NARRATIVE

REPORT
The Ballad of Lola
Amonita
Submitted by:
Nikka Hazel M. Mendoza
Irene Joy S. Panal
Submitted to:
Mrs. Ma. Theresa de Guzman

History
The Ballad of Lola Amonita
This poem was inspired by the story of a Filipino "Comfort Woman" who spoke at a forum in
Hawaii in September 1992. The woman was one of many young Filipinas who were forcibly
taken and raped by Japanese soldiers during World War II.

The Author
Ruth Elynia S. Mabanglo
Ruth Mabanglo is both a poet and scholar. She has been publishing poetry for over 30 years and
has received numerous literary awards and honors, most recently the Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for Literature Hall of Fame Award, the 1992 Commission on Filipino Language "Makata
ng Taon" (Poet of the Year) for the poem "Gahasa" (Rape), and the Manila Critics Circle 1990
National Book Award for Poetry for Mga Liham ni Pinay (The Letters of Pinay). Mabanglo has
also published many academic works and currently is a professor at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa, where she teaches Tagalog Language and Literature in the Department of Hawaiian and
Indo-Pacific Languages and Literature.
Ruth Elynia S. Mabanglo (born March 30, 1949) is a professor at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa. She is the coordinator for the Department of Hawaiian and Indo-Pacific languages and
literatures as well as the Filipino and Philippine Literature Program. Her most recent publications
were "Balada ni Lola Amonita" and "The Ballad of Lola Amonita" in Babaylan: An Anthology of
Filipina and Filipina American Writers, edited by Nick Carb and Eileen Tabios and published
by Aunt Lute Books in the year 2000.
Born in Manila to Fortunato and Miguela Mabanglo, she received a degree in Filipino from the
University of the East, a Filipino language and literature master's degree from Philippine Normal
College, and a doctorate in Filipino from Manuel L. Quezon University. Aside from teaching at
University of the East, Manuel L. Quezon University, Philippine Normal College, and De La
Salle University, she was a journalist with Taliba and Abante for a while.

Literary Piece
The Ballad of Lola Amonita
This poem was inspired by the story of a Filipino "Comfort Woman" who spoke at a forum in
Hawaii in September 1992. The woman was one of many young Filipinas who were forcibly
taken and raped by Japanese soldiers during World War II. In this poem, the woman speaks.
The sparks and roars of gunpowder
Tear into the night.
They arrive.
Men wearing caps,
Soiled,
A fish stench in their perspiration,
Singkit,
Tanned like their shadows,
Strides heavy and exact,
Objectives clear.
They emerge from the plains and forests,
Sometimes alighting from buses,
Poisoning the air with their breath,
Disrupting the peace
With their fierce words.
With eyes still heavy with sleep,
Our mothers and fathers
Snatch us from bed:
Hurry, hurry, we were told to climb down,
We must form a line by the fence!
Im scared, Mom!
We are here, child,
We will not leave you alone!
Still dazed and drowsy
I feel the cold earth
Under my feet.
My ears catch
The cries and whimpers of the children.
The captain yells,
I cannot understand.
I cannot remember
Up to now
The profanity-That wounded the air,

That stabbed the ear,

That sunk deep in my soul.
One by one,
The men try to survey us.
Fear creeps into my spine when
A hand gently caresses
My cheek.
It is the same hand
That grabs the chicken from the silong
Rough and callused hand,
Balding man,
With very dark eyes.
Resembling a laho that eats children
In stories told by folks.
A kapre maybe only without a cigar,
The lore remains clear in my mind.
Barely an adolescent,
It was not long ago that I reached
Puberty.
Though prohibited,
I still like to play luksong tinik.
I do not understand why they say,
"You are a young woman now."
Lola is upset whenever I giggle.
She tries to put my thighs together
Whenever I sit with legs apart.
"You are a young woman now."
Repeatedly, like a litany.
I see my mother cover her mouth
As the soldier gently caresses my cheek,
My father is also taken aback.
Lola, passionately recites her prayers
With eyes closed.
It is the same man
Who grabs the chicken from the silong,
He resembles the color of night.
It is the same man who grabs
And drags me to the silong,
We are the color of night.
We are the color of night,
Starless night.

"A fresh maiden is sweet!"

