Review of Heart of Light Francis C. Macansantos

I was a high school sophomore, if memory serves, and getting my usual crew cut atKoken’s in Zamboanga City when I read my first Tony Enriquez. It was a story called”The Surveyor.” I found it in a copy of the Free Press (then edited by Locsin Sr.) that Ihad picked out of a stack of magazines provided by the barbershop.

I found the storymost refreshingly strange — -indeed, exotic. But what made it especially interesting for mewas the rather incidental fact that its realm was Cotabato, the province of my birth.That is, I had been born in Cotabato, but had no memories of the place. My fatherwas a wanderer then, and the family tagged along.

Thus, I was whisked off as an infant toDumaguete, and then wrenched from there as a Cebuano-speaking toddler to return toZamboanga, my father’s hometown, there to spend much of my childhood and earlymanhood. Cotabato was a lush, mysterious realm, distant, unknown, but still, in a sense,my homeland. Another thing that led me further into the dark interior of the tale was thedelightful suspicion that the tale’s narrator, and, therefore, likely, the story’s author, was,like me, a Chabacano-speaking town-mate.

I left the barbershop with the thrilling secret that a Zamboangueño had made it tothe pages of the awesome Philippines Free Press, and thus had joined the ranks of suchworthies as Bienvenido Santos, Gregorio Brillantes and Wilfrido Nolledo.

This was aglorious thought, and hope stirred in my heart, for wasn’t I, even then, already writing poems, and short stories of my own? Someday, I said to myself, I, too, would make it tothe pages of theFree Press.The first time I made it to the Free Press, it was post Edsa. Locsin, Sr., and evenhis old foe Marcos, were long gone. My literary output, under the new reign of Locsin Jr.,was sluggish at best. But Tony Enriquez was more fecund than ever, coming up withevermore — -new material. He had won national awards for his fiction, and some of hisnovels had been published abroad. “The Surveyor”

I read again, in its revised form as achapter in Enriquez’s first novel,Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh (University ofQueensland Press, Australia, 1981). This book won for him his first of two Palanca grandprizes for the novel, the second being Subanons, that gut-and heart-wrenching portrayalof a tribal people’s agon[y] under martial rule.Surveyors is certainly sui generis, post-modern fiction long before the fashion hitthe country. An uncannily powerful and poetic work, it defies realistic convention, butremains compelling and hauntingly real. It is early vintage, aesthete Enriquez:Unapologetically apolitical, and insouciantly, though despairingly amoral.Subanons manifested a significant change of ethical and political perspective.What changed it all was martial law, that “hidden war” whose heinous enormity has yetto be fully exposed. Antonio Enriquez provides us with a long-neglected key to ourunderstanding of the Mindanao conflict.

His work provides us with a valuableperspective. Simply put, Christianity and Islam are global, hegemonic ideologies, tendingto a ruthlessness that destroys life-ways other than their own. When two behemothsstruggle, those that happen to be in the way are destroyed — -often deliberately. In thehidden wars, the lumads, because they were infidels to either worldview, weredispensable. The fact that some had converted to Christianity or Islam did not make themany less endangered.

Conversion did not invariably confer respect from those whobelonged to dominant ethnic groups. Worse, the lumads could become unwillinglyparticipants in the war that, because it was hidden, was unforgiving in its atrocity.With Subanons, Enriquez moved into the realm of advocacy. Perhaps only themorally inform or the inveterately diabolical would not experience a moral rebirth fromthe fire of purification that was martial law. From any reading of Subanons, it isindubitably clear that the author was someone who had undergone that spiritualtransformation. The novel is a shining moment in the heretofore-unknown aspects of thecontemporary Subanon particularly their horrific and tragic experience under martial rule.With The Voice from Sumisip (Giraffe books), Enriquez leads us further on,deeper into the forest.

The experience would invariably remind the reader of a well-known and well-read journey into the wilderness, written by a world-famous writer towhom (as it is to Enriquez) English was not a first language.But any reading of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness yields for us almost nothing at allabout the African region of the Congo — -the tale’s purported setting. It lies, even as wewrite, in darkness. On the other hand, Enriquez, born (in 1934 [sic]) into a much latergeneration of writers — -and thanks in no small way to his life-long partnership with hisvivacious wife, Joy Viernes Enriquez, ethno-musicologist and cultural scholar, is betterinformed. That is to say, Antonio Enriquez speaketh not in darkness, but perhaps in thatsacred space that T. S. Eliot, in Four Quartets, preferred to call “the heart of light.”In Voice from Sumisip, Enriquez’s tale takes us there, to the inner sanctum oftribal innocence and wisdom. Tony Enriquez, hunter, big-fisherman, cusser, drinker, and devotee of fictional art spent much of what he calls his “most beautiful years” in Basilan.

That is to say, in Yakan country. Without Basilan, Tony might never have become theman of the great outdoors that he is. And, too, perhaps because of this, he is the odd manout of the corps of fictionists this country has produced. He is never at ease in theacademic dispensation. And bully for him, too, because he writes about places untouchedby the ennui and prosaic despair of the secular city.Should it be New York or Sumisip?

vote for either will be a vote based onvalues, and not merely on such questions as political and economic power, or high andlow culture. Therefore, we must stop over in Sumisip to listen to its precious voice. Moreand more writers and scholar realize that what is true of nature is also true of culture — -thedestruction of any original ethnic way of life diminishes all of us, causing the loss of ourartistic and cultural heritage.Enriquez takes us to Sumisip to listen to that voice.

