Alonzo, Jaime Vicente C.
GELITPH – Y26
May 5, 2021
Ms. Rosallia Domingo
In reading the work of Joaquin, “A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino: An Elegy in Three
Scenes”, beyond the whimsical atmosphere of the play, Joaquin depicts an image of Manila during
the early 1900s. It’s a theme also seen in his work, Sa Loob ng Maynila, which builds what the
Philippine identity was in that period. Essentially, from these stems the question: In what ways
can Philippine literatures be used to help construct or dismantle a national identity?
In the contemporary era of globalization and interconnectedness, Filipinos look towards a
more expansive and explorative nature in the world; setting the precedent of a mass shift in the
then conceived image of a Philippine identity. Our current understanding of what is to be our
identity is a fragmented, mish-mashed fusion of a series classist, historical, and religious matters
which cause a paradox: where we live with the struggle of search said identity that will haunt us
for generations into the future (Mulder). For the centuries that preceded the modern era, there has
not been a singular “Philippine identity” as historically, though being of one race, was a mosaic of
a multitude of cultural identities (Benrad). Whatever identity that we claim to have is a natural
consequence of the colonization of the Spanish as the interrelated nature of our race, built on it a
nation we now call the Philippines and setting in motion the groundwork to coalesce into a national
and interwoven identity. This intrinsic aspect of unity and developed nationalism causes us to
search for strings and loose ends to tie which can serve as a foundation for us to build what kind
of Philippine identity we wish to uphold.
Our identity as we know now, is as much a mosaic as our shared culture among all seventhousand islands are; however, this is not to say that we do not have a common denominator that
contributes to the path towards building this identity. The use of the arts, especially literature,
paves a way wherein we are able to rebuild, not a damaged culture, but a distorted self-image
(WordsInTheBucket). Works like that of Joaquin, present a unique snapshot in the five hundred
years of existence the Philippines has gone through. The descriptions of the people walking along
the calles of Intramuros, the images envisioned of the Marasigan household in the years preceding
the Philippine involvement in the Second World War; all of the above being likened to frames in
the photobook of history.
The images of works of literature, whatever period in time they may be, are like pieces of
a puzzle that we as a nation must continuously piece together into the distant future. Each work of
Philippine literature that is written, added, and discovered is yet another piece that we add to the
ever-growing works that we have — placing the piece which fit and throwing out the ones that do
not. This is the essence of the nature of literature as part of developing the Philippine identity:
having the ability to construct it from the bottom up, and at the same time being able to dismantle
itself to rebuild it once again.
Works Cited
Abad, Gémino H. The Likhaan Anthology of Philippine Literature in English from 1900 to the
Present. 1998. Edited by Ricardo M. de Ungria et al., Diliman, Quezon City, University
Of The Philippines Press, 2005.
Benrad, Miguel A. “Philippine Culture and the Filipino Identity.” Philippine Studies, vol. 19, no.
4, 1971, pp. 573–592, www.jstor.org/stable/42632127?seq=1. Accessed 4 May 2021.
Joaquin, Nick. A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino: An Elegy in Three Scenes. Philippine Free
Press, 1966
Mulder, Niels. “Filipino Identity: The Haunting Question.” Journal of Current Southeast Asian
Affairs, vol. 32, no. 1, Apr. 2013, pp. 55–80, 10.1177/186810341303200103.
WordsInTheBucket. “The Philippines: Quest for National Identity.” Medium, 3 June 2018,
medium.com/@wordsinthebucket.com/the-philippines-quest-for-national-identity1aa198b39bf. Accessed 4 May 2021.