A Katipunero’s Call to Action: Examining Lino Villanueva’s Para sa Babai, 1896

Abstract

The 19th-century Filipino woman has been canonized in literary and non-literary texts as passive and as an object of men manifested by the power and influence of a society ruled by the church. This paper examined Lino Villanueva’s Para sa Babai as a primary source to interpret his message that Filipino women known as submissive can be revolutionary in an attempt to contribute to women’s study and discourse. To make an in-depth analysis of the source as a historical document in the context of its time, the Revolution of 1896, the poem was supplemented with other primary sources using an intertextual approach to trace the writer’s references. Lastly, the researchers posed insights and recommendations to shed light on the progress of women’s representation in today’s literature.