Category: Filipiniana

How My Tagalog Poems Speak with Filipino Women Poets, Faith, and Urban Stories

In my journey as a poet, Tagalog has become the language where my deepest thoughts and emotions find a true home. Fearless Filipino women poets like Benilda Santos, Joi Barrios, Luna Sicat, Beverly Siy, and Genevieve Asenjo are my favorite weavers of language into poems of resilience, spirituality, and the weight and beauty of lived experiences.

Tagalog is where my poems find their truest home, shaped by fierce rhythms and sharp insights. These voices inspire me to listen deeply and shape words that capture intimate moments, quiet struggles, and the pulse of everyday stories in the city. I reach for fragments of their strength, faith, and intimate storytelling, hoping that my poetry will carry the same enduring fire.

What Benilda Santos Taught Me About Using Few Words

Some of my poems reach for language as sparingly as possible. I struggle to choose each word carefully, placing it where it can bear its own quiet weight. I learned some of this from the poetry of Benilda Santos. Her Pali-palitong Posporo showed me how deliberate Tagalog can be, how crisp, short words can open up an expanse of meaning. Lingering on her minimalist expression reveals more than what she’s actually written about grief, faith, and womanhood.

I try to weave in the same way and capture moments by the tones they leave behind. Do I hear the children at the wet market, their quick and thin pleas? The commuters in line, their words swallowed by the brewing storm. Even the mall wanderer’s talk dissolving into the hum in shiny ailes. And that still, silent girl on the LRT to PGH who is burdened with what she could not say.

How Joi Barrios Showed Me Poetry Can Be Both Protest and Lullaby

I’ve never been political. More a coward. Quick to escape rather than confront. But Joi Barrios’s poetry can protest and sing. Resist and still show tenderness. She confronts with melodious verse and deeply felt detail. A woman’s circumstance, often her own, moving through complex political landscapes. I have mimicked this at times. Writing of tired faces on buses and trains. People weighted by the end of the day. Still carrying resilience and hope alongside their sorrow.

When does a poet truly become political? How do poems reveal human rights in the raw edges of everyday life. My subjects are these moments. Commuters braving traffic. Floods. The weight of capitalism on the streets of the Philippines.

Finding Faith and Quiet Questions with Rebecca Añonuevo and Luna Sicat

I have been writing poems about my faith and the doubts that shadow it. In my book, I have gathered these struggles into three threads: pagtataya, how faithful am I? pagkagulantang, how sensitive? pagpasan, how responsible? Rebecca Añonuevo’s poetry, along with her thesis on Gana, charts many poet’s deep and often complicated dialogue with the Divine. My own poems attempt something similar, mapping the restless terrain of my faith in moments of searching, in whispered encounters with God.

Luna Sicat’s poems delve into desire, memory, and history. Her language enacts distance and isolation. In my own work, I try to capture moments like these: a mother leaving her child to work abroad, a daughter caring for an aging parent, a death in the neighborhood that whispers of systemic violence. I watch the quiet faces passing by, their histories folded in silence, their desires hidden in camouflage. Luna’s poems become voices of silent longings, histories murmured between heartbeats, and dreams that remain unspoken.

The Courage to Speak My Truth: Lessons from Beverly Siy and Genevieve Asenjo

Beverly Siy is fearless in speaking her raw, personal truth. Her voice prods one to be brave and speak even when the words are sharp or messy.

I am Batangueña, and sometimes I feel self-conscious about letting my punto slip into my poetry. Batangas Tagalog, as a dialect, can seem inaccessible to some readers, yet I cannot set it aside. It is my language that insists on being spoken.

There is one poet who weaves her native Hiligaynon with Tagalog seamlessly. Genevieve Asenjo writes in three languages and sometimes weaves them all together. This shows me that poems, too, don’t just map a body, but also an archipelago, all the provinces and cities inside me, all the places of home and belonging.

Finding the Beat Between Where I’m From and How I Speak

My poems flow in Tagalog, shaped by the stories I hear behind weary faces on buses and trains, in markets and malls, on streets and highways. My essays, however, feel more at home in English. I often struggle to write them in Tagalog, and when I translate for convenience, the result feels like stiff, borrowed clothes. Perhaps it is because of my schooling. In all my education, English essays were graded and assessed, while Tagalog was reserved for spoken stories, warmth, and shared laughter.

