissary of the kingdom of Crotona requested his
assistance in the incoming war against the Persians.
 Florante had not the will to refuse, for the King of Crotona was his grandfather. During
his stay in Albania, Florante was invited to the royal palace and was glamoured of
Laura, the daughter of King Linceo.
 He stared at her for hours forgetting about the war then lost.
 Months later coming to the aid of Crotona, Florante fought with the Persian general
Osmalik for five hours, finally slaying him in the end. He stayed in Crotona for five
months before returning to Albania to see Laura.
 He was surprised by the sight of a Persian flag waving atop the kingdom. He
recaptured the palace and saved his father, the King, and Count Adolfo.
 He also saved Laura from being beheaded from the hands of the Emir and was declared
"Defender of Albania" for his bravery, deepening Adolfo's envy and hatred.
 Florante protected the kingdom once more from the Turkish forces under General
Miramolin, an acclaimed conqueror.
 This took place in Aetolia, where he later received a letter from his father summoning
him back to Albania. He left his troops in the care of his friend, Menandro, and upon
returning, he was ambushed by 30,000 soldiers under Adolfo's orders and was
imprisoned for 18 days. There, he learned of the tragic fate of his father and the king
who were beheaded under Adolfo. Florante was then exiled into the forest and tied to
the tree.

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Aladin's tale
 After Florante finishes his story, it was Aladin's turn to recount his life. He first
introduces himself as Prince Aladin of the Persian kingdom, son of Sultan Ali-Adab.
 While walking through the forest, Aladin tells about his fiancée, Flerida. Unbeknownst
to him at that time, his father also desired Flerida.
 After returning home from a battle (revealed to be the battle of Florante and General
Osmalik), Ali-Adab imprisoned the Prince, using his abandonment of his troops as the
reason, and the eventual loss made the latter order a decapacitation of Aladin.
 In a turn of events, Aladin was released by a general on orders from his father, with the
constraint that he may never enter the kingdom again.
 Heartbroken, he unknowingly walks to the forest where Florante was tied up.
Reunion and peace
 Aladin's speech is interrupted when they hear voices. A woman narrates her escape
from a kingdom and a marriage. She speaks of her search for her beloved, a search
which lasted six years.
 She shares that while deep in the forest, she heard cries for help, and upon finding a
lady about to be raped, she uses her bow and arrow to kill the assailant. The woman
introduces herself as Flerida.
 The lady saved by Flerida is revealed to be Laura, who begins to tell her story. While
her love was away at war, Count Adolfo used deceit to gain popularity and turned the
people of Albania against their king.
 Count Adolfo then rose to the throne, forcing Laura to be his queen. An army under
Menandro, Florante's childhood friend, was able to overthrow Adolfo from power.
Seeing all was lost, Adolfo fled into the woods with Laura as his hostage.
 After hearing all this, Florante and Aladin reunite with their loved ones. Florante and
Laura return to Albania to rule as king and queen. Aladin and Flerida returned to
Persia, where Aladin became the new sultan as his father died of depression because
Flerida had left him.
 Aladin and Flerida are then baptized into the Catholic faith, and the two kingdoms
lived in harmony and peace.
Modern theatre
 Being a grand literary classic in the Philippines, adapting this epic for modern theatre
requires skill and mastery. The said play is a staple among high school students as a
classroom requirement.
 The Gantimpala Theater Foundation has already mastered the art of portraying the said
epic. The modern group is influenced by modern pop culture.

Assessment no. 3

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Direction:

1. What is the story Florante and Laura all about?

2. Is Florante at Laura a true story?
3. How did Florante and Laura end?
4. What happened in Florante at Laura?
5. What are the characteristics of the main character?

4.2.4 Mga Ibong Mandaragit by Amanda V. Hernandez

AMADO V. HERNANDEZ
National Artist for Literature
(September 13, 1903 – May 24, 1970)

