The short story has a long and storied past in Philippine literature. From the baroque grandeur of Nick Joaquin to the sparkling wit of Gilda Cordero-Fernando to the polished and penetrative prose of Butch Dalisay, the short story has been fertile ground for Filipino writers to hone their craft and examine the startling tragedies and wonders of normal life. With the publication of Elizabeth Joy Serrano-Quijano’s “Dili Ako Mogawas Ug Ubang Mga Kwento or Can’t Go Out and Other Stories” (excellently translated by John Bengan), readers can now cherish the voice of another consummate storyteller.

Glimpses of Matanao

The great writer William Trevor said that the short story is the “art of the glimpse.” Unlike the novel, which often tries to depict the vast and complicated terrains of the human experience, the short story can derive its power from how quickly yet skillfully the writer drops the reader into a narrative, and how it provides them with a fleeting but resonant perspective into other kinds of life. The short story’s brevity makes it all the more impactful. What is unstated is as effective and affective as what is stated. And short story writers have used these glimpses to design enthralling mosaics of a country’s many peoples and places: Nick Joaquin’s Manila, Carlos Aureus’ Naga, Tony Perez’s Cubao, Rosario Cruz-Lucero’s Negros. Despite employing a panoply of different characters, conflicts, and dramatic situations, short story writers animate their collections with a palpable sense of place. These cities and countrysides become as real as those we inhabit. As Serrano-Quijano says in her preface: “My stories may be fictional, but these stories are living and are real somewhere in the mountains of southern Davao.”

Serrano-Quijano’s Matanao is as expertly sketched as John Bengan’s Davao City or H. Arlo Nimmo’s Sulu. She explores the lives of the Blaan of Matanao, Davao del Sur, with commendable empathy and depth. She untangles the complexities of the different peoples and histories of Matanao and of larger Mindanao, and how these political and social processes affect ordinary people at a personal and sometimes heartbreaking level. Though her stories usually contain two thousand words or less, she fills them with fascinating and unforgettable details. Teachers, farmers, rebels, coconut wine gatherers, a lonely storeowner, a barrio known for its shit, another barrio known for its people’s abilities to curse someone with a simple tap on the shoulder, Serrano-Quijano’s imagination is wide, perceptive, and generous. The opening story “The Maya Birds” (“Abogmaya”) seemingly unfolds at an unhurried pace. The Blaan grandmother Adela gathers water from a well, feeds her pigs, shoos away maya birds from her crops, welcomes her grandchildren. But as the story progresses, Serrano-Quijano creates a quiet but substantial portrait of how a woman relates to herself, to her family, to nature, and to the spiritual world: “Where she came from, their God was different, their belief was different. There was no cross, no church, no priest or pastor. Only you and the land, the rocks, the greenery. To worship was to till the land and to work very hard.” In a few sentences, Serrano-Quijano manages to crystallize years of colonial and religious tension, and how it shapes and unsettles a woman’s own spirituality. In “The Loyalist,” she presents us with a complicated woman: a loving, hard-working grandmother who is also a Marcos apologist. Both the woman’s granddaughter and the reader have to confront the grandmother’s difficult past, questionable political views, and descent into senility. Serrano-Quijano refuses to deal in caricatures. Her characters’ interior lives are as rich, variegated and compelling as the landscapes around them.

An inimitable voice

Serrano-Quijano’s voice is capable of effectively switching between different themes and modes. At times, she utilizes quick, flippant humor to enrich the narrative. In “Barrio Tai,” set in the eponymous town known for its shit, the narrator attempts to listen to a mining executive hell-bent on getting the barrio’s land: “The fat man spoke for a long time but I felt sleepy because I did not understand him.” Dismissing the curse transmitted through the tapping of a shoulder, another narrator says, “Since I was supposedly a millennial, I didn’t believe in pikpik.” At other times, the humor ventures into darker territory. A group of boys illegally gather firewood and believe that, “If you’re caught, you’re dead. If not, enjoy life.” The narrator of “I Am Robin Nabaro” disdainfully observes a beggar who claims to have been wounded in a car accident, but suffers an ironic fate at the story’s conclusion. In other stories, she utilizes a much darker tone. “The Pregnant Woman from Zamboanga” reads like a horror story. The narrator sees a possible apparition by the river, and recalls his grandfather’s horrific tale about a construction site’s sacrifice to build a road during Marcos’ martial law. The story potently weaves together tropes found in urban legends with the much more horrifying threats of state terror and buried histories.

The title story (“Can’t Go Out”) best exemplifies Trevor’s belief that the short story is “the art of the glimpse.” It’s a brief but chilling story of a girl caught in the crossfire of the military and rebels. Serrano-Quijano is focused and selective with choosing what details to present to the reader: “I’ve only seen and listened to a radio but our radio ran out of batteries. Mama didn’t go to Bangkal to buy batteries because there are soldiers there.” A child’s complaint becomes a peek into the larger world of violence which eventually overwhelms their lives at the story’s end. As the reader slowly realizes the danger of the child’s situation, the repetition of the phrase “can’t go out” transforms from a rule, to a threat, to a desperate plea. Serrano-Quijano is capable of imbuing details with worlds of meaning.

The force of translation

I must also praise John Bengan’s wonderful translation of Serrano-Quijano’s work. In his insightful, illuminating translator’s note, Bengan explains his process of translating the stories from the original Bisaya to English. Translation does not just involve finding the equivalent words in another language, but understanding the cultural differences and nuances that help shape these languages and their varieties. In translating Serrano-Quijano’s work, he has taken great care to ensure that her inimitable language and storytelling style still resonate in another language. He notes that her “Cebuano is the Mindanao variation, the register commonplace compared to the flashier style preferred by writers from Cebu and Bohol.” Bengan’s translation flows. It is indicative of someone who understands the nuances of Bisaya and its different forms, and manages to express these nuances in a manner understandable (and entertaining!) to English speakers. Bengan is also one of the editors of “Ulirát: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines,” a groundbreaking anthology which collects translations of stories written in several Philippine languages. Given that the Philippines has more than a hundred languages, with many of its inhabitants being bilingual or multilingual, government and academic institutions should continue and expand efforts to translate texts and reach wider, more diverse readerships.