The narrative turns, swirls andwheels around that voice. It is robust, hearty story-writing you will find, for (if you don’tknow yet) story is Enriquez’s sine qua non. And, like Conrad before him, he takes usthere with English — -but not as a means to dominate or malign. English here becomes amode of empowerment, a means by which the writer may translate that voice into thelanguage well understood by the oppressive center (call it New York, call it Manila.) Andit is an especially expressive language, too, I think: sensitive, powerfully realistic, thoughsometimes magical:Facing Prof. Jose, his back to the door of his room, was Shaman Gamutang.

Inthe corner of the circle flickered a small oil lamp, which, like all the others in Sumisip,was crudely made from an empty can, and from a discarded piece of old cloth came itswick. From this oil lamp, a small flame flickered and though sometimes it soared anddisembodied itself from its wick, the flame would return to its wick — -before reachingexposed ridgepoles and trusses, just as if it were ashamed to violate the roof’s nakedness.Not always then were the faces of the Shaman, Professor Jose, and the others illuminatedby the flame; there were moments when their faces sank deep into shadows, boundless,and only the Shaman’s eyes shining among them with an after-glow glitter.Prof. Jose, an academic whose field of study is folklore, is the novella’s centralintelligence. It is though his sensibility that we see the world of the Yakan. But it is ourduty, as sensitive readers, to see through him. Imperfect human medium though he is, heis our guide into the still center of that world, a heart besieged on all sides by the forcesof darkness — -intolerant, self-important, violent hegemonic forces that come under theholy banners of religion. And, too, under the holy vestments lurks human cupidity. Theentire apparatus of Marcos’ martial rule is infected by greed and vice.Prof. Jose is a creature of those dark times, and of his corrupt urban environment.Despite his education and involvement in cultural studies, he has not risen above hisprejudices.

In short, he is much like the average Filipino. The crucial question thenarrative wants to resolve is this: Can Prof. Jose, with all his sins on him, as he passesthrough the spiritual center of Yakan country — -that heart of light — -be reborn in the light?Will he hearken to and learn from that voice in Sumisip?

He discovers to his chagrin that he is caught between two worlds. Or, should wesay two centers? The subject of his research invades his being as he struggles to breakfree from its control: He of all those present should be the last to give any weight to thosesigns (i.e., of “bad luck.”) But Professor Jose, in his heart, knew differently; shaken was the fiber of his Christian faith and the staunchness of his belief in science — -hiscontinuous exposure to rituals, pagan beliefs, folk-tales, myths, and epics had made it so.It had not unChristianized him, but had only scraped the surface of his prejudice, Diosmio! Such ethnic centers have a drawing power. They could very well be ourconnection to the life-force. They can be a source of spiritual energy.

But this energy canalso be deadly and ruthless, especially when mishandled. And Tony Enriquez is too muchof an outdoorsman, too much of an elemental realist to be dewy-eyed about theconsequences of such misuse or abuse.But there can no longer be any doubt about the vitality of such centers, especiallywhen we see a pattern, national as well as global, where some of the best writers writefrom home — -or, as in the case of Enriquez, every so often an adopted home, in the waythat Eric Gamalinda adopted Negros and Alfred Yuson adopted Sagad. It has been morerule than exception to write from one’s own Yoknapathawpa, or to appropriate one.

Theneed for such far-flung sources of soul-energy is undeniable. Even Nick Joaquin ofManila sought as a source of inspiration the distant past. But as ethono-culture-vultures,we must take sage counsel from Antonio Enriquez, that voice from Zamboanga andMisamis: Only the converted can make a difference. No more Dr. Joses need apply — -unless they are reborn by fire.Some of Enriquez’s works were published in Australia. In the year 2002, he wasour South East Asian Write awardee for fiction. Last year he went on a writing fellowshipto Scotland where he forged warm ties with eminent Scottish writers.

He has been offeredfellowships in America. But for all these, he has not made that allegedly logical move togo to the center of centers, wherever that may be. He remains to this day a solid residentof his island, Mindanao, the happy hunting ground of his marvelous fictions. The fourstories included in this book take us back to Enriquez’s own ethnic roots: HistoricalZamboanga at the time of its founding.

What makes these stories unique is that they readlike eyewitness accounts of contemporary events, combining the horrific, the passionate,the humorous and the macabre — -all vintage Enriquez. They are a whale worth reading intheir own right. The stories revolve around Naawan (the ancient name of Zamboanga)and they seem so suspiciously to be the first powerful ingredients of another brewingnovel.”And, by the way, for those among us who are still trying to cover up for thatcharnel-house called martial law, and endeavor, even this late, to perpetuate the turgidmyth of Marcosian benevolence, mainly by taking advantage of the poverty — -andconsequence ignorance — -or our people, I have only this to say: Read this book and bememorably, effectively, refuted.Francis C. Macansantos is a poet and resides in Baguio City with his wife and daughter.

Originally published at https://www.ireviewshub.com.