 Amado V. Hernandez, poet, playwright,

and novelist, is among the Filipino writers
who practiced “committed art.” In his view,
the function of the writer is to act as the
conscience of society and to affirm the
greatness of the human spirit in the face of
inequity and oppression.
 Hernandez’s contribution to the
development of Tagalog prose is considerable — he stripped Tagalog of its ornate
character and wrote in prose closer to the colloquial than the “official” style permitted.
 His novel Mga Ibong Mandaragit, first written by Hernandez while in prison, is the
first Filipino socio-political novel that exposes the ills of the society as evident in the
agrarian problems of the 50s.
 Hernandez’s other works include Bayang Malaya, Isang Dipang Langit, Luha ng
Buwaya, Amado V. Hernandez: Tudla at Tudling: Katipunan ng mga Nalathalang
Tula 1921-1970, Langaw sa Isang Basong Gatas at Iba Pang Kuwento ni Amado V.
Hernandez,Magkabilang Mukha ng Isang Bagol at Iba Pang Akda ni Amado V.
Hernandez.
 Mga Ibong Mandaragit or Mga Ibong Mandaragit: Nobelang Sosyo-
Politikal(literally, Birds of Prey: A Socio-Political Novel) is a novel written by the Filipino
writer and social activist, Amado V. Hernandez in 1969. Mga Ibong Mandaragit, hailed as
Hernandez's masterpiece, focuses on the neocolonial
dependency and revolt in the Philippines.[1] The novel
reflects Hernandez's experience as a guerrilla intelligence
officer when the Philippines was under Japanese
occupation from 1942 to 1945.
 The narrative, illustrates Hernandez's yearning for change
and the elevation of the status of Philippine society and

C. M. D. Hamo-ay
 3 | Philippine Popular Culture 1

living conditions of Filipinos. The setting is in the middle of 1944, when the armed
forces of the Japanese Empire were losing.[2]
 The novel acts as a sequel to Jose Rizal's historic Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo.
The protagonist Mando Plaridel is tested by Tata Matyas, an old revolutionary, on his
knowledge about Rizal and Rizal's novels. Similar to Rizal's novel, the main character
examines the Philippines as an outsider while traveling in Europe.[3]
 Hernandez's novel also tackles the lead character's search for Simoun's treasure, acting
as a continuation of Rizal's El Filibusterismo.
 The novel portrays the conditions of the citizenry at the onset of industrialization
brought forth by the Americans in the Philippines. Mga Ibong Mandaragit had been
translated into English and Russian.

4.2.5 he man

Post-Assessment
Direction:

4.3 References
Andrew. Pirie et. al. Philippine Sports History Articles Collection. 2014
B. R. O’G Anderson. The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture Pp. 1-69 in Holt C. (ed.) Culture
and Politics in Indonesia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 1972
Bonn Aure. Archaeological Inference and Another Look at Junker’s Mass Burial. Philippine
Quarterly of Culture and Society 32: 161-177. 2004
Budin, G. Theory and History of Culture. University of Vienna, Austria.
Chu, Clara M. (2005) Defining “Multiculturalism”. World Library and
DOT, DILG, DENR and DAP. Tourism Guidebook for Local Government Units (Revised
Edition). Office of Tourism Development Planning, Research and Information
Management. 2017.

Balagtas, Francisco (2012). "Si Balagtas at ang Florante at Laura". In Almario, Virgilio

S.  (ed.).  Florante at Laura (in Filipino) (2nd ed.). Adarna House. p. 25. ISBN 971-508-
179-7.  Tinanggap ni Epifanio de los Santos  ang petsang 1838 bilang unang edisyon ng

C. M. D. Hamo-ay
 3 | Philippine Popular Culture 1

awit bagaman walang ebidensiyang bibliyograpiko si H. Cruz. Gayunman, hanggang noong
bago sumiklab angIkalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig ay pinakamatanda nang tukoy na
edisyon ang inilathala ng Imprenta de los Amigos del Pais noong 1853...

^ "Philippine Heroes – Francisco Baltazar Balagtas y Dela Cruz (1788–1862)". Etravel

Pilipinas. Archived from  the originalon March 11, 2014.

^ Tan, Frida (18 August 2015). "REVIEW: "Florante at Laura". The Legacy started on
1835 when the book was published. Francisco Balagtas, the author of this book/song, was
sent to jail. Inspired by the moments in prison, he made a book which was sent outside the
prison to be read". Theater Fans Manila.

Newspapers:
The Manila Times. Editorial: Cult Clash. 2000-14-08.

Online References:
 https://www.coursehero.com/file/71942161/Dimensions-of-Philippine-Pop-
KOMIKSdocx/
https://www.britannica.com/art/music

3.4 Acknowledgment
 

C. M. D. Hamo-ay
 3 | Philippine Popular Culture 1

The images, tables, figures and information contained in this module were
taken from the references cited above.
 The performance rubric used by the writer was adopted from the performance
rubric of Mr. Raul B. Celmar of Samar State University – Mercedes Campus.

The picture that was used in this Learning Packet was taken from google.com

JUDITH E. CABISO
Samar State University Mercedes Campus
College of Fisheries and Marine Sciences
Catbalogan City, Samar 6700
09513650248
[email protected]

CONGRATULATIONS! You are already finished with your LP 3

See you again at LP 4.

C. M. D. Hamo-ay