University of San Jose – Recoletos

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Languages and Literatures

The Literatures of Region VII

(Central Visayas)

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in Lit 1 (The Literatures of the Philippines)

Submitted and Presented by:

Jonathan O Masacal
Mil Marie B Lagumbay
Tiffany Jean S Dawa
Bench Kent J Baladhay

Submitted and Presented to:

Dr. Marietta D. Bongacales

 Central Visayas: An Introduction to Culture, Society, and Tourism

Region 7 also called Central Visayas

Region is composed of the islands of Cebu,
Bohol, Negros Oriental and Siquijor. Central
Visayas region is at the center of the country. It is
bordered by the Visayan Sea and the province of
Masbate in the north, Mindanao Sea in the south,
Negros Occidental in the west and the island of
Leyte in the east.

The terrain is characterized by highlands

with narrow coastal strips of arable land. Bohol,
however, has a level plateau upon which its
agricultural areas are concentrated. The region's
total land is 14,951.5 sq. kms.

The region had a total population of 5,404,000 in

the 2000 census. Urbanization is highest in Cebu and
lowest in Siquijor. The males numbered 2,291,637; the
females 2,290,892. The region is predominantly rural with
2,730,972 residing in rural areas and 1,851,557 living in
urban centers.

Cebu is known for its narrow coastlines, limestone

plateaus, and coastal plains, all characteristics of a typical tropical island. Cebu also has
predominant rolling hills and rugged mountain ranges traversing the northern and southern lengths
of the island. Cebu's steep mountains reach over 1,000 meters. Flat tracts of land can be found in
towns of Bogo, San Remigio, Medellin,
and Daanbantayan at the northern tip of the
province.

Its capital is Cebu City, the oldest city in

the country, which forms part of the Cebu
Metropolitan Area together with 4 neighboring
cities Mandaue City, Lapu-Lapu City, Talisay
City, Danao City and 8 other municipalities. Cebu
is served by Mactan-Cebu International
Airport in Mactan Island, 30 mins drive from
downtown Cebu City.

Cebu is one of the most developed provinces in the country and the main center of
commerce, trade, education and industry in the central and southern parts of the archipelago. It has
five-star hotels, casinos, white sand beaches, world-class golf courses, convention centers, and
shopping malls. The UK-based Condenast Travellers Magazine named Cebu the 8th best Asian-
Pacific island destination in 2005, and 7th in 2004.
 Bohol is a popular tourist destination with its
beaches and resorts. The Chocolate Hills, numerous
mounds of limestone formations, is the most popular
attraction. The island of Panglao, located just
southwest of Tagbilaran City, is home to some of the
finest beaches in the country. The Philippine Tarsier,
considered by some to be the smallest primates, is
indigenous to the island.

Negros Oriental has, for a long time, been a

major supplier of electricity to its neighboring provinces in
the Visayas with its excess power capacity generated by the
192.5-MW Palinpinon geothermal plant.[29] This plant has
recently been expanded with an additional 49MW capacity,
bringing total power output of the province to over
240MW. Despite the huge power excess of the Province,
other power sources such as hydro, wind and solar are
being explored to provide additional power capacities that
can be sold to neighboring areas.

Manjuyod White Sandbar, often dubbed as the "Maldives of the Philippines"

With its vast fertile land resources, Negros Oriental's other major industry is agriculture. The
primary crops
are sugarcane, sweetcorn, coconutand rice.[16] In the coastal
areas, fishing is the main source of income. People are also
involved in cattle ranches, fish ponds and rubberplantations,
especially in Bayawan City. There are also mineral deposits
like gold, silver and copper found throughout the inner areas
of the province.

The province is already emerging as a major technological center in Visayas, with its
growing business process outsourcing (BPO) that has started to penetrate the province's secondary
cities and other technology-related industries. Vehicle assembly is a growing industry in Amlan.
Construction of mass housing and subdivisions is very evident in the periphery of Dumaguete City
and is expected to spill over into the province's secondary cities and fast-growing towns.

Siquijor's long-time reputation as a place of magic and sorcery both attracts and repulses
visitors. Siquijor is also well known for its festivals that focus on healing rituals where incantations
are sung while the old folks make potions out of herbs, roots, insects and tree barks.
Among the many attractions are the beaches, caves, waterfalls, Bandila-an natural park and
butterfly sanctuary. The most popular of them are the Cambugahay Falls and the old Balete tree,
both located in Lazi.

As a whole, the region is hilly and mountainous. The famous Chocolate Hills looks like
mounds of chocolate in the summer. Mt. Bolinsasayao and Kanlaon Volcano are but two of the
mountains and volcanoes in the region. The flatlands of the region serve as the land for farming and
other cottage industries.
 Local and National Writers from Central Visayas

