The essay describes the author's family moving into an unfinished new home in Marikina. On their first night, they dealt with mosquitoes as there was no electricity or window screens yet. While some interior work was completed, the exterior of the home remained unfinished eight years later. The author sees the home as an attempt to recreate the family's previous successful home, but with more modest means. Key rooms like the living room and kitchen maintained similar layouts and furnishings to the previous home, though with less space.

1. EMERGING TRENDS IN
PHILIPPINE LITERATURE:
CREATIVE NONFICTION
12TH GRADE
Essay

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
01
VIEW
02
03 04
FIVE BROTHERS,
ONE MOTHER
CREATIVE
NONFICTION
MARGINAL NOTES
PIT STOP

3. VIEW
01

4. According to the Oxford Dictionary, "home" simply
means "the place where one lives permanently, especially as
a member of a family or household." However, the word
itself carries meaning well beyond its dictionary definition.
The idea of home strikes a chord not only because it is a
common topic of writing, but it also traces the
development of the Filipino essay; one can say that, like
most writers, the Filipino essay has "come home."

5. ★ An essay is simply "a short piece of writing that tells a person's
thoughts or opinions about a subject, according to the Merriam-
Webster dictionary.
★ Almost any type of writing can technically be considered an essay, as
long as it is short and about a subject.
★ This can lead to the misconception that essays are easy to write or
of lesser importance as a form of literature, is not the case.
VIEW
Essay

6. ★ The essay in Philippine writing has a particular history and
trajectory.
★ The first essays were written not by Filipinos themselves, but by the
Spanish friars who arrived in the country and were tasked to
document it for those who remained in Spain.
★ Some of the earliest works written in the Philippines that can be
considered essays include Arte y reglas de la lengua tagala by Fr.
Francisco Blancas de San Jose, which was a treatise on the Tagalog
language.
VIEW
Essay in Philippine History: Spanish Era

7. ★ Filipino writers would also adopt the form.
★ Some particular examples coming from Tomas Pinpin who wrote
Librong Pag-aaralan nang manga Tagalog nang Uicang Castila.
★ Fr. Modesto de Castro's Platicas Doctrinales was considered a
landmark work in that it helped formalize what would come to be
known "Filipino values."
VIEW
Essay in Philippine History: Spanish Era

8. ★ The essay found its home in Philippine writing during the later
years of Spanish rule, particularly during the rise of the reformist
movement. Personalities such as Fr. Jose Burgos, Pedro Paterno,
Marcelo H. del Pilar, and of course, Jose Rizal, all wrote to raise
awareness of the abuses of the colonial rulers of the time.
★ During the revolution, Andres Bonifacio's "Ang Dapat Mabatid ng
mga Tagalog" and Emilio Jacinto's "Liwanag at Dilim" were just some
of the works being read by Filipinos in the country.
VIEW
Essay in Philippine History: Spanish Era

9. ★ The essay's development continued after the revolution, with the
arrival of the American education system and American literary
choices.
★ A new category of essays was being recognized as Literary. These
essays focused on personal accounts. The style of writing was less
formal, with some essays flirting with poetic or narrative techniques.
★ Many of these works were published in newspapers and magazines,
and eventually collected into books. Writers like Nick Joaquin, S.P.
Lopez, Francisco Arcellana, N. V. M. Gonzalez, Estrella Alfon,
Kerima Polotan, and many others covered a huge variety of subjects
and styles in their essays.
VIEW
Essay in Philippine History: American Era

10. ★ Even during the Martial Law years of the 1970's, when press
freedom was curtailed and critics of the Marcos regime risked
imprisonment or torture, many continued to write essays
speaking out against oppression.
★ With the overthrow of Marcos in the 1980s and the rapid
regrowth of the free press, essays have flourished once more, in
even more forms and categories, including creative nonfiction.
VIEW
Essay in Philippine History: Martial Law Era

11. ★ Essays have allowed Filipino writers to explore a broad spectrum of
topics and concerns, ranging from lofty discussions of nationalism
and the purpose of art to more intimate pieces, harnessing
nostalgia and memory as ways to leave and return home.
★ Exie Abola's essay "Many Mansions" explores the issue of home
and where it can be located, not only reminding us of our own
homes and lives, but also asking whether home is, indeed, where
the heart is.
VIEW
Essay in Philippine History: Martial Law Era

12. CREATIVE
NONFICTION
02

13. CREATIVE NONFICTION
★ It is a 21st-century literary form.
★ Creative nonfiction is seen more as a category or a method of
classification to differentiate it from other types of essays.
★ For a work to be considered creative nonfiction, it must use
creative writing techniques more commonly found in fiction.
What is Creative Nonfiction?

