philippine studies

Ateneo de Manila University • Loyola Heights, Quezon City • 1108 Philippines

Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo and Priscelina Patajo-Legasto (eds.),

Philippine Postcolonial Studies: Essays on Language and
Literature
Maria Teresa Tinio

Philippine Studies vol. 54, no. 1 (2006): 142–148

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REVIEW ESSAY

Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo and Priscelina Patajo-Legasto (eds.), Philippine

Postcolonial Studies: Essays on Language and Literature. Quezon City:
University of the Philippines Press, 2004. 155 pages.

Of the many ideas that have emerged in this poststructuralist era,

postcolonialism is probably the most embattled. Critic Stephen Slemon
(2001, 100) says, "Probably no term within literary and critical studies is
so hotly contested at present as is the term 'post-colonial"'; and Terry
Eagleton (1999), noting the extreme caution postcolonial critics have
taken when discussing the concept, has commented that "the idea of the
post-colonial has taken such a battering from post-colonial theorists that
to use the word unreservedly of oneself would be rather like calling
oneself Fatso." Several Philippine academics have also been fervently
and consistently critical of postcolonialism. E. San Juan Jr. (1995, 57)
sees postcolonial theorizing as "a symptom produced by poststructuralist
theories when regurgitated and worked over by intellectuals from former
colonies"; and Alice Guillermo (1997, 16) believes "there is little
political value in declaring oneself as a postcolonial subject while existing
within a situation profoundly imbricated in neo-colonialism and
imperialism."
It is curious, therefore, that Philippine Postcolonial Studies: Essays on Lun-
gtrage and Literature, first published in 1993, has been reissued with no
revisions other than a very thin "Preface to the Second Edition" and a
very fat "Notes on the Contributors." One naturally wonders about the
relevance of the reissue.
PHILIPPINE STUDIES 54, no. 1 (2006): 142-48
REVIEW ESSAY 143

To be sure, all of the essays included in this collection are still use-
ful, even if only as texts that reveal the concerns of literary scholars of
the early 1990s when postcolonialism first came into vogue. Still, there
are questions that must be answered to gauge the value of the reissue.
Will it help readers come to an understanding of the phenomenon of
postcolonialism? Does it track the sigdicant changes postcolonial critical
practice has undergone in the past ten years? Are the essays good
models of postcolonial criticism?
Like most collections, this one is uneven, so that the answers to these
questions are ambivalent.
Six of the ten essays introduce and propose new (post-1960s)
approaches to the study of both mainstream and marginalized texts
(oral culture, emergent literature, English studies, people's theater,
and so on). The essays overlap and convey essentially the same point:
marginalized texts need to be studied. Two of the essays are "read-
ings" of Philippine literary texts. One essay is an overview of Phil-
ippine-Chinese literature; and one essay, Helen E. Lopez's "The
Filipino Encounter with American Literary Texts in a Time of Cri-
sis," presents a seemingly new but actually pre-postcolonial approach
to mainstream literature.
The central concern of "The Filipino Encounter with American
Literary Texts in a Time of Crisisn is how American literature can be
relevant at a time when "themes addressing the regressive impact of
American imperialism on the growth of our nationhood in much of
Philippine writing in recent years have become as f d a r as stereotypes"
(110). Instead of assuming that American literature is an instrument of
domination, however, Lopez's program rests on premises that are a
throwback to the time of Horace: literature as a source of inspiration.
She says, for example, "To comprehend what kept the American people
together during the dark days of their civil war . . . we can find mean-
ingful answers in Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage or John
Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrathn (112). Although she does mention the new
interest in American minority literature and the use of the new
approaches to reading literature, the focus of her discussion remains the
potential of literature to "foster in us a largeness of spirit'' (112). Even
given Legasto's already broad and gratuitously accommodating definition
144 PHILIPPINE STUDIES 54, no. 1 (2006)