Vicente Rama - was a Filipino Visayan legislator,

publisher, and writer from Cebu, Philippines.
Hailed as the Father of Cebu City, he authored the
bill for its cityhood which was approved into law
by October 20, 1936. Other than being a
newspaperman, Rama wrote novels, short stories,
poems, editorials, columns, and essays with the
pseudonyms Datu Dakila, Kolas Tabian, Justo
Recio Recto, Mahomet Ben Yakub, Rectum
Clarum. He also wrote two story
collections: Larawan (Portrait) in 1921 and Aegri
Somnia in 1922. He also penned the Sa Bung-aw sa mga Kasal-anan (On the Precipice of
Transgression), which was a novel serialized in Bag-ong Kusog from 1933 to 1934, Ang Tinagoan
(The Secret), also a novel that was printed from August 18, 1933, March 9, 1934), and an
adaptation of Jose Riza's novel. His newspaper, Bag-ong Kusog, also became the vehicle for the
literary arts, publishing the works of fiction writers, poets, and essayists. It printed the first ever
feminist novel written in Cebuano, Lourdes by Gardeopatra Gador Quijano. Even after Bag-ong
Kusog failed to release new issues after the war, he continued to write, producing the novels Donya
Marcosa in 1947 and Ang Silot ni Bathala (God's Punishment) in 1948. While current forms of
writing are characterized with aestheticized and distanced style, his was with distinct
contemporaneity.

Antonio M. Abad - was a prominent poet, fictionist, playwright and

essayist from Cebu, Philippines. Abad frequently wrote in, his native
language, Cebuano, and Spanish. He was a strong advocate of the
Spanish language and Hispano-Filipino culture when its use was
discouraged during the American colonial period in the Philippines.
Abad was one of the leading contributors of Hispano-Filipino literature
during his time, producing novels and plays criticizing the occupation of
the islands by the Americans. His works would later be known as part of
the Golden Age of Fil-Hispanic Literature (1898-1941). Two of his
novels went on to win the Premio Zóbel, the oldest literary award in the
Philippines, in 1928 and 1929. Abad taught Spanish at the Far Eastern
University. In 1952, he moved to the University of the Philippines
Diliman to found the Department of Spanish (now, the
Department of European Languages) at the then, College of
Liberal Arts.

Erlinda Kintanar Alburo is a prolific contemporary Cebuano

language scholar and promoter of the language. She is the
Director of the Cebuano Studies Center of the University of San
Carlos. She is an active member of Women in Literary
Arts (WILA), and writes poetry both in English and Cebuano.
She teaches on the anthropology of linguistics.
 Marietta D. Bongcales is a local author from Cebu City who
wrote a book about Rizal, English 7 college manual ‘Business
Correspondence’ and research articles such as “The Sectoral
and Skills Mismatch between the Senior High School Program
and the Top In-Demand Jobs and Projected In-Demand Jobs in
the Province of Cebu, Philippines” and “The Philippine and
U.S. Expanded Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA): An
Analysis”. She is also a trainer of ‘Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages’

Rene Estella Amper was born on October 18, 1940 at Boljoon, Cebu. He studied philosophy at the
University of San Carlos and transferred at the South Western University to study medicine. He
became an active member of the Diliman Writer’s Workshop on 1968. She writes poem in both
Filipino and Cebuano language. One of his collections is the Twelve Palmas which was published
1969. He was awarded the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Poetry.

Vicente Sotto was born in Cebu City on April 18, 1877 to

Marcelino Sotto and Pascuala Yap. He finished his secondary
education at the University of San Carlos (formerly Colegio de
San Carlos), Cebu City. He obtained the degree of Bachelor of
Laws and Judicial Science and passed the bar examinations in
1907. He is known as the father of Cebuano Journalism,
Language, and Literature. Sotto published Ang Suga, the first
newspaper in Cebuano in 1900.

Sotto's play "Paghigugma sa Yutang Natawhan" (Love of

Native Land), dramatized the Cebuano people's heroic struggle
against Spanish feudal rule in the modern realist mode. He
also wrote the first published Cebuano short story ("Maming",
in the maiden issue of Ang Suga).

He wrote, directed, and produced the first Cebuano play,

Elena, a play in three acts. It was first performed at the Teatro Junquera on May 18, 1902. The play
established Sotto's reputation as a playwright.
Letter to Pedro, U.S. Citizen, Also Called Pete
By: Rene Estrella

Pete, old friend,

there isn’t really much change
in our hometown since you left.

This morning I couldn’t find anymore

the grave of Simeona, the cat we buried
at the foot of Miguel’s mango tree,
when we were grade four,
after she was hit by a truck while crossing
the street. The bulldozer has messed it up
while making the feeder road into the mountains
to reach the hearts of the farmers.

The farmers come down every Sunday

to sell their agony and their sweat for
a few pesos, lose in the cockpit or get
drunk on the way home.

A steel bridge named after the congressman’s wife

now spans the gray river where Tasyo, the old
goat, had split the skin of our young lizards
to make us a man years ago.

The long blue hills where we

use to shoot birds with slingshot or spend
the summer afternoons we loved so much doing
nothing in the tall grass have been bought
by the mayor’s son. Now there’s barbed wire
fence about them, the birds have gone away.

The mayor owns a big sugar plantation, three

new cars, and a mansion with the gate overhung
with sampaguita. Inside the gate
are guys who carry a rifle and a pistol.

We still go to Konga’s store for rice,

and sardines and sugar and nails for the coffin.
Still only a handful go to Mass on Sundays.
In the church the men talk, sleep, the children play.
The priest is sad.
Last night the storm came and blew away
the cornflowers. The cornfield are full of cries.
 Your cousin, Julia has just become a whore.
She liked good clothes, good food, big money.

