The Philippines Graphic Reader
The first and only magazine on Philippine literature in English
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Philippines Graphic Reader
Price of a Dream
“You’re free to dream,” is what’s often heard
For wishful thinking seems to be done daily
And nobody had to pay a dime to keep it...
Fiction
An Affair to Remember
Monsignor Sullivan was seated at his glass-topped desk, the letter from Vikings Cruise on a linen stationery before him. Should he take up the...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Sometimes, I Am the Leaves
Aimless and astray—“I won’t go far”But most times, I am lost in the intricate streets and manmade blocks
Not knowing the way back to your...
Fiction
The Decision
Guido hands the large envelope to Bea. She accepts it with two hands, but he doesn’t let go of it, suddenly hesitant. She looks...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Nautilus
I walked barefoot on the Pacific beach,the sand a chill, the sun a dying coal.Waves whispered secrets to the rocks,and there it was—a spiral...
Philippines Graphic Reader
The Photograph
Here my mother, who must have been
in her early forties, sits on a stone ledge
at Fort San Pedro overlooking the Guimaras Strait.
The sun must...
Fiction
The Cold War Aswang Incident
In the year 1950, my village knew little of the Cold War although its geopolitical tremors reached even our mountains. The Philippine national government,...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Sisyphus, Rockstar
One last time, my forgotten friend,
poise your calloused hands
and dig your battered heels into the dirt.
Left behind by the new world.
The others, glam dolls...
Fiction
The Gunner of APC 314
In the main gate opens at 0500H. My smart sports watch reads 0438H. Emerging from the shadows of the mango trees fronting the women's...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Another War
I was seven
a war marred my hometown
Tíyo and the fishermen
soldiers
the deep sea
battlefield
a compound
of the sea’s little bones
of sable sands
in a wicked bottle
their arsenal made
the...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Three Poems Before 2025
2024
What do you want to say
to a year yet to explain itself?
The days are heaving,
the hours a diary made meaningful
with our ghosts: gray, tenuous,
prone...
Fiction
The Eyes that Follow
So this is how most women die, she learned, lying in pain on the floor of the main hallway at the governor’s palace. Forgotten.
Her...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Una oda a la música
May this poem be heard as a testament of Amorsolo’s “History of Philippine Music” and his artistry.
Winds already touched the glistening sails
of a boat...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Cinnamon Rolls
A covenant was made.
You trod on my soil.
You breathed my air.
Here, tonight,
I am having dinner.
The hall would have fit in
Many exuberant guests,
But I only...
Fiction
The Maids’ Revolt
The gunfire echoed along the ship’s corridor. Kuya One, who was known only by his call sign, welcomed the sound this time, as it...
