Temistokles Adlawan is a known contemporary poet in the Philippines. He is also one of the major fictionists of Cebu. He was on December 21, 1930 in Naga, Cebu and with that his works are mostly associated with Cebuano folk. Adlawan’s works usually written with irreverent humour that show his uniqueness as a poet. Here are some of his works:

Lili (Peep), 1987

Ang Gidak-on sa Dagat, 1966

One Day on the Road

Because of Adlawan’s unique style of writing poetry, short stories, and novels, he was awarded for winning the Author of Cebu.

source: https://jaspreetmallhi.blogspot.com/2018/03/one-day-on-road-book-review.html

One Day on the Road was written by Adlawan because he wants to spread awareness of how every actions we do has a consequence. He wants us to realize that some of us creates their own storms then get upset when it rains.

In One Day on the Road the story focuses with 2 tricycle drivers namely, Miguel and Sherwin. One day as Miguel dropped of his last passenger, he immediately goes back to the stop to fetch another passenger. As he goes back he saw Sherwin driving his tricycle faster than him. Miguel thought that Sherwin was challenging to a race on who gets more passengers and who is the fastest between them. With that Miguel got into an accident where he lost control of his tricycle which swung  and lurched to the side of the road.

After reading the text, I noticed that the author used present tense as he tells the story. For me, The story is narrated in present tense because it allows us, the readers to convey a character’s change as it happens. When a story is written in present tense, we are there with the narrator as he changes the mood of the story. For me Miguel really knows the basics of being a tricycle driver but he lacks on knowledge about the real purpose of being one. Because I know for myself that a purpose of a tricycle driver is to drive your passenger safely at his/her destination and not to have a competition between other drivers. We can also see that as the story goes by, Miguel feels like Sherwin is one of his competitors since Sherwin drives faster than him. The last part of the text is the one that I liked the most where he said “Never again!” because Miguel’s words stated that he won’t let his pride take over his mind and feelings ever again which was the purpose of the author to teach us, readers a lesson. I would give this text  a 10/10 because the way he wrote this was indeed great and he used a common scenario that we usually see in our daily lives. I would recommend this text to my dad because I sometimes see him easily getting mad or angry when we are in the car which may be a cause of accident. I want him to also learn that he should stay calm every time that he is driving.

– Hernandez, Nathan Izach

 

 

 

 

Antonio Reyes Enriquez is  a filipino author of short stories and novels. He was born in Zamboanga city in 1936. Enriquez won many awards for his passion on writing. The short stories and novels of Enriquez were published mostly here in the Philippines. The author’s work are all based on different tales of the Philippines with his own perspective as a Zamboangueño. Here are some of his works:

Subanons

The Unseen War

Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh

The Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh is a work of Enriquez that was later on changed into Green Sanctuary requested by N.V.M. Gonzalez.

source: https://joeyzamora.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/antonio-reyes-enriquez-a-filipinoconmporary-artist-from-mindanao/

Green Sanctuary is set in Pikit, Cotabato where commercial buses or any other commuting vehicles are not allowed to stop by or be near Pikit. Instead, the passengers will be dropped of to the nearest town in Pikit and will walk barefooted until they reach Pikit where they can buy slippers(weird right?). If any commuting vehicles who stopped in Pikit, the Moros will deflate the tires with their wooden clubs, smashed the lights and windshields to smithereens until the skeleton of the vehicle is the only thing left. At six o’clock every evening, the sari-sari stores and carinderias along the road should be closed. No one should be seen walking after this hour. Only Datu Mantel is the only one that is allowed to be outside that time. One night a drunkard lost his way home, and on the main street Datu Mantel immediately shot him with his 45-calibre handgun.

In Green Sanctuary Datu Mantel also stole the role of the chief of police even without an appointment from the governor.

After reading the Green Sanctuary, the part that caught my attention the most is that if a bus or any transport vehicle stopped in Pikit, the Moros will deflate the vehicle’s tires with their wooden clubs and smashed the lights and windshields to small pieces until the skeleton of the bus is the only one left. This caught my attention because this scene gave me a vibe of a series called “The 100”, which is one of my favourite tv series of all time.  Another interesting part of the story is when the Datu stole the role of the chief of police without an appointment from the governor. In the line “Now I am the chief of police” The Datu showed his hunger for power. An evidence of this is when the Datu is the only one who is allowed to walk around the main road after six o’ clock every evening, and every one should notbe seen outside because if they are caught or seen by the Datu himself they will be shot. The story is in third person view because based on my research Antonio’s works are usually based on Zamboanga where he also lives. I gave this book a 9/10 because like I said I like the story because it is very interesting can like I said, it is similar to my favourite series. If I were to recommend this story to someone, I would recommend it to my grandfather because he really loves to read stories that happened in the past or somehow related to the past because he believes that history repeats itself and history may be the solution if a problem or a situation comes up.

– Hernandez, Nathan Izach