My Sad Republic
Encyclopedia
My Sad Republic is a 2000 Philippine English
-language novel written by Filipino
novelist Eric Gamalinda
. The novel won for Gamalinda a Philippine Centennial Literary Prize in 1998. The 392-page novel was published by the Philippine Centennial Commission, the University of the Philippines
Press, and the UP Creative Writing Center. My Sad Republic is the fourth novel written by Gamalinda. The theme of the novel is "love, obsession, and loss" occurring during the Philippine Revolution
against the Spanish colonizers of the Philippines, and during the Philippine-American War
.
, a classic narrative poem written by Filipino poet Francisco Baltazar (1789–1862) that intertwines romance and nationalism. The verse from which the title was adapted from mentions the Tagalog words "Sa loob at labas ng bayan cong saui,/ caliluha,i, siya'ng nangyayaring hari/", meaning "Inside and outside of my sad country,/ it is desolation that reigns supreme/" in the English translation.
"), Asuncion de Urquiza (also known as Asuncion Madrigal), Tomas Agustin, Felipe, Captain James Smith, and Martinez. Dionisio Magbuela is a peasant, healer, mystic, and religious leader, who later becomes a Filipino revolutionary, hero, and founder of a cult of babaylan
s (shaman-priests) based on folk Catholicism.
Asuncion de Urquiza is a young woman under the care of a wealthy lady known as Doña Madrigal (De Urquiza's mother); Asuncion is an orphan and is the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish matador
and a young woman belonging to the Madrigal's household. De Urquiza was described by Stuart-Santiago as a "rich girl of One Hundred and Seventeen Names" because the paranoid Doña Madrigal christened her with all the names of the Mary the Holy Virgin as a form of protection from evil.
Tomas Agustin is a mestizo
landowner and soldier serving in the Spanish army who believes that his "kind" is the "future of the Philippines", a social class that will improve the political and socio-economic situation in the archipelago after three centuries of Spanish rule and mismanagement. Agustin wanted to marry Asuncion de Urquiza for the latter's wealth.
Felipe is the son of Asuncion de Urquiza and Tomas Agustin. Felipe was born after Tomas Agustin raped De Urquiza.
Captain James Smith is an American soldier, leader of the American contingent. He is the American nemesis of Magbuela.
Martinez is the right-hand man of Magbuela. According to book reviewer Vicente G. Groyon III, Martinez is the least remarkable yet the most memorable character in Gamalinda's My Sad Republic.
, Magbuela and his followers' triumph was short-lived because of the arrival of the Americans, the new colonizers of the Philippines. Magbuela and his fellow revolutionaries are now confronted with two enemies – the Americans and the Filipino landowners (locally known as the hacenderos, meaning "ranch owners"), who are willing to collaborate with the Americans for their interests and benefit. Tomas Agustin becomes a General, who – together with other landowners – wanted the island of Negros to be separated from the rest of the Philippine archipelago to become a territory of the United States and be known as the Cantonal Republic of Negros.
n novelist Gabriel García Márquez
's One Hundred Years of Solitude
and Chile
an novelist Isabel Allende
's The House of Spirits because of Gamalinda's style of combining fact and fiction. Stuart-Santiago described My Sad Republic as a rare Philippine novel that tackles the events during the Philippine-American War viewed through the eyes of the defeated, subdued, subjugated, and colonized Filipino people, and not through the point of view of triumphant foreigners and colonizers. Stuart-Santiago further reiterated that the author of My Sad Republic wrote the novel in "marvelous Philippine English", a language of "misery and sorrow" which has similarities to the characteristics of other native languages of the Philippines
, which are languages and dialects that "a hundred years ago" had been "exorcised" – suppressed or almost brought into extinction - by the English language
rooted from the United States and the United Kingdom.
Philippine English
Philippine English is the variety of English used in the Philippines by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos. English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the country, the other being Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog.English is used in education,...
-language novel written by Filipino
Filipino people
The Filipino people or Filipinos are an Austronesian ethnic group native to the islands of the Philippines. There are about 92 million Filipinos in the Philippines, and about 11 million living outside the Philippines ....
novelist Eric Gamalinda
Eric Gamalinda
Eric Gamalinda is an established Filipino American author. He was an editor, journalist, short-story writer, children’s literature author, poet, and novelist. He published three novels...