That’s why she became a whore.

Now our hometown has seven whores.

Peter old friend,

every time we have good reason to get drunk
and be carried home in a wheelbarrow,
we always remember you. Oh we miss
both Pete and Pedro.

Remember us to your American wife,

your lucky bastard, Islaw, your cock-eyed
uncle, now calls himself Stanley
after he began wearing clothes you sent
him last Christmas.

P.S. Tasyo, the old goat,

sends your lizard his warmest congratulations.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

By examining the tension embedded within its lines, “Letter to Pedro, U.S. Citizen, Also
Called Pete” by Rene Estela Amper sends us into the tug war between tradition and modernity.

Reading closely the stanzas, one can cull out the different images that symbolically
intersperse with one another as the clash between the old and the new becomes apparent in every
line. For instance, the image of Simeona, the cat and the recollection of the persona about her burial
and the image of the bulldozer ramming down the road convey the pervasiveness of modernity and
progress to the idyllic ways of the barrio people, especially the children.

In the third stanza, the image defies gender role, which is actually a manifestation of
modernism, wherein, women assert their rights in the patriarchal society. This idea is symbolized by
the lines

A steel bridge named after the congressman’s wife

now spans the gray river where Tasyo, the old
goat, had split the skin of our young lizards
to make us a man many years ago.

The steel bridge with the congressman’s wife may be compared to the women as
empowered (signified by the steel bridge) individuals and splitting “the skin of our young lizards”
to the pain young boys have to undergo in order to become men.

Furthermore, modernity proves to have its downside also. It can hamper one’s freedom.
Modernity doesn’t ensure us the liberty to enjoy what we want to do. It becomes a “barbed wire
fence” that drives the birds away. Indeed, technology snatches us away from the simple pleasures of
life like “shooting the birds with slingshot or spending the summer afternoons we loved so much
doing.” Now, most of us would spend most of the time in front of the television or surfing the
internet.

The poem’s tension lies in the contrasting images and the motifs embedded in the lines. The
persona presents the “then” and the “now” respectively, implying a direction or arrow which steers
from tradition to modernity. It leads the readers to pay attention to an important issue of
globalization. Here, the persona favors change. The irony in the first stanza creates an impact only
when the readers realize that what he is cataloguing in the proceeding stanzas is actually the
changes that take place in his hometown. The poem commences with the persona extending his
regards to Pete’s American wife and tells him how his cock-eyed Uncle Islaw “now calls himself
Stanley/after he began wearing the clothes you sent him last Christmas.”

In terms of how the author wrote the poem, he uses some of the Literary Devices and these
are:

Irony:
Pete, old friend,
there isn’t really much change
in our hometown since you left.”
Metaphor:
The farmers come down every Sunday
to sell their agony and their sweat for
a few pesos, lose in the cockpit or get
drunk on the way home.
Personification:
Last night the storm came and blew away
the cornflowers. The corn fields are full of cries.

INTERPRETATION/MESSAGE

The poem mainly concerns about a man who moved to the US with a western wife and his
friend who was sending him letter. His friend updates him on the things that happened in his old
home. The poem clearly tells the old life the main characters have. The author tells us of corruption
within the society and the difference of the past and the present. There are also sentimental
meanings of childhood long gone as the main characters face their present.

Economically and socially, the poem suggests a lot of problems as the mayor keeps getting
rich and the farmers are still poor.

The mayor is the politically entity as well as the congressman’s wife. The mayor has slowly
taken the land and has grown richer also putting into danger the land the characters had in their
boyhood. The bridge that was named after the congressman’s wife had also laid waste to the
memory of their circumcision for that was the place they committed it.
 The farmers as mentioned were going down the mountains to sell their agony and sweat
which means the economical strain they have in their town while a mayor keeps getting richer.
Keeping in mind there might be corruption or political imbalance at play here.

The old memories of the characters are being slowly taken down as the old town slowly
progresses and changes throughout the course of time.

This letter literature is a sign of a real friendship. It’s not all about political complaints or
culture. The theme is all about friendship commitment and the best kind of platonic love among
friends that will last forever.
 Chambers of the Sea
Edith L. Tiempo

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us and we drown.
----T.S Eliot

Call your Tio Teban.” Amalia nodded at her youngest son. This is very inconsiderate of
Teban, went her hurried flurried mind. “Tell him we are waiting lunch for him.”

Tony flushed with importance. He slid off his chair and ran toward the bathroom where Tio
Teban had haughtily locked himself in. The twins, Deena and Mario, were seated together on one
side of the table; their identically turned-up noses were crinkled in a superior way. The twins had
unabashed eyes; very discomforting to people because of the too interested look in them. Their
faces were quite alike, for all that one was a girl and the other a boy. Just now they broke out in
suppressed grins at the thought of Tio Teban’s grim and somewhat undignified retreat an hour
before. Amalia and Miguel, and their oldest child Daniel, remained grave. Tony’s childish treble
and his tapping on the bathroom door cut through the continuous background of freely- flowing
water from the faucet beyond the door and the defiant plop-plop of Tio Teban’s hands beating the
soap and the dirt out of his undershirts and drawers and handkerchiefs. Whenever Tio Teban got
indignant about something, he took to washing furiously his soiled undershirts and drawers and
handkerchiefs. It seemed as though the sight of his intimate wear blowing fresh and white on the
clothesline in the yard washed his soul clean of resentment, too.

