The Filipino Short Story in English: Colonizing the Colonizer’s Language

The use and nuances of Philippine English is as diverse as the languages spoken in the country. It is present
in media, in conversations, and in literature. It possesses unique grammatical and semantic features in a way that
English has become Filipino through years of constant adaptation. Short stories, in particular, are in English: a
language born from a colonial purpose, yet they are in Filipino and is written because of the Filipino; its
essence, imagery, and syntax are all vividly about us and our culture. Written to entice the heart, entertain, or
for social change, the Filipino short story has become a means to express nationalism in a foreign tongue.
Tracing history, English was taught originally to the Filipino for the latter to be “civilized.” Ending Spanish
rule and the Phil-Am war that followed, the Americans introduced the public school system and brought with
them the English language, which was brought by the British the moment America was colonized as well two
centuries back. Filipinos learned from these native English speakers and were exposed to canon literature solely
Anglo-American. Without prior knowledge and skill in English, Filipinos simply memorized and imitated how
American and British writers wrote. The Filipino literature in English was not original; at least, not yet.
The Japanese period provided a brief pause to the Filipino literature in English, for only Tagalog and
Nihonggo were allowed. Post-war, short stories and the first renowned writers of the genre emerged. The Filipino
short story adopted its own voice: the text may be in English, but the inner details, terms, and expressions are
reminiscent of Filipino life. Filipino writers were no longer merely copying American and British writers.
English became theirs to own; and so the genre flourished, until the declaration of martial law in 1972 when
another interlude was needed. The recurring themes of searching for personal or cultural identity, and reality
versus illusion, were momentarily replaced by fiction engaged in social awareness. Once democracy was restored
after the dictator’s decline, the contemporary Filipino short story we are familiar with was reborn.
Because most of its writers, if not all, come from the educated class, the Filipino short story in English is
seen as a literature for the elite; in contrast with fiction in the Filipino language, which is written for the masses
and tackles simpler and more romantic themes. This perception questions nationalism, for how could the writers
be patriotic if they wrote using a foreigner’s mother tongue and if their audience were exclusive? A wider gap
between the middle to upper class and the lower class is created too. But what is commonly overlooked is how
the Filipino short story in English is structured; that even though its writers may vary from style, the stories
reflect Filipino lives similar from one another. These lives do not just picture urbanized or first-class living. They
depict the rural or even the indigenous scene, and surprisingly the struggle with poverty and the prevalent social
injustices, in a language that belongs no more to America. The localized writing is simple enough, unlike the
flamboyance with words of American or British literature, and in this directness is the sense of nationalism; for
nationalism is never measured by the language used. One can write in Filipino and for the masses, yet the writing
destroys love of country. Another can write in English, being raised with it and knowing no other language, but

Gonzales, Sellena | September 13, 2016

F. Sionil Jose, 2001 National Artist for Literature, writes about two of the Filipino lives mentioned above:
the rural and the urban. His works range from life during the Spanish period (his novel The Rosales Saga is an
example), to the first-class and lower-class life under the Marcos regime, and the contemporary life. What
distinguishes Philippine English in the short story is how local terms are fused with it, and Sionil Jose (among
other short story writers) utilizes this feature to paint pictures in words that speak closer to home. In Olvidon and
Other Stories, the reader may find paragraphs and paragraphs where such feature is present. Urban life is
depicted in Olvidon, where the author describes driving through Roxas Boulevard:

The city slipped by, the Boulevard now flanked by coconut trees. And from the bay, even
with the air-conditioning, the smell of rot and brackish water seeped into the car. Through
the alleys along Pasay he saw the ghettos, the squalid neighborhoods and the tacky
restaurants and night clubs. It was the same the last time he was here.

The paradox of Manila is thus portrayed in the excerpt, where poverty and opulence both thrive and co-exist.
This paradox is not only rampant in the time of the Marcoses’ New Society, as it is the setting of the story, but
more rampant and toxic today; against the coconut trees of Roxas Boulevard, which slowly become non-existent.
In the short story Heights, F. Sionil Jose writes through a young man’s point of view who is born and raised
in the province of Rosales, Pangasinan:

There it was - the tallest structure in town that could give me a wider, grander vista than
the buri palm. The best time to climb it would be in the early morning, just before sunrise.
The town would still be asleep and the only people in the streets would be those who
would go to church for the first mass - hardy souls who would not look sideways on their
way to church.

Evident in the example is the usage of a local plant, the buri palm, in constructing rural imagery that goes
beyond the reader’s seeing. It is as though the reader can grasp the said tree, climb it, and capture the early
morning view in Rosales, while the cool wind blows. The author also writes the common Filipino practice of
going to church for the first mass before the sun rises.

Gonzales, Sellena | September 13, 2016

She was made to sign a paper absolving the hospital in case something happened.
“And yes, Missis, what is your husband’s name?”
“Don’t put any name there,” he told the clerk.

In conversations, it is usual for Filipinos to address women as ‘miss’ or as given above, missis or misis
(from the abbreviated ‘mrs.’) when referring to a (presumably) married woman. Note how the question in the
excerpt is written to convey the tone of a typical Filipino worker may it be in a hospital or otherwise.
Further in the same story:

Her hand tightened on his arm as he took her to the ward. “What could I say, Tito?” she
asked disconsolately. “So my baby is illegitimate but at least, she will have your name.
And that is what I have now, isn’t it? Didn’t you want me to stay with you always?”

Here, the term of endearment tito is used when the author could have just written, “What could I say,
uncle?” And instead, that “What could I say, Tito?” can be heard by the reader as “Ano ang dapat kong sabihin,
Tito?” even if the line is delivered and read in English. Such simple instances prove the complexity of Philippine
English in fiction: what a person sees is a story in a foreign language occasionally borrowing words from the
local tongue, yet what the other four senses forge into the imagination is nothing but the pure Filipino scenario.

As a writer myself often influenced by Anglo-American literature, it is easy to imitate the writing of which I
am exposed to. But loyalty to my country prevails whenever I compel myself to write about the Filipino
experience, and I think how lacking my writing would be if I were to exclude the nuances I was raised with. I
could just easily write, “his gaze was as sharp as a sword” in a historical fiction; yet it would feel like cheating.
Hence I wrote, “his gaze was as sharp as the bolo” and it felt more genuine.
All of history the Filipino is taught a standard and how to comply to that standard because this is what
“civilized” peoples do, until we have conquered the language and made it our own. In poetry, prose, and
especially in short stories we vicariously live what our Filipino lives cannot bring about through other Filipino
lives. In the likes of F. Sionil Jose’s, I can walk through the Malacañan Palace or spend an afternoon inside the
grandeur of the Manila Hotel for one moment; then the next I am wandering the busy streets of Binondo or
eating in a nearly-dilapidated restaurant in Quiapo. In the eyes of the foreign reader in English, such stories are
novel, unfamiliar. The stories are not entirely novel to the Filipino reader in English, however. They are familiar
because we know how they are in our culture, but we do not know that we take them for granted.

Gonzales, Sellena | September 13, 2016

Bautista, M. S., & Bolton, K. (Eds.). (2009). Philippine English: Linguistic and Literary Perspectives.
Manila: Anvil Publishing.

Bautista, M. S. (2000). Defining Standard Philippine English: Its Status and Grammatical Features. Manila:
De La Salle University Press.

Borlongan, A. (2007). Innovations in Standard Philippine English. Current Research on English and Applied
Linguistics: A De La Salle University Special Issue.

Jose, F. S. (1989). Olvidon and Other Stories. Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House.

Gonzales, Sellena | September 13, 2016