Rough and callused palms gag my lips.
Frantically, I try to move.
He forces me to lie down.
His thighs pin down my thighs,
His violent hands
Grope.
His penis breaks me open
Like a razor,
Spreads me,
Stretches me
Like blazing light,
Damning darkness.
Warm tears flow from the wound,
Blood of a crushed flower.
I am his dinner,
Only fourteen,
No match for anyones battle.
He,
Like a mad dog,
Moves to and fro,
Goes up and down,
Shouts-yells,
Moves about
Until his penis melts.
In shame, I recoil,
And hide my face in the ground.
It is a night without a name.
It is a night without images.
My mind rationalizes:
Perhaps this is one of lolas stories-Evil spirits of the night,
Aswang,
Tikbalang,
Duwende,
Manduduro,
Ay, they are all the same to me.
I dont remember how I provoked their ire-Did I sweep the floor at night?
Did I plant pepper without asking
permission?
Did I go near a banyan tree?

I continue to search for answers

When, again, he drags me to the silong.
My mother is death walking the street
When our eyes meet;
My father looks like a rotten fish,
Avoiding my gaze.
Now he knows.
He cannot uphold
His promise-"I wont leave you alone!"
And my grandma, too, knows,
Neither Mary nor Jesus
Can save me.
A pile of burnt hair adorns
Gods hand,
Wounded throats have no power
Over words,
Tears that night
Are saved for the parched earth.
That was the beginning of a cycle-The search for a tomb
That can defeat my pains.
Even now,
They have not found a resting place.

Interpretation
By breaking through the shame and anguish that kept comfort women survivors silent for
decades, their stories teach us many lessons about our shared past and even inspire others to
speak out about similar ordeals. Their bravery in speaking up about their experiences has also
helped shape the freedom that Filipino women enjoy today. There are valuable lessons for Justice
and Healing learned in their stories of pain, perseverance, and persistence to claim justice for
themselves and others like them. The poem plays a critical role in opening the worlds eyes to the
reality of the situation. It shows that there is a collective concern for the violation of these
womens human rights. Advocates for the justice and healing of comfort women continue to
increase over time. This shows that people are not apathetic they will respond to a press that
stimulates the community without pandering to it, that inspires people to embrace their
responsibilities without lecturing or hectoring them, that engages their better natures without
sugarcoating ugly realities or patronizing their faults

By sharing the stories of our Lolas, the brave comfort women survivors, we send a
message to the world that rape is never to be tolerated, and institutionalized, that organized rape
such as that suffered by the comfort women is absolutely unacceptable. This is a message that
speaks strongly today, as it did during the war, to violators of human rights. As a staunch
advocate for comfort women survivors put it: The Comfort Women relive their experiences every
time they speak them. But they speak them so that history will know and understand and
document these acts, they speak them so that we may be aware of the consequences of war, they
speak them so that we may rise above these acts and never let them occur again

Japanese recollections of the war often downplay, if not neglect, the issue of comfort
women, disregarding their victimization in terms of gender, ethnicity, and class. The dominant
Japanese accounts of the war brand armed conflict as universally evil and equate suffering of
Japanese with that of other Asians this obscures the sexism, racism, and imperialism that
spawned the comfort stations. The manner in which comfort women are depicted by victimized
nations neglects the true survivors status, gender and/or class, and also ignores the
discrimination they have been subjected to at home since the end of the war. Eager to attract or

maintain Japanese development aid and investment, the postwar governments of Asian nations
colonized or occupied by Japan during the war have often been reluctant to press issues of
Japans responsibilities to its victims. Survivors public testimonies have not only challenged
Japanese public memory but also forced other Asians to reconsider the official accounts that have
shaped their memories of the war since then.

Moral Lesson
We must not forget the stories of the Lolas, and how their lives touch each and every one
of us. We see in each of them the characteristics of our own loving grandmothers. It is difficult to
imagine how their childhood and teenage years were wrought with unimaginable suffering. What
courage, strength, and determination it takes for anyone to take justice into their own hands by
enduring lawsuit after lawsuit, holding protests at Japanese embassies worldwide, and going the
extra mile to make their voices heard. Their persistence and perseverance of these elderly, ailing
women puts the younger apathetic generations to shame.
By understanding the Lolas experiences and learning more about them, we can develop
solutions to other issues reproduced under the structures of sexual exploitation. This could help,
for instance, in better understating and dealing with generations of other issues similar to this.
We must slip out of the traditional approach which handles the Japanese military comfort
women issue as a past issue and recognize that it still affects us today easy to locate but
unseen in our history as it is reproduced in everyday life.