“Tio Teban! Tio Teban!” Tony’s knocks became frantic and his voice rose. The child
sounded shrilly determined.

Pak! Pak! went the hands behind the door. The rhythm of the beating was broken. Then
abruptly the silence was complete and almost weird. The faces at the table grew anxious.

“Get away!” The man tight hiss of Tio Teban swished out suddenly. Tony jumped as from a
lash. His face as he ran back to the table was screwed up in confusion and he blubbered on the edge
of tears.

“Never mind,” Amalia soothed her youngest. “ Tio Teban did not mean to frighten you.”

Thus it was minutes later when Miguel and Amalia had relaxed themselves and the children
around the table. Daniel observed, then, “It was Deena and Mario. Deena and Mario laughed when
he slid coming up the back stairs with a port of rice.” At this calm observation of his oldest brother,
Tony looked at his parents expectantly. Deena and Mario were very studious with their food.
Miguel looked up his oldest child, at Daniel’s pimpled virtuous face. Sometimes Miguel’s firstborn
irritated him; his voice, for one thing, was just starting to settle and it cracked and squeaked like an
uncertain saw. Miguel put down his fork slowly. A frown crowded his brows together.
 “Later, later,” Amalia mumbled hastily. “Daniel!” she snapped, when the pimpled face
stopped chewing to speak up once more. At his mother’s level look Daniel shrugged and piously
took up his spoon.

Often Tio Teban had threatened to himself to leave the house and return to Bangan. The
children drove him frantic. Even after five years he could not get used to them. Entrenched in his
own room, he thought with satisfaction how the children might now be squirming with their guilt ---
--for he had refused to eat his lunch. Directly after hanging out the wash he had gone to his room.
And he was staying there. Amalia was a fool about her children. If they were his children he would
know what to do with them. Those twins, Deena and Mario, they would feel the edge of his tongue
as well as the edge of his belt. And that self-righteous Daniel! -----He would put him in his place,
conceited squirt! He thought with choking resentment of the way he had deteriorated in this house.
He, with an M.A in Political Science, washing underwear! It was those misbegotten brats. He was
both powerless and indignant at how the twins crept up on him when he was most engrossed ------
sometimes at the siesta hour when he was writing his letters to his numerous far-away friends or to
relatives in Bangan, sometimes at bedtime when he was reading Cervantes or Toynbee or Rizal------
and suddenly how that peculiar feeling would hover in the air and ruffle his composure hard-won
through the hours of reading, and he would look up from the page to see the two bland round faces
staring from around the door. Four solemn eyes round and black and avid for something Tio Teban
hastily refused to define even to himself. At first the little monsters even got into his room and made
paper boats and planes out of letters in his desk drawers, tearing around the room with them,
shrieking back and forth, pummeling each other when they got excited. He kept a straight cold face
throughout although inside he quaked with horror when their hands dived into the drawers for his
letters. He remembered the time he saw Daniel reading one of the sheets which the twins had made
into a paper boat. It was one of those he had failed to retrieve. The sly smirk on Daniel’s face as he
looked him shamelessly in the eyes and handed him back the letter! Even until now he shook inside
to think of it. What right had that young lout to read what people wrote to him of their secret sleves,
their private feeling divulged to him in complete confidence. What right had he to act amused like
somebody superior! And was he exempt from pain and worry just because he was not a grown man
yet? But Tio Teban was triumphant about one thing. At least the twins were more careful, since the
time he had snatched the letters from their hands and shaken them till their heads wobbled on their
necks. Now their vandalism was confirmed to the doorway. It was true it was disconcerting to have
their eyes on him and his book for minutes at a time. It even occurred to him they might just be
wanting to romp with him-----what a thought!-----but all the same he was he was glad he had
frightened them out of his room.

With all these Tio Teban did not think he would ever go back to Bangan, even if his father
asked him. And he knew the old man would not. The old man could not forgive his only son for
turning out to be so like him in looks but quite unlike him in ways. His father had only a distant
contempt for what to him was his son’s womanish disposition-----His flower garden of eighteen
varieties of roses, his small framed watercolors which he gave away to favorite relatives and
friends, his strolls along the countryside, his perpetual reading until he had to get a pair of glasses
and never quite got rid of that forward bend of his head and the squint of his eyes as though he were
always in a dazed scrutiny of people and objects. Gradually as the old man grew physically less
able, he threw the responsibilities of overseeing the rice land on his son-in-law, the husband of Tio
Teban’s younger sister Mina. Antero should have been his father’s son, Tio Teban thought in grim
amusement. They were so alike in their relentless preoccupation with fences and seedlings and
ditches and patient sweating tenants.
 How he had come to live with his Cousin Amalia’s family he could tell to the last detail. It
had been deliberate from the time he first thought of leaving Bangan to the day he moved into this
room. It was a pleasant room overlooking the orange grove bordering the woods lot that had
belonged to Miguel’s father and to his father before him. Why have I come here, Tio Teban had
thought to himself the first time he had taken possession of the room and looked out at the tops of
the orange trees and at the woods beyond. Leaving my own father’s land to live on another man’s,
with another mans’ family. But he had to get away from Bangan. His father’s remote contempt was
no longer to be met with a thick face. There was that odd speculative look, too, that lurked in his
father’s eyes whenever he looked at him. And his older sister Quirina , a widow, was embittered at
him for allowing Antero to usurp his rightful place.