14. CREATIVE NONFICTION
★ Essays that have clear narrative elements or use fiction
techniques such as dialogue or characterization are classified as
creative nonfiction
★ The earlier essay by John Jack Wigley may also be considered
creative nonfiction because of the presence of the said elements.
★ Creative nonfiction is seen as a contentious term because while it
seems to be referring to a brand new genre of writing, it is often
used interchangeably with the term literary essay, and some still
whether it is in fact a legitimate genre.
What is Creative Nonfiction?

15. CREATIVE NONFICTION
★ Genres are classifications or ways of differentiating one thing from
another. Genres are not static; they can change over time to reflect
the changes in society.
★ For example, during William Shakespeare's time, his plays were not
seen as having high literary value because of his tendency to
innovate beyond the established conventions of drama at that time.
Now, however, his works are seen as "classics" with timeless value.
What is Creative Nonfiction?

16. Trackback
Home is where one lays down roots. Homes are often seen as
locations or permanent structures where one feels comfortable. But is
this always the case? Have you ever moved to a different home? How
many homes have you had in your life? Is it possible to have more than
one home?
Do a little research: Ask your parents and/or grandparents about
their own home(s). Have they always lived in the same place? How many
homes have they had? What is, or was, home to them?
Home

19. Trackback
Take and insert pictures of your home into Google doc or Microsoft
word and answer the following questions below:
1. Why do you call the place you live in now "home?"
2. How many "homes" do you really have? Do you have more than
one?
3. How does home define you as a person?
4. Is home synonymous with house? Justify your answer.
Activity: Home

20. Description
MARKERS
is an account of a
person, object, or
event, that enables
the reader to get a
clear picture of what
is being described.
Narration Anecdotes
is the act of telling
a story.
are short stories
based on true
accounts.

21. Characteristics
MARKERS
are the mental and
moral qualities that
make someone
distinctive
Dialogue Insight
are conversations
found in written
works such as
books, plays or
firms.
In literature, is the
expansion of
understanding
gained by the
narrator or reader.

22. Five Brothers,
One Mother
03

23. Alexis “Exie” Abola
❏ Alexis "Exie" Abola is an award-winning
fictionist and essayist. A product of Ateneo de
Manila University, where he finished his
bachelor's degree, and the University of the
Philippines, where he complete his master's
degree, he currently teaches at the Ateneo and
continues to write.
❏ He has won a Do Carlos Palanca Award in
creative writing for his essay "Many Mansions.
Aside from this, he has two awards for fiction
and journalism. His book of essays. Trafficking
in Nostalgia, was published in 2012

24. Alexis “Exie” Abola
❏ A review of Trafficking in Nostalgia in the
online literary magazine Kalatas says that
"Abola redefines nostalgia in his book, not only
by bravely looking at experience, but also by
refining the gesture of remembering through
careful craftsmanship.
❏ Abola, therefore, is not only participating in
what has become a long tradition of essay
writing; he is also changing it, adding to it his
own interpretations on what essays are and
how they should be written.

25. Five Brothers, One Mother
The Marikina house wasn’t finished yet, but with an ultimatum hanging over our
heads, we had no choice but to move in. Just how unfinished the house became bruisingly
clear on our first night. There was no electricity yet, and the windows didn’t have screens.
There were mosquitoes. I couldn’t sleep the whole night. My sister slept on a cot out in the
upstairs hall instead of her room downstairs, maybe because it was cooler here. Every so
often she would toss and turn, waving bugs away with half-asleep hands. I sat beside her
and fanned her. She had work the next day. In the morning someone went out and bought
boxes and boxes of Katol.
Work on the house would continue, but it remains unfinished eight years later. All the
interiors, after a few years of intermittent work, are done. But the exterior remains
unpainted, still the same cement gray as the day we moved in, though grimier now.
Marikina’s factories aren’t too far away. The garden remains ungreened; earth, stones,
weeds, and leaves are where I suppose bermuda grass will be put down someday.

