The basic problem which confronted the country after the war was economic, aggravated by the need for rehabilitation and reconstruction. There was chaos in the national scene and the wounds inflicted by the war were still fresh. In the midst of social, economic and political confusion, the Republic of the Philippines was born. There was widespread poverty. The income of the people dipped radically and production was almost at a standstill. The total picture was dismal and bleak; the country’s material as well as spiritual resources were in shambles. The writer, still staggering from the effect of the war, had to wait for a decade or so for him to get back his literary bearings.
On July 4, 1946, the United States granted the Philippines its political independence. Roxas became the first President of the Republic. In his inaugural address, he expressed the bases of his policy; to rebuild the economy that was destroyed by the war, to industrialize the country, to participate in all the operations of the new economy at all levels, and to be devoted to the ideals of an indivisible peace and an indivisible world. This great political-historical event imbued the writers with a new sense of responsibility and nationalistic pride. Importantly, the bond between the Philippines and the united States was more strongly forged, especially underscored when Roxas, in a spate of rhetorics said: “our safest course and I believe it is true for the rest of the world, is in the glistening wake of America whose sure advance with mighty prow breaks for smaller craft the waves of fear.”
The American inspiration and influence was to play a vital role in the literature that was to follow.
ref: Philippine Contemporary Literature in English, Ophelia A. Dimalanta, et.al.