“And what happens when Father dies? Antero and his children will get the land. A family
bearing an entirely different name will own the land! Even if my own son, had lived I would not
have allowed him to meddle with the land---no, not as long as there is still one of us with the name
of Ferrer alive! Now there is Antero, with Father’s eyes still wide open, to say nothing of you----
although you’d rather poke at your flowers and your books----“ She made his engrossments sound
indecent. It was oppressive. Unthinkable the way they expected him to canter around on horse and
bury himself in rice and rice and rice. All the same he could have stood it if he was sure it was only
that-----only their selfish desire to gain possession of his time, his life. But gradually he became
aware of another kind of interest, even from his father----a surprised curiosity about him, a frank
amazement, almost prying, on the part of Quirina. What made up his mind was Quirina’s shameless
question which even now he burned in embarrassment to recall.

“And that reminds me,” she said before he could say anything, “the Edward leaves
tomorrow for Manila.”

She swept out of the room with the fat handbag tucked under her arm, leaving Tio Teban to
decipher the last cryptic remark. Pulling off his pajamas he remembered how her look had darted
out of the window and he decided she meant she must get the oranges plucked that day to be sent to
her sister in Manila by the Edward in the morning. She had been reminding herself about if for
days. He shaved, only a little disturbed by the scrutiny of the open-mouthed Tony. After watering
the two ferns at his window he took his breakfast by himself in the kitchen. The other children were
at school and Miguel had already gone to the bank. For a while he heard the tap of Amalia’s heels
downstairs and then he heard the gate shut as she went out. The house was quiet.

This was the time of the morning he could call all his own. He read, or he walked in the
orchard or in the woods. Hemmed in there by ancient mangoes and guavas and tamarinds he
sometimes forgot the sea was just nearby, and especially on a day of high winds there was
something incongruous to him in the roar of the surf breaking through the walls of trees. Usually he
walked across the woods lot and out on a path heading toward a part of the beach where a
fisherman’s shed leaned sideways in the sun. The shed was strung up inside with nets and traps to
be mended. He often stopped in the shed to watch the divers out at seas setting up a fish trap or
repairing the stakes of a corral that had been damaged by strong winds.
“Would you like us to go the beach, Tony?”

“Now?”
 “Yes.” As the boy’s face lighted up he added, “Only don’t cry and say you are hungry or
you want to swim or something. Remember now.”

He had taken the twins to the beach a number of times to watch the men come in from the
sea. The bottom of their boats piled with gleaming andohao or adlo, the men swelled and swaggered
a little as they came ashore and titillated the haggling market retailers with their catch, Or he and the
twins would wander off one afternoon to a porting of the beach scattered over with salvage thrown
up by waves. One time thy came upon a crowd staring fascinated at a whale flung up on the shore.
The twins quickly squirmed through the crowd but he had to wait nearly fifteen minutes before he
could come close to see the huge mammal. It was quite dead; perhaps, wounded fatally by some
fisherman’s harpoon, it had evaded capture but was soon washed ashore dead. It was the sea
equivalent of a carabao. Think of that dark, thick skin, he observed to himself, that compact body,
more animal than fish for its tremendous bulk.

When he and Tony reached the shed it was empty. All the men were out on the sea setting
up a new fish corral. The boy wandered out of the shed after a while and started to build mounds on
the sand, and the early morning sun glinted on his hair as he bent over his work. Out on the sea the
naked men dived by turns from a baroto, and their skins, too, glinted in the sun. Their shouts came
to Tio Teban, shouts full of glee and yet so far away. His look went beyond the men to the white
cumulus clouds piled above the horizon, and then worked back over the whole stretch of undulating
sea. Fishes and prawns and squids, he thought, lurked in the sea. Under the gently waving surface
was active life. And the eyes of man could only steal brief glances at that life. And somehow,
looking at the traps and the naked diving men, he felt sad. There was a diver standing upright,
straight and slim in the baroto. He dripped wet and glistened darkly in the sunlight. Tio Teban
noticed the clean lines of his form, the hips that tapered to the quick legs, the flashing brown arms.
Like a supplicant the diver raised his arms stiffly, flexed his knees and plunged into the sea. The sea
rose around him, receiving him in a calyx of foam.

On the sand Tony had built three creditable mounds.

Coming home, he and Tony took the longer way skirting the woods lot. Through his
nonchalant enjoyment of the morning a mood of self-questioning sneaked in and would not be
ignored. What am I doing here, playing nursemaid to a boy not even mine? What am I making out
of my days-----where are my garden and my painting? What had he done here but the creditable
mound of a Master of Arts to be swept away at the wash of a wave! Since he arrived from Bangan
he had not painted a single watercolor nor frown a single bloom. And a question even more
disturbing------why am I not bothered by the loss of these occupations? What is wrong with me,
anyway, that I should have betrayed myself into mean domestic involvements? In all these years
there was one thing that comforted him, though: he was still essentially untrammeled; with Miguel
and Amalia he could never be forced to do anything against his will. Ultimately, it was still true that
he could involve himself or not as he pleased. Always as he pleased.