26. Five Brothers, One Mother
In my eyes the Marikina house is an attempt to return to the successful
Greenmeadows plan, but with more modest means at one’s disposal. The living room of
the Cinco Hermanos house features much of the same furniture, a similar look. The sofa
and wing chairs seem at ease again. My mother’s growing collection of angel figurines is
the new twist. But there is less space in this room, as in most of the rooms in the Marikina
house, since it is a smaller house on a smaller lot.
The kitchen is carefully planned, as was the earlier one, the cooking and eating areas
clearly demarcated. There is again a formal dining room, and the new one seems to have
been designed for the long narra dining table, a lovely Designs Ligna item, perhaps the one
most beautiful piece of furniture we have, bought on the cheap from relatives leaving the
country in a hurry when we still were on Heron Street.

27. Five Brothers, One Mother
Upstairs are the boys’ rooms. The beds were the ones custom-made for the
Greenmeadows house, the same ones we’d slept in since then. It was a loft or an attic, my
mother insisted, which is why the stairs had such narrow steps. But this "attic," curiously
enough, had two big bedrooms as well as a wide hall. To those of us who actually
inhabited these rooms, the curiosity was an annoyance. There was no bathroom, so if you
had to go to the toilet in the middle of the night you had to go down the stairs and come
back up again, by which time you were at least half awake.
Perhaps there was no difference between the two houses more basic, and more
dramatic, than their location. This part of Marikina is not quite the same as the swanky
part of Ortigas we inhabited for five years. Cinco Hermanos is split by a road, cutting it into
two phases, that leads on one end to Major Santos Dizon, which connects Marcos Highway
with Katipunan Avenue. The other end of the road stops at Olandes, a dense community of
pedicabs, narrow streets, and poverty.

28. Five Brothers, One Mother
The noise – from the tricycles, the chattering on the street, the trucks hurtling down
Marcos Highway in the distance, the blaring of the loudspeaker at our street corner put there by
eager-beaver baranggay officials – dispels any illusions one might harbor of having returned to a
state of bliss.
The first floor is designed to create a clear separation between the family and guest areas,
so one can entertain outsiders without disturbing the house’s inhabitants. This principle owes
probably more to my mother than my father. After all, she is the entertainer, the host. The living
room, patio, and dining room – the places where guests might be entertained – must be clean
and neat, things in their places. She keeps the kitchen achingly well-organized, which is why
there are lots of cabinets and a deep cupboard.
And she put them to good use. According to Titus, the fourth, who accompanied her
recently while grocery shopping, she buys groceries as if all of us still lived there. I don’t recall the
cupboard ever being empty.

29. Five Brothers, One Mother
That became her way of mothering. As we grew older and drifted farther and farther
away from her grasp, defining our own lives outside of the house, my mother must have
felt that she was losing us to friends, jobs, loves – forces beyond her control. Perhaps she
figured that food, and a clean place to stay, was what we still needed from her. So over the
last ten years or so she has become more involved in her cooking, more attentive, better.
She also became fussier about meals, asking if you’ll be there for lunch or dinner so she
knows how much to cook, reprimanding the one who didn’t call to say he wasn’t coming
home for dinner after all, or the person who brought guests home without warning. There
was more to it than just knowing how much rice to cook.
I know it gives her joy to have relatives over during the regular Christmas and New
Year get-togethers, which have been held in our house for the past half-decade or so. She
brings out the special dishes, cups and saucers, platters, glasses, bowls, coasters and
doilies she herself crocheted. Perhaps I understand better why her Christmas decor has
grown more lavish each year.

30. Five Brothers, One Mother
After seeing off the last guests after the most recent gathering, she sighed, "Ang kalat
ng bahay!" I didn’t see her face, but I could hear her smiling. My father replied, "Masaya ka
naman." It wasn’t a secret.
Sundays we come over to the house, everyone who has moved out, and have lunch
together. Sunday lunches were always differently esteemed in our household. Now that
some of us have left, I sense that my siblings try harder than they ever did to be there. I
know I do. I try not to deprive my mother the chance to do what she does best.

31. Navigate
1. What point in time does the excerpt cover?
2. What is the main impression Abola gives of the Markina house?
3. List at least three descriptive terms which support your answer in number 2.
4. Create a table listing down the comparisons that the author makes between this current
house and their previous one.
5. In the passage, “There was more to it than just knowing how much rice to cook,” what
could the author mean? Explain your answer in three to five sentences.
6. Examine the reasons why the author’s mother would complain about the messiness of
the house, and yet smile after gatherings. What does this say about how she values family.