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Quarter 3

Asserting Myself

Lesson 1
Wallowing for Freedom

Content Standard:
The learner demonstrates understanding of: Philippine literature in the Period of
Emergence as a tool to assert one‘s identity; strategies in listening to and viewing of
informative and short narrative texts; word relationships and associations; informative
speech forms; and use of direct/reported speech, passive/ active voice, simple past
and past perfect tenses, and sentence connectors.

Performance Standard:
The learner transfers learning by: showing ways of asserting one‘s identity;
comprehending informative and short narrative texts using schema and appropriate
listening and viewing strategies; expressing ideas, opinions, and feelings through
various formats; and enriching written and spoken communication using
direct/reported speech, active/passive voice, simple past and past perfect tenses
and connectors correctly and appropriately.

Learning Competencies:
EN7LT-III-a-5: Discover literature as a tool to assert one‘s unique identity and to better
understand other people
EN7LT-III-c-2.2: Explain how the elements specific to a genre contribute to the theme of a
particular literary selection

Objective:
1. Recognize how an essay delivers important information.
2. Explain how comparison was used to support details in the selection.
3. Appreciate how the selection serves as avenue in asserting Filipino identity.
The Filipinos have been facing a lot of challenges since the immemorial. In the essay you are
about read, you will find out how they are similar to bamboos.

Task 1:

Directions: Listen to the story The Bamboo and the Mango Tree. What lesson does it teach us? Write
your answer on the box below.