They were now in the orange grove. Beside him Tony tugged at his hand for attention.

“Tio Teban, Tio Teban! You will take me again to the beach, won’t you?”

“I will see. That depends.”

 That afternoon as Miguel was leaving the house for the office he was met at the gate by the
telecommunications messenger. The telegram was addressed to Esteban Ferrer and it came from
Bangan. Miguel signed for it. As the messenger rode off on his bicycle, Miguel turned the paper
over in his hand.

“Teban!” he called out, suddenly realizing it was almost two o’clock and he must be off.

Tio Teban thrust an inquiring head out of the window. He hurried out when he saw what it
was.

In his room Tio Teban sat staring at the opened piece of blue paper. It was from Antero. The
old man was dead. His father.

Dead. . . . Quite without reason he remembered the day his father had stopped under the
tamarind tree where Tio Teban had been sitting for nearly an hour in front of his easel. Why he
should think of that incident he could not understand. Perhaps because his father was dead and that
was one of the times the two of them might have spoken, forgetting self and prejudice. He had been
looking at the east corner of the rice field and trying to decide how to get the morning light not
harsh, and he was rapidly putting on the large strokes of the watercolor as his father came up. He
was hurrying, as the light on the east corner was quite what he wanted just then. He thought his
father would pass him, and was uneasy when he stopped and looked at the picture. The old man
tipped the front brim of his balangot hat a little over his eyes to shut out the glare as he leaned above
the painting. For two or three minutes he stood like that, not saying anything, and all the time the
painting grew swiftly under the sure, easy strokes of the brush. The old man straightened backward,
still looking at him. The long eyes under the white brows were deep and long-lashed and just then
had a puzzled squint.

“I have only come from the municipio. They asked if I would lead the Red Cross drive.”

Tio Tean laughed. “You should never have bought the arm for that man.”

His father said quickly, “No, Teban. I told them I was too old. But I would ask you to do it.”

A long line of yellow-gold streaked downward on the painting as his hand dropped to his
side.

“What?”

“Will you do it?”

“Of course not,” he said irritably. “What did they say?”

“What do you think?”

The painting was spoiled now. He cleaned his brushes and started putting them away. His
father turned and walked off. As Teban folded his chair he saw the old man’s figure on one end of
the field to look at the east corner. . . .
 Now his father was dead. Antero said that funeral was in a week’s time, as soon as Tio
Teban arrived. He laid the telegram on the table, put on his shoes and walked out of the house. He
strayed through the orchard and out of the woods and was soon on the beach where he and Tony
were this morning. It was close to four o’clock and the shadows of the coconuts were slanted all
around on the sand. The men were not diving now and the sea was undisturbed by human voices.
But the voices in Tio Teban were far from still. He could already hear Quirina’s shrill tones
demanding atrocious possibilities from him. Both his sisters would expect him to take over, now
that their father was dead. Was that it after all?

He left the shed and walked along the shore toward a large bend. On that side of the beach
were a few huts of deep-sea fisherman, and high up on the sand where some vines had partly
covered the ground under the coconut trees, were five beached boats. Farther ahead he saw one boat
that had come in. A group of people on the shore, about seven or eight fisherman and their wives,
were looking at the catch laid out on the sand. A couple of dark things, whale or porpoise, maybe,
or some other sea monsters. They were each about four or five feet long.

As he stood over the creatures lying side by side he saw with horror that they were truly
monsters of the deep. Strange, terrifying, half-human. Dark coarse hair sprouted from the heads and
fell about their long horse-like faces. Slimy hair grew on the spots where human hair would grow.
Their bodies were a dark grey-brown, and the epithelium had a thick, rough, pore-ridden texture.
Only the fin that formed the base of each figure was fish-like. Were they perhaps man and wife? Or
twins? He pushed off the horrible thought. As the waves washed over them, the long hair swayed
and streamed out briefly and swayed again.

He realized with another shock that these were mermaid and merman in the popular tales.
But they must be beautiful and graceful in the deep! He remembered the straight young diver he had
seen that morning. He was sure these creatures were lovely in their home. At the mouth of a cave a
mother might nurse her young. She would lean there quietly while the lines of her form ripped and
undulated with the waves. Her hair would stream softly around her face and her fin would swish
gently. Why could they not have been left to die in the sea? Who was to delight in this ugly
nakedness?

At least Tio Teban knew one thing for himself as he turned and walked rapidly away.

ELEMENTS IN THE SHORT STORY “CHAMBERS OF THE SEA”

Characters:

 Tio Teban - The main character of the story. His behavior is said to be womanish.

 Amalia - Teban’s cousin who is a homemaker.

 Miguel - Amalia’s husband.

 Daniel - Amalia and Miguel’s eldest son.

  Deena and Mario – Amalia and Miguel’s twin girl and boy who more than one time brought
nothing but problem to Teban.

 Tony - Amalia and Miguel’s youngest kid.

 Teban’s father - A proprietor of a rice land.

