OPINION: Junglegate: Philippine literary scene must kill its darling predators

The attempted republication of a ‘lost classic’ has cracked open years of silence over abuse.

Guns N’ Roses is on point in “Welcome to the Jungle”: “It gets worse here every day.”

For years, the same could be said of the jungle that is Philippine literature. Predators move comfortably through the shadows. Stories of abuse get buried in the undergrowth. There may be screams for help, but they’re rarely heard within it, much less beyond it.

Over time, more inhabitants learned to navigate the jungle, as if survival itself were progress—only for a republication to expose how little things have changed.

On Aug. 26, Exploding Galaxies, a publisher whose stated goal is “rediscovering lost classics of Philippine literature,” announced it would reprint Alfred “Krip” Yuson’s 1988 novel Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café with a Sept. 10 release date—just in time for the Manila International Book Fair.

Hours later, Katrina Stuart Santiago—author, journalist, and publisher of Everything’s Fine—alluded to it. For days, while avoiding specifics, she invoked “dirty old men,” “harassment,” “young female writers,” the “workshop system,” and the “literary establishment.” She warned that “reprinting his book” would “replatform” him and risk “endangering more women in the process.”

She eventually referred to “the jungle book,” saying its author “is also a plagiarist” who “admitted to it,” and recounted her own experience: “This man in particular actually wrote my superior on my second year of teaching basically trying to get me fired for being critical.”

On Sept. 1, Santiago directly named Yuson in connection with his 2011 plagiarism controversy and shared reports containing his explanation and public apology.

Three days later, Exploding Galaxies defended the republication on the basis of the book’s “well-established literary merit.” Without naming Santiago, it criticized “dishonest and unfair attempts to discredit this republication,” especially from a person who had expressed a “longstanding personal grudge against the author.”

“We take allegations of sexual harassment seriously,” it said. But it added that, to its knowledge, such allegations had not been “proven or independently corroborated,” and that republishing a book did not mean endorsing everything about its author.

Despite not being named, Santiago struck back: “So hit the messenger not the message?” By then, the statement had already drawn sharp criticism from readers and writers in the comments. On Sept. 7, the publisher said it would no longer promote or release Jungle, apologizing “for the hurt this has caused our community.”

But the apology was striking for what wasn’t there. It never directly addressed the allegations themselves or the person it had targeted earlier. The issue had already exploded into a reckoning over how the local literary community has treated people who report sexual violence, particularly women.

To be clear, allegations aren’t convictions. It’s the courts that determine whether a criminal offense has been committed. As it stands, there have been no formal cases over the longstanding claims against Yuson, who has stayed mum.

But the absence of a case does not erase allegations that have circulated for years. Nor can they simply be dismissed as tsismis or a demolition job. The question is what the literary establishment has been doing all these years as serious allegations persisted around some of its most revered figures.

Part of the answer lies in how the industry itself is built. It’s a small, tightly knit world where the professional and personal often overlap—bound by barkadahan and networks of loyalty.

Rogelio Braga, now living as a refugee in London, has described this ecosystem as a “literary mafia.” It starts with what he calls a “cult of mentorship,” where “established writers” cultivate a “cult following” and “careerist writing.” National writers’ workshops, contests, awards, publishing, and social capital become pathways to becoming “established.” The system’s foundation, he argues, is the “padrino system.” Eventually, its own products become the next gatekeepers, carrying the same system into the next generation. The people who benefit from the system are eventually the ones who sustain it. That’s how the jungle sustains itself.

Much of the activity is highly social: inuman, late-night gatherings, friendships, and mentorships that extend beyond the formal literary setting. That’s where boundaries can blur, power dynamics can be obscured, and abuses can begin.

Before the social media era, accounts of abuse could remain within the same small circles in which they began. They were passed around as warnings or regarded as “open secrets,” but rarely discussed outside the community itself. It also didn’t help that Filipino culture instills deference to the nakatatanda, to “established” figures. At least at the time, speaking up against them was virtually impossible. Beyond being labeled “disrespectful,” those who spoke up could become social pariahs.

But it’s already 2026. In the wake of Junglegate, writers began coming forward, among them Irene Sarmiento, Gian Lao, and Marguerite Alcarazen De Leon. Their stories differ, but they emerge from the same ecosystem.

Despite the sympathy they received, others downplayed what they experienced, even demanding courtroom-level proof. That reinforces the very silence that allowed such allegations to persist, placing the burden once again on those who have already taken the difficult step of speaking out.

That impulse to minimize the issue also surfaced in how some responded to the controversy itself.

Tensions escalated when Jose “Butch” Dalisay Jr. weighed in. Without explicitly referring to the issue, he imagined how many books he would have to throw away if their authors had been accused of “some such debility of spirit and behavior.” He lumped sexual misconduct with everything from political incorrectness to poor parenting, drunkenness, animal cruelty, greed, arrogance, and general insufferability, before asking whether “moral or political purity” translated to better literature. The post revived the familiar argument that literary value should survive the moral failings of the writer.

Another reaction was more callous: read whatever book you want, never mind the “accusers” who are supposedly lesser writers. That’s classic credentialism. And as if that weren’t bad enough: Why didn’t the accuser speak up in an earlier case? That’s classic whataboutism.

Lao later called attention to Dalisay’s liking of an already-deleted comment about “humblebragging,” which he believed was aimed at him. It came after a younger writer confronted Dalisay’s peer over her laughing emoji on some of his examples. The commenter, apparently referring to that exchange, explained: “I said something foolish because somebody I dearly love and respect was severely disrespected.”

But there was an obvious disconnect. Lao was the one who had come forward with his experience. The younger writer was only confronting Dalisay’s peer. Palusot gone wrong?

Dalisay later clarified that his post was about morality and art, not about trivializing survivors. He reiterated that he did not condone sexual harassment, acknowledged why young and vulnerable victims may turn to social media rather than legal action, and apologized to those who felt his remarks were dismissive.

Still, the episode reinforces the problem: once someone comes forward, the scrutiny can shift to the speaker instead of what they’re saying.

That’s also why the answer cannot simply be waiting for people to come forward. The Philippine literary establishment has to examine what it chooses to teach, publish, honor, and preserve.

Literature professor Carlos Piocos offered one place to start: removing works by writers accused of serious misconduct from syllabi. The point isn’t a metaphorical burning of books, but questioning their continued institutional use and the legitimacy that institutions confer on them.

In another post, Piocos called for stronger, more independent literary criticism. He questioned who gets to determine what is republished, taught, reviewed, awarded, and remembered, and called for scrutiny not only of writers and their works, but also of publishers, their catalogues, and the decisions they make.

That also brings us to literary prestige itself. Who names something a “lost classic”? Who decides it’s a classic? Who keeps calling the shots on what’s a classic?

To be fair, there have always been efforts not to be a predator in this jungle. There are writers and institutions trying to build something different. The problem is that the old structures remain powerful enough to shape who gets heard, recognized, and remembered.

It’s long overdue to break that monopoly: create independent reporting channels, protect complainants from retaliation, provide access to support and due process, and give survivors a real say in how institutions respond to their cases. The goal is safer, more diverse environments, particularly for newer generations of writers.

As for other survivors, more may yet come forward—and they should be welcomed, heard, and protected. But that cannot be the end goal. The goal is a literary culture where speaking up about abuse is no longer an act of courage because there is no abuse to speak up about in the first place.

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