Miracle Romano

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The Philippines has earned a global reputation for beauty, from pageants to travel brochures promoting tropical island destinations. The Power Above Us All exposes the obverse of that reputation, and dishes the dirt on another kind of renown that has blighted the country’s recent history – extrajudicial killings.

In this novel by Ronaldo S. Vivo Jr., translated from the Filipino by Karl R. De Mesa, there is no beauty, and there is no paradise. There is only Dreamland where most of the story takes place: a network of hovels in Metro Manila that, despite its name, is far from utopia. Deep into Dreamland’s morass is the Inners where shanties are regularly razed by fire, violence is rife, and unexplained deaths are commonplace. It is where women sell their bodies to make ends meet, and where small-time thugs get the short end of the stick when their paths careen into police corruption and brutality.

It is into this suffocating world reeking of corpses and excrement that readers are thrust, and where we meet a cast of characters who are seemingly casually connected at first, but whose fates are eventually linked in a vicious web of violence: Dodong, a petty thief who is framed for the rape and murder of his girlfriend, Che, a bargirl; Buldan, Dodong’s best friend who meets a grim fate while trying to help Dodong; Elmer, the police officer who is revealed to be behind Che’s murder and assault; Butsok, the son of the mortician, who is a witness to Dreamland’s many mangled corpses and injustices; Mang Delfin, the mortician and abusive husband; and Starr, a prostitute whose identity is as tragic as her fate. On top of that, a serial killer at large whose victims are gay men.

In this chaotic admixture of miserable players, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between aggressor and victim. This leads to the chilling thought that when injustice is empowered and left unchecked, when ‘everyday violence had numbed everyone into callous bastards’, corruption becomes a cycle, sexual depravity becomes a cycle, evil becomes a cycle, until it swallows everyone into its maelstrom, and any place can potentially become Dreamland with labyrinths that offer no escape.

No one comes out of this unscathed. It is difficult to read the book without flinching, gasping, and feeling sick to the core. While some bumps in the narration left this reader perplexed (e.g. the question of whether it is appropriate in the 21st Century to refer to Japanese nationals as ‘chinky eyes’ and ‘slant-eyed’, or whether it is a manifestation of an unforgiven grudge for Japanese atrocities in the Philippines during WWII), the first part of the book had several awkward translations that rather impaired the flow of the narrative for this reader. The remaining three sections, however, captured the suspense and the savagery of the original language, ultimately carrying the narration to a gut-wrenching climax.

The original Filipino novel Ang Kapangyarihang Higit sa Ating Lahat was published in 2015, the first of what developed into The Dreamland Trilogy. The primary volume was a finalist in the Madrigal-Gonzales First Book Award, and celebrated a 10th year anniversary reprint that was launched during the latest Manila International Book Fair. The second, Ang Bangin sa Ilalim ng Ating Mga Paa (The Abyss Beneath Our Feet), was a finalist in the National Book Awards in 2023. The finale of the trilogy is entitled Ang Suklam sa Ating Naaagnas na Balat (The Loathing Within Our Rotting Flesh). Vivo is a recipient of the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera for short fiction.

Vivo’s other works in Filipino are available through Ungaz Press, an independent publishing house that espouses anti-literature, established by the author and a group of friends. Vivo’s background as a filmmaker and musician materializes through the textures and the rhythm of his writing. The Power Above Us All is his first book to be translated to English. It is possible that this collaboration with translator, De Mesa, is effective in turning up the volume of cacophonous indignation owing to their being musicians in the same subversive genre. Through this recently released English edition published by Penguin Books Southeast Asia, the work has become more accessible to international readers.

There is no denying the potency of this novel. If its aim is to leave readers devastated, if the intention is to give us no respite from cruelty or from descriptions of material and moral filth, if the purpose is to shove the grisly side of the Philippines in our faces when we would prefer to look away, then the novel is a cataclysmic success.

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Ronaldo Soledad Vivo Jr. is a Filipino novelist, musician, and graphic artist. He is the author of the novels Ang Kapangyarihang Higit sa Ating Lahat (The Power Above Us All) and Ang Bangin sa Ilalim ng Ating mga Paa (The Abyss Beneath Our Feet). He has been recognized for his contributions to Philippine literature as the finalist for the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award and recipient of both the Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera and the Premyong LIRA. He is the founder of UngazPress, a collective of writers from the town of Pateros. He is also an award-winning filmmaker whose short films have been screened at festivals and cinemas in the Philippines and overseas. As a musician, he runs Sound Carpentry Recordings, which releases music on cassette, CD, and vinyl for worldwide distribution.

Karl R. de Mesa is a longreads journalist and photographer who has reported on stories in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and Singapore. He is an award-winning author of horror fiction and reportage books – finalist for the Philippine National Book Awards for journalism and non-fiction. His photo essays have appeared on CNN Philippines Life and Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature. Ronaldo Vivo Jr.’s The Power Above Us All is his first novel as a translator.

Miracle Romano is a pianist and a music teacher based in the southern Philippines. A writer for Ex Libris Philippines and a former columnist for the Mindanao Observer, she juggles her time between two passions – words and music.

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