 Quirina and Mina - Teban’s sisters.

 Antero - Mina’s husband who at the scene of the short narrative manages the Ferrer family’s
rice land

Settings:

 Bangan

 Dumaguete

 Amalia’s Residence

 Beach

Plot:

Esteban “Tio Teban” Ferrer was originally a indigen of Bangan where he lived with his
father and sisters, Quirina and Mina. The Ferrer household owns a rice land. They are anticipating
Teban to inherit after his father’s decease. However, Teban prefers tending to his rose garden,
reading, and painting to mucking around in mud and riding a horse, things his father disapproves of.
When Teban’s reluctance lead to his brother-in-law, Antero to pull off the lands, his sisters berate
him for stoping the Ferrer household name. Fed up with the non-acceptance at place, Teban moved
to Dumaguete to take up alumnus work in the university.

For five old ages, Teban lived in the coastal metropolis of Dumaguete with his cousin
Amalia, her husband Miguel, and their four kids; Daniel, Deena, Mario, and Tony. Despite having
his M. A. in Political Science, Teban is dismayed at assisting Amalia with jobs in the family and
feeling exposed whenever the kids invaded his privateness. Yet despite the convulsion in his life,
Teban spends his free clip by sauntering in his cousin’s grove towards the way taking to a portion of
the beach where the fishermen work. Whenever he got to the beach, he would witness the fishermen
haling in and spliting their gimmick, cyberspaces, and boats sailing to and from the sea.

One afternoon, Teban received telegram informing him of his father’s decease. Expecting
the ailments he’d receive from his sisters sing the rice land, Teban walked to the beach, merely this
clip, he witnessed the incredible. A group of fishermen had caught a Merman and a mermaid.

Point of View:

Third person point of view – Omniscient

Conflict:

 Man vs. Man

 Man vs. Self

 Man vs. Society

Theme:

Understand and tolerate sexual or gender identities beyond the misconstrued-passed-on

beliefs on sexual categorization.

INTERPRATATION OF THE SHORT STORY

The story Chambers of the Sea by Edith Tiempo subtly and delicately depicts a man named
Teban Ferrer or Tio Teban (Uncle Teban), as addressed by the narrator who grows from Bangan
and his diaspora to Dumaguete, whose growing up and eventual maturity is put into a test,
interrogation, scrutiny and suspicion based from his sexuality or normativity and performativity.
Hence, the haunting question whether Tio Teban is gay, homosexual or queer is focused in the lens
of queer theory and analysis.

Tio Teban is in the midst of strong binary opposites where characters are expected according
to performativity and heteronormativity. His family from Bangan, with its massive land, on the left
force and his newfound family with his cousin in Dumaguete on the right. His family consists of
strong males: his father who hates Tio Teban's womanish behaviour, Antero, his brother-in-law who
physically tills the land of the entire family and his sister Quirina who wants him to continue his
father's legacy of the land. The social expectation of Tio Teban's family is high based from his
supposed performance as male and heterosexuality.

In Dumaguete, with its boundless sea, Tio Teban has more solace with the softer, weaker
environment. His cousin Amalia is a typical housewife who performs social role according to her
sexuality, a mother to four children. More often than not, Amalia's roles are extended to Tio Teban
when the former runs for family errands. His wife's husband is a passive male who never questions
his behaviour for he exhibits a quiet male who provides.

Amalia's honest-to-goodness rowdy children interrogate and criticize Tio Teban's different
behaviour. Their ill-humoured laughter is like Tio Teban's immediate family who harshly condemns
his queerness. Because he does not perform and he is against the norm of a typical male, as
expected he was minuscule to a weak, sluggish and odd guy. Mentally, they are lashing him out for
his queerness. His father, who is supposed to understand him for who he is, is the first to ostracize
him. His judgement is based from Tio Teban's "womanish disposition" and could not forgive his
only son for turning out to be so like him in looks but quite unlike him in his ways (p. 103). Tio
Teban's father has contempt on his inclination to cultivating a rose garden, drawing and painting
using watercolours, his strolling in the countryside, his perpetual reading of literatures, his stature
and squinting in his eyes. All these are beyond his father's acceptance.

But above all these artefacts, do we see him retaliate against his family even if they offend,
hate and even denounce him for being different for failing to "satisfy their selfish desire" of wanting
him to be that he is not. He felt violated and exposed. From a dilemma between "fight or flight", he
chooses a quiet, resolute decision of leaving his family in the pursuit of graduate studies in
Dumaguete where he successfully finished a Master's degree in Political Science. It can be gleaned
from a psychological point of view that he displaced his silent rebellion against his family into
scholastic pursuit where his family could not reach him in the mental and intellectual plane. He
chooses his battle with an intellectual elegance against the rough furrows of the land. His identity,
though different, abnormal and queer from the judgement of his family and the children of Amalia,
Tio Teban is happy with himself. His identity for himself is not an issue, not a question, not a
problem but rather a choice. His stature only becomes beleaguered when people once again
interrogate and gauge him according to his sex and role. In this text, Tio Teban becomes a role
model of a positivist existentialist who finds happiness in the midst of people's too much
preoccupation of his identity. He chooses as he pleases without personal qualms. He has no identity
crisis in contrast with the popular notion. Their notion is also affected, influenced and enveloped as
well by socially constructed formulated criticisms against not-so-typical male like Tio Teban. The
question on what he is doing in his room in Dumaguete is more of a personal introspection in terms
of economics. He, with an MA degree, remains docile in his cousin's house. He is again forced by
society to work according to his heterosexuality. The choice is his.

