ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the possibility of articulating an ecofeminism from the Philippine tropics. While ecocriticism as a discipline is considerably nascent in the scholarly landscape of the archipelago, it is argued here that Philippine ecofeminism is already discernible in existent vernacular feminist scholarships, albeit often categorized under other traditions of ideas such as the “decolonial” and the “Indigenous.” As such, the chapter turns to the feminist conceptions of the “babaylan,” or the shaman woman, as to nominate it as an inaugurating figure through which Philippine ecofeminism can be pronounced, if not rendered more inclusive. Furthermore, the nationalist imaginary of the country as “Inang Bayan,” or Motherland, is also reconsidered, problematizing its often masculinist orientations to harness it instead as a premise for what could be an ecofeminist historicization of Philippine literature.
