Reportage on Crime

It is admirable and eerie to read through fragments of Philippine society as espoused in Reportage on Crime. Much of the accounts from stories such as “When A Man Burns”, “The Lodger”, “The House on Zapote Street”, etc., inform well of the covert sinister nature brewing from the period. Stories that briefly cameo future Martial Law victims, proponents, martyrs, create this air of retrospective eeriness that extends the significance of the stories which they're a part of.

I find all of that amusing and creepy for the very reasons that not much of the 60's Philippines is easily understood online save for the rare restored film (A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino), a highly glamorized satire (Boy Golden: Shoot to Kill), or those sanitized Pathé newsreels. Quijano/Joaquin writes with the vigor and preciseness that I sometimes dream of capturing. It is so vicious and contemplative in its form, and the details cut across investigative and analytical lines in ways that excite me for reading his other Reportage pieces. There's plenty of subtext looming underneath.