At the Singapore Writers Fest 2011, Filipino writer and teacher Butch Dalisay might be the most political I’ve heard him, probably the most comfortably honest. It isn’t everyday after all that we admit to a lack of readership where we come from in Manila and sincerely seem sad about it, not often that a powerful writer from our shores will bravely enter into a conversation about what ails his writing production, what limits it, what renders it moot and academic given the state of the nation from which it sprouts.
Not everyday that we hear any of our writers admit matter-of-fact, “I’d rather have a thousand readers at home than have 10,000 readers in New York," and actually mean it. Here is where Dalisay proves he shouldn’t be dismissed as one of the older members of the local literati, which is still in the bubble of believing the romances that surround cultural production, at the core of which is the idea that the task of writing is apolitical and is just about the craft, removed and extraneous to context. A recent anthology of Philippine poetry asserts that “the Filipino is not a theory <…> we are not academic," and discourse while “necessary <…> must not be propelled by a presumptuous tone that actually stunts literature’s growth" (Joel Toledo and Khavn dela Cruz from Under The Storm, 2011) – all very dangerous statements to make at a time when literature is necessary weapon.