of postcolonial discourse-"a critique of Western hegemony" (9)-this

essay cannot seriously be considered postcolonial.
As the subject matter of "The Chinese Margin in Philippine Litera-
ture" by Lily Rose Tope is a marginalized literature, this essay can be
considered postcolonial (per Legasto's definition), though only very
tenuously. The first half of the essay reads like a Civics or Social
Studies lesson on the contributions of the Chinese to Philippine
culture. The second half is a brief overview of the development of
Philippine-Chinese literature, in which Tope expresses her desire to see
Philippine-Chese literature move out of the literary margins and into
the mainstream.
The inclusion of Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo's essay in this collection is
premised on her proposal to read the autobiographical writings of
Carmen Guerrero Nakpil and Sylvia Mayuga as "minority discourse," that
is, readmg and writing based on women's marginality but using the domi-
nant language and forms of expression. Hidalgo claims to examine the
concept of deterritorialization, but this examination consists of a para-
phrasing of the narratives and a liberal peppering of quotes (sixty-two
in all) from Nakpil and Mayuga. The reader, however, inevitably wonders
where, within the range of critical approaches used by Hidalgo (some-
where between what can be charitably described as "feministn and more
realistically as "thematicn)postcolonialism lies.
The essay "Dogeaters, Postmodernism and the 'Worlding' of the
Philippinesn by Caroline S. Hau is the collection's most competent
contribution and addresses postcolonial issues most thoroughly. It
begins with an attempt to explain the postmodern condition and the
features of postmodernism through an engaged discussion of
Frederic Jameson's take on postmodernism and Linda Hutcheon's
response to Jarneson. Hau then demonstrates how the novel Dogeaters
by Jessica Hagedorn shares a lot of the preoccupations attribu.ted to
postmodernism. This is followed by a brief discussion of Gayatri
Spivak's "The Rani of Sirmur," followed by a reading of Dogeaters as
a text that "othersn the Philippines as exotic.
The six essays that propose new approaches to literary study are by
Alaras, Villareal, Patajo-Legasto, Santos, Mabilangan, and Jose.
REVIEW ESSAY 145

"The Concept of En&h Studies in the Phihppines" by Consolacion

R. Alaras appears to be mistitled. The focus of this essay is orality and
the central argument is that En&h studies has to accept and understand
orality and oral cultures. It is through this, she argues, that English
sStudies can be relevant and liberative.
"Instructional Materials for Cultural Empowerment" by Corazon D.
Villared attempts to answer the question, Can English sever its links
from elitism and cultural imperialism? Informed by Foucault, her answer
comes through a discussion of, first, the teaching of English in the
general education curriculum (a proposal for a shift in focus from ESP
or En&h for Specific Purposes to a crossdisciplinal EAP or En&h for
Academic Purposes); second, the three positive outcomes of this shift
(the possibility of seeing errors in Phihppine Engluh in its proper light,
a more critical understandmg of how language evolves, and the chance
to "make our mark on the English language" [36D; third, the reexami-
nation of the concept of a "classic"; and, fourth, the inclusion of
regional literature in the curriculum.
Anne Marie Mabilangan's "Approaches to a Criticism of Emergent
Literature" defines emergent literature (a term first proposed by
Raymond Williams and discussed further by Elmer Ordofiez) as
"people's literature, protest literature, resistance literature, feminist litera-
ture, minority literature, and, even broader in scope, Third World or
postcolonial literature" (67). She provides a broad overview of the
history of approaches to emergent literatures, from evolutionism
(measuring emergent literatures by Western standards) to universalism
(focusing on what emergent literatures have in common with Western
literature) to relativism (belief not in a common culture but in cultures).
Pointing out the effect of the relativist's approach of "deradicalizing"
literature, Mabilangan proposes that the study of emergent literature
"must be given historical, social, and political weight" (72). Its criticism,
she insists, must be one of "specificity."
"Philippine Oral Traditions: An Introduction" by Angelito L. Santos
begins with a discussion, adapted from Raymond Williams and Marx, of
the three kinds of popular culture-folk culture, mass market culture,
and an uneven culture that is both backward and advanced. Santos does
146 PHILIPPINE STUDIES 54, no. 1 (2006)

