How Dekada ’70 by Lualhati Bautista, whose given name translates to glory, can inspire the next generations

By Poch Eulalia

I was in junior high when I first encountered the late Lualhati Bautista’s Dekada ‘70 on display at a Buwan ng Wika (National Language Month) sale.

The cover of the book caught my eye right away, with its cover art depicting a white brick wall with the title painted onto it using blood-red paint. It reminded me of the album cover for Pink Floyd’s The Wall, with almost the exact same motif. It certainly stood out against the sea of young adult novels that were clearly lifted from the Internet and the numerous self-help books from religious figures and local business tycoons.

Reading Lualhati Bautista’s work helped change my perspective on social matters.

Dekada ‘70 was not the type of book I would normally read at the time.

I wasn’t even aware of how big of a deal the book was, having been given the grand prize for the Filipino novel category of the 1983 Palanca Awards. Back then, I was still deep between the covers of young adult novels from the West, such as Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why and Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games.

As I read through each page, I found myself struggling to understand what I was taking in. It didn’t help that I barely understood Filipino, with my peers leaning heavily toward English literature and media.

For the uninitiated, Dekada ‘70 centers around the family’s life throughout the Martial Law era of
the Philippines. It is told through the point of view of the mother, Amanda Bartolome, as she tries to take care of her five sons. The story is rife with themes relating to activism and paints a picture of what life was like for a middle-class family at the time. It was certainly nothing like I’ve ever read before at the time.

Reading Lualhati Bautista’s work helped change my perspective on social matters.

I went from being apolitical to learning how to form my own opinions about certain matters and look into the bigger picture. I found myself relating the most with Emmanuel, Amanda’s third son, who
took a passion for writing, calling for social justice through it.

With how things are nowadays Anvil Publishing’s Dekada ‘70 feels more relevant than ever. I hope
future readers of Bautista’s timeless classic learn to form their own opinions and decide for themselves
what they think is worth standing up for.

Lualhati Bautista, whose given name is a direct Tagalog translation of the word glory, is a key figure in Philippine contemporary literature and also a women’s rights activist. She died on Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023,
at 6 a.m. She was 77.