Philippine Literature

During Martial Law

By: Ryan Jay Q. Jamisolamin

AB-2
Martial Law
Proclamation № 1081 was
the declaration of Martial Law in
the Philippines by President
Ferdinand E. Marcos. It became
effective throughout the entire
country on 21 September 1972, and
was announced to the public two
days later. It was formally lifted on
17 January 1981, six months before
the first presidential election in the
Philippines in twelve years.
 What Happened to Philippine
Literature During Martial
Law?
It is not quite correct to argue that it was only in 1972 that
Filipino writers started to use their writings to explore socio-political
realities. The tradition of protest has always been a potent force in the
production of socially committed writings, as a number of critics such as
Bienvenido Lumbera, and Epifanio San Juan Jr. have argued. The 1970s,
for example, witnessed the proliferation of poems, short stories, and
novels which grappled with the burning issues of the times. In a large
number of magazines and journals, writers in both English and Pilipino
faced the problems of exploitation and injustice, and appropriated these
realities as the only relevant materials for their fiction
 Themes/Forms of
literature during
Martial Law
Protest Proletarian
Literature Literature

Circumvention
Prison Literature
Literature
 Protest Literature

Protest literature—at other times, in other contexts,

referred to as revolutionary literature, literature of
engagement, combat literature, committed literature,
literature of resistance, proletarian literature, people's
literature, socially conscious literature, and perhaps a
Philippine contribution to the taxonomy, the literature
of circumvention (simply defined as "a body of works
that expressed social and political protest in veiled
terms")—has had a long history in the Philippines.
Proletarian Literature

The call to create proletarian

literature ...was too strong to
ignore. It was deemed
unimaginable, for the committed
writer doing political work, to
still think of poetry as "beauty
recollected in tranquility"...
Prison Literature

Not a few writers ended up behind

bars from day one of martial law.
Journalists and prominent political
opposition figures were the first to be
ensnared in the dragnet cast by the
Marcos intelligence and police apparatus,
followed by militant activists, including
academics who were also noted for their
critical literary writings.
 Circumvention
Literature

It was in the precious little space afforded,

wittingly or unwittingly, by certain publications and
institutions sanctioned by the martial law administration,
that the so-called 'literature of circumvention' began to
appear.
Notable Works

POEM NOVEL

TALE
 POEM
If a poem
PROMETHEUS
was just
UNBOUND
 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Sometime in 1973, a poem entitled

"Prometheus Unbound" appeared in
Focus, a magazine published and
edited by an established and
respected writer who had chosen to be
associated with the Marcos regime.
 PROMETHEUS
UNBOUND

This poem may sound too sophomoric by half, with its

profuse, seemingly overwrought treatment of the theme from
Greek mythology—the renegade Titan called Prometheus
who stole fire from Mt. Olympus to give to mankind, surely
the mother of all liberation theologies.

A poem which brought down the anger of heaven not upon the
Promethean poet, but upon the publisher of Focus Magazine which printed the
seemingly harmless poem. It featured an acrostic, the first letters of the lines
spelling out the favorite war-chant and taunting slogan of demonstrators all over
the country: "Marcos Hitler Diktador Tuta", the last two words among the most
common sobriquets applied to the strongman: 'dictator' and 'puppet'
 If a poem was just
Prison
A poem "kung ang tula ay isa lamang" ('if a
poem was just'), deceptively simple in construction L
and elemental in prosody, has been held up as yet I
another fine example of protest writing that does
not suffer from the sloganeering, poster-&-placard T
style which proliferated during the First Quarter E
Storm.
R
A poem which, for all intents and A
purposes, summed up the social critique of T
the developmentalist state propped up by
martial law and cosmeticized with U
beautification campaigns and the foisting of R
cultural renaissance myths
E
Days of Disquiet,
Nights of Rage
The First Quarter Storm & Related Events” by Jose F.
Lacaba (Anvil Publishing, Inc.): Originally published in 1982, before
the actual end of the Marcos era, this gripping, first-person account
of the political awakening of the Filipino youth is considered by most
to be the definitive chronicle of latent student and labor activism in
the Philippine setting. It is also the best place to begin reading up
about martial law as the wave of protests, so poetically and
powerfully reported by Lacaba, eventually runs into the stormy
shoals of what would later become the Marcos dictatorship. Here
are the seeds that bloomed into steely demonstrations on the street
for some, and total revolutionary resistance by others. Read this
book to see where all the courage came from and why it all began.