not make a clear enough link between oral tradition and popular culture
but does, however, provide a good discussion of popular culture in
Third World settings and an accurate description of popular culture in
the Philippines. He contrasts two views of oral culture, written ten years
apart, by E. Arsenio Manuel and Nick Joaquin. He critiques Joaquin's
view for its lack of a sense of historical reality and calls upon scholars
to approach oral tradition with cogent sociohistorical-anthropologic
research.
Heuristically, the most useful of the essays that propose new
approaches is Legasto's "Literature from the Margins: Reterritorializing
Philippine Literary Studies." It provides an account of the dramatic
transformations in literary studies as well as a helpful explanation of crux
of the change-the idea of literature as discourse. Using Lloyd and
JanMohamed's discussion of major, minor, and minority literature,
Legasto examines these same categories as they apply to the Philippines
and comes up with a different formulation. For Legasto, "major" litera-
ture in the Philippine setting is still Western literary texts that are
taught in school. Legasto's category of "minor" literature refers to
literature that "elicits the Filipino acquiescence to what are actually
iniquitous social relations" (50). For Legasto, "minor" literature in
the Philippines is that which is predominantly written in English.
Finally, "minority" literature, for Legasto, refers to not just literatures
written in "languages of 'minoritized' peoples" but to articulations
of "individuals and groups whose identities have been fractured by
the imposition of a 'common (Western) norm' of identity" (51). Her
examples for these are underground literature and people's theater. She
calls for the "celebration of minority literatures," the opening up of
literary studies through the study of literature as discourse. This call
seems to be the organizing principle of the collection, somewhat
tiresomely repeated throughout most of the essays. It is a call that
in the mid-1980s was radical but which, by the early 1990s (when this
book was first published), had gained acceptance and which in the
new millennium is de rigueur.
In 2002, more than fifteen years after she first published Sexual/
Textual Politics, Tori1 Moi reissued her ground-breaking work sans
REVIEW ESSAY 147

revisions. She says that, although she was tempted to rework the origi-
nal text, she elected not to because the questions raised in the book "are
now considered necessary starting points for understanding later devel-
opments in feminist theory" (173). She does, however, for her 2002
reissue include a lengthy afterword that includes a comprehensive
account of the change in the cultural context from when it was first
pubhhed to when it was reissued. T h account explains why her book,
which was cutting-edge in 1985, is now a textbook. The book may not
have changed but the world around it c e r t d y did, and Moi's afterword
is an honest estimation of the value of the book then and now.
One wishes the same could be said for Philippine Postcolon2al Studies. In
the eleven years since it was first published, the changes not only in the
field of postcolonial studies but also in feminist criticism, English-
language studies, regional literature, Chinese-Philippine literature, and
cultural studies have been far-reaching and transformative. Publication
outfits have been built around these new discourses, syllabi have been
radically changed, English departments have been beleaguered, and
advocates discredited or fired then lionized. "Post-" anything has
become obligatory-to the point that there are now whole discourses
doubting the worth of these new discourses. This dynamism is absent
in this reissue. The "Preface to the Second Editionn would have been
a perfect venue to track these changes and to offer an analysis of the
current state of postcolonial criticism and its future directions. Instead,
one of the collection's editors, Priscelina Legasto, gives us a laconic "I
stand by my assertions articulated in this book's 'Introduction' and
'Literatures from the Margins"' (viii). This is followed by the remark,
"The Editors deliberately included a rather lengthy 'notes on the
contributors' section to give our readers additional bibliographic sources
including titles of publications . . . past conferences, symposia, and
lectures, here and abroad, where new insights on Philippine Postcolonial
Studies were disseminated by our scholars" (viii). From a tasteful two
sentences per contributor in the first edition, the reissue now has an in-
digestible two pages per contributor. Indeed, one wishes that the
dynamism in the contributors' careers could have rubbed off on this
reissue's portrayal of Philippine postcolonial studies.
 PHILIPPINE STUDIES 54, no. 1 (2006)

References
Eagleton, Terry. 1999. In the gaudy supermarket. Review of "A critique of post-
colonial reason: Toward a history of the v+ present." London Reuiew of
Books 21. Online, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n10/print/eag10.html,ac-
cessed 18 Mar. 2005.
Guillermo, Alice G. 1997. Imperialist globalization and culture. Dtlimun R&
45(1): 9-19.
Moi, Toril. Sexd/tsctdpoliticr. 2d ed London and New York: Routledge.
San Juan, Jr., E. 1995. Against postcolonial theory: The challenge of the Phil-
ippine revolution. Dtlimun Revim 43(3-4): 5547.
Slemon, Stephen. 2001. Post-colonial critical theories. In P ~ l o n i adisco~m
l An
anthology, ed. Gregory Castle, 100-16. Word: Blackwell.

MA. TERESA TINIO

Department of English
Ateneo de Manila University