ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the korido metrical romance as a literary product borne out of the contact between the cultures of the Philippines and Spain. It investigates how the korido, as a form of rewriting, reveals the Filipinos response towards Spanish domination. People know that the changes in the means of literary production lead to the creation of new literary forms. Although some foreign chronicles marvelled at the literacy of the people living in the archipelago at the time of contact between them, Mojares believes that the existence of a system of writing among the Filipinos did not mean that "a true culture of literacy was present in the archipelago before the coming of the Spaniards" in the sixteenth century. Jose Rizal, the Filipino national hero, gives a glimpse of this in one of his novels. Rizal describes one of his characters, a rig-driver, longing for and firmly believing in the eventual release of Bernardo Carpio.