. The novel won for Gamalinda a Philippine Centennial Literary Prize in 1998. The 392-page novel was published by the Philippine Centennial Commission, the University of the Philippines
University of the Philippines
The ' is the national university of the Philippines. Founded in 1908 through Act No...
Press, and the UP Creative Writing Center. My Sad Republic is the fourth novel written by Gamalinda. The theme of the novel is "love, obsession, and loss" occurring during the Philippine Revolution
Philippine Revolution
The Philippine Revolution , called the "Tagalog War" by the Spanish, was an armed military conflict between the people of the Philippines and the Spanish colonial authorities which resulted in the secession of the Philippine Islands from the Spanish Empire.The Philippine Revolution began in August...
against the Spanish colonizers of the Philippines, and during the Philippine-American War
Philippine-American War
The Philippine–American War, also known as the Philippine War of Independence or the Philippine Insurrection , was an armed conflict between a group of Filipino revolutionaries and the United States which arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic to gain independence following...
.
Origin of the title
The title of My Sad Republic was derived from a verse in Florante at LauraFlorante at Laura
Florante at Laura by Francisco Baltazar is considered as one of the masterpieces of Philippine literature. Balagtas wrote the epic during his imprisonment. The work itself is dedicated to María Asuncion Rivera, his sweetheart, whom he nicknamed "M. A...
, a classic narrative poem written by Filipino poet Francisco Baltazar (1789–1862) that intertwines romance and nationalism. The verse from which the title was adapted from mentions the Tagalog words "Sa loob at labas ng bayan cong saui,/ caliluha,i, siya'ng nangyayaring hari/", meaning "Inside and outside of my sad country,/ it is desolation that reigns supreme/" in the English translation.
Characters
The main characters in the novel include Dionisio Magbuela (also known as Isio, Papa Isio - meaning "Pope Isio", or Seguela, the "Pope of NegrosNegros
Negros is an island of the Philippines located in the Visayas, at . It is the third largest island in the country, with a land area of 13,328 km²...
"), Asuncion de Urquiza (also known as Asuncion Madrigal), Tomas Agustin, Felipe, Captain James Smith, and Martinez. Dionisio Magbuela is a peasant, healer, mystic, and religious leader, who later becomes a Filipino revolutionary, hero, and founder of a cult of babaylan
Babaylan
Babaylan is a Visayan term identifying an indigenous Filipino religious leader, who functions as a healer, a shaman, a seer and a community "miracle-worker"...
s (shaman-priests) based on folk Catholicism.
Asuncion de Urquiza is a young woman under the care of a wealthy lady known as Doña Madrigal (De Urquiza's mother); Asuncion is an orphan and is the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish matador
Matador
A torero or toureiro is a bullfighter and the main performer in bullfighting, practised in Spain, Colombia, Portugal, Mexico, France and various other countries influenced by Spanish culture. In Spanish, the word torero describes any of the performers who actively participate in the bullfight...
and a young woman belonging to the Madrigal's household. De Urquiza was described by Stuart-Santiago as a "rich girl of One Hundred and Seventeen Names" because the paranoid Doña Madrigal christened her with all the names of the Mary the Holy Virgin as a form of protection from evil.
Tomas Agustin is a mestizo
Filipino mestizo
Filipino mestizo is a term used in the Philippines to describe people of mixed Filipino and foreign ancestry. The word mestizo is of Spanish origin, and was originally used in the Americas to only describe people of mixed European and Native American ancestry.- History :Spanish periodThe Spanish...
landowner and soldier serving in the Spanish army who believes that his "kind" is the "future of the Philippines", a social class that will improve the political and socio-economic situation in the archipelago after three centuries of Spanish rule and mismanagement. Agustin wanted to marry Asuncion de Urquiza for the latter's wealth.
Felipe is the son of Asuncion de Urquiza and Tomas Agustin. Felipe was born after Tomas Agustin raped De Urquiza.
Captain James Smith is an American soldier, leader of the American contingent. He is the American nemesis of Magbuela.
Martinez is the right-hand man of Magbuela. According to book reviewer Vicente G. Groyon III, Martinez is the least remarkable yet the most memorable character in Gamalinda's My Sad Republic.