NOVEL
Killing Time in
“ NOVEL
a Warm Place”
by Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr.

This textured, award-winning roman a clef is a lovely

fictionalization of Dalisay’s own experiences as a student
activist and writer during the martial law years. At the
beginning, Noel Ilustre Bulaong could be any of us, until his
quiet life in bucolic Kangleong,is both transformed and
shattered by the all-encompassing presence of Ferdinand
Marcos. Bulaong becomes an activist and witnesses first
hand, through arrest and detention, the shadowy hold of the
Marcos era. Perhaps the most haunting part of “Killing Time”
is how everyone ended up, and the deaths-both interior and
exterior-that they experience. A vivid tale of those dangerous
years, this is Dalisay at his best
 “ U.G. “
An Underground Tale

The Journey of Edgar Jopson and the First Quarter

Storm Generation” by Benjamin Pimentel, Jr. (Anvil
Publishing, Inc.): One of the most fascinating and, in turn,
tragic personalities connected with martial law was Edgar
“Edjop” Jopson. The Ateneo student council leader devoted
himself to the nascent student activist movement just in
time to face off (at one point literally) with Ferdinand
Marcos. But Jopson was serious about his struggle,
relocating with his cadre constantly to escape military
pursuit. His later death at the hands of the military makes
this story of heroism bright and sharp at the same time,
delivered with efficient and measured prose by columnist
Pimentel. It’s a true story of inspiration and sacrifice you
won’t forget. •
NOTABLE AUTHORS

Pete Lacaba Jose Ma.

Sison,

Mila Aguilar F. Sionil

Jose
 Pete Lacaba
The name
Lacaba has In the Philippines, writers
He contribute to become a can easily shift from poetry
journalism, literary by- and fiction to writing for
poetry, and television and film, and it is
word, for a
as a screenwriter that Pete
scriptwriting number of Lacaba has really created an
have become reasons impact on Philippine
popular culture. His
identified with screenplays produced during
both literary the period of martial law
excellence as well constitute further examples
of the literature of
as social circumvention, barely
relevance squeezing past the censor's
(another pivotal nose, although they depicted
brutalized lives, social
phrase in the injustice, and the political
canon of protest awakening of people from
all walks of life.
literature).
 The best-known
While still behind bars, his
radical poet who friends in academe and fellow
became a political writers put together his poems
prisoner of the and published them in a book,
Marcos regime was Prison and Beyond. One of the
Jose Ma. Sison, pieces in this collection speak of
the prisoner's faith in the power
of his writings, and of his
certainty that outside his prison
A former English instructor cell, the struggle which he
at the University of the helped launch continues.
Philippines, who spent ten
years in prison, and wrote a
whole volume of poems
(much later set to music out
of which a CD would be
made) which spoke not only
of his privations during his
incarceration, but of his
steadfast political views
 Mila Aguilar

A former She had joined her future

teacher of husband in the guerrilla movement at
the beginning of martial law, and after
English he was killed in an armed encounter,
literature at the she continued her revolutionary work
University of the as writer and propagandist for
resistance.
Philippines.

She published several books of poetry during the martial law period,
including two under the name Clarita Roja: Dare to Struggle, Dare
to Win! (1974) and The Mass Line /A Second Remoulding ( Manila
1977), and the rest under her real name after she had surfaced and
continued the struggle above ground— Why Cage Pigeons? (1984),
Pall Hanging over Manila (1984), and A Comrade is as Precious as a
Rice Seedling (1984, 1985 and 1987).
F. Sionil Jose
The first It also imposed
instrument of guidelines which
censorship in were often
arbitrary. Under
1972 was the
these guidelines, the
Army Office President, his family,
of Civil and the Armed
Relations Forces could not be
which granted criticized, only
licences for praised. Before any
manuscript was
new magazines
published, it had to
and newspapers be examined by the
Army censors.
References:
www.stud
ymode.co
m/.../phili
ppine-
literature
http://www -during-
martial-
.oovrag.co law
m/essays/e
ssay2007b-
1.shtml

Philippine
Literature:
Lumbera