Po-on A Novel is the first investiture inF. Sionil José's Rosales Saga, a series of novels set in Rosales, Pangasinan, Philippines. The Rosales Saga is divided into five corridor, each of which is comprised of five separate but connected novels, videlicet Po-on, Tree, My Family, My Cutthroat, The Fakers, andMass."Po-on" was the last of José's five- part Rosales Saga new series to be written and published, but it was the first in terms of story- telling report.
In Po-on, Eustaqio"Istak"Samson, a planter who joined the fleeing Ilokanos known as the mal vivir or"agraviados,"tells the story of one generation of the Salvador family ( latterly changed to"Samson"to avoid being chased by the Guardia Civil). To avoid fresh oppression and persecution from social authorities, the peasant family reluctantly departed their original birthplace.
Their journey takes them to Rosales, Pangasinan, where they're watched for by Don Jacinto, a fat mestizo who, although retaining vast swaths of property, helps his fellow countrymen and indios in their misery. The novelist elaborates on the actuality and origins of this family while also furnishing literal environment for the Philippines in the late 1880s.
Poon's happenings Between the 1880s and the early 1900s, an Ilocano family abandoned their cherished neighborhood in order to face the obstacles of survival in southern Pangasinan, the Philippines, as well as to flee the harshness of the Spaniards.
Eustaquio Salvador, a Filipino of Ilocano strain who was complete in Spanish and Latin, a gift he entered from an ancient church clerk named Jose Leon in Cabugao, is one of the novel's main protagonists. He wanted to be a clerk and was an epigone. He was also well- clued in traditional medical practices. His sole roadblock to getting a full-fledged clerk was his ethnical background.
He lived during a period in Philippine history when a possible Filipino insurrection against the Spanish government was on the verge of erupting, shortly after the prosecution of three mestizos, Mariano Gomez, José Apolonio Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora (or the Gomburza, an acronym for the three) on February 17, 1872, in the formerly known Cavite ( now known as Bagumbayan; now known as Rizal Park).