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Task 2:
Directions: Bamboos can be seen everywhere, but there is more in bamboo that we should know. In the box below,
write down the thoughts you have about bamboo.
There is a story in Philippine folklore about a mango tree and a bamboo tree. Not being able to agree as to which was the
stronger of the two, they called upon the wind to make the decision.
The wind blew hardest. The mango tree stood fast. It would not yield. It knew it was strong and sturdy. It would not sway. It
was too proud. It was too sure of itself. But finally its root gave way, and it tumbled down.
The bamboo tree was wiser. It knew it was not as robust as the mango tree. And so every time the wind blew, it bent its head
gracefully. It made loud protestations, but let the wind have its way. When finally the wind got tired of blowing, the bamboo tree still
stood in all its beauty and grace.
The Filipino is like the bamboo tree. He knows that he is not strong enough, to withstand the onslaught of superior forces. And
so he yields. He bends his head gracefully with many loud protestations.
And he has survived. The Spaniards came and dominated him for more than three hundred years. And, when the Spaniards
left, the Filipinos still stood—only much richer in experience and culture.
The Americans took place of the Spaniards. They used more subtle means of winning over the Filipinos to their mode of living
and thinking. The Filipinos embraced the American way of life more readily than the Spaniard‘s vague promises hereafter.
Then the Japanese came like a storm, like a plague of locusts, like a pestilence—rude, relentless, cruel. The Filipino learned
to bow his head low, to ―cooperate‖ with the Japanese in their ―holy mission of establishing the Co-Prosperity Sphere.‖ The Filipino
had only hate and contempt for the Japanese, but he learned to smile sweetly at them and to thank them graciously for their
―benevolence and magnanimity‖.
And now that the Americans have come back and driven away the Japanese, those Filipinos who profited most from
cooperating with the Japanese have been loudest in their protestations of innocence. Everything is as if the Japanese had never been
in the Philippines.
For the Filipino would welcome any kind of life that the gods would offer him. That is why he is contented and happy and at
peace. The sad plight of other people of the world is not his. To him, as to that ancient Oriental poet, the past is already a dream, and
tomorrow is only a vision; but today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and tomorrow is a vision of hope.
This may give you the idea that the Filipino is a philosopher. Well he is. He has not evolved a body of philosophical doctrines.
Much less has he put them down into a book, like Kant for example, or Santayana or Confucius. But he does have a philosophical
outlook on life.
He has a saying that life is like a wheel. Sometimes it is up, sometimes it is down. The monsoon season comes, and he has to
go undercover. But then the sun comes out again. The flowers bloom, and the birds sing in the trees. You cut off the branches of a
tree, and, while the marks of the bolo* are still upon it, it begins to shoot forth-new branches—branches that are the promise of new
color, new fragrance, and new life.
Everywhere about him is a lesson in patience and forbearance that he does not have to learn with difficulty. For the Filipino
lives in a country on which the gods lavished their gifts aplenty. He does not have to worry about the morrow. Tomorrow will be only
another day—no winter of discontent. Of he loses his possessions, there is the land and there is the sea, with all the riches that one
can desire. There is plenty to spar—for friends, for neighbors and for everyone else.
No wonder that the Filipino can afford to laugh. For the Filipino is endowed with saving grace of humor. This humor is earthly
as befits one who has not indulged in deep contemplation. But it has enabled the Filipino to shrug his shoulders in times of adversity
and say to himself ―Bahalana‖*.
The Filipino has often been accused of being indolent and of lacking initiative. And he has answered back* that no one can
help being indolent and lacking in initiative who lives under the torrid sun which saps the vitality.
This seeming lack of vitality is, however, only one of his means of survival. He does not allow the world to be too much with
him. Like the bamboo tree, he lets the winds of chance and circumstance blow all about him; and he is unperturbed and serene.
The Filipino, in fact, has a way of escaping from the rigorous problems of life. Most of his art is escapist in nature. His
forefathers wallowed in the *moro-moro, the awit, and the kurido. They loved to identify themselves as gallant knights battling for the
favors of fair ladies or the possession of hallowed place. And now he himself loves to be lost in the throes and modern romance and
adventure. His gallantry towards women—especially comely women—is a manifestation of his romantic turn of mind.
Consequently, in no other place in Orient are women so respected, so adulated, and so pampered. For his women have
enabled the Filipinos to look upon the vicissitudes of fortune as the bamboo tree regards the angry blasts of the blustering wind. The
Filipino is eminently suited to his romantic role. He is slender and wiry. He is nimble and graceful in his movements, his voice is soft,
and h has the gift of language. In what other place in the world can you find a people who can carry on a fluent conversation in at least
*three languages? This gift is another means by which the Filipino as managed to survive. There is no insurmountable barrier between
him and any of the people who have come to live with him—Spanish, American, and Japanese.
The foreigners do not have to learn his language. He easily manages to master theirs. Verily, the Filipino is like the bamboo
tree. In its grace, in its ability to adjust itself to the peculiar and inexplicable whims of fate, the bamboo tree is his expressive and
symbolic national tree, it will have to be, not the molave or the narra, but the bamboo.
Task 3:
The teacher will post scrambled letters on the board. The students will arrange the letters to form a
word, right after the teacher gave its meaning.

1. NIAPTL - able to move freely

2. B T L E S U – hard to notice or see

3. U E A G V – not clear in meaning

4. D Y U T S R – strong and healthy

5. M I N L E B – able to move quickly, easily and likely

Task 4:

Directions: In reading the essay, answer the following questions:

1. What are the similarities of Filipinos and bamboos?

2. What happened to the Filipinos during the Spanish and American


colonization?

3. Explain the quote: “The past is already a dream, and tomorrow is only a
vision; but today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and
every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
Do you agree? Why or Why not?
4. Describe the Filipinos as philosophers.

Task 5:
Directions: The essay delivered important information. Give specific details with the following
statements.

1. Filipinos stand still despite many challenges.

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2. Filipinos remain persistent even when they were colonized by invaders.

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3. Filipinos are philosophers.

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Task 4:
Directions: Watch an inspirational video of “Life Lessons of The Chinese Bamboo Plant”. Then reflect on the
questions that follow:

What is your story of growth as a


teenager?

What are you willing to do to make


your dreams come true?

How long are you willing to work for


it?

Task 6:
Directions: Your group was hired as the new members of a non-profit organization. Your first task is to make a
music video that will show the perseverance of the Burgosin. Show the different problems that have challenged
them through the years. The goal of the music video is to inspire every Filipino, particularly Burgosinto continue
the fight amidst various challenges and obstacles.

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