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To the consternation and dismay of its critics, the 12-year basic education program is now in full swing in the Philippines. The concerns over the implementation of this purportedly neoliberal educational policy have included the displacement of education workers, the perennial shortage of school facilities (especially in the public schools), and financial impact on low-income families. There has also been a concern over the ostensibly western orientation of the country's educational system because of colonialism. However, as this paper argues, there are also spaces for an empowering and critical pedagogy as defined by Paulo Freire. The principles of critical pedagogy, for instance, can be deployed through the inclusion of non-canonical and insurgent literature in at least two new courses in the curriculum--21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World and Creative Nonfiction. One particular example of such literature is the testimonial narrative or testimonio, a first-person narrative about experiences of abuse and other forms of injustice. The paper includes a survey of studies that foreground the use of testimonios in education, and argues that the same strategy can be used in the Philippines' new curriculum. The use of testimonios in literature and other disciplines may constitute an attempt at locating alternative knowledges and cultural modalities while surfacing the narratives of Philippine society's marginalized sectors.

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History is replete with examples of how literature can be a critical strategy for calling out abuses, exposing forms of oppression, and envisioning democratic futures. Two poets of note--South Korea's Kim Chi Ha and the Philippines' Amado Hernandez--served as their respective societies' conscience for their unequivocal commitment to justice and equality. Both suffered incarceration for their political and literary activities, but are now vindicated, their works considered timeless paeans to genuine freedom and democracy. In this paper, I analyze the poems of these two important literary figures through the lens of Liberation Theology, in particular the notion of resistance as the fusion of the discourses of critique and possibility, of denunciation and annunciation. This suggests that while some poems can be read as powerful execrations against oppression and injustice, there are also poems expressing that more humanizing conditions are possible. The paper concludes that this dialectic of Liberation Theology may be employed in interrogating other cultural forms and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Lenten ritual known in the Philippines as penitensya, hooded peninents whip themselves publicly as they walk. While some Church and government officials have repeatedly expressed disapproval of the practice, self-flagellation has persisted with characteristic obduracy to this day. Through mass media and social media, it has caught the attention of other parts of the world. A cursory search on the internet, for example, would yield not a few visual and textual materials on penitensya. Some of these materials are analyzed in this paper, using critical frameworks based on Kristeva's concept of abjection and Jameson's delineation of third-world literature as national allegories. One would encounter such abjection in the decontextualized foregrounding of the grisliness, violence, and horror associated with this form of corporal mortification. As a practice rooted in colonial history, penitensya evokes colonial traumas, but contemporized, it also serves as an allegorical embodiment of collective hopes and possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lived experiences of social marginality necessitate tactics that engage varied forms of exploitation, discrimination, and abuse. These include writing testimonial narratives, which Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) use to foreground their many-layered subalternity. Through labor export OFWs have become vulnerable to different kinds of oppression, including psychological trauma. This paper examines letters written by OFWs that have been culled from the archives of Kanlungan Foundation, a non-government organization concerned with the welfare of migrant workers. It analyzes the letters according to a two-pronged concept of resistance--one that fuses the discourse of critique with that of affirmation and hope. More specifically, this paper shows how the letters narrativize OFW experiences of victimization, and how such experiences dialectically create spaces for possible emancipation and fuel the search for collective justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a genre, testimonios or testimonial narratives are not just transgressive of canonical literary aesthetics; they also serve as a tool for otherwise marginalized groups to expose, denounce, and negotiate their experiences of abjection and subordination. These narratives may constitute a counter-hegemonic project, if not an oppositional response, at least, to structures and relations sustained (often brutally) by the apparati of state and capital. In this exploratory paper, I read the letters of abused workers as counter-narratives that rub against mainstream discourse. In particular, I am using as primary materials the letters written by the Filipino workers of a foreign company which has been recognized and endorsed by state officials for its "contribution" to investment and job generation. Occluded, however, are the stories of abuse, exploitation, and repression among the workers, some of whom have met violent deaths in the workplace. These "little stories" become counter-narratives vis-à-vis the positive, celebratory depiction of the company in official discourse, which bleaches the company of allegations concerning its anti-labor practices. The discussion revolves around how the letters as testimonios and as counter-narratives exemplify discourses of resistance and solidarity, foregrounding the workers' denunciation of the abuses committed by and within the company, while also highlighting the workers' collective responses to these abuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]