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Editorial 1
Editorial Note – Issue 3
While I was taking a bath in 1997, an idea came to me for something that would change the world. It didn’t, of course, unlike ideas that emerged ...
By Clinton Palanca -
Essay 2
Billboards, Statues, T-shirts: Revolving Ironies
Different billboards and statues in Thailand, Japan, and the Philippines reflect the peculiarities of these countries. The peripatetic Benedict Anderson shares his reflections and comparisons. A few days ...
By Benedict Anderson -
Essay 2
Pinoy Film Criticism: A Lover’s Polemic
What explains the arrested development of Pinoy film criticism? Joel David examines the way we talk about films and why certain critics don’t talk about them well enough ...
By Joel David -
Review 1
Repeating Insurrection as Fiction
How can radical political traditions be captured through fiction? Do literary injunctions against wordiness and didacticism preclude leftwing writing can both excite and educate? A new novel from ...
By Bomen Guillermo -
Essay 1
The Arab Awakening: What it Means for the Philippines
The Arab Spring was the Middle East’s version of “People Power.” Does this mean countries like Tunisia and Egypt are going to democratize like the Philippines? At the ...
By Richard Javad Heydarian -
Review 3
The Eraserheads For and Against the Masses
The Eraserheads, famous for songs about everyday Filipino life, departed from their successful formula after the release of the experimental Christmas album Fruitcake. The significance of the album ...
By Glenn Tuazon -
Feature 0
Moldy Yosi
Tito & Tita, a collective of young artists working mainly with film and photography, employ an array of spatial, architectural and cinematographic elements while working in the spirit ...
By Tito & Tita -
Essay 21
Being with Books: So You Think You Can Be the Boss
As he steps up to take on the job as head librarian at Ateneo’s Rizal Library, Von Totanes learns that libraries are about people as much as they ...
By Von Totanes -
Review 3
The Leading Bathtubs of the World
A review of bathtubs in Scotland, Iowa, Tokyo, and Boracay Whenever I am writing something—a story, an article, a letter—I like to imagine I am writing it from ...
By Sarge Lacuesta -
Review 1
Resisting the Novel: The Affronts of Manila Envelope
With the thin, sparse and relatively uncultivated tradition of literary publishing in the Philippines, might curating a literary anthology of our best contemporary novelists depend on more than ...
By Sasha Martinez -
Review 1
Uncovering Beginnings in Sa Wakas
A review of “Sa Wakas: A Pinoy Rock Musical,” a musical whose narrative wraps around the songs of Sugarfree, one of the most popular pop-rock bands of the ...
By Job de Leon -
Commentary 3
I Am Masa, and I Voted… Belat!
After voting, intellectuals called Gerry Bucton “bobo” for his choices. So he wrote The Manila Review to address “the smarties.” I am a member of the masa, of ...
By Gerry Bucton -
Archiving Philippine Letters 0
The Nationalist Sell-Out
In “Archiving Philippine Letters,” we feature classic essays from older literary journals. Here, reprinted in full, is the maiden editorial of Solidarity from 1966. If only because the ...
By F. Sionil Jose -
Review 4
The Spatiality of Rosario Cruz Lucero
Negros is an island of injustice. It’s one place, but it tells the story of a nation. Nelson Turgo examines how a collection of short stories can make ...
By Nelson Turgo
