Dapitan Collection

by Charito Ramirez

DAPITAN is the name of a place in Mindanao where the official Philippine national hero JOSE RIZAL was exiled by the Spanish colonial authorities as punishment.

But the DAPITAN of this collection is a street in the Sampaloc district of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The author was born in the Sampaloc General Hospital of this district and spent the first fifteen years of her life there. The Dapitan of this book is not only the setting, but is also representative of the people there and their way of life.

130 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[elay · Rating 2 out of 5]

“But from life you learned none of these; you learn other things for which there were no words in your English vocabulary. First there was the English world of books and then there was your daily life. Just as when your mind was beginning to reach and form your identity, it split up and gave you another reality which was beyond your grasp. How much more lovely and seductive that other world, far from this your madding land. And so you began by loving your country but ended up wanting to leave, knowing longing and envy, thinking the grass always greener elsewhere, grabbing what you can. That was the problem, the puzzle. Did it begin here, the splitting of the heart and mind? Or was it in their subconscious, the peripatetic people, the brave and restless Filipinos?”

clapclap that was the only good part of the book besides anita’s “my soul had worshipped her” oh anita my looovveee 🥹