My use of Tagalog in poetry comes from a belief in its spirit and depth. Tagalog holds music, rhythm that breathes, and syllables that sway. I court its words to carry both tenderness and bite. English, for me, offers structure and sometimes direct argument. Both languages are mine to use, and I will not compromise context or meaning in either.

Reimagining Faith and Story: A Gathering of Christian Literature Children’s Book Authors for the Filipino Child

In Taal Vista Lodge in Tagaytay, twenty children’s book authors came together for a weekend summit to pitch, discuss, and dream: What does Christian literature mean for the Filipino child today?

Among the participants of the Hiyas Authors’ Huddle, some have a long-established careers with children’s books distributed in schools and bookstores nationwide. Their stories focus on child development, spiritual nurturing, and educational psychology, shaped by real-life encounters with children through their diverse vocations—a missionary, a lawyer, a radio broadcaster, a poet, and a teacher. Yours truly is the only one who has not yet published a single children’s story, but we all shared one conviction: that the stories we tell our children shape not only their imaginations, but also their hearts.

Faith and the Filipino Child

At the heart of this gathering was a shared desire to align with the Department of Education’s (DepEd) K to 12 framework—specifically, the DepEd Filipino child profile, which envisions the learner as “a whole person who is maka-Diyos, makatao, makabansa, and makakalikasan.”

The DepEd’s learner-centered framework recognizes that education is not only academic but also moral, spiritual, and emotional. It sees the child not merely as a student, but as a citizen of a wider moral universe. Christian literature for children, then, becomes more than Sunday reading—it becomes a tool for character formation, spiritual grounding, and cultural identity.

Authors carry a deep responsibility to present not only doctrinal truths but also healing narratives—especially for children who experience brokenness at an early age. When we write for children, we write for wounded souls who may not yet know how to name their grief—but who already know what hope feels like. In communities affected by displacement, storytelling becomes a powerful tool for trauma recovery and spiritual formation; a simple narrative about God’s faithfulness can mean everything to a child who has lost their home.

There was also strong emphasis on the value of integrating Christian children’s literature into academic and developmental contexts. “We’re not only planting seeds of faith,” one participant noted, “we’re also building literacy, emotional intelligence, and cultural memory.” This holistic approach reflects the DepEd’s vision of a Filipino child who is makatao and makakalikasan—formed by relationships, environment, and faith. The authors in this workshop affirmed that when Filipino children read stories that reflect their language, beliefs, and community, they grow not only in knowledge and confidence, but also in conscience and compassion.

Bridging Church, School, and Home

Urgent and reflective questions for us as Christian children’s book writers: What does it mean to write stories that support the formation of the maka-Diyos child in today’s fast-paced, screen-saturated world? How do we tell tales of kindness, forgiveness, and truth that also honor the local culture, language, and the everyday realities of Filipino families? During the two-day meet, the participants also reflected on key questions:

  • How do we portray the person of Jesus in age-appropriate, culturally relevant ways?
  • How can our books affirm a child’s identity as both Filipino and Christian?
  • What themes are most needed today—hope, honesty, obedience, resilience?

Toward a Theology of Children’s Literature

In pitching their storybook idea, every writer is sensitive that Christian literature for children need not be preachy or distant. It can be playful, poetic, and close to home. When done with care, these books can reflect the very heart of the Filipino child as envisioned by DepEd—a learner who is not only knowledgeable, but also kind, creative, and anchored in faith.

The Gospel is filled with moments where Jesus honors children—not just as symbols, but as real individuals who carry divine insight and worth. Writing Christian children’s books, then, is a sacred act. It is discipleship in story form. When we write about a child who learns to pray, or forgive, or wonder about God—we are not simplifying theology. We are embodying it.

The authors present resolved to continue as a network of Christian children’s book writers committed to uplifting the Filipino child. Christian literature for children in the Philippines is not a niche—it is a mission. It is a way to raise up readers who are not only smart, but also spirit-filled. Writers, publishers, educators, and parents are invited to join this movement. After all, as Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them.”

Often, the way they come is through a beautifully told story.