Tagalog romance novels, sometimes collectively referred to as Tagalog pocketbooks, Tagalog paperbacks, Tagalog romance paperbacks, Tagalog romance pocketbooks, Philippine romance novels, Filipino romance novels, Pinoy pocketbooks, Tagalog popular novels, or Tagalog popular romance literature are commercialized novels published in

paperback A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, also known as wrappers, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, ...

or pocketbook format published in the

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...

or the

Filipino language Filipino ( ; , ) is the national language of the Philippines, the main lingua franca, and one of the two official languages of the country, along with Philippine English, English. It is only a ''de facto'' and not a ''de jure'' standard langu ...

in the Philippines. Unlike the formal or literary romance genre, these popular romance novels were written, as described by Dominador Buhain in the book ''A History of Publishing in the Philippines'' as a form of traditional or conventional romance stories of "rich boy meets poor girl or vice versa who go through a series of obstacles and finally end up in each other's arms".Buhain, Dominador
A History of Publishing in the Philippines
/ref>

Description

According to Tatin Yang in the article ''Romansang

Pinoy ''Pinoy'' ( or ) is a common informal self-reference used by Filipinos to refer to citizens of the Philippines and their culture as well as to overseas Filipinos in the Filipino diaspora. A Pinoy who has any non-Filipino foreign ancestry, ...

: A day with Tagalog romance novels'', Tagalog romance paperbacks were thin Philippine versions of

romance novel A romance or romantic novel is a genre fiction novel that primarily focuses on the relationship and Romance (love), romantic love between two people, typically with an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Authors who have contributed ...

books that could be found at the bottom shelves of the romance section of

bookstore Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, book people, bookmen, or bookwomen. History The found ...

s, wrapped and bound with

book cover A book cover is any protective covering used to bind together the pages of a book. Beyond the familiar distinction between hardcovers and paperbacks, there are further alternatives and additions, such as dust jackets, ring-binding, and older f ...

s that are decorated with

Philippine comics Philippine Comics () have been popular throughout Philippines, the nation from the 1920s to the present. Comics studies, Comics scholar John A. Lent posited that the Philippine comics tradition has "the strongest audience appeal, best-known ca ...

-styled illustrations, such as "a barrio landscape with a badly dressed guy and girl locked in an embrace".Yang, Tatin
Romansang Pinoy: A day with Tagalog romance novels
, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 12 June 2010. As a form of "

escapist fiction Escapist fiction, also known as escape fiction, escapist literature, or simply escapism, is fiction that provides escapism by immersing readers in a "new world" created by the author.Galgut, E. (2019). Literary Form and Mentalization. In ''The Ox ...

" (

escapism Escapism is mental diversion from unpleasant aspects of daily life, typically through activities involving imagination or entertainment. Escapism also may be used to occupy one's self away from persistent feelings of depression or general s ...

) and "commercial literature", Tagalog romance novels generally follow a "strict romance formula", meaning the narratives have happy endings (a factor influencing the salability of the novel), the protagonists are wealthy, good-looking, smart, and characters that cannot die. Normally, the hero or heroine of the story falls in love and "goes crazy" over the admired person. However, later authors of Tagalog romance novels deviated from portraying so-called "damsel-in-distress and knight-in-shining-armor characters". Contemporary writers also turned away from writing "rags-to-riches plots". The stereotypical norm had been replaced by the incorporation of storylines with "interesting scenes, characters ho are ready to face challenges or to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of other people dialogues, and new angles to old plots". Authors such as Maria Teresa Cruz San Diego, who used the pen names Maia Jose and Tisha Nicole, ventured into the fantasy romance genre, and into topics that are related to

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

, gender issues,

prostitution Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, no ...

mail-order bride A mail-order bride is a woman who lists herself in catalogs and is selected by a man for marriage. In the twentieth century, the trend primarily involved women living in developing countries seeking men from more developed nations. Men who list t ...

