There is always a newly released Filipino book worth reading. 2022 in particular proved to be a consistently prolific year for many authors and publishers. Here are books from late last year, and a new one from the other month that we are reading at the moment.

‘ ‘1’:

“Lahat ng B” by Ricky Lee

In December 2020, National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts Ricky Lee announced that he was in the process of writing the sequel to his 2008 novel “Para Kay B,” which tells five (slightly) inter-connected love stories and has since gone on to be one of the writer’s best known works.

The sequel, titled “Lahat ng B,” continues the stories of Irene, Sandra, Bessie, Erica, Lucas, and Ester, and as with the first book, the sequel is an exploration of and an ode to love and its different forms and faces. The language is simple and clever, the storytelling profound in its simplicity. Any reader will find something worthwhile in “Lahat ng B,” but I imagine that it might resonate a little differently, a little more deeply, with a certain kind of reader, someone who shares Lee’s romanticism (and even sentimentalism) about love, life, and art.

But in the end, as with almost all of Lee’s works, the (possibly reductive) thing to say is that it is unfailingly humanistic. Lee honors a range of different experiences, extending the kind of attention and generosity to his characters that is perhaps unparalleled in contemporary Filipino fiction.

An English translation of “Para Kay B” is also forthcoming this year.

Available on Shopee and Lazada.

‘ ‘8’:

“Plus/+, at Iba Plus, Maramihan: New Philippine Nonfiction on Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities” and “Plus/+, at Iba Plus, Maramihan: New Philippine Fiction on Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities” edited by Rolando B. Tolentino and Chuckberry J. Pascual (Ateneo Press, 2022)

Almost any book whose subject is queerness is a reason to celebrate. There is a lot of talk about eschewing labels, of shifting the focus on the universality of a love story and away from what makes it different from the default. Though there is something to be gained from that, inequality and invisibility still need to be named. Books like “Plus/+, at Iba Plus, Maramihan: New Philippine Nonfiction on Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities” are premised on this idea.

Edited by Rolando B. Tolentino and Chuckberry J. Pascual, the anthology is a subversive and unapologetic exploration of different ways of being and loving. The 15 pieces that comprise the non-fiction anthology are diverse in the stories they tell, not just in terms of voice alone but in their varying impacts/effects and the range of experiences that they cover: personal histories of queerness, navigating polyamorous relationships and family dynamics, and even meta exercises such as mapping one’s writing in the Filipino queer tradition.

Some pieces are worth mentioning. Stefani J. Alvarez’s “sifr” is a poignant story of forbidden love, the kind that only Alvarez can tell. Maynard Manansala’s “Third” is exceptionally readable. One of the longer pieces in the book, this essay is buoyed by the author’s wit and grace as he details his experiences of being in what many might consider an unconventional relationship. Adrian Joseph Villanueva’s “Ang (mga) lalaki sa buhay n(g) (ma-)elya” recalls, in language so singular and self-assured I can guarantee you’ve never encountered in a literary collection before, how past loves have shaped how he now gives and receives love.

“Plus/+, at Iba Plus, Maramihan” has a fiction counterpart as well and it is as engaging as its nonfiction counterpart, featuring stories by George Deoso, Bernadette Villanueva Neri, and Edgar Calabia Samar, whose “Taichikun” may be one of the best short stories I’ve read in a while.

The two anthologies are careful curations of compelling stories that occasionally suffer from unevenness (some pieces are noticeably better than others) and may possibly be critiqued for the absence of specific voices, but such may be the innate limitation of anthologies. If the point of such books is to respond to a lack, its very existence the response in itself, then “Plus/+, at Iba Plus” has succeeded in making a point: queering stories well beyond confession, and as its editors put it, towards bearing witness to and defending the many truths of being disadvantaged in a heterosexual world.

Available at Ateneo Press.

‘ ’22’:

“False Nostalgia: The Marcos Golden Age Myths and How to Debunk Them” by JC Punongbayan (Ateneo Press, 2023)

Economist and assistant professor JC Punongbayan has put together seven years worth of research — a balance of economic analysis and historical fact — to debunk the lies about the first Marcos presidency that persist to this day (and which, in many ways were responsible for the second one). The essay collection is structured as fact-based takedowns of popular claims about the Marcos dictatorship, from the martial law era being a “Golden Age of Infrastructure” to how Marcos Sr. plundered in order to protect the Philippine economy.

Punongbayan writes in clear, accessible language to deconstruct these myths, applying intellectual rigor to his careful storytelling to properly lay down the economic and political climate of the time in order to provide much needed context.

It’s a well-researched work that patiently lays down the facts, in particular on Marcosian economics, for anyone who might be willing to listen and reconsider what they have been told about the past. That said, I think this should be essential reading for every Filipino, if only because of its potential to counter historical erasure and revisionism — which is to say that we need more books like it.

Available at Ateneo Press.

‘ ’31’:

“Mga Munting Babae” translated by Sophia Flor Perez and Rowena Festin, edited by Bibeth Orteza (Southern Voices Printing Press, 2021)

The story of the March family means a lot to readers around the world. It’s one of those books that people find in their earlier, formative years of reading, and an encounter with the talented and determined young writer Jo March no doubt sparked in them a love for writing and reading stories. Written by the feminist and suffragette Louisa May Alcott during a time where women weren’t allowed to vote, “Little Women” is, among many things, a story of agency.
Putting writing at the heart of the story, in a sort of autobiographical turn as “Little Women” is in fact Alcott herself writing about her family, the book reads as an ode to literature as a means to independence.
The educator and women’s rights advocate Sophia Flor Perez and award-winning poet and professor Rowena Festin took on the difficult task of translating this classic to Filipino, and with the writer and director Bibeth Orteza as editor and Southern Voices Printing Press as the publisher, the result is a loving rendition of the classic — both an introduction and a reintroduction to the March sisters.

Available through Southern Voices Printing Press and Fully Booked.

‘ ’37’:

“How to Tame Your Tikbalang Without Even Trying” by Alma Anonas-Carpio (8Letters, 2023)

It’s been almost 10 years since Alma Anonas-Carpio’s first novel was released in 2015, and there is still no Filipino book quite like it. At least in terms of its ambition to mix particularly overlooked genres. The new edition published by 8Letters remains a unique retelling of Philippine myth — it’s mytherotica that never once falters in its commitment to the book’s premise: Tala, an amateur Babaylan working in a Makati call center, meets Buhawi, an Adonis figure who happens to be a tikbalang working as a banker, who she must tame so he can take his place as the rightful heir to the Molave Throne. The graphic, racy content doesn’t disappoint: there’s enough of it to offend certain sensibilities, and the unflinching language with which it is rendered only strengthens Anonas-Carpio’s project as a welcome subversion of how our traditional stories are told.

Available at 8lettersbooks.com.

‘ ’41’:

“The Lost Cats of Maginhawa: Poetry from Filipino Suburbia” (UP Press, 2022)

Where do cats go when they go missing? The disappearance often happens out of nowhere, which in itself is cruel, but is only made worse by the fact that their reappearance is just as unpredictable as their disappearance. They can return after days or years, but there’s also the possibility that they never will. Arvin Abejo Mangohig, who’s known to have written a few books on disappearance before, ponders human existence in poems inspired by a months-long search for a wounded cat named Chicken.
The oft-cited connection between decay and suburbia is invoked by the poet, who, through the quiet wisdom of animals, attempts to better understand our inner selves that have been rendered mute in the contemporary world. Accompanied by illustrations by Bicolana artist Sarah Redor, Filipino suburbia explored through feline mysticism is given another dimension in Mangohig’ s terse yet powerful lines.