LITERARY SCHOLARS must go beyond the usual interactions with their stakeholders, but should also agitate and raise questions about injustices in society, an acclaimed writer and lawyer said.
Palanca Hall of Famer Floyd Douglas Nicolas Pichay outlined the obligations of literature scholars who engage with the world, including questioning and analyzing the realities confronting them, during the Paz Latorena Memorial Lecture on Saturday, May 3, at the Thomas Aquinas Research Center (TARC).
“As scholars of Literature [program] and Creative Writing, you have a unique obligation not just to engage with the world but to agitate and transform,” he said.
Pichay became a Palanca Hall of Famer in 2007. He was also a recipient of the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas in 2016.
According to him, narrations on laws must be told in a manner that will highlight the plight of the marginalized, especially in a society where the legal system neglects common people.
His lecture showcased literature as a tool to magnify the stories within certain cases or incidents, including identifying dominant and counter-narratives in some provisions of the Constitution.
Using the framework of Robert Cover’s “Nomos and Narrative,” Pichay pointed out that the Constitution is not just a set of rules as it must also be a process that humanizes the citizens and enables them to understand the world more deeply.
“He (Robert Cover) said law contains a multiplicity of narratives where the dominant narrative is told by the state, and the contrary narratives are held by marginal groups. Thus, law is a site of narrative conflict where specific groups vie for legitimate interpretation,” Pichay said.
“This assumption also implies that where one narrative is upheld, another narrative is negated.”
Pichay said the rigid and violent nature of the law often diminishes the stories of certain community members.
He also expounded on how legal policies, such as the tokhang or anti-drug campaign during the time of former president Rodrigo Duterte, contain personal narratives and how they remain uncovered if the legal framework is approached through a one-sided approach, such as the formalist approach.
“The drug war policy is targeting the poor and marginalized,” Pichay said.
By analyzing these issues using a different approach, the displaced trauma within these real-life experiences is acknowledged, and unheard stories are heard, Pichay said.
“Viewing law as narrative challenges the perception of law as a monolithic society. By examining the narrative within the law, we can critically assess the authenticity of the shared meanings it conveys, identify the narratives it excludes and more thoughtfully evaluate whether the societal cost of the violence is inherent in its enforcement,” he added.
Law in Latorena’s works
Pichay’s materials for his lecture on the dominant and counter narratives of law were “The Small Key” and “Desire,” both of which are works by Latorena.
The dominant narrative in “The Small Key” is the portrayal of Soledad and Pedro or “Indo’s” relationship, in which Indo controls a massive fraction of their marriage. According to Pichay, Latorena’s portrayal of Soledad’s marginalization affirms the point that literary stories showcase a personal level of how specific laws either favor or neglect a member of the party.
“Latorena’s works critique the exclusionary nature of the dominant legal narrative and reimagine a more empathetic justice and belonging,” he said.
“The laws of patriarchy dominate the legal narrative of this story.”
Pichay noted that “Desire” subtly inverts the classic Beauty and the Beast dynamic. In the story, societal beauty standards function as an unwritten law that imposes identity and worth upon the female persona.
“The society’s laws of beauty and desirability is the unwritten law in this story,” Pichay said.
For Pichay, the persona’s defiance of this unwritten law in the story becomes the mode of resistance, a literary challenge to the patriarchal structures that seek to define and limit women.
Pichay also noted that Latorena articulated similar insights through her literary works even before the seminal work of Simone de Beauvoir, which mainly analyzed society’s confinement of the female body through rigorous standards.
“The story ‘Desire’ predates the theories on sexual objectification profounded in the ’60s and ’70s by Simone de Beauvoir,” he said.
Pichay’s notable works include the second edition of Ang Lunes na Mahirap Bunuin (2019), The Honor of the Senate (2012) and A Guide to the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines (2010), a legal resource for artists and creatives.
Aside from the memorial lecture, the annual tribute to the late literary icon included an on-the-spot essay writing contest for senior high school students in English and Filipino categories.
The event was organized by the Department of Literature and the Department of Creative Writing in collaboration with the UST Literary Society and the UST MaKatha Circle. F – H. Calica