syndicates,

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non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

s, and

breastfeeding Breastfeeding, also known as nursing, is the process where breast milk is fed to a child. Infants may suck the milk directly from the breast, or milk may be extracted with a Breast pump, pump and then fed to the infant. The World Health Orga ...

programs.Yap, Aby
Sweeter Than Bukayo, Cheesier Than Keso
Lifestyle, Planet Philippines, 14 September 2010. Apart from writing about ideal lovers (men and women) and ideal situations, other novelists wrote about true-to-life settings, or at least based the stories from personal experiences.Real people behind ultimate fantasyQuickview
, Kultura, Filipino Globe, page 24, February 2008. Thus, Tagalog romance novels came to mirror or replicate the "roles that women and men play" in Philippine society. The Tagalog novels in pocketbook or paperback format became the contemporary equivalent of the serial novels that appeared on the pages of

Liwayway ''Liwayway''''Liwayway''
Komiklopedia, The Philippine Komiks Encyclopedia, Komiklopedia.w ...

magazine novels and the illustrated novels of

such as the ''Tagalog Komiks''. A regular Tagalog-language romance pocketbook is composed of around 120 pages, with a dimension of , giving the book its characteristic portability, light-weight, and easy to pass on to other readers. The current price per book ranges from

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

39.50 to PHP 54.50. The price of the pocketbook is dependent on the date of publication or the release date.

History

Among the possible inspirations of publishing Tagalog romance paperback novels were the

Mills & Boon Mills & Boon is a romance imprint of British publisher Harlequin UK Ltd. It was founded in 1908 by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon as a general publisher. The company moved towards escapist fiction for women in the 1930s. In 1971, the ...

and

Harlequin Romance Harlequin Enterprises ULC (known simply as Harlequin) is a publisher of romance, women's fiction and various other genres under multiple publishing imprints. Founded in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1949, from the 1960s, it grew into the largest publish ...

love story pocketbooks. The actual idea of publishing Tagalog romance paperbacks in the Philippines was conceptualized by Benjie Ocampo, the proprietor of Books for Pleasure, Inc., the company that carried the English-language

pocketbooks line in the country. Ocampo thought about the concept of selling Filipino romance novels in book format in 1983. In 1984, Ocampo's company published the Tagalog-language Valentine Romances line with a preliminary release of 5,000 copies. Although discontinued temporarily due to distribution-related issues, the publication of Valentine Romances was resumed after one year. The sales of the pocketbooks increased from 8,000 copies within a 3- to 4-month period to 10,000 copies over a period of 2 to 3 months, including provincial sales. In 1990,

Anvil Publishing Anvil Publishing, Inc., is the publishing arm of National Book Store. It publishes print books, e-books, and audiobooks. Anvil is a nationwide book dealer to network servicing dealers in the Philippines which includes National Book Store (Anvil' ...

, the sister company of Books for Pleasure, targeted the Filipino male readers by publishing Pinoy Suspense, a pocketbook line that featured "original Filipino paperback thrillers". Later on, after eight months of producing Pinoy Suspense pocketbooks, Anvil Publishing released its own Tagalog-language paperback romance novels that were geared towards Filipino female readers. Although Books for Pleasure, Inc. closed down in 2002, other publishing companies came to produce Tagalog-language paperbacks. Among the contemporary and most popular Tagalog romance novel brands released in the Philippine books market was the Precious Heart Romance (PHR) line, a Tagalog pocketbook brand name published by the Precious Pages Corporation since 1992. Other Tagalog paperbrands include Love Match.

Authorship

Most of the writers for Tagalog pocketbooks are females. However, there are also male novelists. In this case, there were publishers who required male contributors to use female pseudonyms because of the belief that female readers prefer female authors, and that women know other women better than men. Among the first Tagalog pocketbook writers were Edgar Reyes (also known as Edgardo Reyes),

Lualhati Bautista Lualhati Torres Bautista (December 2, 1945 – February 12, 2023) was a Filipina writer, liberal activist, and political critic. Her most popular novels are '' Dekada '70'' (1983), '' Bata, Bata... Pa'no Ka Ginawa?'', and '' 'GAPÔ'' (both 198 ...

