Editor’s note: Laurence Marvin Castillo teaches at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and holds a PhD in cultural studies from the University of Melbourne. He is the author of “Digmaan ng mga Alaala: Rebolusyon at Pagkakamali sa mga Talang-Gunita” (2021), finalist for the Philippine National Book Award for Literary Criticism and Cultural Studies, and co-editor of “Hindi Nangyari Dahil Wala sa Social Media” (2021), winner of the Philippine National Book Award for Media Studies. He is a member of the All UP Academic Employees Union, Tanggol Kasaysayan, and Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino.

I first encountered the fiction of Honorio Bartolome De Dios as a freshman in UP Los Baños. The English translation of his short story “Geyluv” was included in a book assigned to our Philippine literature class, “Philippine Literature: A History and Anthology,” the classic textbook edited by National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera and Cynthia Nograles Lumbera. I read the story in a hidden corner of the university library, where I could secretly express my kilig, as the openly gay Benjie admits his romantic feelings for Mike, a handsome, straight (and possibly, queer questioning) journalist, with whom he has grown close. While being in a same-sex relationship was no more than a remote possibility for me yet, I found the intimacy between these characters somehow resonant with the novelty of my experience then. I was a young adult who just moved out of my hometown to stay in a university dormitory with a bunch of guys who probably would also be welcoming of such curiosities and possibilities.

Geyluv” is a “he said, he said” story, navigating the emotional geographies of Benjie and Mike. As their individual trajectories reach a meeting point, the story ends with the two characters literally on the road. The budding romance trails off the pages, the happy ending unwritten. For a queer questioning university freshman, this hopeful deferment — the possibility of romantic gratification left open — was an incitement for me to imagine a happy ending for them, and perhaps, for me.

This short story, I would later find out, is part of “Sa Labas ng Parlor,” published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1998. Considered a landmark work in Philippine gay fiction, the book is one of the earliest single-authored collections in Filipino that deal with the gay experience. The stories in “Sa Labas ng Parlor” spoke to my experience in no small part because I share some similarities with De Dios — we’re both from Bulacan, we’re both Catholics (he entered the seminary, which I almost did), and we both have a history of activist involvement.

“These stories portray the personal struggles of gay revolutionaries, as they sustain political commitment amidst homophobia and state violence. Years after these stories were written, the communist movement would recognize same-sex relationships, hold the first same-sex marriage in the country, and inscribe gender and sexual liberation in its revolutionary programme.”

When I came out to my parents in my early 20s, it was clear that their pain was compounded by their discovery of my political activism. Like the characters in “Sa Labas ng Parlor,” I inhabit a queer temporality shaped by the realities of perpetual social crises. I’ve since decided to embrace a politics of resistance that has provided me the vocabulary with which to grapple with issues of desire and identity in the context of social miseries and injustices. As demonstrated in the story “Geyluv,” in which Benjie and Mike become intimate while doing development work among indigenous communities affected by the Mount Pinatubo eruption, De Dios’s protagonists, like me, confront the unfolding of romantic and sexual desire amidst the explosion of social violence.

In the story “Sumpa ng Tag-araw,” the protagonist Albert visits his hometown Santa Fe and learns about the death of his childhood friend/lover. The depiction of his visit evokes the unhomeliness I feel during my frequent visits to Bulacan, when I see new subdivisions, highways and commercial complexes replacing the vast farmlands of my childhood. Amidst the profit-driven shrinkage of the social commons, rural villagers blame supernatural curses for their poverty. Albert’s return reacquaints him with the troubles of the community he left behind, and at the same time, allows him to be intimate with the romantic possibilities that are inherent in the small town’s oppressive vista.

My activist involvement has somehow made me familiar with the perpetual tensions between individual desires and the broader urgencies of political resistance. De Dios explores these issues in the stories “Kas” and “Eulohiya,” both of which are about gays involved in the communist revolution, and serve as literary precursors to filmic fictions like Adolf Alix Jr.’s “Muli” and Joel Lamangan’s “Lihis,” which would figure in my own scholarly work. In “Kas,” a visit from a beloved comrade compels a gay activist to reflect on the trauma of sexual abuse, as well as the question of taking up arms in the countryside. In “Eulohiya,” the protagonist draws on the memory of a martyred gay comrade to muster the courage to destroy the inner closet he has built for himself. These stories portray the personal struggles of gay revolutionaries, as they sustain political commitment amidst homophobia and state violence. Years after these stories were written, the communist movement would recognize same-sex relationships, hold the first same-sex marriage in the country, and inscribe gender and sexual liberation in its revolutionary programme, enacting an emancipatory framework that encompasses the intertwined dimensions of the collective and the individual.

“Sa Labas ng Parlor” ironically closes with a story set in what is regarded as the bakla’s quintessential domain — the beauty parlor. “Giyera,” the book’s longest story, centers on the beautician Bernie in the small town of San Martin. As in De Dios’s other stories, development projects encroach upon the town like a curse, poisoning the town’s rivers, and sending state forces to massacre farmers protesting the profit-driven takeover of their lands. The townspeople seek refuge not only in the Catholic Church, but also in the revolutionary forces that grow stronger in the town’s margins. At the center of political tension lies the beauty parlor, drawing people from all walks of life who seek Bernie’s services for various social functions. Later Bernie’s parlor becomes a refuge for the revolutionary movement. The beautician helps a male revolutionary shed off his guerrilla masculinity, and perform queerness to evade state counterinsurgency.

Giyera” is also about how progressive queer subjects like Bernie remain devout Catholics, despite the Church’s powerful role in edifying homophobia and gender inequality in general. I admit, even while I adhere to a radical politics of liberation, I cannot completely disengage from the Catholic faith. Perhaps, like Bernie, I draw from this faith the resources to cling to the possibilities of salvation, and the coming happy conclusion to all the pain and miseries of this world. And like Benjie and Mike in “Geyluv,” I continue to feel and imagine, in the deferment of happy endings, the hope that animates the struggle for liberation that could only be both personal and political.