The Bougainvillea is a story written by Ma. Elena L. Paulma, a creative writer and a comparative literature professor at the University of the Philippines. The piece, according to the author herself was one of the products of her versatile ways of writing literary pieces. Based from her, she writes pieces out of her everyday scenery, experiences, and challenges that she had or may not still have concurred. As ordinary as it is at first glance of the word combinations, the story in fact is full of figurative languages hidden behind every word that was written by the author. Tricky as it may seem, the bougainvillea is originally attributed to the abundant culture of the Filipinos. One of which is having superstitious beliefs that sometimes leads to misconceptions about circumstances or worse, misfortune of a certain area.
Starting from the very beginning, the person in point of view narrated everything that she had witnessed with her everyday scenario. She joyfully talked about the structure of their house, the children constantly playing outside, their neighborhood, and their own superstitious beliefs. One of those beliefs is believing in dili ingon nato (not like us) who was also said to come around, roaming in times of siesta, and that was when every child in that particular area are hiding because they were too scared of it. The bougainvillea, for an instance, is one of the many places that the dili ingon nato would shelter themselves. Unfortunately enough, even though it has become her mother's source of pride because of its beauty, their family owns a bougainvillea tree, which according to them is enchanted. The story continued with the "evidences" being presented by the person in point of view. There comes a time when she, her friend Bansing, and Elsa got into an extraordinary situation. Bansing who was considered possessed because of her unusual behavior and Elsa also on the latter hand, all of these unfortunate events were blamed on the bougainvillea tree. But then, later on, the stories behind each of them were being vocalized and vulgar and it was proven to be in need of justice for the tragedy that happened is not caused by the dili ingon nato but because of unlawful actions done by one suspect and the victim herself.
Upon further comprehension, the story for me became my source of lesson. The piece is not only to entertain us but also to leave us knowledge and wisdom and a lesson, most especially for us Filipino citizens who are very fond of committing these kinds of mistakes taken from misconceptions and too much overlying beliefs. I, then, realized that it does not only happen in fictional works but it is also happening in the real world. The Filipinos, especially those who were born with strict cultivation, are most likely the ones that become victimized by their too much beliefs in everything. In the beginning it is quite okay, because it's their belief, it's out of our control and business but when it gets too much, it became the source of their accidents and misconceptions in almost everything. It is really fine to practice the culture you have been following since birth, the only thing is that everything that is "too much" is not healthy and safe.
After finishing the whole literary piece, I was able to come up with a conclusion that most of the Filipinos, up to this very day, still depends on their superstitious beliefs. Although there is nothing really wrong in following up with the inborn tradition, still it would be better if each one of us will be cautious enough to see that not all misfortunes are caused by our extraordinary beliefs. Consider the story of The Bougainvillea an example of a tragic misconception of an unexplainable phenomenon that happened in their place. The people in the area closed their minds for different possibilities instead, they focused their eyes on the dili ingon nato. By reading this literary piece, we can really say that still, even with a lot of innovation and changes that happened within our nation, the foundation of the culture that was built within our root became even stronger with the help of some Filipino artists trying to revive the undying legacy of our origin.
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