, Helen Meriz, Gilda Olvidado, Ma. Elena cruz, Joi Barrios, Rosalie Matilac, Leo del Rogierro, Crisostomo Papa, Ernie Bueno, and Rosario Cruz Lucero. Apart from Maria Teresa Cruz San Diego (as Maia Jose or Tisha Nicole), other contemporary Tagalog pocketbook novelists were Camilla (

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

of Armine Rhea Mendoza), Martha Cecilia (Maribeth Dela Cruz in real life) Apple Masallo, and Paul Sevilla.

Readership

Readers of Philippine comics, the popular literature in the Philippines from the early 1900s through the 1990s, moved into reading inexpensively priced Philippine romance novels.100 Nobelang Tagalog
In terms of sales, Tagalog pocket romance books were winning over the Philippine comics industry.Flores, Emil M

Comics Crash A Survey of Filipino Comics and its Quest for Cultural Legitimacy, Criticism, Quote: ''"...Currently, the komiks seem to be losing to the pocket romance books in terms of sales..."'' Among the readers of Tagalog-language paperbacks, apart from the local followers in the Philippines, are

overseas Filipino An overseas Filipino () is a person of full or partial Filipino origin who trace their ancestry back to the Philippines but are living and working outside of the country. This term generally applies to both people of Filipino ancestry and cit ...

workers, such as the female

domestic helper A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly de ...

s in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. There are more female readers than males, and the female audience of Tagalog pocketbooks include young women and teenagers. Other readers set up a collection of Tagalog pocketbooks that they rent to other paperback enthusiasts for a designated fee."The Tagalog materials they read?"
What A Translator Needs to Know About the Intended Readers, Natural and Idiomatic Tagalog versus Wooden, Unnatural Speech, Quote: ''"...Escapist literature such as short Tagalog romance novels are sometimes rented out for a small fee..."''

Challenges

The problems of publishing Tagalog romance novels included the issue of copyright violation. Among the methods used for infringing original pocketbooks were through scanning copies, changing the book covers, changing the titles, and changing the names of the authors.

Film adaptation

Tagalog pocketbooks novels had been adapted into film and television. An example of a Tagalog romance novel that was adapted into television was Babes Cajayon's (under the pen name Martha Cecilia) ''Kristine'', which is labelled as the "most successful series in Philippine romance pocketbook history".(Filipino Series) Precious Hearts Romance Presents: Kristine
Quote: ''"...About: Kristine is the most successful series in Philippine romance pocketbook history with over 50 books in its library and new volumes still on the way. Penned by well-loved romance novel writer, Martha Cecilia, Kristine now moves to epic story of love and family to television..."''

Significance

Together with the airing of Tagalog-language television shows and films, the publication of romance pocketbooks in Tagalog helped to further establish it as the

national language of the Philippines National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

Pinoy na Pinoy: Soft porn in a romance novel
BusinessWorld (Philippines), 7 June 2000. (over one hundred languages are spoken in the Philippines with English and Tagalog being the only official state tongues).Languages of the Philippines
Ethnologue. Retrieved 1 June 2011. The books have been particularly popular with younger Filipinos, in part due to the "oral and contemporary" character of the language used in writing the novels.

Modern

Tagalog pocketbooks nowadays are rarely being used. Some of the alternatives of such are short stories posted in the internet and social media sites.

References

External links

Ikaw Lang sa Aking Bukas
by Vicky Eleen (sample Tagalog romance novel online)
Filipino romance novels
online novels
Tagalog pocketbooks online
Filipino love stories and romance novels made in the Philippines
Tagalog online pocketbooks
The leading source of online Pinoy stories *{{usurped,

}, an alternative to the Tagalog pocketbooks
Love Quotes For Life
Tagalog-language novels Romantic fiction