As historical novel
My Sad Republic is a novel that blends fact and fiction based on events in Philippine history that occurred in Negros approximately from 1880 through 1911. It is a novel that features the failed romantic aspirations and nationalistic yearnings of Dionisio Magbuela. Magbuela aspires to bring the Philippines back to its pre-colonial status, a country that was never colonized by foreigners. Magbuela, as the Pope of Negros who is the "Supreme Power of God's Republic", wanted to give Negros back to the Negrenses (also known as Negrosanons), the native inhabitants and land-tillers of Negros.As romance novel
As a romance novel, My Sad Republic, narrates the love triangle that occurred between Dionisio Magbuela, Asunción de Urquiza, and Tomas Agustin. Because of Magbuela’s reputation as a healer and mystic, Magbuela is hired by Doña Madrigal as a resident plantation worker — a sugar cane cutter — who was given access to the mansion by Doña Madrigal. Magbuela meets Asuncion and courts her. Asuncion is falling for Magbuela's affection but Tomas Agustin — the landowning mestizo — rapes Asuncion, resulting to her pregnancy. Asuncion marries Agustin because of the pregnancy. Asuncion gives birth to a son, a boy named Felipe. After the defeat of the Spaniards during the Philippine RevolutionPhilippine Revolution
The Philippine Revolution , called the "Tagalog War" by the Spanish, was an armed military conflict between the people of the Philippines and the Spanish colonial authorities which resulted in the secession of the Philippine Islands from the Spanish Empire.The Philippine Revolution began in August...
, Magbuela and his followers' triumph was short-lived because of the arrival of the Americans, the new colonizers of the Philippines. Magbuela and his fellow revolutionaries are now confronted with two enemies – the Americans and the Filipino landowners (locally known as the hacenderos, meaning "ranch owners"), who are willing to collaborate with the Americans for their interests and benefit. Tomas Agustin becomes a General, who – together with other landowners – wanted the island of Negros to be separated from the rest of the Philippine archipelago to become a territory of the United States and be known as the Cantonal Republic of Negros.
As political novel
According to literary critic Vicente G. Groyon III, one of the most salient scenes in My Sad Republic is when Magbuela finds a copy of the Declaration of Independence of the United States through a Spanish friar, making Magbuela believe that the American occupiers will comprehend the reasons why he is fighting for the Negros Island's and the Philippines' own independence.As erotic novel
In My Sad Republic, Gamalinda incorporated the genre of erotica such as what Angela Stuart-Santiago described as a "dash of friar erotica" (also known as "priest erotica") witnessed during the diminishing decades of the rule of the Spanish friars in the Philippines. Gamalinda described the love scene between a Spanish parish priest nicknamed Padre Batchoy and a native lass as if the friar was inserting a sacred host into the lips of a native girl's sex organ. There was another love scene – during a secret rendezvous between the novel's hero Magbuela and his beloved De Urquiza – wherein (according to Stuart-Santiago) De Urquiza did a "strange thing", lifting her a head a little to give Magbuela a prolonged bite on the hard and firm muscle located above Magbuela's collarbone, as if De Urquiza wanted to remain forever connected to Magbuela's body.Analysis
Book critic Angela Stuart-Santiago compared the reading of My Sad Republic to reading ColombiaColombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n novelist Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
's One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
and Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an novelist Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...
's The House of Spirits because of Gamalinda's style of combining fact and fiction. Stuart-Santiago described My Sad Republic as a rare Philippine novel that tackles the events during the Philippine-American War viewed through the eyes of the defeated, subdued, subjugated, and colonized Filipino people, and not through the point of view of triumphant foreigners and colonizers. Stuart-Santiago further reiterated that the author of My Sad Republic wrote the novel in "marvelous Philippine English", a language of "misery and sorrow" which has similarities to the characteristics of other native languages of the Philippines
Languages of the Philippines
In the Philippines, there are between 120 and 175 languages, depending on the method of classification. Four languages no longer have any known speakers. Almost all the Philippine languages belong to the Austronesian language family...
, which are languages and dialects that "a hundred years ago" had been "exorcised" – suppressed or almost brought into extinction - by the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
rooted from the United States and the United Kingdom.