“Filipino-ness” and Philippine Literature

It is difficult, to say the least, to give a definition to box “Filipino-ness” in Philippine Literature. First of all, there is too much to say on the Filipino, a being not only confined to 7,107 islands, that giving the intangible quality of being Filipino a straightforward definition will definitely leave a lot outside, perhaps even the majority composed of a thousand minorities. Nonetheless, difficult does not merit that this quality does not exist in what we consider as our own Literature.

Painting a line to strictly demarcate Philippine Literature as the ones made by Filipinos is logical, but doing so raises the argument of Nature vs. Nurture. What, then, of Filipino-Chinese Literature, of Charleson Ong, and other works made by Filipinos not by blood? Language, also, proves to be a credible wall, but an easily crossable wall at that, considering that we include a number of works in Spanish and English part of our canon of Philippine Literature. Although some radicals push for the utter termination of anything not written in Filipino from our Literature, Read the rest of this entry »