Literary Section: Fiction Agcalan Point: Jose Y. Dalisay University of The Philippines, Diliman

Kr it i
K A KU lt
Ur A
LITERARY SECTION: fICTION
AgCALAN pOINT
Jose Y. Dalisay
University of the philippines, Diliman
jdalisay@mac.com
Editor’s note
Written 35 years ago, in July 1975, “Agcalan Point” is the one unpublished short story of Jose Y. Dalisay. It won
him his first Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award, one of two second placers, in 1975. The author has chosen to
preserve his younger voice in the printing of this story in this issue of Kritika Kultura.
About the author

Dr. Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., or Butch Dalisay as he is known among his colleagues and his students, is the author of the
first novel by a Filipino (Soledad’s Sister) to be short-listed for the prestigious Man Asian Literary Prize. Early this year,
Dalisay was one of eight internationally acclaimed authors at the main event of the Fifth Annual PEN World Voices
Festival. With him on this event were major international writers such as Salman Rushdie (India/USA), Raja Shehadeh
(Palestine), Muriel Barbery (France), Narcís Comadira (Spain), Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Péter Nádas (Hungary), and
Sergio Ramírez (Nicaragua).
Dalisay writes in both English and Filipino. Prior to Soledad’s Sister, he had previously published a novel, and fifteen
other books of short fiction, plays, and essays. Five of these have received the National Book Award from the
Manila Critics Circle, and several have been awarded the prestigious Don Carlos Palanca Award for Literature. He
has received several international writing grants, and has been invited to deliver papers and handle lectures in the
US, the UK, and Australia. He continues to teach English and Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines in
Diliman, currently heading the UP Institute of Creative Writing.
APPROACHING Ginbulanan harbor from the west, as it is the only entry the sea leaves
open short of tearing your craft apart with its sunken teeth, the traveler meets Agcalan.
From afar you perceive a decrepit Spanish fort more than a thousand feet above the
bobbing horizon, thickly overhung with clouds in the month of August. From that crown
Agcalan plunges madly downwards into jagged slivers of gray sandstone into the sea,
carpeted by a fine silken spray.
Treachery lurks but a fathom below; ships passing this point must have crews of
redoubtable courage. So far from the open sea, so near to land – and there the danger
lies, to founder on some ill-anchored reef or be crushed against the immutable cheek of
Agcalan.
Kritika Kultura 14 (2010): 182-195 1

<www.ateneo.edu/kritikakultura>
© Ateneo de Manila University
Dalisay
AgcalanPoin
t
Agcalan has always been there, and you have only seen it now. It has seen
everything, and you know nothing, a speck of flotsam in time and space, and you are
overwhelmed. There is majesty in the primeval, some godly attribute magnified by the
prism of the transparent mind, and it is here.
The rudder strains mightily against the current; now you fear it to snap, as may the
muscles of the crewman who pulls hard and tells you to take your place belowdecks. You
fear, and yet cannot heed his words. At this junction the sailboat must veer a little out to
sea, in a circuitous but entirely reasonable manner, if it is to reach port the one and same
vessel you boarded five islands away. Beyond that point, your eyes and rising spirits say,
lies the happy resolution – Ginbulanan harbor, quaintly and quietly returning your senses
like a garland on your neck. Houses of native brick and straw front the harbor one-deep;
lights from a dozen Coleman lamps mark your berth, shielding you, to the final step, from
the caprices of nightfall. You smile and disembark and do not care to notice the boys who
scurry for your baggage. You have survived Agcalan Point. And soon quickly forget.
***
AGKAL-ANG sank below the bushes, waiting for the buck to emerge from behind the rock
and underbrush. He had pursued the chase for the last hour and it had to end soon. The
profile of the deer’s rear darted into view and Agkal-ang’s fingers tensed on the arrow. No,
not yet. It was no way to shoot a buck. It was also his next to the last arrow. He would wait.
Sweat dripped from his brow and his loins ached in their posture. The arrow was a good
one, oiled with pig fat and its tip honed to the utmost. The rear vanished. His eyes followed
the flick of the antlers.
The buck, gleaming in the afternoon sun and too lately aware of coming death,
arced upwards in an effort to leap and abruptly sank as Agkal-ang let loose. The arrow
had cut deep at a point just below the deer’s neck, and he knew it had torn through the
heart.
Agkal-ang rose, rubbed the grease off his palms and knelt beside the hoarse-breathing
animal.
The catch was a good one as he had hoped for in those parts, big, and as it was,
made wily by a dozen encounters, pursuits and evasions. Up in the buck’s hindquarter
Agkal-ang’s forefinger surveyed a hairless lump – the scar of a previous battle. Truly they
came about too rarely now. Men had hunted hard for days and had to be content at times
with a wild boar or two, either suckling or aged enough to be good only for their fat. There
was less of even such game now.
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About the author

Kritika Kultura 14 (2010): 182-195 1

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