Suspicion of his identity versus his personal choice as opposed to the social expectation and
labelling of his besmirched gender identity is subjected to a test ending in a crystal clear dramatic
close of the story. He received a letter on the demise of his father. Tio Teban became a persona with
two faces as he runs to the sea. He summons his grief yet finds happiness on thinking on the death
of a father who is greatly prejudiced against him. Without his father, there is more of himself,
liberty. The hegemony of power wielded and created by his family only oppresses him. Thus, with
his father's death there is more personal emancipation from the obtrusive family and social
expectation rather than lamentation. The queer becomes clear. He rejoices on his true self. He is
neither a man nor a woman; neither a mythical merman nor a mermaid but a person. He is happy of
what he is without a label. His queerness, from the people's perception, is only a myth. All the
world is a stage, and people have different roles to play. A man needs to be happy whether with a
minor or a major role in this vast world of identities only constructed by men and women. As the
narrator clinches it "At least Tio Teban knew one thing for himself as he turned and walked rapidly
away." Tio Teban is "He is what he is" a hierros gamos, a union of male and a female; not gay
neither homosexual but a person with an appointed corner in the sky, with a niche in the land and
has his own "chamber in the sea"...
 FOLKSONGS FROM CENTRAL VISAYAS

Usahay
Pilita Corrales

Usahay magadamgo ako

Nga ikaw ug ako nagkahigugmaay
Nganong damguhon ko ikaw
Damguhon sa kanunay sa akong kamingaw

Usahay magamahay ako

Nganong nabuhi pa ning kalibutan
Nganong gitiaw-tiawan
Ang gugma ko kanimo, kanimo daw

Nganong damguhon ko ikaw

Damguhon sa kanunay sa akong kamingaw
Usahay magamahay ako
Nganong nabuhi pa ning kalibutan
Nganong gitiaw-tiawan
Ang gugma ko kanimo, kanimo daw

Nganong gitiaw-tiawan
Ang gugma ko kanimo, kanimo daw
Nganong gitiaw-tiawan
Ang gugma ko kanimo, kanimo daw

Si Pilemon
Si Pilemon, si Pilemon namasol sa kadagatan.
Nakakuha, nakakuha og isdang tambasakan.
Gibaligya, gibaligya sa merkadong guba—
Ang halin pulos kura, ang halin pulos kura, Igo lang ipanuba.

Ako Kini
Ako kini si Angi,
Ang opisyo ko’y panahi;
Adlaw ug gabii
Kanunay ako nagtahi.

Bisan nako’g unsaon,

Wala’y kuwartang matigum,
Kay ang akong pagpanahi
Igo ra’s panginabuhi.
 QUIZ

1 – 4. What are the provinces in Central Visayas?

Answers: Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor

5. He is known as the father of Cebuano Journalism, Language, and Literature.

Answer: Vicente Sotto

6 – 8. What are the literary devices present in the poem “Letter to Pedro”

Answers: Irony, Metaphor, and Personification

9 – 10. Give at least two characters from the story “Chambers of the Sea”

Answers: Tio Teban, Amalia, Miguel, Daniel, Deena and Mario, Tony,Quirina and Mina,
Teban’s father, and Antero

ESSAY:

1. (5pts) Why do you think the story was entitled “Chambers of the Sea”

Answer: The story was entitled “Chambers of the Sea” because Tio Teban realizes after his
father’s death that whatever gender he has, he still have his own place in this world surrounded by
many people that could judge him. Tio Teban realized that people like him has a role, part, and
place on this earth.

2. (5pts) Explain the message of the poem “Letter Pedro” and relate it the status quo of our country

Answer: The answer could focus on politics, culture of migration of Filipinos to different
countries, friendship, and community status.
References/Sources:

 http://www.etravelpilipinas.com/about_philippines/region7_central_visayas.htm
 http://adventurephilippines.tripod.com/id18.html
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siquijor
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negros_Oriental
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Rama
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Abad
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Abellana
 https://ejournals.ph/function/author.php?id=16076
 https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/2142316307_Marietta_Bongcales
 https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P4-2061875834/the-sectoral-and-skills-mismatch-
between-the-senior
 https://www.scribd.com/doc/24805704/Literary-Works-in-Region-7
 https://www.scribd.com/doc/168666558/Letter-to-Pedro-a-US-citizen-also-called-Pete-a-
poem-analysis
 https://prezi.com/-gr6t5dvjney/letter-to-pedro-us-citizen-also-called-pete/
 https://thewallflowerconfessions.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/tension-to-attention-tradition-
vs-modernity-in-rene-estela-ampers-letter-to-pedro-u-s-citizen-also-called-pete/
 https://www.wattpad.com/210798121-letter-to-pedro-u-s-citizen-also-called-pete-by/page/4
 https://www.slideshare.net/PrinceCieloUehara/chambers-of-the-sea
 http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Wilfredo_M._Valois/877516